Solar pros and cons?

Reed,
Thanks for your reply! Please post back here with your experiences. There are a number of us wanting to know how these work in a RV environment. Your trip sounds like quite the adventure. Have a great time.

mena661 We are currently in Guatemala for 10 weeks learning Spanish and goofing about. Cannot go back through Mexico until Mexican insurance and we agree on payment for wreck of previous rig in mountains(70 vehicle pile up in heavy fog) and subsequent canceling of temporary import license. We plan to drive the Trans Labrador in July from Goose Bay aka Happy Valley to Carthart and then transit to Newfoundland at Blanc Sablon. We shall see how the LFP batteries handle 800 km or so of gravel road.
Reed and Elaine

MrWizard wrote:

LFP lithium Ferris (aka iron) P.??

Lithium Iron Phosphate. BTW, these are not as volatile as the one's you hear about. Same "family", different chemistry.

MrWizard wrote:
PbS lead sulfuric
LFP lithium Ferris (aka iron) P.??

Excellent! Thanks.

After 22 credit hours of Chemistry, I should have thought of the Periodic Table. But, it is the Tech Forum. So, from this point forward, FWC will forever be, PbS, for the acronym.

As for a Lithium Battery bank, I guess I am going to need to raid my Fire Suppressant bin from my car racing days, to safe guard the bay where I install these new batteries that will go as low as 10% S.O.C. But, hey, I can't afford them so I won't even consider it. If you have to ask how much it will cost, you can't afford them.

Thanks Mr. Wizard.

b

PbS lead sulfuric
LFP lithium Ferris (aka iron) P.??

mena661 wrote:

reed cundiff wrote:

LFP batteries charge almost linearly to 100%. We have 9.7 kW of LFP or 720 amp hours at 12 V. It is to be noted that LFP can be discharged to 10% for thousands of cycles. Thus we have the equivalent of about 1400 amp hours of normal PbS batteries.

THIS is the battery bank to have.

Even though I have been around a bit, using Solar 24/7-365, I am not familiar with these Acronyms. Reading many solar posts, I don’t recall what they are. Could you share a bit more;

LFP ?
PbS ?

Thanks, if Mena says you have an exceptional Battery Bank, it has to be! But I would like to know more about what you are sharing here.

b

BFL13 wrote:

pianotuna wrote:
Hi BFL13,

Yes, the birds do poop on your generator--but they have to aim extremely accurately to affect the energy output, and the target is much much smaller. I suspect that even a quiet Honda or Yamaha tends to keep the birds at a distance. But then, the generator doesn't run 24/7.

They only aim for those blue ones, never for the red ones.

JiminDenver camps higher than birds can fly, so he doesn't know what it is like. Robins and Sea Gulls, phooey!

Funny thing is we don't see a lot of birds up there and most of those stay on the ground. I do have to watch out for the male dog though. ;)

Lots of great information in the archives area that I found helpful when doing my installation, first on my RV and then on my house. There are companies like AMsolar.com that specialize in solar equipment for RV's and they are great in providing advice as well as the big and little parts you will need to put it all together.

Start with making sure your RV has an accurate charge monitor. If not the Trimetric is a good choice and will provide information on how much you use when off the grid and how fast your battery bank recharges while driving or once you have an electrical hookup.

From that information you can determine how much charging capacity you need which is important so you do no over build or under build the system for your RV. If you have half the charge capacity you need it is inconvenient and if you have double the charge capacity up to half the money you spent was wasted.

pianotuna wrote:
Hi BFL13,

Yes, the birds do poop on your generator--but they have to aim extremely accurately to affect the energy output, and the target is much much smaller. I suspect that even a quiet Honda or Yamaha tends to keep the birds at a distance. But then, the generator doesn't run 24/7.

They only aim for those blue ones, never for the red ones.

JiminDenver camps higher than birds can fly, so he doesn't know what it is like. Robins and Sea Gulls, phooey!

MEXICOWANDERER We spent the last three winters on beach north of Tulum. We had 700 W at 12 V with glass mat batteries. This was sufficient with that rig. The trick is to be sure panels are in the sun the major portion of the day.

As noted, we now have six x 235 W panels. These do provide shade of a sorts to the roof, or at least a panel for cooling, which is both good for the roof and good for maintainig the temperature of the PV. A major problem with stick on panels is that they can get hot enough that efficiency decreases dramatically since they can get hotter than 130 F.

To be noted, Elaine and I are weight police. We weigh rig on CAT scales at irregular intervals and this is done with full 81 gallons of fresh water, all 4 20 pound propane full, 35 gallons of diesel in regular tank, 50 gallons of diesel in Transfer Flow auxilliary tank, 36 gallons of fresh water in 6 gallon Jerry Cans etc. We are 900 pounds under 5th wheel axle loading, 800 pounds under for pick up rear axle and just about 100 pounds under front axle. We would have been way over loading with PbS batteries, which would have probably collapsed the front baggage compartment anyway. This compartment is designed to carry the Onan 5.6 kW generator and Open Range says it could hold up to 400 pounds and we have it loaded with about 200 pounds.

Our son designed the system to be 100 per cent redudant in batteries. A

A Class C could probably handle 2 or even 3 x 235 Watt modern panels and 5 kW of LFP batteries, aka 360 amp hours at 12 V would weigh 80 pounds and occupy the space of a normal 100 amp hour battery while providing six times the effective energy storage.