Quote:
Originally Posted by LoveToCamp
Seeing all the concern over solar charging from those of you who camp with clouds or tree canopy, it makes me a bit happier that I don't have as much shade to camp in!
I have gone 7 nights at a time in the summer with mostly-shade, and my battery seems to top-off daily (my original TM had a lights-only controller, so I never really knew the state of charge). I got my new 2417 this spring, and that controller showed me I was up to at least 13.1 every day.
A few weekends ago, I took our TM out with 4 guys (yes, it was tight, but 3 of us had comfortable beds). Kept the heater at 65° in the evening, then 45° overnight each night. Through the evening, the heater was on about half the time. Overnight, it ran about 25% of the time, with outdoor temps of 30°. Each day, we were back up to 13.1, even with the sun low on the southern sky.
This weekend, I put a second 12v battery in, so I should have even more capacity going-forward. One of these years, I will be camping in New England, or Oregon, and will get to see if I get close to a full re-charge daily. But, for now, my 100w panel seems to keep me fully-charged daily.
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I would try the norther camping before I bought an additional battery. I know we would all like a fully charged battery every day; But what we have found is we need enough battery to get us through our camping. So each day the battery is a little lower but we are still in the safe zone.
For many years we would go 7+ days warm weather without heat and be OK and that was without any solar or recharging. Now when we left CG the battery was near 50% and it would recharge from the TV when traveling. If I had solar I could have gone maybe 14 days.
In cold weather we need to recharge after 2 nights with the auto jumper cables We just got solar for our cold weather camping. Our belief is with solar we can push it to 4 nights in cold weather, which we never say anywhere in cold weather more then 3 nights. The battery is fine to discharge to slightly above 50%. Since we live in the north every automobile we have has a set of jumper cables. Only twice in 25+ years of having a camper in warm weather, have I had to recharge the battery with the jumper cables.