soooo been thinking about solar-- anyone look into it for their camper? I have been watching allot about it.

 

I did quite a bit of research on it for the pop-up, but honestly KOA campsites are so easy to find across the nation and cheap that it would take a LONG time to break even if I went with a solar setup. Granted I'm travelling with a wife and a couple younger boys so I don't get to primitive camp much at all when we are doing our national park "tour". Convenience wins out unfortunately

I will say thought that for under $500 you could have quite the impressive array of 6V batteries with a nice portable panel\charger. Much cheaper than what it was 10+ years ago when I first researched it for another one of our campers.

 

Well I have been seeing solar panels going cheap on marketplace lately-- people are upgrading or wives want "it gone" -- :-) I may put a couple on the camper and use some nicad alarm bateries that I can get ahold of cheap---- I was also watching some utube on making your own batteries-- it seemed easy but don't know how costly-- yet. we'll see.

 

For the average person, batteries are too expensive to purchase and maintain, for something that gets used as minimal times as a camper. I know you have access to cheaper ones, but for me, it would be too much $$ to build a robust enough system to power my A/C and microwave.

 

oh I didn't think of a microwave.... I don't have one in the camp-- but I guess I should-- wonder how many watts they run?

 

looked it up-- 700 watts for a small one.

 

700-- at 110v--- i guess that is 5.8 amps round up to 6-- for the micrwave--- and my little ac unit pulls 15 amps -- so i am looking at 21 amps (ish) add a little for loss and what not-- and boom 25 amps (but technically I would use the ac more and the microwave for a max of 5 minutes-- but hey this is fun to figure) -- so a mid sised car batttery is 60 amp hours-- so to run the ac and the microwave for 3 hours-- to have them both run for 24 hours you would need 8 midsized car batteries. -- at $150 a pop!!!!

Yeah that is pricey!!!

 

Chad , also 8 batteries is a lot of weight to drag around too. I don’t think you would need that much unless you are boondocking for an extended period of time in July.

 

Super duty wouldn't car if I had 8 more batteries :-) just put 5 lbs more in the airbags

 

Well I did a thing-- more pics to follow once i pick up the stuff off of market place.

 

Looking forward to the reveal.

 

I heard he contacted the state of Kansas and offered them a good deal on all of the adult novelty toys that Kansas seized from that shop in Topeka, and he plans to line the outside of his camper with them to protect it from hail.

 

Dang he guessed it :-(

 

gotta start working on getting it loaded-- have a trip in a couple weeks :-)

 

I need to drag ours out and give it a thorough check before we take off on our national park visit, 23 days and counting