Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2013 09:34:21 -0700
Reply-To: Neil N <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Neil N <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Mounting Solar Panel on a Westy
In-Reply-To: <52557B6D.1020309@cox.net>
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As I'm sure you know, there's "no free lunch" ; it's always a give and take.
The last Wetwesty meet I attended was at Fish Lake WA. Unlike the
image shown here:
http://www.coveresortatfishlake.com/campground/
there were many trees. Add some cloud cover and things go down hill.
One of my original plans was to buy a folding solar panel but in the
above conditions, that would mean I stay in camp chasing sun.
I do miss the LP mode of the Dometic 182 but as others have noted, it
just wasn't cutting it in high ambient temps. At this point, I carry a
small cooler as backup. It also provides storage for water etc.
One far fetched thought I had was using a reflector of some kind to
catch the sun and direct it to the panel. But the gymnastics involved,
even if it was a cromulent idea in terms of sun capture, would be a
minor PITA if not amusing to others in camp.
Neil.
On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 8:51 AM, mark drillock <mdrillock@cox.net> wrote:
> So the answer to the inadequacies of solar is to buy ever more of it and
> cover the roof, then carry some extra panels to spread around the camp
> on long leashes? Then put a couple hundred pounds of battery in the
> interior storage spaces, and do the solar panel shuffle every day to try
> to make the best of things? Kinda makes one long for a 3 way fridge again.
>
> Mark
>
> Barry Cotter wrote:
>> Having a 150w or 200w panel fixed to your roof and then a second mobile
>> 50w to chase the sun when necessary seems like a good solution. ....
>> If time permits, my winter project is to fix a 190w panel to the roof and
>> then a quick connect port elsewhere for the mobile panel, possibly at the
>> city water hookup entry as I don't use it any more. I've got 2x6v AGMs
>> under the back seat and panels much smaller are going to struggle in the
>> PNW... Maybe in the open of the Baja but not here. If I bring my batteries
>> down to near 50% it can take my shore charger a couple days to get them back
>> up to full charge.
>>> On Oct 8, 2013, at 10:20, "Neil N" <musomuso@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>>> In hindsight, especially for PNW conditions, (cloudy) if I had two
>>> panels I'd be tempted to hard mount one then use one as a roaming
>>> panel to chase the sun. That would all depend on size of panels, draw
>>> etc.
--
Neil n
Blog: tubaneil.blogspot.ca
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'81 VanaJetta 2.0 "Jaco" http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/
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