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Ok, it's not quite solar, but goes with the whole solar living thing - another thread mentioning charging up batteries in the morning from a generator, so a little background on my thinking...
This is kinda what I do sometimes, but in my case at night, in the hope they've got a decent charge in the morning to be topped up by solar (as the sun is up much earlier than me!
My current generator (4kva) or engine (6lt TD) burn a fair bit of fuel, so it's not very economic - lots more solar panels probably are relative to these. Doesn't help that the charger I did have, tested with my new multimeter showed about 3.5a and that was on the high setting! Now got a 3 stage 12a one to replace it (current batteries are sealed lead acid, so I believe I don't want to pumping too much through them.)
Had a look around and a small generator such as a 700w one will manage about 1/5th the fuel consumption of my current one. Found one I liked the look of, then checked in my work unit where a friend stores some stuff and he had the exact model. He said it was ok for me to give it a go, but unfortunately only making 14v AC at the moment!
I'll try and fix it short term; longer term I was wondering if there was any reason I couldn't connect up a fairly economical motorcycle engine (I was thinking CBR125 as it's watercooled and you can get them fairly cheaply now) to a largish 24v alternator with advanced regulator to get more power out and 3 stage charging?
So far it's generally DC I'm using with just the laptop being main use of AC. Wouldn't mind using microwave occasionally, but longer term plan is to get a chunkier inverter anyway (along with a smaller one for when just using the laptop.)
(Incidentally, car chargers don't work on my laptop
)
This is kinda what I do sometimes, but in my case at night, in the hope they've got a decent charge in the morning to be topped up by solar (as the sun is up much earlier than me!
My current generator (4kva) or engine (6lt TD) burn a fair bit of fuel, so it's not very economic - lots more solar panels probably are relative to these. Doesn't help that the charger I did have, tested with my new multimeter showed about 3.5a and that was on the high setting! Now got a 3 stage 12a one to replace it (current batteries are sealed lead acid, so I believe I don't want to pumping too much through them.)
Had a look around and a small generator such as a 700w one will manage about 1/5th the fuel consumption of my current one. Found one I liked the look of, then checked in my work unit where a friend stores some stuff and he had the exact model. He said it was ok for me to give it a go, but unfortunately only making 14v AC at the moment!
I'll try and fix it short term; longer term I was wondering if there was any reason I couldn't connect up a fairly economical motorcycle engine (I was thinking CBR125 as it's watercooled and you can get them fairly cheaply now) to a largish 24v alternator with advanced regulator to get more power out and 3 stage charging?
So far it's generally DC I'm using with just the laptop being main use of AC. Wouldn't mind using microwave occasionally, but longer term plan is to get a chunkier inverter anyway (along with a smaller one for when just using the laptop.)
(Incidentally, car chargers don't work on my laptop
)