Thor Forums

[Lamokadave]

This is sort of a part 2 to my original thread "Another Solar Thread"
The new equipment includes 3- Renogy 100A 12v w blue tooth batteries, new LI BIM 225, and a new solar port to attach a portable solar panel with controller.
We dry camped at Roosevelt lake in AZ latitude similar to Phoenix with 4 near perfect days for solar use. We started at 100% SOC
We were positioned with unobstructed access to sun for the roof top twin 100w panels. Even so my portable Renogy 100W panel angled and positioned to face the sun produced the same power as the 2 combined stationary panels.
We produced on average approx 80 amps at 13.4v daily.
We used energy for fridge, toilet, under 1 hr of furnace usage ea morning, several hrs of moderate lighting, plus recharging personal electronics. Did run a C-Pap machine 1 night.
I did to run the genny for approx 1 hr ea AM to yield these results.
Results:
Using the battery BT to monitor battery levels both for SOC and charging rate I learned the following
Of the 80 amps produced by solar daily only 30 made it back into the batteries by end of the charging day. The fridge alone plus whatever parasitic loads exist ate the balance.
The stock converter only sends approx 12 - 15 amps into the batteries (surprising few)
With the conditions I described above, we lost a net 15 -20 % SOC daily.
The BIM did cycle as advertised and I observed a couple readings over 100 amps charging current.
Conclusions.
With favorable solar panel weather and exposure we need a minimum of 400w solar.
The stock converter is inadequate to recharge if the sun isn't cooperating.
A 2ndary device to monitor SOC, input vs output would be valuable.
Lithium batteries charge at a relatively low voltage. I expected to see 14.4v on my controllers but the never displayed above 13.5 except with converter charging at 13.7.
I plan to upgrade the power center, just need to decide what to install.
I will add some additional portable solar.