Criticism/suggestions requested on new Full-timer RV Solar Setup

Draku,

The help we RVers get from these guys is beyond amazing; but on occasion they don't speak from an RV perspective. Foe example, your post generally asks them to size your bank and inverter for you. That's not fair. Their banks mever go down the road. You need ed to stay in RV solar internet sites for those questions. Once you get your sizing determined, these folks are geniuses on how to hook it up the most efficiently and safely.

Now, IMO owning a 38' Class A with solar and a large sustem, Your chart (aka energy survey) is great; but the numbers are too high. Your post assumes you will be boondocking with this systwm. If you are hooked up all the time, the equipment is unnecessary. So, here's where I recommend you start. You are off the grid with mo way to re-excite the electrons in your batteries but by driving a LONG ways or using your generator. The gerator for a couple of hours after everyone witjin hearshot are up is okay. Many boondockers do that to top their bamks off from the night's drain and to operate 120VAC coffee maker, hair dryer, microwave, griller, etc.

But your goal from the post is to replinish the batteries from the sun. Hers's where you start (this os ALWAYS true with solar and RVs): an energy audit. You've started correctly. Yea. What you missed is the bank can't do what your current numbers ask of it. Go back and re-figure your minutes used per day. Based on my and articles I've seen, you may find you are 3x high. Here are just a couple of examples.

Your listing 30 LED lights may actually be a little low if uou look underneath; but there's no way you are going to be using them 240m/da. Mamy boondockers will kill all lights after sumdown. With LED, I think that is overdoing it. Still, every light draws something. Cut off the minutes and the Ah will follow. You can't afford a vent fan boondocking except for the occassional aw-phooey with the bacon. Cook smelly meat oudoors. Failing that due to weather, cook something else inside. Your vent fans are too many minutes for their medium-efficient watt usage. You can run one a few hours; but more than that use lower watt small fans. Like stated above, you cannot at all afford electric heating while boondocking. Having said that, a 12V bed warmer or 12V blanket can be done but only with timers that cut them off when you are asleep.

In short, you don't have to starve yourself of Amps out in the wild; but you do have to be much more conservative than so far.

A panel array on an RV is usually huge at 1,250W. If you can fit the 1,500W, go ahead on. However, if your bank will be fully re-charged by 10:30 before the sun even jits noon, you have wasted momey in panels. Like said above, the key is how many Ah can you get aboard in batteries. BTW, i've not read or heard of any RVers putting in flooded cells, anymore. They just don"t play nice with where we drive our coaches off pavement. The exception is using Lithium Iron Phosphate (LIFo). They are they best things to use in a modern Class A battery bank (smaller, lighter, 80% discharge okay). But still too expensive if saving money is a goal. Unlless LIFo is in uour reach, AGM is probably in your future (Lifeline?). For example, because of their thicker plates and better efficiency inside, you can get 2-6CT's from Lifeline, hook the pair in series to get 12V, and you have 300Ah rated storage. Plus, 2 of these particilar batteries fit in the footprint of a commonly used 12V RV battery. To get the 300Ah they are 2" taller and weigh 186 lbs/pair. If uou need this much power stored in hour bank, which i doubt, you could put 4 pair in (series) and connect them in parallel to accomplish 1,200Ah rated. Since, you don't want to discharge AGMs below 50%, normally, that' still a net of 600Ah at 100%. In designing a solar RV system, you want to assume sunless days. How many is up to you. Let's say you want a bank that can care for you if it is cloudy and the road is too muddy to drive back to pavement requiring you to stay in the overcast for 3 days. That means a 600Ah bank at 50% DOD will let you use 200Ah/day in those circumstances. Most people don't have the space for that large a bamk; so, they just plan for 2 days. You can also rum your genset for a limited time if hour bamk is too low.

200, or even 300Ah/da is an extraordinarily nigh number for 90% of boondockers. See if you can redo your chart and get it down to at least 300Ah/da at 12VDC. Once you've faced,reality about what an RV bank boomdocking can do and cannot do using your emergy audit, THEN you cam size your array and batteries.

Jerry