260RD dual battery install and solar "upgrade"

[kevinpo]

I printed the image Jim posted and taped it to the back of my volt meter so I don't have to go looking for it.

HTH,
Kevin

[DaveMatthewsBand]

Thanks for showing folks that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to take advantage of renewable energy instead of using a generator.

Great job!



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[TucsonJim]

And I've posted this before, but if any of you have lithium (LiFePo) batteries, there is a different state of charge chart:



Jim

[kevinpo]

In my best Scotti voice "Dammit Jim I don't think we can take her to warp factor 7"

Thanks,
Kevin

[Mike F]

100 Watt Solar isn't nearly enough to support two batteries. Good that you will offset with the generator.

[BigDaveZJ]

100 Watt Solar isn't nearly enough to support two batteries. Good that you will offset with the generator.

Yup, my goal is for the panels and batteries is to simply reduce how much I use the generator.

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[DaveMatthewsBand]

Time for Mr. Overkill to chime in... you can’t have too much solar.

: )

The difference between 1155 watts and 100 watts is that I can charge X number of batteries MUCH faster, regardless of whether its 2 lead acid batteries or 4 lithiums.
I’m not saying you should cover your entire roof with panels, like I did, just recommending more than the bare minimum.
(if 15 pieces of flair is good enough for you that’s ok)
Since Mother Nature won’t always be cooperative having more solar than you think you need is extremely beneficial.
Prior to our install, most people recommended we install 600-800 watts worth of solar panels to support our battery bank size. So I installed 1155.
I did this because I assumed there would be days when the weather wasn’t perfect and the panels would be working at less than full capacity.
On a perfectly sunny Summer day our batteries are charged to 100% (from 50-60%) by 11am!
But if it’s cloudy, the panels are putting out much less power than normal. Had we gone with 600 watts of panels this might take all day in these conditions, or we might not get fully charged at all.
However since we have 1155 watts of panels we’re (usually) still able to get our batteries fully charged, just later in the day, even though their output is drastically reduced.
The panels are also usually the least expensive of the major components in a solar setup, and if you’re already on the roof installing 1 then 2 or 3 wouldn’t be much more difficult.

If you install enough solar it is possible you won’t need to run the generator at all.

Please post photos when you’re done!

[BigDaveZJ]

I get that, and might eventually go that route but the primary use of my camper is to be able to utilize our mountain land until we have a cabin built. The cabin will need it's own solar array as totally off grid so we're doing this on the cheap for now. We will likely have all of the utilities (solar, septic, and well) put on the land within 2 years so I dont see much of a point in spending a bunch of money for something that wont transfer over to the cabin.

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[BigDaveZJ]

All done for now. Not super happy with the way the vents mount on the lid of the battery box so I may come back and redo those, but we'll see how it holds up.

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[BigDaveZJ]

On the vents attached to the battery box, I probably should have used the hose clamps to hold the flange in place and then put the RTV around the inside lip.

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