Solar panels/controller advice
I am new to TC but have quickly realized that even at minimal spring time usage, battery life is something to be careful of. Everyone I talk to says a generator is the way to go (and maybe it is), bu...
Forum Discussion
I am old enough to remember how we tent camped back in the 50s and 60s with a bag full of D-CELLS and some white gas...
Now that we use the off-road POPUP trailer I carry the 2KW generator when camping off grid. It is mounted in the tailgate corner of my covered and locked truck bed. It will always work if you gots fuel...
My way to go was to beef up the DC items with smart mode charger, changed over to LEDs, and a bigger battery bank... We can do almost anything we did at the electric sites running entirely off the batteries. Then at 8AM the next morning when allowed to run the generator we can re-charge the batteries back up to their 90% charge state using the on-board converter/charger unit running off the generator... This normally takes three hours of generator run time.
I am just now wanting to add some solar panel and this for me will reduce my generator run time down to around one hours and then I can let the solar panels finish the battery bank charge to it 90% charge state before I lose the high sun...
Granted we could cut way on everything and just get by with low battery drain and use a minimal solar setup to allow us to do this low battery drain all over again for the next day run off the batteries.
Being a Ham Radio I will most likely keep the generator around because I know this setup will work for me. I know I can pull around 25AMPS DC Current from my battery bank at times haha... Been doing it since early 2009...
Here is my battery bank running a couple of fans for a few hours sitting around the camp site at Doris Camp in OKLA Wild Life Refuge keeping the mosquitoes away from us haha... Works good...
Roy Ken
Now that we use the off-road POPUP trailer I carry the 2KW generator when camping off grid. It is mounted in the tailgate corner of my covered and locked truck bed. It will always work if you gots fuel...
My way to go was to beef up the DC items with smart mode charger, changed over to LEDs, and a bigger battery bank... We can do almost anything we did at the electric sites running entirely off the batteries. Then at 8AM the next morning when allowed to run the generator we can re-charge the batteries back up to their 90% charge state using the on-board converter/charger unit running off the generator... This normally takes three hours of generator run time.
I am just now wanting to add some solar panel and this for me will reduce my generator run time down to around one hours and then I can let the solar panels finish the battery bank charge to it 90% charge state before I lose the high sun...
Granted we could cut way on everything and just get by with low battery drain and use a minimal solar setup to allow us to do this low battery drain all over again for the next day run off the batteries.
Being a Ham Radio I will most likely keep the generator around because I know this setup will work for me. I know I can pull around 25AMPS DC Current from my battery bank at times haha... Been doing it since early 2009...
Here is my battery bank running a couple of fans for a few hours sitting around the camp site at Doris Camp in OKLA Wild Life Refuge keeping the mosquitoes away from us haha... Works good...
Roy Ken
