Solar panel

[Irish Mist]

I know many have posted the output of the solar panel in reply to questions asked. But I thought I would post my experiance in none technical terms... We just completed on Sat, our drive down from Orillia Ontario to Marathon Florida . We took our time and camped in the boat at truck stops. I left the fridge running and at night we would use the toilet and lights and watch TV ..with the diesel heater running all night. I left on the wine fridge by mistake but caught that the first night.
Our battery bank is getting tired and will need changing soon. On our forth morning I had drained the batteries down to 10.5 No more heat or fridge ( It was overcast most of the time to that point ) .. Fortunately it was sunny this morning .. By the next night with everything off the batteries were up a little over 12 volts.. and we didn't need any more heat. But the solar panel did its job. I am going to purchase a small generator for future trips and will let it run while I'm driving ( probably will start 4 hr before I stop for the night ) to keep the batteries topped up, for a good night of camping 🙂 .
It is very nice down here..
Cheers
Mark

 

[knotflying]

Glad your trip went well.
I use the Honda 2000. However, we often stay in campgrounds and plug in at night. In the colder weather I have turned off the refrigerator at night to conserve power. A couple of extra blankets and a good snuggle in the v-berth helps to keep the Wabasto off until around 3 am and then I run it on low. I also joined my thruster battery to the house and that also made a big difference.
Running your batteries down to 10.5 is not a good thing for the batteries either. Without getting into the nitty gritty, you need to avoid getting that low. You may find that they will hold their charge for less time now. If they are AGM they can take the abuse better.
If you do the math, a campground with power may be less expensive than buying the Honda. Quite frankly, in three years I have used it 3 times and mostly to just excercice it.