New tent /camping battery...

[Happy Joe]

For many years I have been using DIY power stations (really since before the term was coined).
... have been drooling over Lithium batteries, for too many years
Recently Purchased a 100 AH LiFePo4 from reBel batteries (replacing a well used 35 AH SLA) along with a NOCO Genius 10 to provide grid related/ongoing charging... In the future I will likely go with some tent mounted solar panels, at least for long trips into the wilderness and near wilderness; in the past I have run with small, DIY folding, portable solar panels for trips longer than a week or so.

The primary purpose is to provide in tent lighting power and backup home lighting power, in case of power failure/outages.
So far I have found that inexpensive, small, chinese inverters work well and effeciently to provide 110 V AC for both camping and home lighting purposes... Modified (dirty) sine wave inverters seem to be very acceptable to both compact flourescent (old tech) and LED bulbs; the same bulbs are used both in my tents and home..

Since memorial day (the start of camping season) is fast approaching I mounted a duplicate of my old relable (modified) Harbor Freight inverter to the reBel Battery (I typically use self stick Velcro to temporarily mount things in projects). Since the first field trials will be short I see no/little need for recharging in the field.



Longer term I hope to get rid of the ice powered cooler and substitute a compressor style portable refrigerator (once I decide on a controller and portable solar panels).

Here is a pic of camping with the small tent interior with the old camping battery & inverter (under the table).


Enjoy!

 

[Substrate]

Awesome! I'm half-tempted to make that pic my background screen on the computer. Feels like I'm there.

There are many choices when choosing panels and charge controllers for camping - BUT there is a lot of trash out there too.

I'd recommend a GENASUN GV-10-LI-14.2V charge controller for your nominal 12v LFP batt. I balked at the price for years, but finally succumbed and last thing I need to be doing at the site is doublechecking all my SCC settings. It does a great job, and the CV voltage is perfect for this type of application.

When looking at panels, it can quickly become confusing. Should I drag around a heavy rigid panel or rigid foldable suitcase? Should I get flexible amorphous light weight panels for this? Do manufacturers not specify or try to hide the difference? Yes unfortunately.

I've done the rigid mono/polycrystalline panel thing like a purist, but it just became too involved humping those around, moving and aligning them so no shade goes across them. So for camping, I've been fond of amorphous flexible cells in weatherized linings that can be folded up. Amorphous flexible cells don't totally shut down when shade crosses them, so it means I can spend more time enjoying camping, rather than babysitting my rigid panels.

In the past, I've always used PowerFilm foldable stuff. But wow you pay for that quality. Lately I've seen up to about 60 watt panels that are amorphous that are much less expensive, and then the same manufacturer steps up to 80 watt and above but are using basically mono / polycrystalline scraps. Which I don't want to babysit for shadows!

Just a heads up. Lotsa' trash out there. Tend to spend a little more up front, rather than buy a disappointing product twice, know what I mean? Hence the props for Genasun.

 

[Baughb]

I put a set up like yours in the "Show and Tell". Check it out if it helps

 

[Substrate]

Nice. Taking a little break from a contest. Funny to think about the rough equivalent of lead-acid and not taking it below 50% so, that meant getting some muscles humping around a 200ah agm on a large hand truck..

 

[AstroBob]

I have a rebel 50ah battery myself. I keep it in an battery box with onboad fuses and 12V ports. Just out of curiosity, why would you want to mount solar panels to your tent? "In the future I will likely go with some tent mounted solar panels".

 

[jpcjtrtj]

Slap a $20 20 amp charge controller on top of that and run it out to a $85 Rich 100 W solar panel or two lying on the ground and you have a cheap small sustainable resource for a few days.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MU0WMGT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/Richsolar-Polycrystalline-Efficiency-Module-Marine/dp/B07DNP14JY