Solar Test, The Final Chapter

M/H,

Glad you find your's effective as well.

Cheers,

Jim.

Thanks Geoff,

As I've always said, just testing it to see if it works well for me and sharing that information, nothing more nothing less.

If a genny works better for someone else's purposes that is wonderful for them. I don't want to enter into a "this is better than that" debate. Too much of that on this forum.

As you've observed, it's about practical needs, I'd bleep can it if it didn't work, but it did. To my delight it did better than I'd hoped, that's a bonus.

Cheers,

Jim.

and then you can be the noisey pr*&k at the campground

Glenn,
You must've missed my post from Tuesday night.......these new gen sets are soooooooooooo quiet, Mrs Pesty was able to have an afternoon nap about 10 feet from where I had mine operating and wasn't even aware of it's operation.
We try never to camp near "strangers" (ie: people with whom we aren't already aquainted) and if we do by chance end up near such people, we would not use the gennie, despite only ever using it during the day.....never at night.
Sure, I'm a noisy pr!ck, but most my noise comes out of either end of my body!!! LOLOLOL

Stu,

What could be more simple than stick the thing out in the sun, move it at lunchtime and move it in the arvo.

Anyway, on a more important note; what feable excuse have you got for not turning up at Castlemaine? Lyn was trying to contact you to give you directions. We ran short of water to wash the dishes in and we could have used some of your SA dishwater beer ROFLMAO.

Cheers Mate,

Jim.

I need to make the GQ work a bit cooler mate.....got a scare the other day.......so need to get it sorted before a trip to mexico. I let bonz know.....who i think is going.

Stu, Al called and asked me to email the directions to you, Jimbo, do yoou know if the phones work there or where Al was when he runged me? I cant go now, due to sat phone problem - didnt turn up hahahahaha

PS. after a few beers mate u will be forgetting if its morning or arvo.....if u moved it 10 mins ago ar 2 hours ago.......then u will be saying.....geesh i wish i had a genny.......and i wish the vics didn't make such cr@p beer..........but i forgot jimbo....u are an Essendon man.....so u are used to crap footy teams lol

Stu,

We set the standard for beer making 50 years ago; you blokes are only just trying to catch up LOL.

And I feel a bit depressed about being a Bomber, 16 premierships and all that. ROFLMAO.

Cheers Mate,

Jim

Bonz,

The phones do not work there. Just leave a message and Lyn will get it when she goes to empty the dunny at Vaughn Springs. bleep ty job LOL. Al would have called you from work, he has had to leave at 5am every morning. So did Tab. Very unpleasant for the rest of us, getting woken up at that hour, rolling over and going back to sleep LOL. Felt very sorry for them (serious).

Cheers,

Jim.

Anyone trying to work out jimbo's age??????? well he has been drinking beer for 50 years,,,,,,,,add 50 to 18 and u get one grumpy old man lol,

yer! he's 47, some of them years just felt like 2 or 3. Anyone who puts as much effort into life as Jimbo has into his solar test has to be forgiven for his crap maths hahahahahaha

hl,
may I respectfully suggest you don't have a solar panel, as your statement of "The few amps the panel supplied would have contributed very little to the overall charge, (and also) I still stand by my assertion that a 64W panel is insufficient to run a fridge without frequently topping up the battery by other means" indicates your lack of knowledge on the subject (said nicely)!!!

(Quote) We are advised the Uni Solar 64 watt performed superbly. The car did get a bit of a drive each day, including a 2 hour trip. Conditions for Solar were pretty average, overcast a lot of the time and were camped in a treed valley which was only allowing decent access to the sun between 10 am and 6 pm.
Using the panel over 5 days, the worst battery reading gotten first thing in the morning was 12.42 volts. Gotta be good for battery life. (End Quote)

hl, you are suggesting the results are not accurate or true, thus bringing a fellow EO member's honesty into disrepute.... NOT NICE.

I for one stand behind the published results as I also use a solar system and believe the results to be realistic!

Mainey...

Anyway, my main concern is that some poor sucker will think a 64W panel is all that is required to keep them going in the wilderness.
And then find out far too late there is no way to cool the beer.
You wouldn't want that on your conscience, would you?

Jimbos 2 day test was heavily skewed as he started out with a cold fridge (fair enough) AND a frozen bottle of water (therein lies the problem)

If you fill a well insulated esky this way, it will also stay quite cool for a couple of days without drawing any power at all!

The real test would be:

Put say 10 cold stubbys in pre-cooled fridge.
Place fridge outside in shade.
Place rest of slab next to fridge
Place panel on ground, track the sun if you wish.
Start with fully charged battery (around 60 to 80 aH battery)
Have 2 cold ones for breakfast, replace with new ones from slab
Have 3 cold ones for lunch, replace with new ones from slab
Have 4 cold ones for dinner, replace with new ones from slab
do the same next day.
Note the time when you start giving them away to your pommie friend,
You will find this will happen well before the slab has been consumed.

Cheers
Happy New Year

hl,

Go back and read my posts.

It has done what I wanted it to do, NOT what YOU think it shouldn't be able to do. You made that first ridiculous statement that it would be flat by Saturday morning and haven't had much useful to say since.

I never said I was intending to find out if it would keep me going in the wilderness for time immemorial.

My aim was to find out if it would keep me going for a three day stop. It has and it will.

You finally lost it with the statement that a frozen 2 litre bottle will keep an esky cold for two days.

Brad,

I'll happily hand the title to you.

Dimensions are 1366 x 741 x 32. Quite big compared to a conventional panel. It is more robust than a conventional panel in that it has no glass. Also if it gets damaged it can be repaired with silicone whereas I believe (not 100% sure) a conventional panel is useless if you put a hole in it. Having said that, I wouldn't go doing the "Last Lager Waltz" on it.

Cheers,

Jim.