Montana Owners Club - Keystone Montana 5th Wheel Forum - View Single Post

2 for Him · 03-20-2011, 04:38 AM

I think I cheated. This is working too good. Should have ran more loads longer. After sitting with just lights, on and the four 5" computer fans I put in the front vent, plus refer ect. for a couple of hours the batteries had risen back to 12.61 volts. I had only ran the bunch of lights and the inverter for 3.25 hrs. at 11.5 amp draw total. Since it was 10 pm I let everything I still had on run overnight, this morning batteries were 12.51 volts, just after dawn the solar panels were putting in 1.3 amps. Granted the small portable was moved to the sun and tilted towards it. 9:00 AM charging at 3 amps, only the small panel in the sun and tilted, batteries are at 13.6 volts. By the time we get home from church will be at the cutoff for the float voltage. I tried to use most of the things we normally do when dry camping, but we have learned to be conservative, have switched to LEDs, cook mostly outside (don't get me started on cast iron cooking) and camp in the north in the summer to escape this unbearable heat and humidity here in S. AL., two or three hours of tv or a movie, maybe 1 hour on the internet to check e-mail or pay bills.
Not much of a test or else things are working better than I ever hoped. I will give credit to Solar Bob for his ideas on setting up a system, his site http://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/about/ really opened my eyes on a lot of obscure points. Big wire, short runs, charging voltages at the MANUFACTURERS specs, not a solar panel salesman. As we all know, salesmen are the most honest people out there, they would never stretch the truth to make a sale.
Looks like I could get 2 more batteries if I think we need the extra amp hours, but think I'll wait on that to see how actual use works out. Trying to get DW to go to a NFS cg in FL before it gets hot to do a real test, but it seems she just expects something I have engineered to work. Man do I have her fooled. I read of another guy who used a separate battery just for the inverter, easy enough to set up an isolation circuit to charge it then keep it from discharging the main batteries, might use my portable boat battery for that.
Sorry about the long post, having too much fun.

03-20-2011, 04:38 AM	#4
2 for Him Montana Fan Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Hartford Posts: 144 M.O.C. #7383	I think I cheated. This is working too good. Should have ran more loads longer. After sitting with just lights, on and the four 5" computer fans I put in the front vent, plus refer ect. for a couple of hours the batteries had risen back to 12.61 volts. I had only ran the bunch of lights and the inverter for 3.25 hrs. at 11.5 amp draw total. Since it was 10 pm I let everything I still had on run overnight, this morning batteries were 12.51 volts, just after dawn the solar panels were putting in 1.3 amps. Granted the small portable was moved to the sun and tilted towards it. 9:00 AM charging at 3 amps, only the small panel in the sun and tilted, batteries are at 13.6 volts. By the time we get home from church will be at the cutoff for the float voltage. I tried to use most of the things we normally do when dry camping, but we have learned to be conservative, have switched to LEDs, cook mostly outside (don't get me started on cast iron cooking) and camp in the north in the summer to escape this unbearable heat and humidity here in S. AL., two or three hours of tv or a movie, maybe 1 hour on the internet to check e-mail or pay bills. Not much of a test or else things are working better than I ever hoped. I will give credit to Solar Bob for his ideas on setting up a system, his site http://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/about/ really opened my eyes on a lot of obscure points. Big wire, short runs, charging voltages at the MANUFACTURERS specs, not a solar panel salesman. As we all know, salesmen are the most honest people out there, they would never stretch the truth to make a sale. Looks like I could get 2 more batteries if I think we need the extra amp hours, but think I'll wait on that to see how actual use works out. Trying to get DW to go to a NFS cg in FL before it gets hot to do a real test, but it seems she just expects something I have engineered to work. Man do I have her fooled. I read of another guy who used a separate battery just for the inverter, easy enough to set up an isolation circuit to charge it then keep it from discharging the main batteries, might use my portable boat battery for that. Sorry about the long post, having too much fun.