The fiver came with three 100 watt solar panels and four 6 volt golf cart batteries. The batteries are in great shape, but I didn’t take long to realise we didn’t have enough solar panels to do the amount of dry camping we want. The battery controller was never receiving half the amps it can handle so no problem there. It’s time for more (solar) power.
Found a great price on a panel at Amazon and ordered. I waited for a cooler day and hit the roof. Installing a forth panel was pretty easy. The conduit used for the other three was full, so I ran it down a tank vent which was right where I needed it on the roof, and goes right by the battery controller in the washer/dryer closet.
With the forth panel installed we are seeing 125% of our previous max. However the previous max was the end of June, and the sky was not hazy with smoke (we are having a bad fire season here). I expect we would have seen 140% in an apples to apples comparison
The new panel is 100 watts like the old ones, but shaped different. I laid out the roof and we can get eight more of these up there, for a total of 1200 watts. Now that’s some power!
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Image Credits: © Paul Byerly, © Paul Byerly, and © Disney–ABC Domestic Television
@Voveo Uxor – Long time no type!
We will be in Albeque and headed for Austin or Dallas, so odds are good we will be going through El Paso in November.
Paul Byerly recently posted…On The Road Update
Hey, guys! Just found your blog and am thrilled to hear of this new phase of your lives and ministry. Full-timers, huh? That’s awesome. We bought a 5th wheel when we moved to Texas 2 years ago, and actually lived in it full-time, off-grid, on our little patch of West Texas desert for a year and a half before we moved to El Paso.
If you make it all the way down to El Paso, we’d love to see you, and Eek knows a LOT about solar power and living in an RV. God bless!