johnny September 24th, 2007
Still got a bit of waiting to do, but we’re trying to finalize some of our technical gear.
On the power side, we’re going to start with 380 watts of solar panels. These are big honking 3′x5′ 24 volt panels, so we can only fit two without some extra work. If we find we need more watts, there is a possibility of putting a third panel without any major modifications or wiring smaller 12V panels in series for 24V. We will probably be supplementing this with a small generator - I still haven’t decided on a 1000W or a 2000W. Either should run the A/C, so I’m leaning towards the smaller genset for weight and efficiency reasons.
For power storage, we’re going to start with at least 4 12V group 31 batteries. These pack roughly 120Ah each. I’m still up in the air on AGM versus regular old lead acid. The AGM cost about twice as much, but should charge a bit faster and have the capability to be mounted upside down and sideways as well as indoors. The deciding factor may end up being how much junk we are going to haul outside versus inside. A battery stored indoors will have less Ah lost during cold weather, so indoor AGM’s would be a nice way to go.
Continue Reading »
Tags:
campsite,
cellular,
evdo,
internet,
solar
Related posts
johnny August 1st, 2007
One of our goals is to be able to boondock most of the time and avoid as much in the way of campground fees as we can. One of the nice things about campgrounds is that they offer electrical hookups.
Now, common wisdom on solar panels is that they take 10-15 years to pay for themselves. I did some back of the envelope calculations based on our home bill and assumed no price increases. Fifteen years looks reasonable for our usage; probably a fair bit less once you factor inflation in.
Continue Reading »
Tags:
air conditioner,
budget,
campground,
downsizing,
fuel,
solar
Related posts
jenn July 26th, 2007
I told Johnny that as long as we can fit my banjo, laptop, bicycle, rollerskates, sewing machine, bow, and one plant (and maybe some skis or a snowboard) in the camper, I will be happy. Well, I think I have found something else that we need to make room for. It shouldn’t take too much convincing. It is rather practical, and its probably the only thing that I want to bring that can be called such. Its a solar oven. An oven that uses the sun’s energy to make tasty baked goodness. Once we get past the thought of leaving our fresh meat out in the hot mid day sun before we eat it, I am sure we will be glad we brought it.
Continue Reading »
Tags:
cooking,
downsizing,
solar
Related posts
johnny July 23rd, 2007
For those of you looking into portable air conditioners, I ran across this site:
Portableacguide.com
It looks like I may have found an even better unit for us. At 543 watts, that little Danby unit may actually be able to run at 100% during the day without too much battery buffering if we put 4 or so 160W solar panels on the roof.
5,000 BTU should cool 1250 cubic feet of space. I’m guesstimating 25×7x7 for 1225 cubic feet - and there will be a lot of dead space inside that for storage, bathroom etc that won’t need to be cooled.
Too bad the rest of the day wasn’t as productive. We looked at 8 or 9 RV’s and put 200 miles or so on the pickup. No luck. Time to start planning for next weekend.
Tags:
air conditioner,
rvs,
solar
Related posts
johnny July 17th, 2007
So, I’m taking a break from hardcore RV shopping and letting Jenn try to find the dream machine for a day or two. In the meantime, I’m figuring out how to put enough gadgets in the box on wheels to double the start up cost.
We’re trying to avoid longterm costs like running a generator and camp ground fees as much as we can. We figure that a solar installation should pay for itself pretty quickly with campground fees of $30/night in many places. Also, we’d really rather not run a generator constantly both because of the noise and the gasoline costs.
Continue Reading »
Tags:
air conditioner,
rvs,
solar
Related posts
