Solar at its Best
The Ultimate in Solar ? It probably don't get no better than this, I was camped near this guy most the week, and he built this himself. He is a retired mechanical engineer. This unit is compl...
Forum Discussion
It looks like maybe the 100W or 120W size panels...
He probably only gets around 10-12AMPS of usable power out of the two solar panels. Having the tracking just make it last longer than the usual 5-6 hours of suntime.
What can you do with just over 100WATTS of free power... You sure can't live off the panels alone. Best to store the power in batteries for future use. 100WATTS won't totally recharge your batteries especially if you are using them at the same time... 100WATTS is a great trickle charge however to keep the batteries topped off if they are already charged..
I'm just now getting interested in the solar panels but from what I already know about camping of the power grid and what it takes to keep the battery banks charged it seems if you go SOLAR you have to go BIG... You just can't get the high DC CURRENT you need with just a couple of panels to replace what the generator can get by running your on-board smart converter/charger.
I'm working to start out with two 120WATT panels on my off-road POPUP setup. It just makes good sense to tap into the free power from sun... This will add to my battery banks when I am not allowed to run my generators except during certain hours at a lot of places we go to here on the east side of the US. Got to help out but with my hugh battery drain running all of our toys in the one day/night run off the batteries I don't see how I can get away from having to run the 2KW generator at least three hours a day. The solar panels alone just can't keep up with we pull out of the batteries each day/night run.
My observations anyway... haha
Roy Ken
He probably only gets around 10-12AMPS of usable power out of the two solar panels. Having the tracking just make it last longer than the usual 5-6 hours of suntime.
What can you do with just over 100WATTS of free power... You sure can't live off the panels alone. Best to store the power in batteries for future use. 100WATTS won't totally recharge your batteries especially if you are using them at the same time... 100WATTS is a great trickle charge however to keep the batteries topped off if they are already charged..
I'm just now getting interested in the solar panels but from what I already know about camping of the power grid and what it takes to keep the battery banks charged it seems if you go SOLAR you have to go BIG... You just can't get the high DC CURRENT you need with just a couple of panels to replace what the generator can get by running your on-board smart converter/charger.
I'm working to start out with two 120WATT panels on my off-road POPUP setup. It just makes good sense to tap into the free power from sun... This will add to my battery banks when I am not allowed to run my generators except during certain hours at a lot of places we go to here on the east side of the US. Got to help out but with my hugh battery drain running all of our toys in the one day/night run off the batteries I don't see how I can get away from having to run the 2KW generator at least three hours a day. The solar panels alone just can't keep up with we pull out of the batteries each day/night run.
My observations anyway... haha
Roy Ken
