Practical use of solar
I have always thought that solar would be a nice mod to make and there seems to be a wealth of knowledge here about solar. However, I'd like to hear your thought processes before you did this mod. Is ...
Forum Discussion
For me, it isn't the expense. Part of it is the fact that my rig won't have shore power access, so it needs a method of the batteries being maintained. I could take the batteries with me, but it adds additional time. Another part is the noise.
Even my relatively quiet Yamaha 3000 watt generator is loud in a forest. Part of boondocking is to get away from urban noise, and unless I have to run a generator for the A/C, I want to do my best so I don't have to. This way, when the weather gets cold, the electricity used by the furnace blower is more than made up for by a solar charging system. The solar system won't pay me back immediately (although fuel costs have nowhere to go but up), but it provides a much higher quality of camping when a generator is not needed unless the A/C is run. Even the microwave can be run for a few minutes with a larger battery bank without issue.
Of course, there are fuel costs. Once the solar system is in place, pretty much it is set and forget. There are people on rv.net who have solar systems that are 10+ years old and are still working without issue. To get a battery to near 100% SoC takes a lot of energy, and while solar can do it for $0, it would take many gallons of fuel to have the generator run long enough to do the same thing.
Even my relatively quiet Yamaha 3000 watt generator is loud in a forest. Part of boondocking is to get away from urban noise, and unless I have to run a generator for the A/C, I want to do my best so I don't have to. This way, when the weather gets cold, the electricity used by the furnace blower is more than made up for by a solar charging system. The solar system won't pay me back immediately (although fuel costs have nowhere to go but up), but it provides a much higher quality of camping when a generator is not needed unless the A/C is run. Even the microwave can be run for a few minutes with a larger battery bank without issue.
Of course, there are fuel costs. Once the solar system is in place, pretty much it is set and forget. There are people on rv.net who have solar systems that are 10+ years old and are still working without issue. To get a battery to near 100% SoC takes a lot of energy, and while solar can do it for $0, it would take many gallons of fuel to have the generator run long enough to do the same thing.
