Solar Success Story

[Comanchecreek]

First my setup. 300 ah Battleborn Lifepo4 batteries. 200 watt Renogy Solar suitcase. 2000 watt Power Tech On inverter.
We just returned from 5 days of dry camping at Eleven Mile Reservoir in Colorado. I had my boat for fishing which is equipped with a deep cycle battery to run the electric motor. That battery will last for most of the day depending on the wind, but would require charging each day.
Eleven Mile has good solar days, but often clouds up after 2pm. I was able to keep my fifth wheel in the 90 percent charged rate, and we were able to recharge the boat battery for use the next day using the inverter attached to the built in charger on the boat. We used the TV and microwave on occasion during these times also. It was warm so no heat usage which helped.
I had a generator with me, but never had to fire it up to do the boat charging.
My point is to let you know how a decent solar system can function in a lot of positive ways, without gas, without noise, and basically without attention other than to reposition the portable panels to optimize solar collection. This was all with only 200 watts of panel.
I should point out that I also have a gas/electric refrigerator which I set to gas only. We could have continued at this rate indefinitely as we were recharged every day.
Solar works and we had plenty of reserve had we had less "solar positive" days.

[theHookers]

Originally Posted by Comanchecreek

First my setup. 300 ah Battleborn Lifepo4 batteries. 200 watt Renogy Solar suitcase. 2000 watt Power Tech On inverter.

We just returned from 5 days of dry camping at Eleven Mile Reservoir in Colorado. I had my boat for fishing which is equipped with a deep cycle battery to run the electric motor. That battery will last for most of the day depending on the wind, but would require charging each day.

Eleven Mile has good solar days, but often clouds up after 2pm. I was able to keep my fifth wheel in the 90 percent charged rate, and we were able to recharge the boat battery for use the next day using the inverter attached to the built in charger on the boat. We used the TV and microwave on occasion during these times also. It was warm so no heat usage which helped.

I had a generator with me, but never had to fire it up to do the boat charging.

My point is to let you know how a decent solar system can function in a lot of positive ways, without gas, without noise, and basically without attention other than to reposition the portable panels to optimize solar collection. This was all with only 200 watts of panel.

I should point out that I also have a gas/electric refrigerator which I set to gas only. We could have continued at this rate indefinitely as we were recharged every day.

Solar works and we had plenty of reserve had we had less "solar positive" days.

That is awesome!



We just came home from State Forest State Park after 8 days boondocking in a primitive site.



We have 2 lead acid group 24 81amp hour batteries and have typically run the generator for 2 to 4 hours per day to keep us up pretty much indefinatly. This trip was a the real test for our 200W Renogy suitcase solar setup. By 2pm everyday (even the cloudy days) our batteries were back to full. We only ran the generator on day 4 for about 45 minutes to run a hair dryer and curling iron. Gotta look good for the Moose! Anyway, it was fantastic to not have to hear the gen running. Two days our solar controller flashed “Full” and dropped the v to 13.2 in float mode by 4pm.


When we hit the dump station on day 8, we were on the edge with freshwater and grey capacity.