Back To Boondocking Basics – 8 Steps To Get You Into The Wild

Our boondocking site in the Alabama Hills is lit by a “Sierra Wave” after a stormy day

Although our caravanning  buddies are now gone and we’ve weathered the storm we’re still thinking about them. Lu and Terry, like most RVers had alot of preconceived fears about boondocking. Will my RV get stuck? Will I be able to make it on my water?  Will I stink? Do I need to wear a loincloth? Is it safe? This is not your regular park camping experience and I figured this would be a good intro to re-post some of the blogs I’ve already done on boondocking, plus answer a few more of those burning questions folks might have. So, here we go:

First of all a definition of boondocking as I see it. This means camping out in nature (in the “boonies”) with no fixed sites or campground. I consider this different from dry-camping (= camping in a campground with no hookups) and overnight “freebies” (= staying a night at Walmart or the likes). This is truly out there, in-the-wilds with nary a water spigot in sight

1/ How Do You Find A Boondocking Site?

Our site in the Alabama Hills took a trip to the BLM office and a bit of scouting

Many boondockers not surprisingly keep their “best” sites a secret, so you’ll have to do some legwork on your own. Most boondocking sites, often called “dispersed camping” are on public land typically either Forest Service or BLM land. You’ll find bits and pieces of info on spots from other people’s blogs, certain publications (e.g. Escapees Days End and Frugal Shunpikers), on websites (e.g. freecampsites.net), on online RV forums and by word of mouth, but the easiest thing to do is contact the local public lands office. The ranger there will have detailed maps and can usually give you the low-down on what’s open for camping, what the roads are like and how long you can stay there (most places have 14 day limits, but it can vary and there are even certain spots that allow seasonal long-term stays). I’ll usually start by contacting the local office and checking out the area on Google Earth. Then, since our RV is a very shall-we-say ample girl we’ll always unhook the toad and scout out the area in our car before bringing in “the beast”. Sometimes we’ll even plan to stay a few days at a nearby developed campground so we have more time to look around. Our main concerns are always access, a place to turn around and firmness of the site. As long as those 3 are good, we’re good to go.

2/ How Do You Stay Clean? Do You Get Stinky?

“I am ze locksmith of love, no?” Pepé Le Pew

We definitely practice good water conservation on the road but we DO wash when we’re boondocking even if it’s just a “sponge bath”, and since going no-poo my hair usually lasts a week before I need to clean it again. When we’re feeling generous we turn on our propane water heater and take a navy bath (much improved since we installed the new Oxygenetics shower head). So, do we get stinky? I guess it’s relative to who’s around you. I may not smell of the latest perfume and roses, but I’m usually presentable enough for government work and since this is the boonies I figure my charm will get me through and nobody much will mind (it worked for Pepé, n’est ce pas?)

3/ What Do You Do With Garbage?

Well believe it or not darlin’ we throw it in a garbage can! While in the RV we keep it enclosed in a bag and inside (either in the rig, in a downstairs bin or in the toad). Some folks will leave it outside, but I won’t do that since we’re usually boondocking in areas with wild animals and there’s no reason to entice them (plus in states with bears that’s illegal anyway). Then we’ll find somewhere during the day to throw it out. Most cities will have some kind of communal garbage dump, or you can find them by grocery stores, behind restaurants, near malls etc.

4/ How Do You Get Water? How Long Does It Last?

We love our handy little Coleman tank

We fill up our 100 gallon motorhome tank whenever we dump (most dump stations also offer potable water) and with basic water conservation management that’ll usually last us a good 2 weeks, more if we decide to stretch it. We also have a 5 gallon Coleman jug (many boondockers simply use empty milk cartons) and some backpack bladders that I’ll fill up wherever I see a good water spigot (e.g. at a campground, or gas station) and use for drinking, cooking & tea. If we wanted to get reaaaly serious we’d buy a separate bladder and 12V pump, but we’ve never needed one so far. Most public land has 14-day camping limit anyway.

5/ Where Do You Dump?

When “the beast” is ready to go we usually find a dump station using sanidumps.com (they have a phone & Ipad app too). Most campgrounds will have dumps available, usually for a small fee, plus some gas and truck stations will too. In certain states, even the rest areas have dump stations (often free!). We’ll refill our water tank when we dump as well.

6/ How Do You Manage Electricity?

