At OVX13 I found my second battery only had 48-72 hour life running my fridge in the heat. Also, i want to keep my battery topped off during the day due to the short drive to work not giving enough juice to replace what my radio uses on the drive. I need to extend this to 4-5 days without running my engine and the obvious answer is to add some solar. I researched going with a 2 panel folding setup from solarblvd.com but that didn't give me juice during the day. In the end I decided to use products from goal zero due to the plug and play design, the ability to fold up panels for storage, and my experience with their other products.
I purchased a boulder 15 hard panel, a nomad 27 folding panel, and the guardian charge controller from promotive.com at a 50% break from retail. The hard panel is roof mounted and stays in place all the time to keep the batteries topped off. I used some steel, magnets and gorilla tape to make a magnetic mount to avoid drilling holes in my roof.
The mounts bolted onto 4 of the many points on the panel. Then the panel snaps onto the roof (with authority!) in between my antenna mounts.
The wire was routed to the engine compartment using zip ties and more gorilla tape. I mounted the charge controller on top of my aux battery using double sided tape and replaced the alligator clips with ring terminals.
When stationary I can pull out the folding panel to give me 42 total watts of solar which will extend my time.
I purchased a boulder 15 hard panel, a nomad 27 folding panel, and the guardian charge controller from promotive.com at a 50% break from retail. The hard panel is roof mounted and stays in place all the time to keep the batteries topped off. I used some steel, magnets and gorilla tape to make a magnetic mount to avoid drilling holes in my roof.
The mounts bolted onto 4 of the many points on the panel. Then the panel snaps onto the roof (with authority!) in between my antenna mounts.
The wire was routed to the engine compartment using zip ties and more gorilla tape. I mounted the charge controller on top of my aux battery using double sided tape and replaced the alligator clips with ring terminals.
When stationary I can pull out the folding panel to give me 42 total watts of solar which will extend my time.
