Solar or Generator??

Ramblin Recks wrote:
OP here. While we live in the sunny (icy) south, we plan on trekking across this great nation of ours fulltime. We are not one for “parking lot” type rv parks, we prefer trees and some space. Currently our trips are 3 to 6 days in duration (work gets in the way of fun) we like to use COE and State Parks, and have used a few private parks as well. As we head westward, we want to take advantage of space and scenery and boondock. When we tire of conserving or our capacities are reached, we will move on to hook-ups and the DW can use that W/D. The best of both worlds is what I’m envisioning :B!

So many good points brought up on this thread, and so far my take aways are the following:
1) Determine energy usage
2) Add two 6v bats- maybe new charger, (I have a portable Schumacher ship to shore charger)
3) It could be possible that two 6v can handle our short dry camping excursions, w/o generator or solar….
4) If generator is needed to prolong dry camp, get one to handle 13.5k AC
5) Re-evaluate energy usage and determine if two systems is the way to go
6) Increase budget
7) Design a solar system that will handle the results of #1 and #5.

I will provide an evaluation of my upcoming purchases as time goes on.

Thanks yall… Very helpful

Reck

Suggestion... Convert all lights to LED's first, then compute energy usage. Really, LED's while off the grid, should be the very first step, the moment you consider using batteries for storage. Incandescents are battery leeches.

Battery charging, to a full 100% if you are off the grid, full time, for long periods of time, is a bit science, and a bit voodoo witchcraft, depending on who you read around here.

Battery chemistry makes it such that a good charger and generator are very efficient at bulk charging your batteries to 80-90% of full charge, for the amount of time that the generator runs. That last 10 to 20% is tough to get stuffed into the battery again, timewise, while sucking gas and running a generator, it takes a lot of gas and a lot of time.

Where the solar panel system kicks in is getting that last 7 to 17% back in. Why is 3% missing? Because of battery resistance while charging. And that brings us to getting back home after 7 to 10 days, and then performing surgery on your batteries in the form of doing a full blown equalization charge, up to 16 volts, battery acid specific gravity all the way up to 1.275, and that battery desulphated and up to a 100% charge.

It's important, every 7 to 10 days, to get your batteries back up to 100% charged. It's important to store your batteries with a 100% charge too, with a battery maintainer of some sort. Could be solar panels on the roof, could be a battery tender charger plugged in, could be a couple of means of accomplishing it.