Off-Grid Car Camping 6 Month Update
It has been over six months now since I added a Delta 3 Plus to my off-grid car camping setup, so I thought I would give an update. I used Gemini to help me create an equipment diagram for it.This configuration might seem redundant, and it is. However, it is a deliberate strategy to spread out the load in case I get a stretch of bad weather where I really need to conserve energy. Even with the inefficiency inherent in using one box to charge another, even DC to DC, on paper this gave me an extra day of runtime, and in practice, it actually gave me two.It uses the 12V DC cigarette port on the back of the Delta 3 Plus to connect to the barrel port on the AC50S to charge it. Max input is 120 watts and this setup supplies around 100 watts.The AC50S starts to recharge around 97% and only reaches that once an hour, peaking at 100 watts then dropping to 40 to 50 watts after a few minutes and trickle charging till it is back to full, which takes about 15 minutes or so.This allows me to also keep the connections as a set and forget it, no need to make sure that each box is getting enough sun, it really is about the redundancy.All together I can last 5 days before having to fire up the SUV to charge the system that way. I have had this setup running 24/7 for months at a time. It hasn't come close to being a concern, except for two times where the redundancy I built into the system came in clutch during bad weather.I still plan to move over to induction cooking, and at times I have used an air fryer, but two things have to happen first. I need to add another panel, which is simple, but I also need at least another 100Ah of capacity to make sure I have the reserves so that I am not going into the night with anything less than 50% of my storage capacity.Also on the amounts in the diagram, those are maximum, and the actual loads are lower or are offset during the day due to the solar surplus, as can be seen in the app screenshots.