solar power

[RoyBraddy]

The furnace blower fan is a 12VDC item and normally draws around 6-8 amps which is a hugh battery drain. Each automotive bulb you will have in your light fixtures draw around 1 AMP each. Your ceiling fixture usually have two bulbs in it... It all adds up pretty quick...

I always wanted to get a solar panel around 140WATTS to supplement my battery system upgrades so I could get the use of the sun light during the day to help keep the batteries charged up. Presently when I am camping off the power grid we can make the one day/night power drain off the batteries pretty good but have to re-charge again the next morning so we can do it all over again the next day/night battery run. Using the small solar panel during the daytime should really help us here and maybe I can go two days without recharging my battery bank.

It all takes a little planning. I have stated many times in my posts you just cant do one thing to be successful about it... Got to be a system plan to be successful... Just might get dark on you when you least expect it to without some pre-planning.

[McMonk]

jal, you're absolutely correct; the fridge (even when running on propane) takes a slight bit of electricity and the fan for the furnace certainly does as well. We camp throughout the winter and find that if we need to use the furnace it does draw quite a bit of power - but if we're careful we can still get 3 full days of camping in (and we don't have solar). Now...in the summer here there's no need for the furnace - no question we can pull 5 days off the battery no problem.