Hi gang, as a newby to caravaning I am confused with which way to go solar or generator. Do people use generators to charge batteries of to connect directly to appliances?
We only usually go for a week and do not have either a genny, batteries or solar as yet. We don't have aircon only the basics, so not too much demand on power.
Based on what you say you currently need to run, a 100AH deep cycle battery and a twin panel solar system should provide you with plenty of power. We have similar needs to you and we have been getting by with a "dead" 75AH battery for the past 12 months along with the solar panels. We've now upgraded to a larger fit battery.
As the previous poster suggested, you might have a bit of trouble if you get a lot of cloudy days in a row and that's when a generator would come in handy. Apart from the cost of purchasing one, you have to find a place to store it, have fuel available to power it and there's also the weight factor to consider. Additionally, many campgrounds don't permit them to be used and lots of your fellow campers hate their noise. Finally, we get a bit of feel good by being a bit "green" and largely self sufficient when we're camping.
Hi John. Ditto with the comments above. We only use solar and have an inverter for charging laptop and running the microwave. Never have had a problem with charging or recharging. Everything major runs on gas and of course LED lights. Good luck.
Hi John , welcome , We have two 180 watt panels and two 105 Ahr which is usually enough but on lousy days may need to top up the batteries with gen , my lighting (led ) TV fridge and 35ltr freezer are all 12v , cooking is gas . But when we finally get going up north we may need the A/C which is 240 V . Our genny is only 67db so not a great problem but I don't know your situation so you also may need both. Hope this helps
Thanks bob, you hit the nail on the head about a cpap machine, I may have to use one of those machines yet. I have to try the nose strips first, not confident though.
Mate we are haveing a new van built at the moment with 2 150watt solar pannels and 2 x 120amp h batteries we have a 185ltr 12v24v240v fridge a;; lighting is LED. 1500watt pure sinwave inverter.
we have also included a 2.6kva kipor genny. the genny is there for the times that you will have a week or more of bad weather if you are stuck somewhere and it is heavy overcast for most of a week you will run out of power so it is a backup. Also if you have a inverter failure ect it also acts as a good back there.
Hope this helps
Cheers
The Hats
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Hi John. Ditto with the comments above. We only use solar and have an inverter for charging laptop and running the microwave. Never have had a problem with charging or recharging. Everything major runs on gas and of course LED lights. Good luck.
Hi Exa41, i'm interested you have an inverter to run the laptop and microwave, ok whars an invertor and are they easy to install? fran
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We have lived in our fifth wheeler for almost 8 years, travelling around. We have 2 X 200 AH batteries and 4 X 80 W solar panels. When bush camping we find the solar charging is more than sufficient for our everyday needs, including running the TV and satellite decoder, LED lights and charging multiple gadgets.
We run the fridge on gas and have gas hot water and gas cooking, and a diesel heater. We have a Honda 2kva generator which is only used to charge the batteries when the solar power is not enough - in prolonged cloudy conditions or rain, or in the deep south in winter when the sun is too low to fully charge the batteries. We never use the generator for appliances. We do not need to use the microwave or electric kettle when bush camping and we don't have a washing machine.
The generator is a lot of extra weight to carry and takes up space, but when we have needed it we have been very pleased that it was there. It has allowed us to stay put in bad weather or go somewhere we wanted to instead of being forced into a van park or whatever to be on 240v power.
Mate we are haveing a new van built at the moment with 2 150watt solar pannels and 2 x 120amp h batteries we have a 185ltr 12v24v240v fridge a;; lighting is LED. 1500watt pure sinwave inverter.
we have also included a 2.6kva kipor genny. the genny is there for the times that you will have a week or more of bad weather if you are stuck somewhere and it is heavy overcast for most of a week you will run out of power so it is a backup. Also if you have a inverter failure ect it also acts as a good back there.
Hope this helps
Cheers
The Hats
be careful not to go too big on your inverter if you don't need 15oo watts... they'll draw more power from your battery...
...........
back to the original question... with Solar, its all about storage... 100 solar panels on your roof isn't going to help you at night ...
we charge 2 Full Gell 100 amph batteries with one 120W Solar Panel.. and mostly we camp around Victoria.. originally, we had a 90W panel but wasn't enough over a number of Cloudy days... say 3 in a row
USE Full Gel Batteries.. they don't give off gas like others...
we also have a 720 watt Generator for just in case... but I carried it all the way to Cains and Back and didn't use it one time..
I hate turning it on because I respect peoples right to have a nice quiet area to enjoy.. like smokers, generator people are the outcasts... lol
we run a 300Watt inverter for the mrs CPAP :)
-- Edited by Blue on Monday 25th of August 2014 08:48:43 PM
Spend the money on setting up your caravan with a good solar system first, when all else fails then look towards a generator.
