Solar panel overkill?
I have been mentally designing a solar system for our small class C. I have 2 6 volt GC batteries and have no extra room to add more. I was originally thinking of installing a 24V 235 watt panel fro...
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scroller95969 wrote:
Just took off my ac cover from the inside and it looks like the roof is made from some kind of plywood that didn't look over 1/4" with about 2 1/2" of Styrofoam under that. Doesn't seem like much anchor for just a normal screw. Also wondering if well nuts might work.
Well nut or molly bolt is the way to go in this case. Plus, VHB double-sided tape under the bracket. Tapping screw won't hold in 1/4" plywood.
Energy audit... You can estimate it more-less, or measure, doesn't matter much, you will only get a ballpark figure and real life use may vary from day to day. I did not mean to say that something doesn't add up, but since you run a genny 2 hours (on top of running it with microwave?) and still have loss of charge, then some big items are not accounted for. Or just a lot of "small items" use. Or - old batteries. Another suspect is a TV - recent LED models are good, 25W or less, but if you have a satellite receiver it may draw a few times more.
Sounds like you don't have 120V devices other than microwave, this is good for when on solar. On a sunny day 450W solar - flat in summer, tilted in winter - will cover all your needs including 1-2 short runs of microwave, if you add a 2,000W inverter and another pair of batteries.
In winter on a sunny day flat 450W will harvest enough for everything but microwave, so I still don't see much need in tilting. In overcast - here I agree with BFL - it will collect very little, no matter flat or tilted, and you will have to run a genny next morning, no matter if you used microwave or not, though might be able to skip one nasty day with 4 GC batteries. In PNW you may get a whole week of overcast though.
