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Post by darralnlisa on Jul 19, 2023 9:27:55 GMT -5
Hi everyone. I'll start by saying I'm not electrically inclined and not ashamed to say it. I do have an 18' Escape Hatch, with the off road package, but everyone agrees, the off road solar is just enough to keep the lights on and not run much equipment. So I'm like many others, wanting to add/supplement my solar. I guess I'd like thought on adding fixed panels/equipment versus some portable self contained unit I could set up 50' away from the camper. I'm not sure how to do either, but assume a separate package would be much simpler, but maybe more expensive. One nice advantage is you could park in the shade, and set up the panels in the sun away from the camper.
Retiring in early 2024, so just planning on extended boondock camping.
Thanks everyone.
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Post by justanothergeek on Sept 18, 2023 14:01:53 GMT -5
You're going to have to do some power consumption accounting first to figure out what your needs are. The first question to answer is how much battery power do you need overnight to run everything you need and that should include things like expected lights, heat and other devices. You'll need the same for during the day. Once you have that figured out, you'll need to have a battery bank to support it and then you need solar capable of providing daytime needs plus charging. All of that is also heavily dependent on where you plan to be boondocking, if you're in the desert areas you'll probably have great sunlight during the day and might even be able to charge off the moonlight. If you're in the woods, well that might be a bigger problem than you can solve with mounted panels.
I've been dragging my feet on doing this to our 2017 E181RB that I inherited from my parent's a few years ago, now my son is using it to go boondocking so we're starting with a couple of 130w panels and charge controller I have. We'll be adding a second battery and looking at upgrading the inverter/charger. We also have a folding 80w (2 x 40w) panel setup that plugs into the side of the trailer, panels have their own charge controller and it appears the trailer hook-up is wired directly to the battery.
As we get moving forward on the project, I'll try to update here with what we've done and what parts we're sourcing.
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