Generator or Solar power

thankyou for that

you have just informed me of a few things that i didnt know.

ill start pricing them today.

perhaps i can run a long cord in the hope that i cant hear the noise whilst asleep

You have learnt what ?

. . that solar power is far more EFFICIENT than a petrol generator ?


Obviously new solar technology has some people unsure of their facts :-))

Just my thoughts.

Solar power is silent.
Solar power is cheap.
Solar power doesn't wear out.



Lynxxy,

Even if you can't hear the generator, you can safely bet that someone else will and not be too happy either.

A 100 watt solar panel (or combination of smaller ones) is still much cheaper than an inverter type generator. (aka Honda, Yamaha) which is what you would need in an attempt to keep some sort of peace at the camping grounds.

Go the solar panel option.

so you think i would need 100 watts...I priced the 20w solar panels and apparently it cost 240 dollars.

my friend who is a scientist told me that it causes more greenhouse gases to make a solar panel than what you could eva save if you used solar for you only form of electricity for all your life...

I heard they were as fragile as a pane of glass, and once they crack they are useless.

I also heard that replacing bits and pieces cost an arm an a leg and not covered by any warranty...

im thinking that huge tax on the greenhouse gas whilst they are being made must be why the govt hasnt forced us to have them installed....

Hi Lynxxy,

Making a generator also produces comparable amounts of greenhouse gases to making a solar panel but they continue to polute throughout their working life.

Solar panels are not fragile at all but are very robust. We build solar powered repeater trailers for mines and pipeline/rail work and have seen them aboslutely tortured. They will also work (although marginally less) when the glass has bleep tered - I have 2 in my workshop from a trailer that was hit by rock during blasting. They are however suceptable to moisture once the the glass is cracked which will corrode the cells.

Solar panels have between 20 and 25 years warranty. If the regulator fails you can connect the panel direct to the battery for charge (as long as you monitor periodically).

Most people carry the panels as opposed to fixing them to a van / camper as they can site them for optimum efficiency.

The 12V DC output from a generator is very poor and not a good source for charging batteries so a 240V AC charger is highly recomended.

Both types of charging sources have their place in a camping environment. I run both types (160W solar suitcase, 90W+60W Bifacial panel, Honda EU10i 1000W inverter generator and 2 x 30A 240V AC smart chargers for both the car and camper).

I prefer the genny as it is quicker and several other fellow campers can use it at the same time (when group camping alone). Also it is good for short trips where we drive for only a few hundred kms then setup overnight on a regular basis. I regularly use the the solar panels as well though if setup for a few days in the one spot.

You won't be disappointed either way as long as you size both systems according to your needs.

Regards
David

yeah that would be right

i know i saw a sign on moreton recently, but it was directed to those staying in the wreck camp site

i better check it out....

and what would you suggest?

and how much would this cost?

thanks for the information...i do appreciate it.

can I use my hairdryer/hair straightner with a generator...?

vuduguru,

what about one of those foam eskies? Wouldnt you need some holes for ventilation?

Yes, the simple choice of SOLAR POWER also allows the happy camper complete freedom from never having to worry about what 'State of Charge' his battery system is, he always knows it @ 100% State of Charge during the day.

Solar is working ALL day, when it's needed most, when the fridge is running hardest, for no added cost and no noise, no pollution and no problems in ANY National Park in Australia, it's not something you turn on when the battery gets down on charge each night.

Batteries will remain fully charged during the day - simply because an "efficient" Solar system keeps them FULLY CHARGED all day and the 12v battery power is ONLY used at night and then replaced again first thing in the morning - too easy.

As to cost, Regulator ~$250 + Panel ~$1,300 = $1,550 "MAXIMUM"
How much is a 'good' generator ? 800 or 900
Then you have to be there at the camp to turn it on and off, buy, store and put fuel in it.... too many hassles for far less battery performance.

Sorry to burst your bubble ..... but a solar panel is useless when you are all packed up & ready to leave the campsite at 6.00pm, then go to start the vehicle to hook up the camper trailer & ....... yep, flat battery.

30 minutes & a cup of coffee later, the generator had the vehicle started.

Solar ..... I have $2000 solar , my brother has $6000 , I run one 120 litre freezer , he runs two ~110 litres (Trailblazers) ...last year after a three days of overcast we were both forced onto my Kipor gennie .... either that or throw the fish out! We also have sat t.v etc in our off rd vans ..... a gennie will ALWAYS freeze your food ... Neighbours up from our camp had to run their 7.3 litre F truck to charge their van batteries - their solar wouldn't keep up , they refuse to have a gennie cause of the noise !!!!!!!

Shaker,

Sorry mate, but that would only happen if you were stupid enough to run a fridge, etc. from the one and only battery.

Not good practice.

