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Old 08-24-2012, 11:20 AM   #1
2Wanderers
Montana Fan
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Littleton
Posts: 183
M.O.C. #9998
Gave up and going Solar

Don't dry camp very often, but when we do we count on the Honda to recharge the batteries. Well, it always works except when we really needed it. Apparently, I didn't add enough Seafoam or Stabil and the carb was totally plugged up when we really needed it. Spent three nights at a national rec area and were sitting around with a portable led bar at night hoping there would be enough batteries to close the slides and raise the front to hook up. Several neighbors all had solar, so we got familiar with the subject.
Enough!!! Went out and bought 10 led light bulbs to lessen the drain, a 600 watt sine wave inverter for TV and satellite, lots of 4 gauge wire, and a 145 watt solar panel and 30 amp controller (Go Power) to recharge the batteries. Everything has worked just fine so far. Got the inverter installed and now the solar. Lots of crawling around in tight places, working behind paneling, and etc. to get a clean professional look. Didn't want to spend too much, but still wanted it to be quality and expandable. Very happy with the results.
Update: Added an additional panel and replaced both batteries with some very good deep cycle DieHards . Works fine with sunny days. However, with just one cloudy day, the batteries ran down to 50 percent. The inverter shut down! Going to add one more panel and perhaps one more battery. Good news is solar panels have come down by 2/3 which makes improvements affordable.
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2010 Mountaineer 285 RLD, 330 watts solar, 600 watts sine inverter, 3 type 31 agm batteries, Traveler antenna
2010 Dodge Ram 3500 SRW, 18k Reese slider, Honda 2000i, Firestone airbags
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