McZippie, thanks a million man. I'm going to print your post out and try to wrap my head around it. I had no idea about the existing holes on the frame rails - excellent news!! :wings:
So if we're staying on a beach for a couple of nights, running an ARB fridge, lights at night, charging laptops, etc. do you think we'd need to go with a foldable solar setup at all, or will this system be okay? I figure for about $700 I can get the 62 setup and really send some juice to the battery bank. What do you think? Yes, I contemplated the hi-output alternator or small generator as well but I sure like the idea of a notebook-sized solar setup. Opinions?
Your rig is positively mouth-watering. Just called the wife and kids in here to see and they are as amazed as me. Wow!
The more I look at your Rig the more I like the orange!
When planning our Rig, went around and around on the whole solar stuff. Solar work best if camping in one spot for a while. We are more into touring rather than camping. We seldom camp for more than 2 nights in one location so solar would add little benefit. It's expensive and has very limited battery charging when compared to engine alternator and/or generator charging.
AGM battery tech is a game changer. Traditional batteries 'wet' (deep cycle/starting) are limited to a charge rate of 1/5 the amp hours of the battery bank. So a traditional wet 100 amp hour battery should be charged at 20 amps. AGM batteries can handle a charge rate of greater than the battery amp hour rating.
With AGMs we 'want' to design charging systems that have very high amp (fast) charging rather than very low amp (slow) with solar charging.
My Rigs 3 AGM battery bank have a total amp hour rating of 225 amps. Only half of that is usable to prevent damaging the batteries and then round it down more to compensate for the 80-90% charging rule to 100 'usable' amps hours.
If there was an alternator or battery charger that put out 500 amps continuously, my depleted AGM usable 100 amp battery bank 'could be' in theory, recharged in 12 minutes. With my rigs 265 amps alternators it takes about 1/2 hour, until the engine fast idle cuts off, indicating that my batteries are about 80-90% charged.
Traditional 'wet' batteries at 1/5 amp hour limit would take 5 hours to charge.
With Solar panel charging and all their dirty little secret inefficiencies, I won't even go into the math, but you'd be hard pressed with your roof full of solar panels, to recharge a depleted 100 amp hour battery bank in one day.
To answer your question, forget the solar, and up grade the battery bank to 3 AGMs and you'll be able to power 'your' usage for about 2+ days. Add in the after-market alternator and 'your' depleted 3 AGM battery bank will be recharged in about a 1/2 and hour.
You'll be amazed at the relatively low costs and how everything works in the background with no monitoring of batteries and also never have to worry about a dead batteries.
Tomorrow or later this week, I'll list source links for for all the battery charging gizmos and hardware.