By buying wisely batteries along with solar panels followed by then the need for a inverter you will gain from your own experience what is important to you and where you need to spend money, buying a generator that you don't use might become a waste, hang back first listen to others around you in free park areas learning from there wonderful experiences.
I have one battery and one solar panel, I spend some times in a free area eg. 4 nights in mostly overcast and raining weather at Babinda 3 weeks back, we still had power, people with higher demands tv going all day needed to run there generators ( I noticed they do not run them near there door area, hence they are not quite).
For me if things are getting a little low I go to a Caravan park do the washing, fill the tanks, charge the batteries, all for a few dollars along with the use of there showers. Ralph
PS< I do own a generator and have carried it but will only use it when I am totally by myself after morning tea to about lunch time, the salesman said "it was quite you will never hear it". I don't think so.
-- Edited by Radar on Monday 25th of August 2014 09:21:36 PM
Spend the money on setting up your caravan with a good solar system first, when all else fails then look towards a generator.
By buying wisely batteries along with solar panels followed by then the need for a inverter you will gain from your own experience what is important to you and where you need to spend money, buying a generator that you don't use might become a waste, hang back first listen to others around you in free park areas learning from there wonderful experiences.
I have one battery and one solar panel, I spend some times in a free area eg. 4 nights in mostly overcast and raining weather at Babinda 3 weeks back, we still had power, people with higher demands tv going all day needed to run there generators ( I noticed they do not run them near there door area, hence they are not quite).
For me if things are getting a little low I go to a Caravan park do the washing, fill the tanks, charge the batteries, all for a few dollars along with the use of there showers. Ralph
PS< I do own a generator and have carried it but will only use it when I am totally by myself after morning tea to about lunch time, the salesman said "it was quite you will never hear it". I don't think so.
-- Edited by Radar on Monday 25th of August 2014 09:21:36 PM
I hate to say this, But Collyn R Posted a very good article in the Wanderer[If you get the magazine read it..] I think that people have the Ratio of Battery to solar Wrong.. I think the ratio should be at least 200w per 100Ah@12v for a Light load.. If you have a heavier Load you should up the Solar to meet that demand.. It's far better to have too much solar than not enough...
Most go more Battery than solar.. You need to have enough Solar to charge up the Batteries in a SINGLE Day... and this is were MOST people fail.... Look at your expected demand from your system..[Daily usage in Ah and make sure you have enough solar to Replace that Ah in a Day].
Currently, I personally have an issue with my own system.. I have 1200w of Solar, going with the worst case situation I get about 5-13 Amps @ 26v going into the system, I have an extremely light overnight load on the system about 25-30Ah and I'm having the system fully charged at about 12'oclock, and I have to add a Dump Load.. I'm going to have to make sure I have a Real good Load on the system as we get closer to summer and the days of nice clear sunlight..
That is were the Aircon and such shall come into their own... A Nice cool bus to rock up if I'm out..
Juergen
__________________
IF I say something Dumb.. Just Smack me..
I'm full of Knowledge.. I don't profess to know EVERYTHING, but I'm constantly Learning new thing's..
Spend the money on setting up your caravan with a good solar system first, when all else fails then look towards a generator.
By buying wisely batteries along with solar panels followed by then the need for a inverter you will gain from your own experience what is important to you and where you need to spend money, buying a generator that you don't use might become a waste, hang back first listen to others around you in free park areas learning from there wonderful experiences.
I have one battery and one solar panel, I spend some times in a free area eg. 4 nights in mostly overcast and raining weather at Babinda 3 weeks back, we still had power, people with higher demands tv going all day needed to run there generators ( I noticed they do not run them near there door area, hence they are not quite).
For me if things are getting a little low I go to a Caravan park do the washing, fill the tanks, charge the batteries, all for a few dollars along with the use of there showers. Ralph
PS< I do own a generator and have carried it but will only use it when I am totally by myself after morning tea to about lunch time, the salesman said "it was quite you will never hear it". I don't think so.
-- Edited by Radar on Monday 25th of August 2014 09:21:36 PM
I hate to say this, But Collyn R Posted a very good article in the Wanderer[If you get the magazine read it..] I think that people have the Ratio of Battery to solar Wrong.. I think the ratio should be at least 200w per 100Ah@12v for a Light load.. If you have a heavier Load you should up the Solar to meet that demand.. It's far better to have too much solar than not enough...
