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This is super awesome! I do some overlanding/longer roadtrips in backcountry but have yet to gather the courage to install a solar system. Certainly bookmarking

by mym1990 5y ago

This is super awesome! I do some overlanding/longer roadtrips in backcountry but have yet to gather the courage to install a solar system. Certainly bookmarking this for future reference :D

Syonyk 5y ago
If you're going to do solar on an RV, you really should read Handy Bob Solar too [0]. The site formatting sucks, it's very much wall-o-text, and he's absolutely right in everything he says and rants about regarding RV solar. Far too many solar installers just treat a system as the entry to people coming back for more, when the problem is that they don't know enough to adjust it properly for the stuff that was installed in the first place. [0]: https://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/ https://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/ //EDIT: So, apparently, a site that's been static since 2011 and I've linked quite a lot over the years was updated again in 2020 with some ranting about Covid. You can safely ignore that, and read his older writings on solar installs, because just about everything he says about that is correct, at a "Spend five years hands on with solar and you'll eventually come to agree with him, no matter how loony he sounds about some of it when you start in."
- pengaru 5y ago
  - kortilla 5y ago
  - Syonyk 5y ago
    Read the rest about solar, I actually just grabbed it from my bookmarks and didn't realize he'd posted anything new since 2011. Ignore the first few posts and carry on reading his rants about solar, batteries, wire gauge, charge controller location, charging voltage, panel placement, shading, etc.
    - pengaru 5y ago
      - Syonyk 5y ago
        I've been dealing with an off grid solar office for 5+ years now. Year round power, heating (propane at times, candles/kerosene at others, electricity most of the time if I have the light), and have spent the bulk of this time in some esoteric backwaters communities on IRC with other people who do the same sort of thing. It's really, really hard to find people who have written accurately about solar on the internet. What he said about solar, RV installs, battery charging, etc, is all 100% accurate. He deals with the broken installs by the places that advertise that they know what they're doing. If you're willing to toss all that out based on more recent writings, it's your choice, but I try to judge writings based on their accuracy, not what I think about the person. You're entitled to judge writings however you want, but if you're considering off grid solar and write the guy's writings off, your loss.
        pengaru 5y ago
        How intelligent can the guy be when he's flagrantly demonstrating such flawed thinking? It calls into question everything he writes, full stop. Better things to do with my time and why give him more audience.
        csours 5y ago
        Intelligence has almost nothing to do with it. The whole 'rona thing has been very very stressful and many people have not reacted well to it. Scam artists have exploited this stress (as they always have and always will). Some people have been led astray and some are leading people astray, and some are both. At any rate, it is an impairment of gathering and processing information correctly, not intelligence. It's a filter problem. I had a really hard time with this too, after seeing how people I previously respected dealt with this whole thing. --- For what it's worth - I'm strongly in favor of people choosing to get vaccinated and masking up in public. I despise the people who made this a wedge issue for their own benefit. I also think that being self-righteous about it is very tempting but also very bad and destructive to discourse.
- cfn 5y ago
  Nice, someone with a non standard/officially approved opinion is a loony and is served with such epithets as "f*ck is with the antivax covid-hoax propaganda".
chrissnell 5y ago
I've driven something like 60,000 off-road miles since I bought my first truck in 2005. For overlanding, all you really need is a one big, high quality battery. The Odyssey PC2150 series are great batteries. Not cheap, but fantastic. It's very difficult to kill one. Also, you'd be surprised how little energy you actually use out there. A quality fridge-freezer like an Engel or ARB can be run for days before it will discharge the battery in a parked truck enough to not turn the starter. This scenario pretty much never happens, so get a good battery, a good fridge, and you'll be fine.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  Out of curiosity how far off grid do you go in your truck. That is, how far by distance and time are you away from the grid and stores? I know little about this stuff but am interested and would appreciate any helpful resources or videos you know of for a newbie. I’m interested from an overlanding / camping perspective but also a bug out vehicle perspective.
  - mym1990 5y ago
    This guy has a pretty awesome channel and you can probably rabbit hole from there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50wQBUX-Lbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50wQBUX-Lbs It is an interesting feeling when you are truly bugging out or off the grid, almost a primal kind of thing, because instances where self reliance is the only thing left is becoming less and less of an occurrence. If you ever go camping in the wilderness by yourself and set in for the night alone, you probably know the feeling!
  - chrissnell 5y ago
    There's only so far you can get off-grid in the USA. The most remote is probably the Owyhee Desert, which is centered around the intersection of Oregon, Nevada, and Idaho. Out there, you can easily go 80-100 miles off pavement, sometimes further. Another similarly remote place is the Arizona Strip, the portion of the state that lies north of the Grand Canyon. You access it from Utah and it's 95 miles from the outskirts of Hurricane, UT to SB Point, above the canyon. Generally, we stay out for about a week and half and come in to town every 2-3 days, mostly for gas. We run Engel fridge/freezers, which give you essentially unlimited cold drinks and the only real limitation is space for fresh food.

