generator back up for solar system
Hi, I'm a full time van camper living in a chevy G-20 van. I have two 60 watt solar panels running through a charge controller charging two 80 amp hour batteries which are connected to a 1200 watt inv...
Forum Discussion
In my OFF-ROAD Camping I master the camping off the power grid first by using more batteries and recharged them with the 2KW Generator with my 30A Shore Power cable plugged directly into the generator 120VAC receptacle.
Now I am going to add SOLAR PANEL to back-up the generator so I hopefully don't have to run it as much.
I am pulling alot of power from my battery bank and it is a MUST DO for us to always start out each day/night run with the batteries at their 90% charge state or better if we are going to make it through the night. My battery bank is a 255AH setup. This works out fine for us and by 8AM the next morning my bank is down to around 50% charge state. I will probably run the generator for an hour so to get the batteries charged up over the BOAST MODE which in my case draws around 53 Amps from the on-board converter/charger for 20 minutes or so being fed by my generator. After that the batteries will settle down to around 8-10AMPS which I will be able to supply with SOLAR PANELS during the high SUN day. The standard 120WATT SOLAR Panel will only produce around 5-6AMPS during high sun.
This is going to be my plan at any rate using both Generator as primary Charge mode and adding SOLAR PANELS to get the batteries up to at least 90% charge state before I lose HIGH SUN. If it looks like I will not attain the required 90% charge then I will run the generator again while I am still allowed to run my generator.
If you are just going to be a casual user of DC POWER when camping off the power grid all of this will not be necessary. My style of camping consumes around 250-300WATTS between 4PM and 11PM each day in addition to the parasitic draw for each day which is probably more than the average camper wants to do...
Roy Ken
Now I am going to add SOLAR PANEL to back-up the generator so I hopefully don't have to run it as much.
I am pulling alot of power from my battery bank and it is a MUST DO for us to always start out each day/night run with the batteries at their 90% charge state or better if we are going to make it through the night. My battery bank is a 255AH setup. This works out fine for us and by 8AM the next morning my bank is down to around 50% charge state. I will probably run the generator for an hour so to get the batteries charged up over the BOAST MODE which in my case draws around 53 Amps from the on-board converter/charger for 20 minutes or so being fed by my generator. After that the batteries will settle down to around 8-10AMPS which I will be able to supply with SOLAR PANELS during the high SUN day. The standard 120WATT SOLAR Panel will only produce around 5-6AMPS during high sun.
This is going to be my plan at any rate using both Generator as primary Charge mode and adding SOLAR PANELS to get the batteries up to at least 90% charge state before I lose HIGH SUN. If it looks like I will not attain the required 90% charge then I will run the generator again while I am still allowed to run my generator.
If you are just going to be a casual user of DC POWER when camping off the power grid all of this will not be necessary. My style of camping consumes around 250-300WATTS between 4PM and 11PM each day in addition to the parasitic draw for each day which is probably more than the average camper wants to do...
Roy Ken
