Sometimes small systems are plenty
Friday my wife suddenly got the urge to camp. Immediately. All the TT has is the original Group 24 battery, 5w solar to maintain it and a 700w/1500w inverter I've never even run under significant l...
Forum Discussion
O&S it is 106 degrees out. Seriously no interest in not having the AC on. Spent most of our time outside, but once you feel hot and want some AC, nothing else will do.
Some people wilt in that kind of heat, others tent camp in it (over 20 tents with no AC!). We are in the middle. We don't let the heat stop us from going where we want or doing what we want, but that means full hookups for us so we sleep well or have a cool nap.
We tent camped a lot in the old days including in Orlando in August for our honeymoon 30 years ago. We like some creature comforts now.
Roy how long is your pop up when set up? Bet it's only a little shorter than our travel trailer. I have the parts for my plan B system up and running. 5 minutes packing and it would be in the back of the pickup. I just find too much interesting with them to relegate them to spend most of their life in storage with the RV. Some part of me wants to see those panels making power every day and actually doing something with it instead of charging for 10 minutes and calling it quits, where a 5w panel will do just as well.
Mena I love the simplicity of that. Would make a 48v bank and inverter really simple. I really don't have any special like for the 12v systems in my camper vs 110v. If I had been able to order appliances that could run efficiently from propane for hot water, fridge and heat, I would have gladly paid the energy loss of an efficient small inverter to not run any 12v.
My system is first and foremost a back up system in case power goes out, or we have to bug out, to run a fridge for medical supplies. I have found so far it has had more use at the house than on the RV.
I have been considering making it into a portable kit instead of RV mounting it. The Unisolars are very light and roll up easily.
Using the Unisolars and AGMs for other things in the camper is easy and fun to think about, but for the way we camp, really I only need one group 24 battery and 5 watts of solar in the RV itself.
Jim
Some people wilt in that kind of heat, others tent camp in it (over 20 tents with no AC!). We are in the middle. We don't let the heat stop us from going where we want or doing what we want, but that means full hookups for us so we sleep well or have a cool nap.
We tent camped a lot in the old days including in Orlando in August for our honeymoon 30 years ago. We like some creature comforts now.
Roy how long is your pop up when set up? Bet it's only a little shorter than our travel trailer. I have the parts for my plan B system up and running. 5 minutes packing and it would be in the back of the pickup. I just find too much interesting with them to relegate them to spend most of their life in storage with the RV. Some part of me wants to see those panels making power every day and actually doing something with it instead of charging for 10 minutes and calling it quits, where a 5w panel will do just as well.
Mena I love the simplicity of that. Would make a 48v bank and inverter really simple. I really don't have any special like for the 12v systems in my camper vs 110v. If I had been able to order appliances that could run efficiently from propane for hot water, fridge and heat, I would have gladly paid the energy loss of an efficient small inverter to not run any 12v.
My system is first and foremost a back up system in case power goes out, or we have to bug out, to run a fridge for medical supplies. I have found so far it has had more use at the house than on the RV.
I have been considering making it into a portable kit instead of RV mounting it. The Unisolars are very light and roll up easily.
Using the Unisolars and AGMs for other things in the camper is easy and fun to think about, but for the way we camp, really I only need one group 24 battery and 5 watts of solar in the RV itself.
Jim
