I wanted to re-address the solar charging issue now that we've been boondocking quite a bit lately and really relying on the solar panel installation to keep us from having to run the generator a lot.
Now I say "boondocking" and I want to say that I realize some people say "boondocking" is out in the boonies and "dry camping" is the Walmart thing. Staying in a Walmart parking lot (or Lowes, Home Depot, Cracker Barrel, rest area etc.) is really dry camping but we use "boondocking" to mean anytime we are without ANY hookups at all.
It's just easier to refer to it that way. We were recently camping with friends in a very nice campground in Clearwater Beach, Florida but they had no site for us so they let us park in a small field for less that half the regular camping rate. That was great! saved a bunch of money AND was close to our good friends, the Scrantons. (shown here in a shot taken after the beer sampling we did)
And had an awesome WIFI that was blazing fast. We were able to dump our tanks and fill our water on the way out when we left.
I started keeping track of our inverting and our solar charging to see just how much do we use on average and how much are we getting from our 750 Watt solar array. What we have found, based on a couple weeks of boondocking, is:
1 - We are getting about 260 Amp Hours from our panels on full sun days with no clouds. This is without tilting the panels which would get us even more AH's being the panels would be aligned more directly to the sun.
2 - We get as little as 37 Amp Hours when parked in the full shade of a tree..... OK, not recommended, but in this particular lot it was our best choice. Nice to see we can get even that much in full shade.
3 - We need to run our generator some days for an hour, some times more but usually less. Some full sun days we didn't run it at all. At the campground with no hookups we were not allowed to run it and after moving from partial shade to full sun we found we got up to 100% charge every day that we were out with our friends doing stuff and having the power inverter turned off. Staying indoors all day watching TV would usually necessitate us running the genny for an hour even with full sun (do we need 1 or 2 more panels?.... maybe... we'll see)
4 - The Amp Hours used for 16 days was - 103,108,160,224,193,192,191,
- High of 287, Low of 103, Average of 198 AH's
5 - This mean we need to generate 200 AH on average per day to fulfill our needs.
6 - The Amp Hours received from the panels for 5 days was - 257,258,37,239,191
- High of 258, Low of 37, Average of 196 AH's
As you can see from these numbers, we are generating enough power on average from the panels but it varies, sometimes wildly, when we have shade or cloudy days. The number of data points for solar charging is less because it took a while before I realized I should record it. Over time with more boondocking we'll get a better idea.
I'm figuring we probably are OK with the number of panels we have for now. Generator use is needed on days with less that full sun although 1 day would be OK if followed by a full sun day.
It is MUCH better to run the generator, if needed, first thing in the morning because it will charge at a much higher rate then. As the battery bank
gets closer to 100% the charge rate drops. When the bank is at say 65%, it will charge at 90AH's. That's 90AH added to the batteries for every hour the generator is running. when it gets to 85% charged it may drop to 60AH or so. this means for the same amount of diesel fuel and noise you get less battery charging out of it. I always start the genny 1st thing in the morning if it's needed. (sometimes I run it for 1/2 hour just to get a load of ice from the ice maker which only runs on AC and does not work when the fridge is on LP mode.
That's about it. I'm learning a lot. Many out there know a lot more so if there is an error in my statements let me know by commenting.
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