Solar update from the road.

[TucsonAZ]

Well, the solar works far better than I'd expected. I'm not running much, a 5cuft chest freezer, 3 fans via wall warts, Gameboy charger, Blackberry, Iphone, iPad x 2, Macbook pro and a 12v car charger (which I run every few days to top of the coach battery as it's still running the 3 led lights) as well as a 900w microwave from time to time.

I have been on the road for 390 hours and in that time used 12.4kwh, my battery bank has never gone below 88% and even on my worst day in Seattle with flat mounted panels and complete cloud cover I was back up to 100% by about 1pm.

Just now my freezer kicked in and I'm drawing 137 watts (on the AC side), it just kicked off and I'm at 16.5 watts on the AC side (a fan iPhone, Blackberry, chest freezer digital temp controller, microwave plugged in but not in use, power strip light) and 33.6 watts on the DC side (which is total power usage) which adds to the AC side the charge controller and inverter draws.

I planned to wire up my 24v stuff to just run things off DC but for now what I'm doing is far easier. If I run things like the micro (which is well over 1,000 watts) while the sun is out I'm pretty much at the break even point in terms of my battery bank.

Anyway, I just figured I would give you all an update and I will keep you posted as I learn, test the system more and see what the limits are.

 

[LeeRevell]

Thanks for the real world report!

 

[akrvbob]

You put in a top-of-line system so it would be very surprising if you had any problems!

Great job!
Bob

 

[SternWake]

If I never took my batteries below 81%, I would think I planned on too much capacity.

I used to have more capacity, but lowered it intentionally to achieve higher charging rates, and so far so good. My higher capacity batteries never lasted very long, and I attribute this to shallow cycles and recharging at 25% of the recommended bulk current via solar.

In the 9 months since I lowered capacity, I've never found I needed more than I have.

But awesome you hear your system is working well. The ultimate test of its efficacy is how long, how many cycles the batteries last before they can no longer meet your overnight needs.

I used to have a lot of confidence in my system until the battery voltage fell flat on its face after ~500 relatively shallow cycles. I'm at 250 deeper cycles on this lesser capacity battery and can detect little performance loss, so I'm nearly already ahead on return on investment in comparison, and carrying around 62 Lbs less lead(PB).

It'll be nice when Lifepo4 becomes affordable and worrying about achieving full charge as often as possible is no longer a necessary consideration.

 

[TucsonAZ]

Well, I will intentionally tax this system harder and harder as I go, to this point I'm just getting warmed up and was trying to get a feel for what solar can handle. I could honestly probably run an AC unit for 4-5 hours a day as things sit but wanted to be on the safe side with putting this together. And, I'm lugging 500 pounds of batteries with me, 300 pounds of solar, I easily have 1,000 pounds tied up in my solar alone.

Here the one thing to keep in mind, I figured I may possible live in this while building a little house and swap the system over to the house when done. That's part of the reason I went the route I did, I wanted to k now, for fact I would be future proof, even going so far as to buy to panels I didn't use on this project assuming they would either go on the house roof, or I would do a smaller project with them down the line. t's a learning process for sure and you just gotta jump in, as I said, I was planning for worst possible case and I'm happy I did, it allows me to park in the morning shade and sleep in right now

 

[akrvbob]

My standard advice to anyone who asks how much solar to buy is "Buy all you can afford?"

It sounds like you did and it's working well for you!
Bob

 

[TucsonAZ]

Today it was raining and completely overcast, with 1,380 watts of solar I was bringing in 100-250 watts at my charge controller. This was enough to recharge my overnight usage fairly quickly but sill only about 8-20% of what was sitting on my roof. Just something to keep in mind if you'll be finding yourself in a situation of needing to get through some tough days in terms of cloud cover. I took pictures of CC display and outside conditions for anybody that cares.