21 Days in Southern Baja with Single Battery System, 52L ARB and 120watts solar
Happy to say the system worked perfectly! And that was good because my AntiGravity Lithium Jumpstart pack died 3 days into the trip- so, in effect, I had no self jump capabilities if my electrical needs (ARB Fridge and pumping tunes on the beach all day long) depleted my one and only battery.
Here's some photos to help tell the tale:
So here's my rig: CON KSO a 2007 4x4 Tundra with a Callen camper rigged to it. We take off every winter for southern Baja for 3 weeks of full-time camping. This is how we set up on the beach everyday- that's my friend on CON KSO's Aloha Deck and there's my ZAMP portable 120watt panel connected to CON KSO.
Here's our "home" setup- I've got an open air palapa scene that we use as our homebase- while at homebase (called Rancho Payaso) I set up the ZAMP panels every morning as soon as the sun shines. The ZAMP feeds a group 31 Diehard Platinum AGM 100amp/hour deep cycle battery- the battery was expensive (230 bucks) but it performed like a champ the whole time- it never died.
And here's the reason we do all this stuff- surf! And freedom- we tow a small trailer with two dirtbikes and rip around the beach exploring and collecting shells. In short: It's rad.
Here's the major draw on our solar system- an ARB 52L refrigerator. This thing is really, really cool- we did not buy a single bag of ice the entire three weeks we were down south. I had to troubleshoot a couple of electrical bugs (of my own making- I reversed the polarity on the plugs of an accessory 12v socket I rewired- wondered why my voltmeter said it was getting juice but the wouldn't run the 'frige... duh.) but once I got it figured out I ran the **** out of that ARB. I basically set it for -13 degrees celsius the whole time- I wanted to see what would happen if I maxed out the system. I wanted to know if I could kill the battery. Answer.... not even.
At -13 beer gets slushy.
We left San Diego with a full sleeve of frozen Costco hamburger patties, frozen meat balls, lunch meat, cheese and I made sure to keep it full with lots of beer. The ARB handled it all- and we found we could freeze water bottles in the thing- super cool!
Custom ARB stand can opener- I banged this stand together in about 20 minutes- it worked great.
This was one of the three info screens on the ZAMP system's charge controller. I have no idea what it means in terms of the health of my system but I can say that I drank cold beer all day long and bumped reggae tunes for all my beer drinking friends all day long and never had an issue with my battery. And, understand, I did this EVERYDAY for 21 days (well except while we were on the road driving- then I only drank a couple cold beers.... kidding).
So I'm satisfied with my system. I feel confident that given moderate power demands (ARB and car stereo) you can use a single battery (provided it's a large capacity 31 series- hopefully your vehicle can fit one) and a 120 watt solar system and still have lots of fun on the hot beaches of southern Baja- we sure did.
Happy to say the system worked perfectly! And that was good because my AntiGravity Lithium Jumpstart pack died 3 days into the trip- so, in effect, I had no self jump capabilities if my electrical needs (ARB Fridge and pumping tunes on the beach all day long) depleted my one and only battery.
Here's some photos to help tell the tale:
So here's my rig: CON KSO a 2007 4x4 Tundra with a Callen camper rigged to it. We take off every winter for southern Baja for 3 weeks of full-time camping. This is how we set up on the beach everyday- that's my friend on CON KSO's Aloha Deck and there's my ZAMP portable 120watt panel connected to CON KSO.
Here's our "home" setup- I've got an open air palapa scene that we use as our homebase- while at homebase (called Rancho Payaso) I set up the ZAMP panels every morning as soon as the sun shines. The ZAMP feeds a group 31 Diehard Platinum AGM 100amp/hour deep cycle battery- the battery was expensive (230 bucks) but it performed like a champ the whole time- it never died.
And here's the reason we do all this stuff- surf! And freedom- we tow a small trailer with two dirtbikes and rip around the beach exploring and collecting shells. In short: It's rad.
Here's the major draw on our solar system- an ARB 52L refrigerator. This thing is really, really cool- we did not buy a single bag of ice the entire three weeks we were down south. I had to troubleshoot a couple of electrical bugs (of my own making- I reversed the polarity on the plugs of an accessory 12v socket I rewired- wondered why my voltmeter said it was getting juice but the wouldn't run the 'frige... duh.) but once I got it figured out I ran the **** out of that ARB. I basically set it for -13 degrees celsius the whole time- I wanted to see what would happen if I maxed out the system. I wanted to know if I could kill the battery. Answer.... not even.
At -13 beer gets slushy.
We left San Diego with a full sleeve of frozen Costco hamburger patties, frozen meat balls, lunch meat, cheese and I made sure to keep it full with lots of beer. The ARB handled it all- and we found we could freeze water bottles in the thing- super cool!
Custom ARB stand can opener- I banged this stand together in about 20 minutes- it worked great.
This was one of the three info screens on the ZAMP system's charge controller. I have no idea what it means in terms of the health of my system but I can say that I drank cold beer all day long and bumped reggae tunes for all my beer drinking friends all day long and never had an issue with my battery. And, understand, I did this EVERYDAY for 21 days (well except while we were on the road driving- then I only drank a couple cold beers.... kidding).
So I'm satisfied with my system. I feel confident that given moderate power demands (ARB and car stereo) you can use a single battery (provided it's a large capacity 31 series- hopefully your vehicle can fit one) and a 120 watt solar system and still have lots of fun on the hot beaches of southern Baja- we sure did.
check out my link in my signature for maya, elwood, and my adventures! 