Solar Power ?

Good to hear from the left coast who has not heard of auto generator start although I do not use mine. If the OP makes the changes I suggested above he can get his generator run time down to an hour at supper and a half hour when making coffee in the morning...most people are inside then and will not hear my generator. I prefer parking in the shade so no need for AC, but that makes all those solar panels useless. Parking in the sun for solar is often a net loss. No, I'm not going to carry, set up, and reposition portable panels when pushing the start switch solves the problem.

We run six Keyocera 135W panels (810W) down through a Morningstar MPPT controller into six Lifeline AGM batteries. Panels are wired in parallel so shading of portions of the array doesn't lose us as much as a series hookup. If you decide to go with a 12v (parallel) setup, pay close attention to line losses as they can eat into your power available for nothing gained. We also run a household fridge and a 3.5 cu ft basement freezer on a dedicated inverter so we can leave the house inverter off and eliminate the phantom loads and internal losses on our big 2500W house inverter. Depending on how much TV we run and how much heat we need (we have LP heat, not Hydro-Hot), we may or may not have to use the generator. We found being able to tilt the panels up makes a big difference in generator use. We generally find it's better to run the generator for the high loads such as the microwave, and we'll brew a pot of coffee or run the toaster at the same time. It can be a bit of a lifestyle change but if you're willing to do it, it means that you can exist easily where others have problems.

jonlin wrote:
If we switched our six wet cells to lithium and used solar to charge them, would we gain anything other than a lighter billfold???

I agree with other, lithium batteries are still not a very cost effective solution especially if you have space for adequate capacity with lead acid batteries !

Hi,

It is best to do an energy audit. At 675 amp-hours the bare minimum would be about 410 watts of solar and the maximum would be about 1013 watts.

I would do the solar upgrade first and see if that meets your needs. The time to do batteries is when the existing ones start to fail.

“and want to save $4/day on diesel fuel by spending $1500+ on solar“

No, Ivylog, it’s not the savings. It’s eliminating the FOUR hours a day OP runs his generator. It’s the FOUR hours a day he/she is tied to his/her campsite...while running the generator. It’s the FOUR hours a day his neighbors hear his generator.

I agree with the ^^^^^^ but you are dry camping in Key West (not paying $100/day...PM me where) and want to save $4/day on diesel fuel by spending $1500+ on solar if you install it yourself and no telling how much on Lithium???

Even with solar you should run the generator (good for 15,000+ hours) whenever you use a high amp item...microwave or even a coffee maker (charging your batteries instead of depleting). I would give the Lithium batteries time to come down in price...maybe when you need to replace your 6 house batteries. You do know you cannot put Lithium where your current house batteries are located??? You also know you are not going to run the AC using solar???

I would start by adding a 100 amp charger to help your 2000W (probably only charges 65 A briefly) to cut your generator time in half. I power mine from the engine block heater outlet and have found that turning it off and back on ever 10 minutes tricks it into charging at a higher rate...cutting down on generator time.

I would also convert everything to LED...lights and TVs, even the LCD TV up front. You can go much bigger by mounting on the face of your cabinet because LED TVs are very thin and VERY Energy efficient. LED lights use 1/10th of what a halogen uses. I like warm white 5050 chip LED bulbs on EBay for less than $1 each. Buy a couple different first before buying 10X.

40 amp charge controller minimum IMO... And about 600 watts solar as stated... You may never run the gen again...

Get high voltage residential panels and a 40 amp mppt....

To mostly keep the generator off you are looking at 600+ watts of solar.

One of the big benefits to lithium is they will charge at full speed right to full. No long tapering absorption time like your lead-acid. Another benefit of lithium is there is no requirement to get them 100% full. Lead-acid starts to sulfate and lose capacity if you do not get back to tip top 100% fairly often. Lithium might be the last battery you ever buy.

Have you completed an energy use survey? Then you’ll know what you need in batteries which determines the number of panels which determines the controller that is necessary. The good news is you should be able to solar it all except for AC.

PS-Thanks for camping away from me when running your generator FOUR hours per day.