Campers 101

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$. One more panel, connectors, one deep cycle battery, one battery tray = 250$

What size (amp hour) battery are you running?

Nice!! Congrats!

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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

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. :(

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...

Attachment 59137

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Originally Posted by 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...

Attachment 59137

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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.

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Originally Posted by Irving

What size (amp hour) battery are you running?

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Anyone? What size battery with those 100 w panels?

ruhabagah, are you also using a 100 w panel?

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

I'm asking what size battery they are using. However, given what you've assumed, it seems like everything drives everything a bit.

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Originally Posted by Irving

Anyone? What size battery with those 100 w panels?

ruhabagah, are you also using a 100 w panel?

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Bueller? Sorry did not see your previous question: Yes 100w panel and the battery is 550/690/140 SRM24 type. Not my favorite, but it'll do until I can change it for an AGM or 2-6V deep cycle.

Battery I'm using is a BCI GROUP NUMBER: 27 deep cycle from Checker/O Reilley auto parts. My research on the internet said that their deep cycle battery was made by Deka. Which should be a good battery. The previous one I had was original to the camper, InterState Deep cycle, lasted 6 years. We camp a couple times a year, only a few times have I needed the heater all night long and the battery kept up.

I'll confirm the size/amp hour of mine tomorrow. But I'm just using the solar panel to replenish whatever we used during the night. The panel in good sun should put back into the battery at ~ 5 amps an hour. That's a decent charge.

Thanks guys.

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Originally Posted by Irving

Thanks guys.

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welcome, anytime!

Update to my setup:

Just spent three nights, 3.5 days out with the family in the camper. Bowhunter Jamboree, with about 1000 other campers.

I swapped out a couple of Bulbs in the camper for some LED 1141 bulbs, Dome lights. They work very well, nice and bright. I need to change out two more so they are all LED.

I used my home made LED light strips, they worked well inside and outside the camper. I forgot to take pictures, but they light up everything. Can't miss my camper among all the others.

We ended up using the camper furnace/heater because the afamily was cold during the night. It was in the 40's each night. I ran out of propane early sunday morning, had to jump out and switch tanks. Brrrrrr

Solar setup worked well. New 100 watt panel, new charge controller that I mounted inside a ridged tool box from home depot. Put Power pole connectors on the outside; Panel In, Battery Charge out, Battery load from controller. The toolbox worked great, gave me a awesome place to store all the camper and solar cables I might need.

I was able to charge the battery back up in a couple hours. (according to the charge controller indicators)

Attachment 59668

Tons of comments from other campers. Wow, how well does it work? That thing doesn't make any noise huh! (Generators running all over the place at this event) Since we're in a popup, we really didn't have a reason for a generator, no big refrigerator, water heater, tv's. No inverter, just charging up the main battery each day.

I installed a USB and DC cig plug port into the camper before leaving. Everyone was able to charge up their cell phones and kindles the entire time we were there. Now I know where to install a 2nd and 3rd charge port because of location/people/cord issues.

The wife downloaded a movie to her kindle before leaving home and we watched that friday night. Small screen, but we all can huddle around and watch it.

View from our location looking south towards Buena Vista.

Attachment 59669

Nice setup.