Shadow Cruiser S185 FBR Solar Install/Upgrade
We've owned our Shadow Cruiser S185 FBR for about 2 years now. It is a small travel trailer (~18.5') but is light enough to be towed by my Toyota 4Runner and big enough to fit my family. With that ...
Forum Discussion
dewey02 wrote:
Thank you Oz.
That was a very good explanation. Very thorough, step by step, and the photos were excellent. I am thinking of getting started in solar and this was a good education for me. I would probably begin with a simple system somewhat like your first one.
I guess the one question that I have would be the following:
What has your upgrade bought you in terms of benefit? (other than monitoring capability)
You had mentioned that you'd used the original set-up for 2 years with success (no dead battery) but how was it with fully recharging your battery? I realize you didn't have the Bogart 2030 to check battery status in the initial system. Thanks.
Not having the Bogart I didn't do any really advanced measuring but a simple multimeter reading showed 12.6V most times and the charge controller frequently said "full up" by around 2 or 3 pm. It would be around 3pm if it was cold and the heat ran all night. Using the "dummy" readings I only ever got to 2 dots on the battery once but otherwise I'd bounce between 3/4 and 4/4.
I don't actually know the benefit yet because there is still snow in a bunch of my camping spots so it'll be a few weeks. So far the biggest seems to be in the monitoring and "smarter" controller. Hopefully within a few weeks I'll be able to better answer that question.