We loooove our Xantrex battery monitor

The main thing to watch with typical RV deep-cycle batteries is to make sure they don’t go below ~50% discharge (typically ~12.1V) and recharge them when they do. This is one of those areas where you won’t really know how you do until you try it out. So, plan to have a way to test those batteries. Our first year boondocking we tested with a basic voltmeter and hydrometer (specific gravity tester), and recharged daily with our generator, but there are wonderful battery monitors such as Xantrex and TriMetric which will give you even more detail. Basic management like shutting off lights, staying away from electric heat and using bigger power-draws like your propane furnace sparingly will take you a long way to good electrical management. Also if you’re in colder temps you need to be aware of battery capacity loss. As you get more into boondocking you can consider LED lights (reduces your light draw by a factor of ~10) and even solar power (see below).

7/ What Do You Eat?

It’s tempting, oh yes it is…

Well despite being in the boonies (where the urge to don a loin-cloth and run with a spear in the wild DOES get rather tempting) we have a fridge, full kitchen, propane stove and propane oven so we cook the same gourmet meals we’d eat at home, which is perfect given we’re already home! So basically we cook food just like we’ve always done, even before our RVing days….and we loooove to cook. Our propane systems don’t draw any electricity and use very little propane so we can do anything from raw veggies to Indian curries, Thai delicacies and full multi-hour roasts. Paul has even been known to pull out his charcoal-powered smoker and go on an all-out, all-day smoking-in-the-boonies binge.

8/ Is It Safe?

Who needs weapons when you’ve got a viscious guard-dog on the case?

Alot of people never boondock because they worry about safety. Honestly I’ve always felt more unsafe in big cities than I have in the boonies. The chances that someone is driving around on BLM land looking for remote RVers to steal from is very, very slim (payback is not particularly high for this kind of thieving). We do know folks who “pack heat” -> we’re not among them and prefer something like wasp or bear spray instead, but if you do go that route train yourself well and know the law for carrying in all the states. We do lock the RV when we’re gone and try not to leave anything tooooo enticing outside the rig, but other than that we’re pretty relaxed. And wildlife? Well if you can hike, you can camp. Basic things like being aware of where you step, keeping garbage locked up and not letting the cats out to roam at night with the coyotes will keep you within bounds.

More Reading For the Boondocking Hungry:

• Boondocking Made Easy -> The Basics
• Boondocking Made Easy -> LED Lighting
• Going Water Green = Conserving Water On The Road
• Streching Your Tanks In The Boonies – Dumping And More…
• Lessons In Cold Weather Dry-Camping = Our Sierra Nevada Week-End

And For Those Considering Solar:

• RV Solar Part I – The Discovery Process
• RV Solar Part II – The Equipment
• RV Solar Part III – The Installation
• RV Solar Part IV – Panel Tilting & Winter Solar Optimization

Other Online Boondocking Resources:

• Escapees Days End Directory (you need to be member of Escapees)
• Frugal Shunpikers Guides To RV Boondocking
• FreeCampsites.Net
• Bureau Of Land Management
• US Forest Service

So, any burning questions I didn’t answer out there?

The Holey Story Part I -> Dreaming Of Football In The Boonies

The Holey Story begins....

We were out in the boonies…far out in the boonies….and Paul was daydreaming

“I have a dream” gushed Paul “a dream of football”

“ooooookay” I responded, trying my best to sound supportive. Clearly we’d been spending too much time out here and Paul was going nuts…but I thought it safest to humor him at this point.

“No, no, no”, he answered excitedly (and with a bit of crazy eye in his expression, I thought). “You don’t understand”. “My dream is to watch 3 football games in one day while boondocking and using the internet without draining the batteries…and I think we can do it” he chirped, skipping happily around the RV

Paul putters around tilting panels out in the AZ desert

Several things fell into place in my noggin at once. The fact that it was football season (that would be American Football for my European friends -> where they carry the ball, believe it or not), the fact that Paul had been doing covert solar calculations for several days, and the fact that he’d been grumbling about needing more Amps. At least he wasn’t going crazy…in the normal sense I mean.

As a fellow geek I was immediately interested. Not in the football, mind you, but in the concept of the usage plan. Paul explained that he wanted to watch 3 football games in a day (so, TV/satellite on) plus have the internet on all day (because knowing me well, he knew I would need something to do), plus normal boondocking usage….all fully supported by our solar system…and with the least extra expense. Now, that was an interesting problem, from a geek point of view.

It's a question of Amps, my dear Watson...

