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Solar is back


tree monkey

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Not turned fridge on, yet, ran out of fresh meat today, fshcakes tomorrow, real steak burghers next day.

Ordered salads, salad potatoes, still 0 degrees C at 07.00,  cloudy day today, but batteries held out. 

 

Edited by LadyG
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56 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

First weekend with absolutely no need to run the engine to charge the batteries and I was running the fridge.

Welcome back my lovely solar :)

 

Arrived at our current location after lunch on Thursday with fully charged batteries. No engine running since, and SoC was still  at 30% this morning. Enough to last the rest of the day. but not a fifth night, so the genny went on today. Pity the weather has gone off, it was a bit of a slap in the face this morning, after the sunshine.

 

MP. 

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1 minute ago, MoominPapa said:

 

Arrived at our current location after lunch on Thursday with fully charged batteries. No engine running since, and SoC was still  at 30% this morning. Enough to last the rest of the day. but not a fifth night, so the genny went on today. Pity the weather has gone off, it was a bit of a slap in the face this morning, after the sunshine.

 

MP. 

Yup I admit today was a bit of a let down but it can only get better 

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1 year back in uk today. First winter for 16 years just got through. After yesterdays T shirt weather freezing cold and grotty today. Its well over rated.

As the ashen clouds wept the inbox pinged. Repatriation flights for Oz residents on 9 march. Single £5500 each , for 30 seconds it felt a bargain. Then reality hit. Never mind looking forward to a pain in the arm on wednesday.

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Fridge went on Valentines day and almost killed the battery while i wasn't looking.  Since then its got to temperature and been fine, plenty of solar even on overcast days.  

Managed to run my PS4 for a couple of hours in good sunlight on Saturday when I should have been out enjoying the first day of Spring but couldn't muster the effort to get dressed.

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We have 2x 100 watt panels. Had them for about three years now. I am disappointed with their performance which may not be their fault but the installation.

 

During the past weekend, as stated above, we had lovely sunshine but the most I got though the pan ales was 6or 8 amps. Is this acceptable with 200 watts and sunshine?

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2 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

We have 2x 100 watt panels. Had them for about three years now. I am disappointed with their performance which may not be their fault but the installation.

 

During the past weekend, as stated above, we had lovely sunshine but the most I got though the pan ales was 6or 8 amps. Is this acceptable with 200 watts and sunshine?

 

 

Sounds reasonable to me.

 

That 100W rating is for the panels in perfect conditions - think of it being on the equator pointing straight at the sun.

 

200W at 12V gives 16.6 amps, so getting between a third and a half of this in February in the UK is actually very good indeed.

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Just now, TheBiscuits said:

 

 

Sounds reasonable to me.

 

That 100W rating is for the panels in perfect conditions - think of it being on the equator pointing straight at the sun.

 

200W at 12V gives 16.6 amps, so getting between a third and a half of this in February in the UK is actually very good indeed.

Thank you for your passed on knowledge.

 

In the past summers, and I’m not that fanatical about collecting figures and facts, but I don’t seem to get much more than I have stated above. When deciding what to get at the time I though 200 w of panels would be ample to recharge the batteries, which they do do, but it takes a bit of time. I know advice would be to up the game a bit but the MPPT we had fitted seven years ago would take much more solar.

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1 hour ago, Nightwatch said:

 . I know advice would be to up the game a bit but the MPPT we had fitted seven years ago would take much more solar.

Would or wouldn't, what size is it. are you also sure nothing on the roof is shading the panels at all, ever the centre rope laid on them 

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3 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

Oft not paid attention to, but keep your panels clean.

Good thinking bat man, I reckon my motorhome panel is a nice shade of dark green by now lol.

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I have 860w of solar.  Ran my 12v fridge, a router and my desktop PC (for 6 hours/day... it uses 160-260w) while charging my 540ah bank and a load of mobile devices last Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  It was exceptionally sunny, but over the winter there have been many days when I haven't bothered to run the engine or my generator. 

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Last last rwo months - 900w of panels and a baseload of 800Wh/day - in January it generated 17.4kWh (and the engine made another 12.2 in 23 hours (14 occasions)), in February it generated 28kWh (and the engine made another 1.5 in 7 hours (4 occasions)).  The baseload is understated as I've been charging a neighbour's battery for him...

 

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On 01/03/2021 at 18:09, tree monkey said:

First weekend with absolutely no need to run the engine to charge the batteries and I was running the fridge.

Welcome back my lovely solar :)

Yup, 3 days in a row with no charging for us, brilliant isn't it!  And we upgraded from a fridge to fridge freezer last summer so im well impressed!  ?

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On 02/03/2021 at 16:59, Dr Bob said:

Bloody sun did a runner yesterday and has not been back today. It was meant to be wall to wall sunshine!

You’re just in the wrong place then. Up here on the Lancashire Riviera my home 4kw solar system has knocked out 27kw hours since Monday, even if the sun was a bit hazy today.

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34 minutes ago, John Wareing said:

You’re just in the wrong place then. Up here on the Lancashire Riviera my home 4kw solar system has knocked out 27kw hours since Monday, even if the sun was a bit hazy today.

Try fitting that on a narrowboat.

 

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3 minutes ago, Detling said:

Try fitting that on a narrowboat.

 

 

Standard domestic solar panel is 65x39 inches.  If you have a squarish cabin that's 65" between handrails you could get more than that on, mounted sideways.  4.2kW would be 14 300W panels, taking up 46 feet of cabin roof.

 

Wouldn't leave much room for walking on it though!

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