Solar again?
Hi all I know, Im sure this has been answered before somewhere here but what the heck. While I was just sitting being lazy today, I said why don't I go on top of the MH and measure some to see what k...
Forum Discussion
Hermy - Like I say I may have a different story to tell once I get back in the woods...
I use this BATTERY MONITOR PANEL to masure the DC VOLTs from each battery bank and a hall effect "donut" for the main 4AWG cable feeding my trailer from the selected battery banks.
With my present off-road POPUP setup My current meter shows me during the day run about 1-2 amps which represents my parasitic keep alive DC power drain etc..
At around 8PM in the evening I see around 20 or so DC AMPS (appx 250WATTS) beings drawn from the 600WATT PSW Inverter and other 12VDC appliances direct connected to the main battery switch. After around 11PM at night when we shut down for bed I can read my normal 1-2AMPS being drawn again on the AMPS meter.
Starting out with a 90% SOC battery bank which I get from running my 2KW Generator with the 30AMP shore power cable plugged into the generator 120VAC Receptacle using a RV30A-15A "long" adapter for around three hours after 8AM I can last until 8AM the next morning when I see the DC VOLTMETERS now reading 12.0VDC. They were reading as high as 12.6VDC right after I did my three hour generator run after 8AM.
SO what you telling me I should be able to get my 255AH battery bank back to its 90% charge state by lets say 4PM in the afternoon by just using one 120WATT Solar panel if the SUN is out all day long. The math says NO WAY... The 120WATT Solar Panel will be outputting 14.4VDC at around 5-6AMPS during this time period and of course this is what will be seen around high noon only. It will less on both ends of the day for the 5-6AMPS current.
I hear what you are saying but I suspect that I am pulling much more power all day/night long than you are. I know what I am drawing from monitoring my DC meter Panel.
What I pull out of the batteries in the 20 hours time frame will not be replaced by the 4-5 hours of 5-6AMPS coming from the solar panels... ???
If I did this method the first day I might make it ok without running the generator until the time we start kicking in our daily routine of 20AMP draw starting around 8PM that evening. I will see my DC Voltmeters drop down to around 10.5VDC in a real hurry and would have to completely shut down the batteries... Of course where we public camp here on the East side of the US we are not allowed to run the generators anytime we want too.
just saying..... We all camp differently...
Roy Ken
I use this BATTERY MONITOR PANEL to masure the DC VOLTs from each battery bank and a hall effect "donut" for the main 4AWG cable feeding my trailer from the selected battery banks.
With my present off-road POPUP setup My current meter shows me during the day run about 1-2 amps which represents my parasitic keep alive DC power drain etc..
At around 8PM in the evening I see around 20 or so DC AMPS (appx 250WATTS) beings drawn from the 600WATT PSW Inverter and other 12VDC appliances direct connected to the main battery switch. After around 11PM at night when we shut down for bed I can read my normal 1-2AMPS being drawn again on the AMPS meter.
Starting out with a 90% SOC battery bank which I get from running my 2KW Generator with the 30AMP shore power cable plugged into the generator 120VAC Receptacle using a RV30A-15A "long" adapter for around three hours after 8AM I can last until 8AM the next morning when I see the DC VOLTMETERS now reading 12.0VDC. They were reading as high as 12.6VDC right after I did my three hour generator run after 8AM.
SO what you telling me I should be able to get my 255AH battery bank back to its 90% charge state by lets say 4PM in the afternoon by just using one 120WATT Solar panel if the SUN is out all day long. The math says NO WAY... The 120WATT Solar Panel will be outputting 14.4VDC at around 5-6AMPS during this time period and of course this is what will be seen around high noon only. It will less on both ends of the day for the 5-6AMPS current.
I hear what you are saying but I suspect that I am pulling much more power all day/night long than you are. I know what I am drawing from monitoring my DC meter Panel.
What I pull out of the batteries in the 20 hours time frame will not be replaced by the 4-5 hours of 5-6AMPS coming from the solar panels... ???
If I did this method the first day I might make it ok without running the generator until the time we start kicking in our daily routine of 20AMP draw starting around 8PM that evening. I will see my DC Voltmeters drop down to around 10.5VDC in a real hurry and would have to completely shut down the batteries... Of course where we public camp here on the East side of the US we are not allowed to run the generators anytime we want too.
just saying..... We all camp differently...
Roy Ken
