Off-Grid Car Camping
I am semi-retired and now write for a site that covers the lithium industry, mining, and recycling. As long as I have a cell connection, I can work, so I lead a mostly nomadic life and have built a Cadillac Escalade as a camper. For the last two years, I have been using an older Bluetti with a 100-watt solar panel. It was kind of fine; it allowed me to keep things charged and run my 30L 12-volt fridge. But this winter, I was tired of the capacity angst and upgraded to a Delta 3 Plus with two more 100-watt panels.Typical 24 hours:Echo, tablets, phone, lights: 200WhFridge: 250Wh. On this, it is an old Indel B, and while working, the thermistor seems to fail every six months, but it works for now.Fan: I run this when it is warm for about 12 hours, 150WhBlanket: I run this when it is cold, 200-300WhTwo panels in parallel or series depending on my location and one panel just by itself, connected to the Delta 3 Plus with a 2 foot 10awg MC4 to XT60I cable.I end up around 30% by the time solar kicks in, which I average around 250W i have seen around 290 on high altitude cloud days with two of the panels in series, and get fully charged back up in no more than five hours, averaging four. I stayed with the smaller 100 watt panels since I can toss on the roof when traveling and no problem pulling them back off to layout around the camp. I was limited to about half that, or even a quarter, when it was cloudy and would struggle to keep the fridge running with the old system. And after a month using the Delta 3 Plus, I mostly set and forget it now.What I need to look into is adding more capacity and another panel so I can do more induction cooking, and a new fridge.