Solar

Small solar panels are rated at less than 100 watts of power. In this article, I will explore their usefulness. You may think they are the lowest-cost solar panels available, but they are actually the most costly solar panels in terms of price versus performance. Some small solar panels are novelties. Originally published on May […]

Until now, we have maintained the charge on our RV chassis batteries with electricity from our inverter. Here is a solution for solar charging RV chassis batteries without using our inverter. Someday (soon), our new DC-to-DC converter will be the only charge source for my RV chassis battery because I won’t be driving the RV.

Our batteries store more power than we would use — for at least two days.

Ten Lithium Battery Myths and Answers: How can I get the longest life from lithium batteries? After you spend lots of money on lithium batteries, you want them to last. It would be a shame if you killed them early. Originally published July 2020, Updated May 2024 I have been an early fan but not

Here is how solar works. I could have started my RV solar series with this article, or I could have avoided it entirely. Some of you might trust the rest of us who say it works and leave it to that. I find it interesting to know how things work. I hope this article will

Massive Electric Bucket: What is an electric bucket? An “electric bucket” is my description of our RV battery remodel. (I will explain later) How did the RV battery remodel work?  This post describes the real testing results while camping off-grid with our new RV battery remodel. How much energy did we consume? Did we achieve

Can my new Zamp Obsidian solar array and my “Massive Electric Bucket” eliminate my need for external power hookups and running my generator? This year, we will find out by personal experience. The installation is going well, and these are the first pictures. Originally published January 2021 If you missed the post about my battery,

We are creating a hybrid mongrel battery for our RV. The system will have lots of solar and both lead-acid and lithium batteries. We will load the RV with lithium batteries and eventually put as much solar on the roof as possible. By the end of the week, the rough fit for the lithium will be

The critical part that is missing is the battery monitor. If your RV has a battery, it needs a battery monitor. If you don’t have a battery monitor, you are guessing. The most important part of an RV solar installation isn’t the panels, controller, or battery; it is the battery monitor. If you install a

RV air conditioning on batteries and solar. Can you do it? My goal is to be electrical energy independent, which includes air conditioning on batteries and solar panels. I can run my RV air conditioning from my batteries all night long. I installed a large battery and solar electric system. I can run my RV

You have too many solar panels! This should shed some light on our RV solar installation. How did we design our RV solar and battery system? This was a comment in an email pertaining to our Zamp Obsidian Solar Install. The comment wasn’t as direct as my title statement but was made with good intent.

RV dry camping for twelve days on solar. Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Here are the results. Did our solar work for an extended camping period in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park? Did we have to use our generator? This is a numbers post about RV dry camping for twelve days on solar power.–

This post is about wiring solar panels. We have installed eighteen Zamp Obsidian solar panels to recharge our lithium battery. This article explains the wiring of the solar panels so that they act as one panel. This year, because our system is so much more complex, I am going to go into much more detail

Destructive Lithium Battery Testing — I guess I run with a pretty rough crowd, a friend of mine deliberately destroyed two lithium batteries while testing. He tested them to the point of failure. Smoke Check In the Navy, we used to call an electronic device that failed — smoke checking. If you hit a device

Can you run your RV Air conditioner on Solar and Batteries? We have the test results. The quick answer is yes you can. We have proved that it is possible. This update includes testing data with some surprises. These surprises are not encouraging and show how hard this is and why this is so hard.

Boondocking without solar, we have done that before but never have we done it this easily. Our battery system is holding us into the second day without recharging so it has met the design goal of two days without sunshine.  We now have thirty days of boondocking without solar (so far this summer) to prove

Bash Solar Test Data Analysis / Observations. At the Xcapers 2020 BASH we took the opportunity to gather user inputs for our Solar Test Data Analysis. There were 400 RVs and no hookups for more than a week. These are the lessons learned. We gathered results from the Bash(ers), usually on a daily basis to

Xcapers Bash Solar Data Collection and analysis. As you know, the Xcapers Bash is 100% off-grid. Many RVs have solar to recharge RV batteries, some only have generators. This represents a huge opportunity to get same-day, same-weather, day-by-day electric data from hundreds of RV battery users – with and without solar recharging. Thanks for contributing

RV Solar Series: Which first solar or lithium? My install could have been done, either way. There are good reasons to put in better batteries first and there are good reasons to install solar panels before upgrading the batteries. I learned lots of things that I wouldn’t know had I done both at the same

Portable solar panels are very popular with RVers. Do they work? How well do they work? When to use them and how best to use them? Did I need a portable solar panel? That is an interesting question. I have friends with portable panels and my brother uses a portable every time he camps.  I