In order to fully understand the scale of this dream I’m going to throw some numbers at you. Those of you of technical persuasion will no doubt be gripped with excited interest at this point. For the rest of you, go ahead and skip to the bottom-bottom line at the end, and spend the rest of your day blissfully math-free until tomorrow’s post.

In numbers terms Paul’s dream was about a management of Amps that needed to follow the universal and oft-quoted rule of “what goes in must come out”. In this case our generation (from solar) would have to match what was going out (to usage). Ideally we wanted to end the day with fully charged batteries too, but that was what we in the business call a “stretch goal”.

The Generation Model

Panel tilting is very exciting stuff!

Our system has 600Watts of Solar Power. Using solar flux models (see our post on panel tilting HERE and the model HERE), Paul calculated the approx. solar generation we would expect in January in the SW desert with 45-degree tilt of the panels.

Approx. solar  flux in SW in Jan at 45-degrees tilt = 5.95 kWhours/m²
Our measured solar surface (6 total panels) = 6 x 0.78 = 4.68 m²
So, total expected generation on a sunny day = 5.95 x 4.68 = 27.85 kWhours

Our panels/system are ~10% effecient (this is very typical of solar systems in general. Panels only really convert ~10% of incoming flux)
So actual generation = 2.785 kWhours = 2,785 Watt Hours
This translates into ~232 Amp Hours (divide the above by 12V)

Bottom Line = We expect to generate ~232 Amps Hours of solar energy from our panels on a good, sunny day. Lots and lots of assumptions in here, but it’s a decent, simple start.

The Usage Model

Here’s where we get into the really fun stuff. We calculated our potential usage model, and backed it up with measurements done at night with our Xantrex LinkLITE monitor (LOVE that thing).

(i) Our Inverter is a Magnum ME2012
(ii) For TV/satellite we have Direct TV, a satellite dish on our roof and a Sharp Aquos 32-inch LCD TV
(iii) For internet we use a Verizon modem, MBR1000 Router, Wilson RV Antenna and Wilson amplifier (see our full set-up HERE).
(iv) We have 2 computers which each run ~3 Amps
(v) This is a “fudge factor” which includes anything else we might want to do during the day (e.g. run lights, a bit of microwave, a few hours of furnace etc.)

Bottom Line = In this usage model we expect to use ~360 Amp Hours in a full day (24 hours)

The Bottom-Bottom Line

If you put it all together this is what you get

Total Solar Generation in one day = 232 Amp Hours
Total Usage in one day = 360 Amp Hours
Total Drain on the Batteries = 232-360 = -128 Amp Hours

In search of Amps....

Now, that’s the number we wanted to be zero, ideally, and clearly we were WELL over. We have 440 Amp Hours of AGM batteries (=220 usable amp hours if you don’t go below 50% discharge, which should always be your goal with deep-cycle batteries) so we can handle the load, but it’s not where the dream wanted us to be. Clearly this needed some creative geek-thought, especially if we didn’t want to pay out the wazoo to get it done.

Coming Next -> The Final Chapter. How we solved the elusive 128 Amp Hour Gap….

RV Solar Part IV – Panel Tilting & Winter Solar Optimization

Paul and Alex go a-panel tilting

It’s been almost a year since we made the leap to solar on “the beast”. For those of you who missed the chair-gripping series I’ve got the whole exciting detail of how we decided what to buy and install in Part I (discovery), Part II (equipment) and Part III (installation). Since that time we’ve been geeking out and enjoying our panels through extensive dry-camping travels from FL to CA. I’m happy to say our panels have served us perfectly. On good sunny days we’re usually fully recharged on the batteries by noon plus the panels easily keep-up with our daytime power usage even if we’re on the internet all day. There’s honestly not much we’d change.

But there’s always an opportunity to geek out a little more. As days grow long and the sun sits lower in the sky we’ve started to think about winter solar optimization. Now solar panels actually like cooler temps (their output increases at lower temps), but they have a problem with angle which opens up all kinds of fun thoughts and experiments on tilting. And opportunities to blog, of course. So, here we go:

1/ Why Tilt Your Panels?

In winter the sun stays closer to the horizon

If you remember my lessons from last year, getting the best out of your solar system is all about minimizing loss. The same lesson applies to tilting too. The power density of a solar panel is always at its’ maximum when the solar panel is exactly perpendicular (at 90-degrees) to the sun. The further you get away from perpendicular the more power you lose and so the less power output you get. Since sun angle varies by both latitude and time of day that means your power output is varying all the time. So, how do you know what to do?