A dual battery system of some kind is mandatory IMO.
Worst case scenario, if for some other reason, the starting battery dies, you have the option of using the auxiliary battery, even if it's a deep cycle, to start your vehicle and drive away.

Just common sense really.

Sand Man, don't try to judge my competence!

There are many ways that a battery can fail, I do have a dual battery set up, but because I hadn't run the generator or the vehicle the second battery was very low.

Now I have said this before ..... I camp in remote spots in the high country & Outback, I never camp near others, so if you want to infringe on my space & then can hear my generator ..... stiff bleep !

I too am an advocate of the humble gennie (Yammie 1000 Inverter type in my case). These are VERY quiet and as others have said, you can put them away behind a tree etc.

I have had mine for a couple of years now and I reckon I've only used it for about 30 hours in total. The reason for that is that we tend to travel to new destinations every few days. The twin camper batteries in the Ultimate will run everything for about 3 days, unless it's up in the 40 degree range ambient.

As such, when I do actually switch the gennie on, it is usually only for several hours during the day (when most people are usually either away at the beach etc or are making so much noise with kids running around etc that the gennie can't be heard anyway).

Like some others have said, we also tend to try to camp away from the masses......usually on 4WD club trips with other people whom we know very well. What I have found is that when it gets to the stage when I need to start the gennie for my own purposes, there are usually 2 or more others who need a bit of assistance in the power dept too. As such, I tend to carry a couple of extra cords and a power board or 2. This means that I can actually "endear" myself to the others by offering to charge their batteries or run their fridges for them etc...... They are usually VERY grateful for the assistance.

On other occasions there have been 3 or 4 of us in the one spot who each have a gennie. Rather than each one of us running our own gennie, we take it in turns and each person provides power for the others.

I can still remember the 1st time I used our Yammie down by the Murray River near Murray Bridge. It was a hot Xmas 2005 and we had cords running down to about 4 vehicles. I was running Pesty's 110 litre Waeco, Brew69's 50 litre Waeco, my own 2 Engles (40 litre and 80 litre upright) plus 3 battery chargers. Even then, Mrs Pesty had her afternoon nanny nap about 5 meters (or less) from where the gennie was running and she never even knew it was running.

On another trip to Cape York, we had daramas with another bloke's camper trailer starting to fall apart. Mate pulled out his 1kva Honda and a big muvva leccy drill he was carrying and we were able to drill the necessary holes and bolt the trailer back together. I recall us talking at the time about how useful a solar panel would have been to us there......I haven't seen a solar panel with a 3 pin socket as yet. (OK, OK, OK,,,,,, I know you can hook up an equally big muvva inverter to your big muvva DC battery and run the drill off that too; but it's not quite the same IMHO)

Solar panel/s would be very nice to have to supplement the dual battery and gennie set-up....but where do you draw the line as to how much stuff to cart about?

Also, to be efficient, AFAIK you need to keep the solar panels pointed towards the sun. This means hanging around camp all day to move the blasted things every hour or so (and also to stop them getting knocked off). On those rare occasions when I do use the gennie, it is usually only for 2 to 3 hours , say between 4 to 6 pm in the evening before everyone settles down for some quiet time when the distant hum of the gennie might be considered imposing on some dudes.

Just my 2 cents worth (ok more like 50 cents worth on this occasion)...hahaha

Miss-information abounds ……….

Shaker,
you have not burst my bubble, you have only given me the opportunity to correct your ‘post’
When you use a Solar system WITH a Solar Regulator, that's not an elcrappo Chinese knock-off of a decent product, I guarantee you will have a 100% FULLY CHARGED Aux battery system at 6.00pm each day, no compromise, no trouble and absolutely no doubt about it.

Therefore, if you have a “flat” CRANKING battery at 6.00pm you just start the vehicle off the Aux battery, only takes about 3 or 4 minutes to do, then you are soon going to where you want to go, not even time for a cup of coffee with solar holding the Aux battery at 100% fully charged most of the time and definitely all daylight hours.
Did I mention you use ‘jumper leads’ . . .


Lizard,
IMO both yours and your brothers battery systems must be way too small, and I suggest they are if they will NOT run your nominated accessories for 3 days, while CHARGED by a “quality” solar system.
If you believe the Solar system will not charge the battery, then can I suggest you that you were ‘sold’ an inefficient, inferior quality, elcrappo Solar system, by someone with-out any technical aptitude to know the limitations of the system.

Solar panels actually do work even in “overcast” conditions, well I will rephrase that statement, “quality” solar panels WILL still work in “overcast” conditions, maybe not 100% but even at only 50% you should have at least 8 Amps available from a $2,000 solar system (~200 Watts) and that is more than enough to run a Freezer!
As to the brothers $6,000 system, it should still give ‘megga’ Amps at only 50% capacity.
$6,000 would buy a ~800 watt Solar system, or well over 50 Amps.