Most go more Battery than solar.. You need to have enough Solar to charge up the Batteries in a SINGLE Day... and this is were MOST people fail.... Look at your expected demand from your system..[Daily usage in Ah and make sure you have enough solar to Replace that Ah in a Day].
Currently, I personally have an issue with my own system.. I have 1200w of Solar, going with the worst case situation I get about 5-13 Amps @ 26v going into the system, I have an extremely light overnight load on the system about 25-30Ah and I'm having the system fully charged at about 12'oclock, and I have to add a Dump Load.. I'm going to have to make sure I have a Real good Load on the system as we get closer to summer and the days of nice clear sunlight..
That is were the Aircon and such shall come into their own... A Nice cool bus to rock up if I'm out..
Juergen
ok two things here...
1: if you are going to buy a new van then wait till the big Caravan Shows as they will be offering free solar systems already built into the Caravan... it'll only be a light setup but you can add to it easily
at the Melbourne Caravan show Jayco gave us a free solar system, drop down jacks, TV areal with booster and bracket and when it turned up it also had an oven in it!!! BONUS!!
2: a 200W Panel powering ONE Battery for light loads is massive overkill...
if you had read my post you'd see that we are very successful running 2 x 100AH GEL batteries on 1 x 120W panel in Victoria
we run the LED TV, LED Lights, Diesel Heater, CPAP machine through 300w inverter, shower and toilet water pumps
-- Edited by Blue on Tuesday 26th of August 2014 07:03:57 AM
I have to agree with Radar .. "Spend the money on setting up your caravan with a good solar system first, when all else fails then look towards a generator."
That will also help you determine what you will actually need to satisfy your lifestyle, before spending more than necessary !
Blue do you know exactly how much you draw out of your Batteries while it's Dark.. no solar generation..
If you are only drawing Off 10Ah Over night then you have an extremely light load.. so going from 100% to 95%.. So the system when it start to recharge is Only using a tiny Trickle to charge the batteries, which is what happens naturally in Lead Acid type batteries from 80% anyway.. If you managed to discharge your Batteries any deeper say to 70% State of charge... With the tiny 120w Panel I very much doubt that you would get your batteries back up to close to 100% of Charge..
so I think it's all relative to what you use load wise....
For LA's once you drop below 80% State of charge.. if you don't have the power to put back what you have used over night you will run into trouble..
Juergen..
Have to go outside and see what the bus is sitting at will most probably need to dump excess power..
__________________
IF I say something Dumb.. Just Smack me..
I'm full of Knowledge.. I don't profess to know EVERYTHING, but I'm constantly Learning new thing's..
Blue do you know exactly how much you draw out of your Batteries while it's Dark.. no solar generation..
If you are only drawing Off 10Ah Over night then you have an extremely light load.. so going from 100% to 95%.. So the system when it start to recharge is Only using a tiny Trickle to charge the batteries, which is what happens naturally in Lead Acid type batteries from 80% anyway.. If you managed to discharge your Batteries any deeper say to 70% State of charge... With the tiny 120w Panel I very much doubt that you would get your batteries back up to close to 100% of Charge..
so I think it's all relative to what you use load wise....
For LA's once you drop below 80% State of charge.. if you don't have the power to put back what you have used over night you will run into trouble..
Juergen..
Have to go outside and see what the bus is sitting at will most probably need to dump excess power..
like I was saying,
at night we run the mrs CPAP, TV with hard drive, LED lights, Diesel Heater and in the mornings the shower water pump... :)
whats this power you talking about dumping? I don't understand what you are talking about there...
Due to my system, at the current time.. With the Load I have.. My system is Fully charge by 12oclock.. so for the rest of the day I have Excess Solar ability...
so That solar is dumped into what ever I want to do.. ie.. Heat Ho****er.. run an aircon to cool the Bus..
What ever I want to do..
that is what I mean about dumping Solar.... I could turn it off or to just task it to do something else...
My system is a Full Electric system No gas unless I need a second cooking system..
Hope this helps you out..
Juergen
__________________
IF I say something Dumb.. Just Smack me..
I'm full of Knowledge.. I don't profess to know EVERYTHING, but I'm constantly Learning new thing's..
Due to my system, at the current time.. With the Load I have.. My system is Fully charge by 12oclock.. so for the rest of the day I have Excess Solar ability...
so That solar is dumped into what ever I want to do.. ie.. Heat Ho****er.. run an aircon to cool the Bus.. What ever I want to do..
that is what I mean about dumping Solar.... I could turn it off or to just task it to do something else...
My system is a Full Electric system No gas unless I need a second cooking system..
Hope this helps you out..
Juergen
don't you run a battery regulator so that you don't cook your batteries?