Well, in summer the sun will get pretty high in the sky and stays there for quite a few hours (as an example, here in Palm Springs it gets to ~70-degrees elevation) so your panel output will be pretty darn good even if they’re flat. However in winter everything changes -> the sun stays closer to the horizon (here it only rises to ~30-degrees) and your power output plummets. Sunearthtools.com has a really geeky cool page that’ll give you the exact angle of the sun any time of year for any direction and spot (just plug in your location):

Solar Diagram for Palm Springs, CA from Sunearthtools.com. The top line shows the sun angle in mid-summer, the bottom line for mid-winter.

How much of a deal is this, power-wise? In Palm Springs in summer you really don’t lose anything by keeping the panels flat whereas in winter you’ll lose more than 50% of your power output if you keep them flat. It’s HUGE!! To demonstrate this here’s another cool tool that’ll calculate daily flux (= an approximation of the total amount of energy hitting your panels) based on location, time of year and tilt.

2/ How Do You Tilt?

Our home-made tilt bars

The fanciest type of tilting systems are “sun trackers” that exactly track the sun all day long, but these are not exactly practical on a free-wheelin’ RV roof. Some RVers keep their panels mobile and just bring ‘em out to tilt/track the sun manually whenever they need them. With 6 heavy panels to lug around that wasn’t an option we wanted on our “beast” so it made a lot more sense for us to permanently attach the panels and look for other tilting options.

Our solution was to get the AM Solar mounts (highly recommend them, even if you aren’t going w/ AM Solar for the rest of their gear), and then add-on home-made tilting bars. Some basic 1/4″ aluminum stock from Home Depot cut to whatever length you want with holes drilled in (you can even drill multiple holes to have multiple tilt options). Combine with screw/nuts and you’re good to go!

3/ What’s The Best Tilting Angle?

If you’ve made it this far and manage to remember what we talked about in #1, then you know that what we’re looking for is to get your panels as close as possible to 90-degrees to the sun. The cool sunearthtools.com link will tell you what angle the sun gets to in your area, and some simple geometry will give you the optimal tilt angle:

At our current latitude and time of year we’re talking around 60 degrees tilt at noontime for best results. Now, obviously the sun moves diagonally across the sky during the day and rises/sets somewhat southerly in winter so that number doesn’t stay constant and the real (max. total energy) formula is a rather more complicated (the cool tool shows that). But if you face your RV East-West and tilt panels facing due south more or less at the 90-degree noon-spot you’ll get pretty darn close to getting the best out of the sun.

4/ Beware the Shadow Monster

See ma...NO panel shadows!

Tilting is just like everything in solar. You’ve got to make sure you avoid ALL shadows. Together with Marvin we were very particular when we installed our panels last year to make sure they had NO shadows from anything on the roof whether tilted or not, even with long winter shadows. I’ve seen shading models that show just 3% shading of a solar array can lead to a 25% decline in efficiency, with 10% shade producing up to 50% decline! The losses are dramatic and could mean the difference between a system that works and one that doesn’t. Even panels that have special “bypass diodes” (meant to help the shade problem) will suffer voltage loss for each cell shaded. Don’t be caught by the shadow monster!

5/ And Our Results Were….?

We conducted our little tilting experiment out in Owl Canyon BLM. Our tilt-bars only go to ~45-degrees so we knew we wouldn’t get optimal output, but we expected a pretty significant boost. Mid-morning with panels flat our 600W system was putting out ~20Amps. With the tilt we hit ~30 Amps, a 40% improvement. As the day wore on our boost got even better with the MPPT charger kicking up output to a stunning peak of~45 Amps at around noon (MPPT really shines with higher-voltage panels in colder temps). Coooool!

We plan to do even more detailed tracking experiments later this the winter and will undoubtedly share these exciting results with our readers, but for now this is a good start. There is also much more geekiness that can be done with solar so don’t expect to see the last of this sunny series.

RV Solar Part III – The Installation

Marvelous Marvin

So, we come at last to the final installment of our story, and appropriately so on the last day of the year. It’s the last hurrah, the chocolate treat, the final ray of sunshine on the panels…you get the drift. Having decided on our equipment and specs we needed to make the very critical choice of whether to do it ourselves or get help. We’re relatively handy, but not exactly overly-confident and the idea of drilling a hole in our RV roof was enough to send me into a mild panic. So, for our personal sanity we decided help was needed and as it so happens AM Solar knew a good installer (himself a full-timer) who was travelling through Florida while we were here.