Inverter/charger or Inverter & Charger each has some benefits. Separate also has some benefits. Which is better? Which would I choose? Inverters and chargers are actually two different items. Some manufacturers have built chargers into inverters and these units, depending on their design have some advantages over separate units. However, some inverter/charger combinations are not

RV Solar Series: 12 volts or 24 volts is a question the doesn’t get asked very often. The fact is that there are advantages to both configurations. Before we consider the advantages of each, we need some understanding of how multiple batteries work with each other. Volts and Amps math Battery banks can be assembled

RV Solar Series: Inverters change Direct Current (battery power) to Alternating Current (house power) so that you can use house appliances inside your RV. Some RVs don’t have any inverters and some RVs have huge inverters. Some, (usually older) RVs don’t even have a battery (this is very rare). My RV has a small inverter,

This is my Lithium/Lead Acid Final Analysis where the determination isn’t necessarily all data-driven. Live style makes a big difference in the end result conclusion on the Lead/Lithium debate is going to happen. One of the biggest problems with lead-acid is that they don’t like to give up electricity without a fight. Tell this to

RV Solar Series: For a solar-charged RV battery, battery choice is critical to living with an RV solar battery charger. Battery design determines success or failure. The question comes down to Lead or Lithium batteries. Originally published March 2019 Updated June 2020 and March 2024 The first question that the RV Solar Series needs to address

RV Solar Series: Limit of the design. Everything has limits. The limits I have are daily sunshine is required and battery size and type. Even though I met all the design goals, I need to have the sunshine every day. In the summertime, I will have much longer daylight periods to charge the battery. The efficiency

RV Solar Series: How to use the Generator with Solar. The sun doesn’t shine every day so you can’t expect that solar is going to be your only power supply. My solar coupled with a bigger battery bank of the right kind of batteries could bridge multiple cloudy days and return to a full charge

RV Solar Series: Analysis & Conclusions is the summary to the testing page. The testing page has more meat and this page details what happened. I also offer theories as to what could have happened with different decisions. We are very happy with the results and look forward to more off-grid camping that will be

RV Solar Series: Testing the System is not such an easy task and involves camping at various times a year without outside electricity. Testing in mid-winter will come at some later time. Testing in March is a good balance between summer and winter conditions. How did I get these numbers? The combination of our battery

We have gathered data on electricity used in our RV and have compiled a solar report to analyze the actual results. We still have issues of understanding what is going on, but overall we are thrilled. Yesterday was the true test and we did really well. Data to follow. Starting last spring we monitored battery

RV Solar Series: Installation of the panels is the easiest part aspect of installing a solar battery charger on your RV. My panels are installed on a fiberglass roof — your roofing materials and desires will change your installation techniques. Running wires from the panels to the location near the battery is the hardest part

RV Solar Series: How to Design a Just – Right – System. A just-right size, not too small, not too costly. Sounds like Goldilocks. Just right. Start with simple and work to more complex.   Start with a battery.   Add to that a positive and negative wire that leads to a small solar collector. Connect

RV Solar Series: How much solar did we need? My answer was 600-700 watts of solar installed flat, (700 installed) to recharge our battery and live daily. Given six hours of sunshine, (winter) assuming the batteries were not overly discharged we should be good. Part of the assumption was that you can’t always count on

RV Solar Series: How we Store Electricity is a key consideration, almost all RVs have some kind of central battery. We wish we had the best battery. Nearly all RV manufacturers put the lowest cost battery in an RV, just to give it the minimum. Thankfully when we purchased our RV, the original battery had

RV Solar Series: Quit wasting electricity. Turn it off, make it better. Measure to know where it goes. Change your location. Turn it off One of the things I first encountered before measuring my energy use was that I had no way to completely disconnect the battery from loads. There was a switch in the

Electricity – 101 RV Solar Series: Understanding Electricity is not optional but is not a concern in everyday modern life. What is electricity? Before you make a change to your RV electric system, you better understand at least the very basics of electricity. When you turn on a flashlight, you create a circuit.  The components

Measure to know RV Solar Series: How to know what just-right means. How to know what just-right means in an RV solar system design. The answer is you have to measure to know what you need. How do you measure to determine what your needs are? This is a key step. Lots of folks put

RV Solar Series: Introduction “Boon-docking” or “dry-camping” is an RV style that refers to camping in an RV without the attachment of electrical, water, and sewer hookups.  We bring our own generator to make electricity, sometimes campground rules restrict generator operation hours. The most restrictive generator hours we encountered were at Death Valley National Park