New neibough in the park has a very large solar system on their van. It has a 1.2kw system, How you may ask, well the top of the van is totally covered in panels. They have a normal househosld fridge as their main power use running on on invertor. The house batteries sit on the drawbar and consist of 2 volt cells wired in series. each cell is about 200mm wide by 70oddmm thick and about 300mm high. They have said they can free camp indefenent as long as they have a water source..
cheer
blaze
Gerty Dancer said
10:12 AM Oct 29, 2011
Have you asked them how much the whole set-up weighs??? And the fridge would add to the van weight too.
Ma said
10:24 AM Oct 29, 2011
Just on a first reading Blaze it seems like a bit of overkill to have that many panels but then I'm not savvy with all that sort of thing.
blaze said
10:45 AM Oct 29, 2011
Seems a bit overkill to me to ma but it was set up like that when he purchased it. The weight of the van is 3000kg, my main concern would be weight of the panels on the supporting structure. This chap and his wife have towed it up north for the dry and then south for the summer for the last 3 years. They sell lavander products at markets etc cheers blaze
Elle on Wheels said
11:58 PM Oct 29, 2011
Blimey - that system would power a whole house - it's huge. Surely they would only need a fraction of that amount of power.
AmandaJayne said
11:43 AM Oct 30, 2011
A friend of our is doing up a large bus and has a system like that... but they wants to travel around according to work and take normal sized gear with them so they figured they'd need lots of power....
WOW now that is a BIG system, I really think that if our Government were really worried about the environment all new houses being built should be equipped with solar, I do think it is the sensible way to go, that is until we again have 40 days and 40 nights of rain, then we will all be in deep sh..t.
AmandaJayne said
01:33 PM Oct 30, 2011
more like candles, converstions over the dinner table and gas bottles to cook with.... not so sure that would be a bad thing... altho I have washed sheets in a bath tub before now and dont reccomend it but its doable....
jimricho said
06:38 PM Oct 30, 2011
Can't entirely disagree with the "overkill" comments. Would have cost mega dollars, and what for? To be able to boil an electric jug? To run fridges that are only half as efficient (litre for litre) as 12v units. Seems they may have given a lot of thought to the supply side of the equation and somewhat less to the demand side. At least the current owners didn't part with all that "hard-earned".
The previous owners did know what they were doing or were well advised when they selected two volt cells instead of trying to build up their battery capacity by cobbling a number of normal batteries together. Those cells usually have a long lifespan.
Did you count the cells to see whether they were running a 12v or 24v system? Charging a 12v battery bank of that size from a car's alternator would be a big ask.
-- Edited by jimricho on Sunday 30th of October 2011 06:43:04 PM
jimricho said
06:41 PM Oct 30, 2011
AmandaJayne wrote:
A friend of our is doing up a large bus and has a system like that... but they wants to travel around according to work and take normal sized gear with them so they figured they'd need lots of power....
The bus may have a 24v system which I think would be better than 12v when one gets into that league.
New neibough in the park has a very large solar system on their van. It has a 1.2kw system, How you may ask, well the top of the van is totally covered in panels. They have a normal househosld fridge as their main power use running on on invertor. The house batteries sit on the drawbar and consist of 2 volt cells wired in series. each cell is about 200mm wide by 70oddmm thick and about 300mm high. They have said they can free camp indefenent as long as they have a water source..
cheer
blaze
Just on a first reading Blaze it seems like a bit of overkill to have that many panels but then I'm not savvy with all that sort of thing.
cheers
blaze
A friend of our is doing up a large bus and has a system like that... but they wants to travel around according to work and take normal sized gear with them so they figured they'd need lots of power....
What about this for a big sysyem
more like candles, converstions over the dinner table and gas bottles to cook with.... not so sure that would be a bad thing... altho I have washed sheets in a bath tub before now and dont reccomend it but its doable....
Can't entirely disagree with the "overkill" comments. Would have cost mega dollars, and what for? To be able to boil an electric jug? To run fridges that are only half as efficient (litre for litre) as 12v units. Seems they may have given a lot of thought to the supply side of the equation and somewhat less to the demand side. At least the current owners didn't part with all that "hard-earned".
The previous owners did know what they were doing or were well advised when they selected two volt cells instead of trying to build up their battery capacity by cobbling a number of normal batteries together. Those cells usually have a long lifespan.
Did you count the cells to see whether they were running a 12v or 24v system? Charging a 12v battery bank of that size from a car's alternator would be a big ask.
-- Edited by jimricho on Sunday 30th of October 2011 06:43:04 PM
The bus may have a 24v system which I think would be better than 12v when one gets into that league.