Solar panels will still work laying horizontal on the roof of a bus, caravan or like mine on a vehicle, they just supply a few % less than full capacity, that is why you buy a few Watts more than you actually need, to rectify the situation, or move them around, I’m lazy and went for over specification.
Quality products will assist in maintaining battery charging performance.


Sorry guys if you think my reply is a bit ‘hard’ but I can only say what I believe to be correct.
I've installed many Solar systems and have never “over” sold a product, as I know of their vital importance in keeping the battery system fully charged when in the bush.

Can I ask what each system uses as it's solar regulator ?
If it was my system I would get the actual power output checked!

Shaker,

Hey good point.

Im with you....Why would anyone want to erect their tent next to me...usually the kids noise would make them move...now I can use the noise of the generator to clear them off as well.

One thing I will say about solar is they hold their value, when I sold all my Quality panels on my caravan as they could not keep up with what I was running, I did not lose much money. It allowed me to buy my first Honda and battery chargers and I have never looked back, the extra money needed for even more panels was not worth it when the genny and battery chargers do the job brilliantly for less money. Even run the genny in the annex when it is raining without a worry.

Wazzaaaa

Hi Mainy , I know our set ups are inefficient - the panels sit flat on the roof , we are not about to "chase the sun"with my 3 panels and his seven..... I get ~8 amps at 13:00 hrs , nth of WA from May->Sept .... there are only 6hrs of valuable sun any way . My brother peaks at 32 amps same period. I run two 12v 120 a.hr batteries , my brother runs 4 big 6v batteries . Obviously we are energy hungry when we camp for long periods at our 'spot'. Freezers , t.v , satellite , washing machines - they all suck it up . What I have been intersted is wind generators ... cause the wind seems to blow at least 12 hrs a day , sometimes more ....but these also appear to be expensive options . My research suggested to me that to GUARANTEE I would not be left ïn the lurch", geniie was the cheaper option. The other benefit is I can run air-con in van on hot days (or coldnights ) before any do-gooder says anything about that - some people have health issues that heat aggravates
Cheers

Hi Lizard,
I also was thinking Wind as I camp at the beach a lot and wind is is not in short supply. The one I was interested in is the Air-X Marine 12 Volt Wind Turbine it is rated at 400w at 28 mph and start up wind speed of 7 mph. It is self regulating and very quiet ,price in australia is about $1350 but I was looking at a us site that has it for $699 US and with the exchange rate at the moment it is looking attractive.
Wazzaaaa

wazzaaaa , bloke near where we camp had a wind generator (as well as solar) his comment to me was that he was disappointed in its performance - he reckoned it was more expensive per delivered watt than solar - and took some time setting mast up etc .... don't know what make it was ... I thought they would be good - especially as the wind sometimes blows all night & would top up batteries . Interestingly with all his gear he still had one of those Christie 12 volt battery chargers as back up (alternator etc) .

Hi Lizzard, as the generator and battery chargers work so well I am stil undecided as to spend the extra dollars for the wind turbine but it would be good to have the extra charge.
Wazzaaaaaa

Lizzard, what capacity (Wattage) are these three panels in total ? ? ?

Mainey , mine only total 200 watts (1*120 , 2*40)

lizard,
you say ""I get ~8 amps at 13:00 hrs , nth of WA from May->Sept .... there are only 6hrs of valuable sun any way""
The relevance of the term "8 Amps" is not stated, so I assume it's the maximum produced by the solar system, because it's in the centre of the peak time for solar captivity.

I also have only ~200 Watts, however I get ~12 Amps maximum, I have a pic showing 11.9 Amps on my 'rig pics' and the panel only lays horizontal on the roof rack.

As I say 'panels ain't panels' some work more efficiently than others, as to the hours, yes the 'peak sun hours' is short compared to 'daylight' hours, but the more efficient panels will work for much longer hours producing Amps, some of which is not even required.
I checked my system at 7.05 PM on the weekend and I was still producing 1.9 Amps, with only 0.8 Amps going to trickle charge the battery system, because it was fully charged and running a tv and the fridge, well the fridge was 'connected' but possibly not 'running' I don't remember.

Have you 'tested' the panels individually to see if they all work correctly ?

It seems to me that generators are taboo, yet nobody whines about Glind or Twine showers, or running vehicles to charge batteries.
I also wonder how many of the anti-gennie brigade allow their kids to ride mini bikes, or have their music cranked up to the max!

I think you will find in National Parks they are banned because of the risk of fire, not only the noise or the fumes associated with them.

Solar Panels are NOT environmentally friendly for the occasional camper.

Until you have used a Solar Panel every day for two years (730 days), the energy used to manuafacture the panel, exceeds the energy you draw from it (see US Dept of Environment website)

How much energy is required to manufacture and run a gennie.

