I like the baby steps here... We have been camping off the power grid since 2008 in my OFF-ROAD POPUP setup and finally mastered the "running off the batteries" pretty good now. I can truly say we are very successful in our style of camping which is alot more than just having a couple of lights on in the trailer...
Now that I know what to expect I think it is time for us to also start looking into getting some additional power resources from SOLAR PANELS. To me the generator method is the only true 'must have' resource as it will always be available to use for you no matter what the circumstances are (Rain or Shine).
I am looking at the SOLAR PANEL addition to supplement the charging of my batteries and reduce generator operations. Our setup requires a battery bank re-charge as quick as it will work each day when allowed to run the generator. The SOLAR panels in my case will provide a slower battery bank re-charge during the remaining high sun day. A typical 120WATT Solar panel will only produce around 5-6AMPS of usable DC CURRENT in high SUN. I'm guessing I will only have HIGH SUN for 5-6 hours a day here on the East side of the US if that... If you can get ahead of the battery drain curve it would be real great just trickle charging the battery bank with solar panels. IN my case of pulling around 20AMPS from the batteries between 8PM to 11PM in addition to a parasitic battery drain of around 1AMP for the other 21 hours in a day will most likely never allow me to just trickle charge the batteries. This daily power drain drops me to 12.0VDC around 8AM each day now which puts me in a required full smart mode re-charge.
My success in running off the power grid with the battery bank is always starting out each day/night battery run with a good 90% charge state giving me almost full battery performance. I can do this now using the generator for a three hour generator run time so adding the modest solar panel capability should reduce the generator run time considerable. Maybe use the generator for the first hour of high current re-charge and then switch to solar panels for the lower current charge for the remaining high sun day.
I suspect since my battery bank is down to the 50% charge state at 8AM each morning I will always have to use the generator to get past the initial high current battery demand when in BOOST 14.4VDC Charge mode and then the lower DC CURRENT being produced by the solar panels will get my battery bank to its required 90% charge state before I run out of HIGH SUN.
After getting more experience of using the Solar Panels I am being told by the experts on here I can really expect to be using the generator less and less each day. My goal still remains I have to start each day/night run off my batteries with the batteries being at the 90% state of charge otherwise it will get dark on me around 10PM each night. We really start using the trailer batteries pretty heavy around 7-8PM each day. When I see the batteries drop to around 12.0VDC I will shut them down to prevent doing damage to the batteries.
These are going to be my baby steps getting into the solar panels...
Roy Ken
