More finishing up today. Started on the batteries yesterday, here’s a shot of that:

Junk in the way on that shot, I’ll get another taken tomorrow after it’s all dressed right. Where that 2×2 is in front, there is a switch so I can switch to battery 1, battery 2, both batteries, or turn them both off. So, when I’m plugged in, either to the truck or 110VAC, I can have them both charge at the same time, then I can easily switch to whichever I want to use when I don’t have external power, and easily switch batteries when one is depleted. Cool!

The other project was the solar panels. Did a quick-and-dirty just to try it out, and here’s what that looks like:

I just placed it like that, and it was pushing 5.5 Amps. Turns out that was optimum! Tried all kinds of other angles, and they all produced less, from a little less to a lot. And don’t let ANYTHING shade ANY part of it, or it all goes away! I didn’t know that! I mean, cover up 5% of that panel, and you go from 5.5 Amps to about 0.38. YES, the difference really is that dramatic. They’ll have to be placed a bit high, so fences, grass, or other low things don’t cast a shadow on them. Of course, this is only one of the panels. The other one is waiting for the mounting to be done. Pictures when I have it figured out. But at least now I know that on a sunny day, I can get 11.0 Amps out of my two panels. That will EASILY charge what I lose overnight. Normally I use about 2 Amps, so that’s 48 Amp-Hours over a full 24 hour day. I can recoup that in under 5 hours of full sun! Just over 4, actually! Means we can stay out longer without hookups. National Forest, here we come! We should be able to do a week, easy, without breaking out the generators. Looking forward to it!