Solar or Generator??

12thgenusa wrote:

To the OP, from the description of your needs I would agree with smk.

SMK is right. And polite. When somebody starts with "...I don't know my energy needs, but..." my first intuitive reaction would be to say "so why don't you find it out first" :)...

Would also like to highlight the alternative that the OP might not have noticed at the end of SMK post - for a short trip you don't need solar or generator if you have enough batteries. Try not to run your 120V kitchen luxuries as if you were at home. Microwave, toaster, coffee maker etc draw most of your daily energy. If you can limit their use for 3 days, you can live off 250W solar almost indefinitely, and if you can avoid their use altogether, you won't need to install powerful inverter. TV and small electronics draw very little.

24 AH example in "conservation mode" is realistic. LED lights, water pumps, small electronics like laptop and DC circuits of propane fridge won't draw more than 20AH overnight (and in daytime your use is less). This is what flat mounted 100-160W panel collects on a good day.

On a dark day 160W panel would collect less than 15 AH, so this is when you need more batts to ride out the bad weather and then charge them again from solar, or go home next day, or just keep on camping - with 24 AH daily draw you can camp off 400-500 AH bank for 3 days without ANY source of energy.

Edit:
1) in case if solutions like "solar only" or "batteries only" sounded too simple - yes, it will work as described, but not for air conditioner. This is the only thing that you can't run without a generator.

2) For rough estimate of your energy needs you don't really need to buy an expensive Trimetric. I didn't buy it before planning my solar, and I doubt I will need it now. There is a Flowchart that Don Pianotuna links every time he reads posts like this (because search on the forum doesn't work and people are asking same things again and again).