This is super awesome! I do some overlanding/longer roadtrips in backcountry but have yet to gather the courage to install a solar system. Certainly bookmarking this for future reference :D

Syonyk 5y ago

If you're going to do solar on an RV, you really should read Handy Bob Solar too [0]. The site formatting sucks, it's very much wall-o-text, and he's absolutely right in everything he says and rants about regarding RV solar. Far too many solar installers just treat a system as the entry to people coming back for more, when the problem is that they don't know enough to adjust it properly for the stuff that was installed in the first place. [0]: https://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/ https://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/ //EDIT: So, apparently, a site that's been static since 2011 and I've linked quite a lot over the years was updated again in 2020 with some ranting about Covid. You can safely ignore that, and read his older writings on solar installs, because just about everything he says about that is correct, at a "Spend five years hands on with solar and you'll eventually come to agree with him, no matter how loony he sounds about some of it when you start in."

pengaru 5y ago
- kortilla 5y ago
- Syonyk 5y ago
  Read the rest about solar, I actually just grabbed it from my bookmarks and didn't realize he'd posted anything new since 2011. Ignore the first few posts and carry on reading his rants about solar, batteries, wire gauge, charge controller location, charging voltage, panel placement, shading, etc.
  - pengaru 5y ago
    - Syonyk 5y ago
      I've been dealing with an off grid solar office for 5+ years now. Year round power, heating (propane at times, candles/kerosene at others, electricity most of the time if I have the light), and have spent the bulk of this time in some esoteric backwaters communities on IRC with other people who do the same sort of thing. It's really, really hard to find people who have written accurately about solar on the internet. What he said about solar, RV installs, battery charging, etc, is all 100% accurate. He deals with the broken installs by the places that advertise that they know what they're doing. If you're willing to toss all that out based on more recent writings, it's your choice, but I try to judge writings based on their accuracy, not what I think about the person. You're entitled to judge writings however you want, but if you're considering off grid solar and write the guy's writings off, your loss.
      - pengaru 5y ago
        How intelligent can the guy be when he's flagrantly demonstrating such flawed thinking? It calls into question everything he writes, full stop. Better things to do with my time and why give him more audience.
        csours 5y ago
        Intelligence has almost nothing to do with it. The whole 'rona thing has been very very stressful and many people have not reacted well to it. Scam artists have exploited this stress (as they always have and always will). Some people have been led astray and some are leading people astray, and some are both. At any rate, it is an impairment of gathering and processing information correctly, not intelligence. It's a filter problem. I had a really hard time with this too, after seeing how people I previously respected dealt with this whole thing. --- For what it's worth - I'm strongly in favor of people choosing to get vaccinated and masking up in public. I despise the people who made this a wedge issue for their own benefit. I also think that being self-righteous about it is very tempting but also very bad and destructive to discourse.
cfn 5y ago
Nice, someone with a non standard/officially approved opinion is a loony and is served with such epithets as "f*ck is with the antivax covid-hoax propaganda".

chrissnell 5y ago

I've driven something like 60,000 off-road miles since I bought my first truck in 2005. For overlanding, all you really need is a one big, high quality battery. The Odyssey PC2150 series are great batteries. Not cheap, but fantastic. It's very difficult to kill one. Also, you'd be surprised how little energy you actually use out there. A quality fridge-freezer like an Engel or ARB can be run for days before it will discharge the battery in a parked truck enough to not turn the starter. This scenario pretty much never happens, so get a good battery, a good fridge, and you'll be fine.

throwawaysea 5y ago
Out of curiosity how far off grid do you go in your truck. That is, how far by distance and time are you away from the grid and stores? I know little about this stuff but am interested and would appreciate any helpful resources or videos you know of for a newbie. I’m interested from an overlanding / camping perspective but also a bug out vehicle perspective.
- mym1990 5y ago
  This guy has a pretty awesome channel and you can probably rabbit hole from there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50wQBUX-Lbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50wQBUX-Lbs It is an interesting feeling when you are truly bugging out or off the grid, almost a primal kind of thing, because instances where self reliance is the only thing left is becoming less and less of an occurrence. If you ever go camping in the wilderness by yourself and set in for the night alone, you probably know the feeling!
- chrissnell 5y ago
  There's only so far you can get off-grid in the USA. The most remote is probably the Owyhee Desert, which is centered around the intersection of Oregon, Nevada, and Idaho. Out there, you can easily go 80-100 miles off pavement, sometimes further. Another similarly remote place is the Arizona Strip, the portion of the state that lies north of the Grand Canyon. You access it from Utah and it's 95 miles from the outskirts of Hurricane, UT to SB Point, above the canyon. Generally, we stay out for about a week and half and come in to town every 2-3 days, mostly for gas. We run Engel fridge/freezers, which give you essentially unlimited cold drinks and the only real limitation is space for fresh food.