More engine stuff. It was built with too much calculating and not quite enough measuring and very tight deck height. Too tight so I removed, stripped and rebuilt with larger spacers under the barrels for peace of mind. Exhaust also replaced under warrenty after a large piece of plate was found rattling around inside. Now it's stashed away for a month or 2 waiting for a trip to rolling road after chap has recovered from a hip replacement.
Still farting about with the engine, but that's getting boring so... I got me one of these... And made a pair of roof bars for a 150W one of these... Now I won't have to remember to charge the leisure battery. The carport was too low when I got home though I'd been in with just the bars. Luckily it was just the timber at the end had rotted away so I stuffed a brick in to lift it back up.
The bay Of E A panel with 4m of wiring, a charge controller that does 3 stage battery charging that was recommended by @theBusmonkey and Bob's your uncle.
Absolutely @Pickles . It had some serious road testing last year with the 5 months we were away in Europe. 3 stage charging, auxiliary 12v output from the panels or battery for an accessory socket & well built. MPPT algorithm which actually uses all of the panel output plus integral battery monitor, all in all an excellent bit of kit. It was often able to get our 120 amp leisure battery onto a float charge with the panels we have.
I has about 20 watts when I finished installing it at 5pm. I'm looking forward to parking in the sun and see what happens at midday. I'm already thinking about updating the mounting so I can angle it any direction.
Do you just stick the solar panel roof rack on when you're parked up or does it stay on all the time?
@theBusmonkey can you let me know which one it was? Solar will be my next project after getting the bus back up and running
It's there for good, like your charger but I don't have to plug it in. 12V heaven hopefully. If not there's plenty of roof space to beef it up. More or less useless in the winter though, but I'm a fair weather camper mostly and I imagine it would still keep the battery happy while I'm not using it.
I hope so, it's rubbish when you buy a leisure battery, go camping, forget to put it on the charger, repeat once more and it's knackered. Then camp for the rest of the year with a knackered LB as a penance. Repeat each year. This would be my 4th year but enough is enough - this time the battery will live!!!! (I hope, because this gear isn't that cheap).
The other downside to having a buggered up leisure battery on the split charger is that for the first 10-20 miles it sucks on the starter battery before they both recover, so if you stop then it barely turns over. Always starts though.
