Solar and battery help
Good Morning. I am hoping someone can provide a simple answer or 4 for me. I just read a post on the TC forum about flexible, light weight 100 watt solar panels and love the look of this, I have a Nor...
Forum Discussion
scrubjaysnest wrote:
We have two 80 watt panels feeding a TS-45 controller which charges a pair of Exide Stowaway 105 aH batteries. All main lighting is LED, no microwave, TV, or other high usage (wattage) devices. We are very conservative with power usage and get 7 to 10 days before the batteries reach 12.2 volts(60% soc). Connecting the solar panels at that point takes 4 to 6 hours to recover the 40% used.
You're lucky somebody like BFL13 haven't read this, or you would've been labeled as a caveman :)... Every time I'm telling that one CAN live on 30-35 AH a day and have hot meals, warm trailer and some laptop or TV time, a lot of people get skeptical. Living without a microwave is considered impossible, for some reason.
8 days down to 60% on a pair of 105AH batts means 84 Ah total or 11 AH a day. I would say, this is too low even by my standards. Propane fridge draws at least 8 AH a day. AGM battery self-discharge is negligible, alright, but remaining 3 AH (or less) leaves you with a couple of LED lights and not much more. No fan in a hot weather, no heater (other than non-vented propane).
It would be difficult harvesting 84 AH in one day with 160W solar. With flat permanently mounted panels - very difficult. With portable panels - still difficult, but maybe, yes. Tilting and changing the azimuth angle every hour, and on the longest day of summer and if it's really sunny and not too hot. The bottom line - I wouldn't count on getting that much. Unless you are somewhere close to equator.
