dry docking and charging
I have a small travel trailer and have set it up with (2) 6-volt batteries for drydocking. When I arrive to a destination and the batteries are fully charged, we do not use much electricity and the ba...
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This year we have been boon docking quite a bit, and so we picked up a couple of 130 watt solar panels to look after our two Trojan T105 6v golf cart batteries. They work great for me. We have to chase the sun a few times a day, but no big deal.
We have been usually down to 70% or so when I check the battery controllers in the morning, and it only takes a few hours to get them back to 100% again on a nice clear day. Mine even charge on cloudy days, but of course not nearly as well as on a sunny day.
I have a 2000 watt gen/inverter for those nasty days. We were set up for 14 days, and used the generator only once initially to get things going. We also have a couple of small 100 watt USB inverters to charge our electronics in the trailer.
The beauty of these solar panels is that they automatically stop when the batteries are 100% at which point they go into a maintenance mode similar to a battery tender. Just have to check the water level in the batteries now and then to make sure the plates are covered.
I have no idea if the performance that I have seen is typical, but I sure am happy with the results for our purposes.
We have been usually down to 70% or so when I check the battery controllers in the morning, and it only takes a few hours to get them back to 100% again on a nice clear day. Mine even charge on cloudy days, but of course not nearly as well as on a sunny day.
I have a 2000 watt gen/inverter for those nasty days. We were set up for 14 days, and used the generator only once initially to get things going. We also have a couple of small 100 watt USB inverters to charge our electronics in the trailer.
The beauty of these solar panels is that they automatically stop when the batteries are 100% at which point they go into a maintenance mode similar to a battery tender. Just have to check the water level in the batteries now and then to make sure the plates are covered.
I have no idea if the performance that I have seen is typical, but I sure am happy with the results for our purposes.