Peter

Now that would be an interesting comparison , the actual $ energy cost of producing a solar panel compared to prducing a gen set and then actual $ costing over say a 20yr period and then the cost of disposal /recycling , bet that if a starting "budget" of $2000 for each system that at the end of 20yrs the solar system would "cost" less than 50% than a gen set up.

Yeah Mike.
You cannot talk along those lines unless you talk about the energy required to mine, refine, smelt, cast, machine, assemble pack ship etc the genny, and then the same with the fuel it burns......which goes on forever.

The only truly economic and friendly environmental solution is to use no power at all.

Second best solution is solar!
Cheers

Mike , have look at an article on page 123 of the latest CampertrailerAustralia magazine , a honda eu10i that has what they call a massive 12,796 hrs run time in a 5yr period is ready for the scrap heap , serviced every week ,oil+filters ect , a solar panel in the same 5 yrs would have racked up almost double the "run" time at 21,900 hrs at a Zero $ maintenance cost and still be good for another 15/20 years. Not only that but the genny would have used at the very minimum 3200lt of fuel ..

Nowhere did I compare a solar panel with a generator.

I was just pointing out that you are not helping the environment with non-polluting energy if you only use the solar panel occasionally.

Until you have used it more than two full years, you have paid the solar panel factory to use up more energy, compared with the amount of clean energy you have been getting from the solar panel.

Given the amount of energy required to manufacture, run, service and, eventually, dispose of a four wheel drive automobile I cannot help but feel any argument concerning the energy efficient merits of solar panels and generators used for a bit of camping is a heap of dingo's kidneys.

Mike Harding

Amen Mike.

I only use Solar power because it's far more efficient at keeping the 12v Storage battery system FULLY charged.

Check the Solar reg pics in my "members rig & profile" as all the proof required relevant to the performance of Solar power is available in those pictures to those who actually understand the fundamentals of electricity.

As to the problem of 'toxic waste' wonder what will they use to run the generator when oil is depleted in the (near) future ?

Hi Steve,

I have to agree with you here.


I am not bagging the solar panels but Im thinking they are a bit of a soft option and I dont want that. (not to mention there expense) I need something that will work and with a warranty. I sort of feel if something goes wrong with the generator then there are always Spare parts. Now which one the Honda or the Yamaha.

Honda or Yamaha??? Not a struck match between them in terms of weight, noise, fuel economy, output etc etc.

My suggestion is to buy whichever one you can get the cheapest deal on.......

Good luck and take care........

Want warranty and spare parts ?? what for ?? middle of nowhere and the genny breaks down pretty sure that the Honda / Yamaha service man will NOTcome out to fix it , nothing to break /wear out on a solar panel and no ongoing costs. $s per amp per 20+yrs use makes solar less than 10% of the cost of a genny for the same period.

Want warranty and spare parts ?? what for ?? middle of nowhere and the genny breaks down pretty sure that the Honda / Yamaha service man will NOT come out to fix it , nothing to break /wear out on a solar panel and no ongoing costs.

This argument may have credence if a solar panel was 100% un breakable.

I have 4 batteries charging off the car as I drive and the Gen Set is a back up.

Cheers Steve.

Steve , no a solar panel is not 100% unbreakable ,but they are a lot tougher than most people think , you have no doubt seen them stuck up on poles supplying power for phones ,pumps ect ect , HAIL the size of tennis balls doesn't break em ,

Steve, I've travelled hundreds of thousands of Klms since 1996 with a solar system on the roof rack, up and down the Gibb River road and some of the worst dirt tracks (roads) in Kakadu and to date have not had any problems with the solar system, they are capable of being used in this way if the roof rack is designed specifically to hold them.

You say "you have 4 batteries being charged by the Alternator as you drive" obviously you don't need any further assistance in charging these batteries, and it's good to read some people are prepared to set up a 12v power system capable of doing what's actually expected of it !!

Would seem that way , yet we all jump up and down saying we must conserve our resources /bush areas and then take /need all the comforts of home , my solar panels keep my beer cold and the icecream frozen.

Yep I agree the genny is the best, runs my grinder to sharpen the axe runs the micrawave, aircon, toaster oven, soldering iron, toaster, elec jug, hair dryer,elec drill if needed, tv, video, xbox, 3 waecos, 1 engle, elec frypan, as well as 2x 25amp 3 stage chargers to charge 4x100amp agm batterys with 2000w inverter for 24hr 240v in the caravan. After all a holiday is where you are comfortable so i'm told by my wife, so its bring all this or I don't get to go the beach and solar just does not cut it for my needs.
Wazzaaaa

Lynxxy,

Now you've decided on a generator, you need to start a new thread to see which one: a Yammy or Honda.

I'm sure the guys will all agree that......well, maybe not ;-)

It's fun really, though innit?