And that’s how we met Marvin.

Now, I’m not one to beat about the bush so I’ll just come right out and say it -> Marvin was marvelous. Not only is he a very nice and down-to-earth guy, but he knows solar and the final workmanship was beautiful. So, I’m very happy he came along and am equally happy to recommend him to others (his website and blog is here: http://precisionrvmobile.com/ and he’s travelling West from FL through TX and onto Yuma, where he’ll land sometime in March 2011).

Marvin spent around a day and a half doing the installation itself and a few extra hours chatting and going over questions with us.  Since we didn’t do the install ourselves, I won’t go into all the nitty gritty, but I’ll point out some key points that made the installation work:

• Careful Placement of the Panels:
  

  Marvin and Paul placing the solar panels on the roof

  The panels were placed on the roof so as to ensure there were *no* shadows from any of the existing structures up there (e.g. aircon, antennas). Also, they were placed so that they can be tilted with *no* shadows. Both these things are critical to make sure you get all the power you can out of those babies. Remember even a teeny amount of shadow can kill your power by huge amounts.

• Short, Efficient Wiring: 
  

  General Overview of our Installation. We were able to get nicely short wire runs.

  Marvin did a lovely job of running lines from panels to the combiner box at the back of our roof. From that point it was a direct shot through the roof, down along our our back closet and into the floor to our back left storage bin where he installed the solar controller. The short & direct wiring job was the very reason we were able to stay within our voltage drop goals. Remember that the longer the wire, the more your loss and minimizing loss is what it’s all about

• Controller Located Close to the Batteries:
  

  Marvin installs the solar controller in the bin right next to our battery bank.

  Our solar controller is in the bin directly adjacent to our batteries which is as close as you can get without being in the same room. This very close placement was what allowed us to meet less than 1% voltage drop between the charger and the batteries….another critical loss point. Marvin routed all the wires through the bin wall and sealed the hole to make sure the battery compartment was kept isolated.  

• Attention to Details: Marvin did a very nice job of routing wires carefully, sheathing everything, sealing holes, tying up loose ends and so forth. The final job was very clean and workmanship nicely done.

The final panel placement. The slight shadow on the left is mine and the ones in the back from the trees.

To finish off our install project, the day after Marvin was gone and for a few days after we diligently measured voltage loss across the system. So far, so good. Everything indicates that we’re meeting our goals of 2% voltage drop from our panels to our controller and 1% drop from controller to batteries. 

Did we do everything perfectly? Probably not. Does our system rock? We certainly think so! We’ve been in partially shaded sites (for part of the day) so we haven’t pushed the system to it’s max yet or run the full amperage through the wires so there’s always room for more measurement and improvements. That’ll be a project for 2011 and we’ll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime I wish everyone a Happy New Year and a fulfilling and joyfull start to 2011. See ya’ all next year!

RV Solar Part II – The Equipment

So, following on from my gripping introduction to solar yesterday it’s time, with fanfare and fireworks (it IS almost New Year’s Eve after all), to reveal our choice of equipment. Every RV is different, so what we chose may not be right for your rig or your needs. Always, always take the time to figure out what’s right for you (true in life, love and general happiness, is it not?). So,  feel free to take our example as input, but definitely not as gospel

Going With 24V Panels

Our 100 Watt 24V Panels

I should start by saying that we decided to go with higher-voltage panels up-front and this, in turn, affected all our other equipment choices. The benefits of 24V panels are less loss through the system (using the water-hose analogy it’s like starting with a higher-pressure hose up-front) plus we liked the easier wiring and the current boosting capabilities it gave us (see below). It’s a slightly unusual choice and it is more costly. Most RVers choose 12V panels which require thicker wiring, but also give more open choice in controllers and panels. It’s a cost-benefit analysis and I would say you can get a solid solar system either way. In our case we’re geeks, and hubby had a decent year in the market so 24V was the way we decided to go…

Once we decided on 24V that immediately narrowed down our choice of vendors since not too many people offer a 24V panel that’ll fit comfortably on an RV roof. After much research we ended up going with a set of products from AM Solar, with an upgrade on wire-size and batteries. These guys only do RV solar (nothing else), have a good reputation, are all RVers themselves, are nice folks and above all were able to answer all our nit-picky questions. The final installation met our loss goals so we’re happy with the results. Here’s the full list:

