Down and dirty solar question.
Not terribly math savvy . But, will this system work to dry camp? Let's say, run the microwave five minutes per day (1100 watt), make a pot of drip coffee per day, run the water pump. And reasonably ...
Forum Discussion
pbitschura wrote:
So, off a full battery, I wouldn't have enough amps to run the microwave for 5 minutes?I have an on board inverter.
My 4k Onan can do it directly. Obviously a different situation. But if the answer to the first question is no, the question is mute. And the point of my question is, would a 40 watt solar system allow me to charge the battery and use the systems I described, granted I have a generator. Or would this be a waste of money?
Waste of money, the rule of thumb and this is low is 100watts of solar per 100Ah of battery. In actual practice it is closer to 160 watts for a 100Ah battery. This will not let you use high wattage items like a microwave or coffee maker. That will require running the ginney. A 1100 watt microwave will take about 92 amps from the battery and that ignores the efficiency of the inverter. This will require a minimum of, rounding here, 225 Ah of battery which requires a minimum of, again rounding, 400 watts of solar. Even at that I'd bet you wouldn't be happy with the solar performance or the battery bank performance.
