What else does your ‘Vehicle Mounted System’ do for you?

[richard cabesa]

So I think that most to this section are RV based Solar enthusiasts.

What else other than your RV travels does your investment In Solar do for you?

Mine?

Powers our second refrigerator 24/7/365

A cord to the garage to charge e-bikes and power small tools

what else?

 

[pollenface]

Powers all electrical needs when away from home.

*cold beer
*charge phone/laptop
*run camping lights

 

[justinm001]

I live in the woods and my rv has a high idle consumption since we use it a lot, it's always ready for use, so it's plugged into my house all the time. I haven't found a way to have it prioritize solar so it's usually unused.

But I have it because it's a mobile power station. I'm in IT and if a client has a power outage or one of our data centers do I can just drive it there and have 20kwh of batteries then a 20kw genset to recharge if needed. Also starlink/tmobile/Verizon bonded together and 5 wifi APs with 2 of them able to run on mini powerstations and mesh off others. This let's us power an entire large office with temp internet without power.

We've used it to charge my daughters tesla and even when she's in town she just plugs into the RVs 50a buddy plug.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Only used for 3 seasons now but in summer the mobile solar system is available for cooking with an induction cooktop or small toaster oven, given that we want to lessen indoor cooking to avoid heating inside the house when it is hot.

 

[Rednecktek]

Boondocking for a week and a half with coffee maker, laptop (movies & music), and fridge was what I based my camper build around. Being able to run my welder or power tools in a pinch is just gravy.

Hoping I can get a projector and speaker system in the future...

 

[0truck0]

Save the expensiviest of foods when house power goes out for too long. I put food in the RV DC compressor fridge, which runs off solar.

 

[pollenface]

Boondocking for a week and a half with coffee maker, laptop (movies & music), and fridge was what I based my camper build around.

Sorry Australian here, is boondocking the same as camping?

 

[Rednecktek]

Sorry Australian here, is boondocking the same as camping?

Yeah, boondocking is what we call camping without any kind of infrastructure like power plugs or bathrooms or anything. I don't know what the people who only go to places with full power, water, and sewage hookups call it.

 

[scubadoo]

For the last 10 years of full-time travelling the solar energy fed to our LiFePO4 battery has managed to run everything in the motorhome from jug to induction cooker to fridge to toaster to Instant Pot to occasional water cylinder heating, started the 3.9l TD diesel engine a few thousand times, started other stranded vehicles more than a few times, charged other batteries and powered a few fellow traveller's electric drills, chainsaws etc.
Shore power connection is a rare occurrence.
Solar has served us well. The panel roof coverage may also have kept us a little cooler while the sun beats down?

 

[justinm001]

Yeah, boondocking is what we call camping without any kind of infrastructure like power plugs or bathrooms or anything. I don't know what the people who only go to places with full power, water, and sewage hookups call it.

Typically camping is with electric only or full hookups at like a campsite, boondocking is without. Most people who have a trailer or rv just go to campsites.

 

[justinm001]

Hoping I can get a projector and speaker system in the future...

Haven't found a good projector system. Newell has cool projectors that are inside but display on the window and with a special film work both inside and outside. Although it seems only works with the slides out.

I tried a 4k short throw projector but the brightness wasn't there and couldn't find a place to put it.

I saw all the transparent oled tvs and hoping they actually come out and aren't outrageous. Plan on putting those in front of a window or two then it's window when off and tv when on

For speakers I have a fancy yamaha receiver rx-a8a I put in my rig and it has XLR inputs and outputs. I have a couple large speakers I put in bays when wanting loud music outside. Also grab the 65in TV from my back wall and put it on the bay door. Worked pretty well when we were at an auction during the osu Michigan game. Had a decent crowd watching

 

[Scott SD]

I backfeed the power to my house almost everyday.

 

[HarryN]

For me, 3 things:
- I run my off grid workshop power tools from it (all are 120 vac )
- It is a backup for the refrigerators when the grid goes down
- For various reasons, sometimes it is just handier to plug into the power system in the explorer parked out front than to run the cord all the way to the garage.

With some modest cleverness, you can mount a few panels on the house in various directions to add some more power to the vehicle as needed.