How to thrive on a non 240v site!
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Couldn’t agree more with your comment about previous articles in the mag being uninspiring! Spot on! They use the word ‘BASIC’ far to glibly - it just isn’t that! I don’t want and my wife certainly doesn’t want to be part of the “Bucket & Chuck It Brigade!!” and I’m afraid that that is the impression they give- I’m so pleased Rowena and the team have asked for this- it might make a few think and might save a few many hundreds of pounds as it has me.
It’s great to know that my rantings are appreciated somewhere Bakers!! Not everyone, as you can imagine, is so appreciative! Non EHU is rather like learning to swim for the first time- you just have to have faith in those armbands when you launch yourself for the first time. It’s the same with non EHU- you just have to have faith that the technology will work and I have to say, for me, it’s been fantastic. I had fears and doubts- “am I doing the right thing” bounced around my head whilst I was involved in fitting the kit needed but It’s opened up so much for me and the OH. The Lithium has taken us to another level. The more you’re offgrid, the more you’ll forget about an EHU. There is no doubt that the technology that has come through in the last 10 years has changed the game for caravanners and MHers. Embrace it and enjoy it- that’s what they made it for- to make our lives better- and the fact that it’s a hell of a lot cheaper is a massive bonus. Thanks for your kind words. I hope to write an article as you and David suggest.
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I had a word with Gary Martin in Editorial a couple of days ago regarding the article that Rowena has requested re offgrid caravanning. I told him that the use of ‘Back to Basics’ did very little for the substantive minority that now enjoy full facility caravanning even if they are in their own vans. He agreed and hopefully we will get an article that moves on from that mindset and will show folk just what is possible with the modern technologies.
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Hi Merv,
I have fitted a 200 watt SP with MPPT controller, 2 x LDF90 batteries and a 1500 watt inverter. I fitted a Victron BMV 712 battery monitor with shunt. However what concern me currently is that at this time of year, the solar panel is not able to fully charge the batteries up each day.
Am I missing something?
Thanks in anticipation
Stevo
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Steve, my 100w SP keeps my 2 X 95ah leisure battery and vehicle battery all full, with the van on the drive.
my first check would be to make sure you are getting a raised voltage at the leisure batteries....easy with a volt meter in sunshine....
also, it's possible there may be some sort of draw on the batteries you dont know about...
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My panels are only just about kicking out 13.5v at mid-day sunshine at the moment. The sun is so low in the sky and not helped by the fact that the panels are, of course, horizontal. This time of the year they aren't going to replenish any significant drain I would have thought no matter how sophisticated your setup.
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Thanks for the comments guys,
If I shut the system down (sargent black button) there is no drain, but with the system live I'm drawing around 1 amp (alarm, victron mppt, shunt etc) When the sun is out I can see that charge is going into the batteries. Currently the caravan (swift Conqueror 480 2015) is at home so I can monitor everything via bluetooth using the Victron APP, which I must say is brilliant.
The inverter is switched off and when on only runs 1 x mains socket, this is for camera battery charging and the "OH" 1200 watt hair dryer to be used for 4 minutes max!! every second day. Suggestions of crew cut didn't go down well!!
What was concerning me was that if we were away and actually using power, lighting, Alde pump etc, I'm not convinced I can keep the batteries going. I have fitted both batteries in parallel and uprated the cables to 200 amps. My next task is to uprate the 12 volt feeds to the battery/fridge from the 13 pin socket which is woefully under specced!!
I have also purchased a safefill bottle, but not used it in anger as yet.
Just now need to find a list of wild camping sites available for caravans both in the UK and france.
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https://www.campercontact.com/en/default.aspx?fromsso=1
https://www.campingcar-infos.com/
That should keep you going.
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as CY says, even though our systems can keep our MH fully charged (incl alarm, immobiliser etc) it doesn't mean we can camp off grid for days on end.
at this time of the year, that will be very hard...hair dryers a no no..
of course, MH can replenish batteries by travelling...
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yes they do, but MH tend to move a little more often than caravanners, in general.
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as maybe, but only a proportion of UK MHers...
there are many others using different forms of stopovers who move on much more quickly than those on CC sites.
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Try using non-EHU CLs. There’s no need to use lay-bys. 😀
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I posted this somewhere else, but these were my results in the last weekend of November
I had my 150w roofmounted supplemented with a 40w freestanding and this on Friday put a grand total of 3. 3Ah into the battery. Sunday it was sunny and on occasions it was putting over 4amps into the battery.
It’s worth saying that the 40W panel was putting at least as much into the batteries ( 2x 90 LFB ). To be honest a roof mounted panel does very little time of the year. Despite all this we survived 3 night’s easily and used the motor mover to get us off the pitch. I then would have expected that the batteries would have recovered over the time in storage. But when we used it last weekend the batteries were down at 11.4v, This was due to opperator error, I had left the relay I use for the mover energised, and that was enough to flatten the battery.
By contrast to the poor performance this time of year. I have seen more than 9amps going into the batteries, just from the roof panel. Normally in the summer by the time the solar panel could reach full output the battery is fully charged so the output is not needed. In December my roof panel is only putting anything into the battery between 9 30 - 2 30 outside of these times the sun is too low in the sky.
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Same decision here. We've yet to try a long stretch, but for 5 nights with a solar panel everything worked fine and showed no signs of being unhappy.
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