Solar Requirements - Confirmation
I'm taking a 3 month mountain biking trip through British Columbia this summer. Most of the time will be spent camping at National/Provincial parks without access to electric. When I really break it d...
Forum Discussion
We follow the sun during the winter so we lean to solar. If we were in the trees a lot I would lean to generator. I have 1000 watts of solar and it will put out very little when heavily shaded by leafless trees. 13.6 volts from the converter will take you days not hours if deeply discharged. I'd upgrade the converter to one that does 14.4 or better along with the generator that can power it. I ran on a Honda generator during our second year and went with a 3000 because our bottom line was that we wanted the ac at times. During my research of other gen options I figured a 1000 would be good because of less fuel use during the longer finish charging hours. It is a good option IF it can power the converter when the batteries demand the most amps, if not then it's back to the 2000 generator. You can do partial charges for awhile but the specific gravity will trend down and the batteries will start falling on their face and it's not good for the batteries. So you do need to do complete charges at X interval.
There is nothing wrong with solar even if you are in the trees at times but you need to build on a system that is not going to disappoint you. During our first year we had a noisier gen with 13.6 converter and had to keep packing up every few days to go sit in a campground when we had just found a fantastic BD spot. There is nothing wrong with going to a campground to top off and people sometimes use it as part of their energy management plan. It's not one size fits all so everyone accomplishes it in their own way.
There is nothing wrong with solar even if you are in the trees at times but you need to build on a system that is not going to disappoint you. During our first year we had a noisier gen with 13.6 converter and had to keep packing up every few days to go sit in a campground when we had just found a fantastic BD spot. There is nothing wrong with going to a campground to top off and people sometimes use it as part of their energy management plan. It's not one size fits all so everyone accomplishes it in their own way.
