I'm the kind of person who gets a thought in her head and then can't get it out. No matter how hard I try, no matter how many times I shake it off, if there's something I want or something I feel like I need or something I want to do, you can be sure I'm going to throw as much mental and physical energy at it as I possibly can until I've received whatever it is. So... I bought some solar panels. In my defense, they were on sale. Now, do I need them? Technically, no. Should I have bought them, despite the fact they'll sorta-kinda ruin my whole stealth setup I've got going on? Probably not. Are they adding a lot of unnecessary weight, money, and time into the van and the project timeline? Yes..... But, I get a refrigerator! Oh, did I fail to mention the fridge is $800 dollars?! Yeah... Sometimes, I need to think things through before I do them. You see, I grew up with a lot of talkers. Not necessarily the way you think. They love to talk about plans of the future, but they rarely like doing them, or at least following through all the way. But me? I'm a doer. I need to get things done because it's how I feel accomplished. And, like I said, once I start something or get on a certain train of thought, I can't really stop it. And so, that's why, with limited research and a whole lot of impatience and a couple credit cards, I ended up with over $1,000 worth of solar sitting in my living room in boxes, just waiting to be installed. Hoooo, boy. Well, anyway. Want to hear about my setup? The only items I'm interested in powering are a fridge. That's the main reason I wanted solar. With a fridge, my diet can be a lot more varied, and I'm not as closely tied to living close to a city or supermarket. But I also have a Jackery 300 I'd like to recharge, a laptop, a camera battery, a SSD backup hard drive, and my phone. Not that I use any of those too regularly, besides the phone.
The fridge I'm interested in is a 25L Dometic which draws about 36 watts according to Amazon. Since the compressor will probably only be running/cooling 20 hours in a 24 hour period, 36 W × 20 hrs = 720 watt hours (Wh) And, since it's a 12V fridge, I did 720Wh ÷ 12V = 60 amp hours (Ah) So, altogether, each day the fridge should only be drawing roughly 60ah per day. I bought a 200W Solar Starter Kit from a company called Renogy, which is reputable and known for making high-quality, affordable solar kits. This is also where I purchased battery one and battery two, both deep-cycle hybrid GEL batteries capable of being discharged up to 50%. Any lower than that, and I risk damaging the battery or shortening its lifespan. The first battery is rated for 100ah, while the second is 200ah. Halving both of them gives me roughly 150 ah, which is double what I need for the fridge and plenty more for anything else I might need to charge throughout the day. HUGE disclaimer, I am a complete and utter electrical/solar novice, so anything I say here is just stuff I've learned from the World Wide Web. In short, take it with a grain of salt. I certainly am. With that in mind, I also purchased an inverter. Not just because there are things I want to charge that require 110AC power as opposed to 12V DC, but also because to my limited understanding, having an inverter charger means I can also use it to charge my batteries with shore power. Not that I'm going to do that. But it's nice to have the option. Since I didn't come up with all of this myself, here's a link to the video that started me off on the train of thought that, "Oh, hey, this looks easier than I thought!" Credit. Live.Life.Simple from Youtube. Summary: Solar Kit + Controller charger: $235 Battery one: $235 Battery two: 386.64 Inverter charger: $290 Fridge: $800 Total Cost (excluding wires, mounting material for solar panels): $1,947
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Author"To see the world. Things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, to draw closer, to find each other and feel. That is the purpose of life." Archives
November 2023
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