Campers 101

[ruthabagah]

Power report after 24h (ok, more like 29h...) 5 amp / h. Not bad, actually pretty good, considering it was not a full sunny day. That's 40/45 amp reload on an average day. I calculated last year that on an average night (light, heater blower) I was dropping about 15 amp (25 if it was a cold night) my current setup should more than replenish the battery in half a day and give me some margin for an overcast day.

I am planning to add another panel soon, and will be able to add one more deep cycle battery, to give us plenty of reserve to recharge small electronics and run the TV/DVD completely of grid and without a generator.

Total money spend so far less than 250$. One more panel, connectors, one deep cycle battery, one battery tray = 250$

[Irving]

What size (amp hour) battery are you running?

[Dave_L]

Nice!! Congrats!

[gnihcraes]

Well, the 100 watt panel and controller showed up a bit ago. Inside the box, everything is soaked and covered in black mold. WTF. Box outside though doesn't appear to have been wet, must be humidity of where they are storing the stuff or something.

Panel appears to be ok, haven't checked the controller yet. Maybe later tonight. I'm still waiting on the extra long solar cables and the mounting brackets.

Two orders today from amazon, both have had some issue with them. ugh.

[ruthabagah]

Well, the 100 watt panel and controller showed up a bit ago. Inside the box, everything is soaked and covered in black mold. WTF. Box outside though doesn't appear to have been wet, must be humidity of where they are storing the stuff or something.

Panel appears to be ok, haven't checked the controller yet. Maybe later tonight. I'm still waiting on the extra long solar cables and the mounting brackets.

Two orders today from amazon, both have had some issue with them. ugh.

That sucks! Take pictures and contact them, they will overnight a replacement.

[gnihcraes]

update; controller appears to be fine, panel works, so I'll just keep it and install it, i'm running out of time to get a lot of stuff done!

I wish it would stop raining for a few days, I need to pop up the camper and get some wiring done! I don't need the whole thing soaked and pack it back up so the mold starts eating the canvas.

[gnihcraes]

CRUTCH!

At this time I've decided to not mount the solar panel on the camper, I'll just set it up outside. I can move it around if needed then and keep the camper in a shady spot if possible.

I was looking for something in the garage to make a set of legs to tilt the solar panel, well...

[ruthabagah]

CRUTCH!

At this time I've decided to not mount the solar panel on the camper, I'll just set it up outside. I can move it around if needed then and keep the camper in a shady spot if possible.

I was looking for something in the garage to make a set of legs to tilt the solar panel, well...

lol. Brillant.

I did dry camp for the second time this week-end at twin lakes and with the amount of sun we had I was able to not only recharge the battery, recharge the phones / ipad, and get enough juice to recharge the "campground neighbor's" battery. Poor soul bought a harbor freight generator.... The thing nearly exploded on friday evening after 2 hours of bothering the whole campground at diner time..... I thought the guy was a jerk, but he just ended up to be ok, shared a couple of beers with me and his wife made a killer peach cobbler on saturday. He is returning the geni and ordering some panel.

[Irving]

What size (amp hour) battery are you running?

Anyone? What size battery with those 100 w panels?

ruhabagah, are you also using a 100 w panel?

[Grant H.]

Your panel doesn't really drive the size of your battery, Irving.

Figure out how many amps you will be drawing.
Then, how many days without sun do you need to support that draw.
Try to plan to never go past 50% discharge.
Buy your battery accordingly.

Rough guess for what it sounds like you guys are shooting for on the campers, I wouldn't run anything less than 100ah. I would actually suggest 2x of the Duracell SLICG110 batteries wired in series. Ends up being about 50% of the cost of a 12V deep cycle, and they handle the constant up and down better (in our experience)(We have solar arrays here, Wyoming, and ND, and not a single on has failed).

ETA:

Batteries Plus usually has those duracells in stock.

Helpful tool for all this kind of stuff, it may have already been posted, but I refer to it when I need a quick set of numbers. It's not perfect, but it will ball park stuff pretty well.

Solar Calculator
http://www.batterystuff.com/kb/tools...alculator.html