solar options
Last summer I had a 240 watt kit(from Solar Blvd.) Installed on our MH. It has two 120 watt panels feeding a 20 amp charge controller. I recently had the two stock 12 volt marine house batteries rep...
Forum Discussion
chloe's ranch wrote:
Thanks NinerBikes. Last November my informal power analysis showed that the battery dropping lower each morning with 240 watts of solar and I ended up running the generator more than we like. In the summer the 240 watts worked fine for our needs(led TV and led lights.) So adding more solar is more for our use Nov.-Feb.and probably more than we need in the summer. I do like your comment about the advantage of redundancy.
If you want to run the generator less... there are 2 ways to do that.
1. Run the generator first thing in the morning, when the batteries state of charge is lowest, and the charge controller on your motor home is most efficient. Brew coffee with 120V and hair dryer too while your batteries are getting a bulk charge.
2. Since you run Golf Cart batteries, look into an Iota 55 or 60 amp charger that has IQ4 mode, and charges at 14.8 volts for bulk mode, whereas most other brands for off grid use charge at only 14.4, not really what a golf cart battery is spec'd for. Run it for an hour or 1.5 hours, or 2 hours, first thing in the morning, where the generator charger is most efficient in dumping amps into the battery to bring it up to 75, 80, 85% charge. Top off the total charge to as close to 100% as you can get with your solar panel array.
3. Increase the efficiency of your solar panels by getting a trailer hitch mount that you can aim your panels directly at the sun 2 or 3x during the day to increase the panels intake efficiency to closer to max amps capability. Do a search of BFL13 for solar panel amperage yield. Do a search on rjsfishing for trailer hitch solar panel mounts.
You can probably pick up 40-50% in the winter time by doing this.
4. Buy a quieter generator.
