Ex Army Trailer

[Redemptioner]

Happy days mate, always a bonus when you can get away with not having to spend more cash on things that are not new toys

We swing a bunch of load off the camp battery (yes, f$%kn glampers), and normally don't get too concerned about setting up or relying on the solar, rather I tend to just use the battery bank in the jeep or disco to act as the charger when we get back to camp. Ensuring the battery can get a full charge from the jeep is needed, its a bonus that it also charges even when the jeep is not running is. It's pretty rare that we don't go out 4x4ing or fishing of a night so running the battery down in the jeep is a non-issue anyways as it gets a good charge multiple times a day. It means I can run a 20 meter lead off the jeep to the battery box and not have to suffer further voltage drop. I also like to take my trusty 12V constant box, it has 2x 15A step-up/down filtered regs in it that ensures I can take any voltage from 3-64v and get a steady 12v output irrelevant of the battery voltage. This has saved us so many times with people having old fridges and crappy batteries and is also great for hanging off the end of a long cable.

[Steve F]

Ended up deciding to buy a battery box and I'll add extra sockets etc to it. Already put a 50A circuit breaker on the posts on the box as there was nothing. I added a CTEK comfort indicator flush mount panel as well, lets me plug my CTEK charger in without having to connect with alligator clips, much neater. Next I'll added a couple of Anderson plugs a USB charging plug and one or two merit plug sockets so all bases are covered.





Cheers
Steve

[Steve F]

Got the battery box done and tested the solar. To do this I put my Ammeter in line with the solar and battery, since the battery was pretty much fully charged it only put 4.1A/H into the battery for the first minute or two and then dropped to maintenance mode where the regulator cycled from 0A/H to around 3.5A/H.

Anyway, happy with the setup now but will probably grab another fold out solar panel to go to a total of 240W which in full sun will push around 13A/H into the battery, that's enough to take it from flat (50% charge) to full in under 4 hours or a touch over 4 hours if the fridge is in use at the same time. Since Winter gives 5 to 6 hours of good sun (if it's sunny) 4 hours is a safe number.

Ammeter in line with solar, now fitted an isolator switch as well, it isolates everything but the CTEK charging port.



80w of solar doing a fine job, it's previously run my fridge for 3 days and kept the 66AH of battery in the Jeep fully charged with no problems.



Cheers
Steve

[Steve F]

Testing out the full solar farm (except for the 40w on the roof of the Jeep). All well and good having solar that will keep up on a sunny day but what about when it's overcast, or like today, raining. Well I got both panels out (total of 240W) and tried them out.





1.02A/H not bad and enough of a charge to give it a few extra days of running time, should stretch it out to 5 days running a fridge even if it's cloudy all the time.



Cheers
Steve

[indiedog]

Looks good Steve. What do your panels run at? 17v? I know these things are never 100% efficient but at that on a perfect day you should expect 14Amps. Not going to happen I know but possibly you may get 4 or 5 yeah?

[Steve F]

Originally Posted by indiedog

Looks good Steve. What do your panels run at? 17v? I know these things are never 100% efficient but at that on a perfect day you should expect 14Amps. Not going to happen I know but possibly you may get 4 or 5 yeah?

The 80W panel puts out just over 4 all by itself (measured), on a sunny day I should get more like 12A Yep, running at 17v.

If the sun is out tomorrow I'll put them out and grab a pick of the Ammeter reading.

Cheers
Steve

[Steve F]

Made a spare tyre carrier for the trailer, the tyre takes up too much room in the tub so made this. Welded to the draw bar and bolted to the tub (as the tub is removable)





Sits low enough.



Cheers
Steve