How to measure how much solar we need?
(hope this is right section) Brought home TT last month and now have basics taken care of and RV is road ready. Now starting to think about bigger long term projects. One project is, we would like...
Forum Discussion
Alternative method.
Charge your batteries fully, 100% before leaving on a trip. Measure voltage disconnected. Measure the specific gravity after doing so, and log it down per cell. Note the time you arrived at the campsite and started running strictly off the batteries.
24 hours later, shut all electrical off, take a specific gravity reading, and take a voltage reading with everything disconnected. Compare. That will give you a rough State Of Charge from 100% down to 50%. Your specific gravity will tell you more, % wise, what you've consumed, based on the total Amp hour ratings of your batteries.
Go from there...but first, if your unit does not have all LED lights inside, change those all out first from incandescents. Next might be a no fan heater like a Olympic Solar 6 or solar 3 or solar 8. Next after that might be a low amperage draw LED TV. Plenty of ways to cut amps consumed, though in the end, its probably way cheaper to just add more watts in solar panels. However, LEDs are best bang for the buck in dropping your amp hours consumption quickly and effectively. Do a search here on ¨48 SMD warm white LEDs¨
120 to 200 watts of solar panel is a good start if you are going through 25 -45 amp hours in a 24 hour period. You;ll burn a lot more than that in winter time if you keep those stock incandscent bulbs, though. Those bulbs are pretty much a ''Must go'' item if you want to keep consumption down on long fall, winter and early spring nights.
Charge your batteries fully, 100% before leaving on a trip. Measure voltage disconnected. Measure the specific gravity after doing so, and log it down per cell. Note the time you arrived at the campsite and started running strictly off the batteries.
24 hours later, shut all electrical off, take a specific gravity reading, and take a voltage reading with everything disconnected. Compare. That will give you a rough State Of Charge from 100% down to 50%. Your specific gravity will tell you more, % wise, what you've consumed, based on the total Amp hour ratings of your batteries.
Go from there...but first, if your unit does not have all LED lights inside, change those all out first from incandescents. Next might be a no fan heater like a Olympic Solar 6 or solar 3 or solar 8. Next after that might be a low amperage draw LED TV. Plenty of ways to cut amps consumed, though in the end, its probably way cheaper to just add more watts in solar panels. However, LEDs are best bang for the buck in dropping your amp hours consumption quickly and effectively. Do a search here on ¨48 SMD warm white LEDs¨
120 to 200 watts of solar panel is a good start if you are going through 25 -45 amp hours in a 24 hour period. You;ll burn a lot more than that in winter time if you keep those stock incandscent bulbs, though. Those bulbs are pretty much a ''Must go'' item if you want to keep consumption down on long fall, winter and early spring nights.
