We have an RV with solar. Max amount available on our model. It's not all it's cracked up to be.
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We have an RV with solar. Max amount available on our model. It's not all it's cracked up to be.
I gotta say, the more I think about this the more excited I get at the prospect of this Ranger. Give me:
- 400 Hp combined equivalent
- 4WD
- give me that same 7.2kw generator in the hybrid F150
- figure a way to get me in that HOV lane
I'll put a camper shell on it and happily scream down the highway in my girl truck!
This dude has his settings pretty tight or I would link, but not sure if he even GOT solar from the factory, if he did not sure he kept any of it. He has enough capacity he has to install a cooling fan in the bench seats where the batteries (many, many batteries...) live.
Yeah, I am sure the factory installed single panel systems are probably just going to keep the battery from going dead while the thing is in storage.
But this dude I am telling you about has done some interesting stuff. Can run the air conditioning and fridge while offline. I think the stay at home orders motivated him to do the upgrades. The factory system ran off of two lead acid batteries, he swapped that out for a huge bank of lithium.
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I'd like to know his charging rate. Even with that many panels.
We have three panels for a total of 300 watts of solar and Dual 100Ah Eco-Ion Earth Smart Lithium (LiFePO4) coach batteries for a total of 200Ah of battery. The charge rate is slooooooow.
There are vans like the Winnebago Boldt that have 12,800 watt hours (unsure on conversion to Ah, but I think it's something like 1,000 to 5x what we have) that supposedly can run the AC and everything else off of electric, but again with limited real-estate for panels the charging rate is going to be slow.
Dunno about the rate, but my understanding from reading his various posts is that he can stay off grid and keep the interior cool, run the fridge (part of his scheme was to get away from the propane fridge, I guess they are not optimal when running on AC or DC or propane) and be able to make his coffee and toast a bagel every morning. He said he has enough power to cook a frozen pizza in the toaster oven. But he did go full crazy to do it. I think he was cooped up during the lockdown and couldn't USE his camper so he just started modifying it instead. Also somewhere in the process his fridge crapped out and the required part was way backordered so he scrapped it for a dual compressor unit like a larger boat/yacht would use. From reading his posts he sounds like a nice guy who started down a path and then started having fun with it, and took it to a bit of an extreme level, partially to see if he could, and who knows what he spent in the process. Also, it sounds like he is mostly in sunny California and surrounding areas.
My interest in this would be not so much being able to live in the desert in high temperatures until the shitter got full, but I want enough power on board to be able to pull over and sleep for 5-7hr with the AC running.
I'll be honest, a sizable portion of my desire for a truckish plug-in vehicle is the desire replicate a bit of Mark Whatney's travel across Mars in The Martian (the book). Basically creep across the desert using only solar power and the stuff you brought with you, just to do it. I am a big nerd.