Solar for Camp TV

[Foxx]

What about taking receiver home with you , boot it up at home before going to camp and it should be good when you arrive. Our signal lasts week even with the generator running off and on and signal is still there.

[sawbill]

I was trying to get away from disconnecting the receiver every time as I already have o/b motor, gas, generator, fishing equip, chainsaw, food, coolers, and all that gear to be loaded that can't be left overtime at a camp.
Disconnecting is certainly the cheapest way to go but its a bit of a pain in the butt.

[Snowwalker]

OK, just so I understand: The 3 days run time you refer to is the time I will get out of the receiver while turned off, and being charged at the same time by the solar panel.
Once I go back to camp I can fire up the generator and fully charge the battery. I'll be away for a month holiday in Texas so I'll have to disconnect the receiver, bring it home and plug it in here. This make sense?

No what that means is that the battery has almost three times the amp/hrs that the receiver draws in a day. So if something happened to the charging system you would have about three days before the battery is 100% discharged. If the temp was below freezing not only would it be discharged but likely frozen too.

So you would to want to build in a little extra safety margin in the charge system for the days that the battery(ies) don't get a full charge. If you have a fair amount of wind you could always put up a wind turbine as you main power source and have the panels as backup...The wind blows for a lot more hours then the sun shines.

A 400 watt turbine operating for 12 hours would make up to 400 amp/hrs and if it ran for 24 that is 800 amp/hrs.

[Snowwalker]

therwise you will have to use a battery charger plugged into the generator. Alternatively you could probably use jumper cables off a running vehicle - perhaps Snowwalker could chime in on this as I am not sure if the charge rate would be problematic or not.

Jumpers to a vehicle is not a problem. Charger plug into genny is fine as long as charge current is not more then 10% to 15% of battery's amp/hr rate. For example a 54 amp/hr battery can be charged with 4 amp but not more then 6 amps. 10% of 54 is 5.4.

Also species you should never nominally discharge deep cycle batterys more then 50%. If you measure the voltage at the battery and it is below 12.2 it is at or very near 50% discharged.

[line052]

Also species you should never nominally discharge deep cycle batterys more then 50%. If you measure the voltage at the battery and it is below 12.2 it is at or very near 50% discharged.

This is very true about when a battery is discharged at 50% a lot of people do understand this when running of batteries. When a battery is discharged 50% it halves the discharge life (cycles) and shortens life of battery.

[Species8472]

Also species you should never nominally discharge deep cycle batterys more then 50%. If you measure the voltage at the battery and it is below 12.2 it is at or very near 50% discharged.

We never let the batteries get below 12.3. Also important to note that the voltage measurement needs to be open circuit or you will get a false number (high if charging and low if under load).

[Snowwalker]

We never let the batteries get below 12.3. Also important to note that the voltage measurement needs to be open circuit or you will get a false number (high if charging and low if under load).

Sawbill maybe is wishing he never opened this can of worms you know. Just wait till we start talking about voltage drop and conductor resistance by gauge. Couple months ago I had to buy 16 feet( eight feet per side) of 4/0 stranded wire to supply power from my batteries on the truck frame up into the cab to power my inverter and Ham Radios. I plan to add HF and VHF Amplifiers in the future so I included them into the choice of wire size.

I like to look at the voltage in the open circuit and under load. Seen times when the open circuit was a good 12.6 volts or better, but under load it drops to 12.0 or worse.

[Bushmoose]

Sawbill maybe is wishing he never opened this can of worms you know.

Never mind Sawbill, I'm getting dizzy reading all of this stuff! Excellent info though as I'm thinking of doing something similar at my cabin.

[Snowwalker]

Never mind Sawbill, I'm getting dizzy reading all of this stuff! Excellent info though as I'm thinking of doing something similar at my cabin.

Best advice I can give is if you have a cabin where you can put a turbine in a steady Breeze you will get a lot more power for your dollar. I know your up near the saut so an on shore breeze is possible. Just do not attach the turbine support to you cabin at anytime. You can attach it to a building you don't live or sleep in. The vibrations from the support pole/tower can be heard through the walls.

[Bushmoose]

Best advice I can give is if you have a cabin where you can put a turbine in a steady Breeze you will get a lot more power for your dollar. I know your up near the saut so an on shore breeze is possible. Just do not attach the turbine support to you cabin at anytime. You can attach it to a building you don't live or sleep in. The vibrations from the support pole/tower can be heard through the walls.

Wind, may well be a better option for my situation? The cabin/property is on a north facing slope with a lot of tall trees/bush behind? Winter months the sun is scarce? I've been doing a bit of research and reading your info is a big help.