Code Red
Adventurist
I have been electrically challenged in the past, and was overjoyed to come back from Expo-East with positive experience. Most of the camping I do involves frequent movement, so the batteries get a regular does of alternator to keep everything charged. I was a little concerned about how we would do at Expo East with a static camp for three days.
What we took:
(1) National Luna Weekender 52 - I bought this in Dubai and was disappointed with the power consumption, but there were both electrical (dodgy battery) and environmental (high temps) concerns there that I hoped would no longer be a problem.
(2) National Luna Power Pack (battery box) with a Duracell Group 31 FLA deep cycle battery (105 AH), and a Victron BM700 battery monitor. (counts amps in and out). Bluetooth dongle.
(3) Overland Solar Ranger foldable 120W solar panel.
The weather was bad for solar on Thursday-Friday, but sunny on Saturday and Sunday. I attempted to deploy the panel on Saturday, and couldn't get it to work. But I knew Overland Solar was supposed to have a booth at Expo. I found them (thanks to directions from the AAV tent) and they diagnosed a bad cable from the panel to the controller and had me back up in no time. I got about 2 hrs of charging Saturday afternoon. That put about 9 AH back into the battery even with the fridge running.
The Victron meter tells me I only consumed about 35 AH between Thursday afternoon and Saturday afternoon. This is a lot less than I expected, but the weather was very cool, and temps were below the settings on the fridge for several hours Friday and Saturday nights.
Sunday dawned icy but sunny. The panel was in the shade where I had hung it on the tent, so I just laid it flat on the ground in the sun. The meter said the battery was down about 26 AH, almost exactly where it was when the sun went down and the temperature dropped the night before. We took some classes Sunday morning, and by the time we got back to the tent at noon, the meter said the battery was topped up.
So we camped for 3.5 days and had little or no charging for 2.5 of those. The battery bank never got below 70% and was fully charged when we left. I think in warm weather we probably would have at least doubled the consumption if not more, but the panel worked well enough that even a little sunshine would have kept us is good shape.
The Victron meter was expensive and the install was a jury rig just for this trip. That said, I felt much more confident in a meter counting AH in and out than I did with the CTEK monitor I had been using previously that just measures volts, temp, and then adjusts using a magic 8-ball. The blue tooth worked flawlessly and I now have a much better idea of both the state of charge and the load I am putting on the battery. (fridge was pulling 2.4 amps when running) It cost too much, but being able to see what was going on gave me a lot of peace of mind when trying out a new setup.
Not exactly a ground breaking story, but this was my first attempt at powering something that long without running the vehicle, and my first time using solar. I was very pleased, and a little surprised, that everything worked out as well as it did.
What we took:
(1) National Luna Weekender 52 - I bought this in Dubai and was disappointed with the power consumption, but there were both electrical (dodgy battery) and environmental (high temps) concerns there that I hoped would no longer be a problem.
(2) National Luna Power Pack (battery box) with a Duracell Group 31 FLA deep cycle battery (105 AH), and a Victron BM700 battery monitor. (counts amps in and out). Bluetooth dongle.
(3) Overland Solar Ranger foldable 120W solar panel.
The weather was bad for solar on Thursday-Friday, but sunny on Saturday and Sunday. I attempted to deploy the panel on Saturday, and couldn't get it to work. But I knew Overland Solar was supposed to have a booth at Expo. I found them (thanks to directions from the AAV tent) and they diagnosed a bad cable from the panel to the controller and had me back up in no time. I got about 2 hrs of charging Saturday afternoon. That put about 9 AH back into the battery even with the fridge running.
The Victron meter tells me I only consumed about 35 AH between Thursday afternoon and Saturday afternoon. This is a lot less than I expected, but the weather was very cool, and temps were below the settings on the fridge for several hours Friday and Saturday nights.
Sunday dawned icy but sunny. The panel was in the shade where I had hung it on the tent, so I just laid it flat on the ground in the sun. The meter said the battery was down about 26 AH, almost exactly where it was when the sun went down and the temperature dropped the night before. We took some classes Sunday morning, and by the time we got back to the tent at noon, the meter said the battery was topped up.
So we camped for 3.5 days and had little or no charging for 2.5 of those. The battery bank never got below 70% and was fully charged when we left. I think in warm weather we probably would have at least doubled the consumption if not more, but the panel worked well enough that even a little sunshine would have kept us is good shape.
The Victron meter was expensive and the install was a jury rig just for this trip. That said, I felt much more confident in a meter counting AH in and out than I did with the CTEK monitor I had been using previously that just measures volts, temp, and then adjusts using a magic 8-ball. The blue tooth worked flawlessly and I now have a much better idea of both the state of charge and the load I am putting on the battery. (fridge was pulling 2.4 amps when running) It cost too much, but being able to see what was going on gave me a lot of peace of mind when trying out a new setup.
Not exactly a ground breaking story, but this was my first attempt at powering something that long without running the vehicle, and my first time using solar. I was very pleased, and a little surprised, that everything worked out as well as it did.