Solar or Generator for Boondocking
This is for a truck camper, no a/c. This would be to keep batteries charged. I was putting together a solar kit (on paper, for purchase at a later date) and started thinking about a generator and wh...
Forum Discussion
In the 5er, we use about 70AH for normal things including inverter to run MW, toaster, kettle, etc., any time of year. In a provincial park in February we add another 100 AH for just the furnace to heat our barn. (The OP has a TC so easier to heat)
So to get by then, we need about 170AH a day from the batts and then need to recharge before reaching the dreaded 50% SOC. It happens that solar is useless in February in Rathtrevor Park, so it is all generator to power the charger(s) to get the job done. The park says two hour gen limit from 9-11 and then another from 6-8 but by 6 it is dark out so my target is to replace 170 AH in two hours 9-11am every day there. I have the equipment to do that (learning curve involved).
Then in the summer at an off grid place out in the open we still do the 70AH and hardly any furnace and about 230w of solar can do it all most days. Once in a while we still need the gen to do "catch up" if it gets cloudy for a day or two. More solar would not reduce the need for "catch up"
"Catch up" requires that you do the full day's work as usual plus another day or two's work that same day or over several days if you are blessed with several sunny days in a row. Meanwhile the batts are sitting there still not fully charged and the longer that goes on the more sulfated they get.
For any sort of trailer the answer is to always have both gen and solar (if solar is justified at all). With a TC, when the solar is useless, and there is no room for a generator, the guys who say use the truck's alternator with extra fat wires to get enough amps are correct.
An alternative to that is to clamp an inverter to the truck battery outside the engine compartment and plug a battery charger into that clamped to the house batts. This may not be physically convenient, but it works.
I have found with the TC and the truck that you can fit extra batteries in front of the wheel wells to parallel with the batts in the TC's actual battery compartment. You leave the linking wires dangling over the rails, slide in the camper, then connect up. That helps with extra batts, but you still need to recharge them.
Scenario is everything!
So to get by then, we need about 170AH a day from the batts and then need to recharge before reaching the dreaded 50% SOC. It happens that solar is useless in February in Rathtrevor Park, so it is all generator to power the charger(s) to get the job done. The park says two hour gen limit from 9-11 and then another from 6-8 but by 6 it is dark out so my target is to replace 170 AH in two hours 9-11am every day there. I have the equipment to do that (learning curve involved).
Then in the summer at an off grid place out in the open we still do the 70AH and hardly any furnace and about 230w of solar can do it all most days. Once in a while we still need the gen to do "catch up" if it gets cloudy for a day or two. More solar would not reduce the need for "catch up"
"Catch up" requires that you do the full day's work as usual plus another day or two's work that same day or over several days if you are blessed with several sunny days in a row. Meanwhile the batts are sitting there still not fully charged and the longer that goes on the more sulfated they get.
For any sort of trailer the answer is to always have both gen and solar (if solar is justified at all). With a TC, when the solar is useless, and there is no room for a generator, the guys who say use the truck's alternator with extra fat wires to get enough amps are correct.
An alternative to that is to clamp an inverter to the truck battery outside the engine compartment and plug a battery charger into that clamped to the house batts. This may not be physically convenient, but it works.
I have found with the TC and the truck that you can fit extra batteries in front of the wheel wells to parallel with the batts in the TC's actual battery compartment. You leave the linking wires dangling over the rails, slide in the camper, then connect up. That helps with extra batts, but you still need to recharge them.
Scenario is everything!