1. 600Watts of 24Volt Solar Panels - We decided we wanted a pretty liberal power supply with 600 Watts of 24V panels, which led us in turn to 6 of the AM Solar RV100 series panels. We like the specs, warranty and format.
(Oct 2012 Update -> AM Solar has updated their line-up and now offer a  100W panel which is slightly shorter than the old RV100, plus some newer/niftier larger sizes. They no longer offer our exact 24V system, but all their panels are still “high voltage” so you’ll get the benefits. Check out their website for more info)

The Tristar Controller

2. Tristar MPPT 45 Controller (TS-MPPT-45) - Given our up-front choice for higher voltage panels, we needed a good controller that could handle the higher voltage input. MPPT controllers fit the bill and the Tristar 45 has good specs. It has all the charging profiles, including a custom setting, does temperature control and will actually sense and charge to the right voltage at the battery terminals using an external voltage sensor. This last feature is rather nifty since it makes sure you really get the right voltage exactly where you need it (= at the batteries) -> good stuff. Another nice feature of this controller is that if you generate more voltage than you need, it’ll convert that extra power into additional current going into your batteries (= a little boost for faster charging). Since we’re using higher voltage panels we should (hopefully) be able to take advantage of the boosting feature on a fairly regular basis.
(Oct 2012 Update – This is still one of the best controllers out there and has worked perfectly for our 600 Watt system. However, if we were to do it over we would probably choose the bigger Tristar 60 so we have space to expand our system size in the future)

3. AM Solar Tilt Mounts – We went ahead and chose the tilt mounts from AM Solar. We like the fact that they provide space under the panels and allow us to tilt when we need to.
(Oct 2012 Update – We love these mounts and would recommend them even if you decide to use a different company/installer. They make tilting super-easy)

4. Combiner Box – We decided to use a combiner box on the roof. So, each panel is wired individually on the roof, then they’re combined together in the box and a bigger wire goes from there to the controller. The bonus of this set-up is that you can use smaller wires on the roof, the wiring is easier/cleaner, plus you can easily add another panel down the line (if you ever need it).

Marine-grade wiring for the roof

4. Wire Upgrade - The standard system from AM Solar for the 24V panels use #10 marine-grade 90˚C wiring on the roof  and #8 wiring internally. Now, that may seem waaay too thin given what I wrote yesterday, but remember that 24V can run twice as long as 12V on the same wire for the same loss, plus we’re using a combiner box. We wanted to target ~2% voltage drop from panels to controller and ~1% drop from controller to batteries. So, we crunched the numbers using the wire tables I gave you yesterday and decided #10 was OK on the roof, but we needed to upgrade to the #6 wiring internally. That combo ended up working for the amount of wire we used in our install. For a home needing more wire you might need #8 externally and #4 internally and for a 12V system wired in series you might decide to use #4 everywhere -> it all depends on voltage, current and how far you’re running the wire. If I were doing this over for someone else I’d crunch the numbers specifically for their home.
(Oct 2012 Update -> AM Solar now offers #6,#4 and even #2 wiring for their systems and if we were to do it over we’d go with one of the bigger wire sizes, simply for the extra leeway. Bottom line is you can never go wrong w/ thicker wiring)

5. Lifeline AGM Batteries - We decided to upgrade our batteries to a bank of 4 Lifeline AGM 6V 220AH batteries (GPL-4CT). The AGMs will charge faster, and since they’re sealed there’s the bonus of no more maintenance. Lastly, since AGMs have really low internal resistance you can pile a lot more current into them -> that meshes nicely with the current boosting feature of our controller.
(Oct 2012 Update – Fabulous batteries! These have served us perfectly and we’d choose the same again)

Xantrex battery monitor

6. Xantrex LinkLIKTE Battery Monitor - This monitor hooks onto the batteries and tells you exactly how much power is either going either in or out of your battery bank. It’s definitely a geek-device and allows us to monitor exact usage from the batteries, something none of the other monitors we already have will do. If you’re just starting out on your solar quest and are looking for a device to tell you how much you’re using out in the boonies, this is the device that will do it for you.
(Oct 2012 Update – This is a great battery monitor and has served us well. We’d choose the same again)

Looking for another panel supplier? Here are some good, additional links on panel costs and suppliers around the US:

• Solar Panel Comparison Shopping – http://www.solardesigntool.com/compare-solar-panels-modules.html
• Solar Panel Prices – http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm

The final installation and measurement info comes next…..don’t go away…