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Camping under canvas

Topic: Off grid electric set up

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Dioncrozier

via mobile 08/5/2022 at 11:42am
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Hi, just wondering if anyone has made a portable power unit before, for when at a site with no electric? I was thinking of using my camp trailer to house, a leisure battery, inverter and solar panel!?, just looking for tips from anybody that has done something similar. Cheers.

smiffa

via mobile 08/5/2022 at 10:29pm
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We’ve done this before, when we camped. When we did this we kept to 12V.

The centre piece is a 110Ah leisure battery, inside a standard plastic battery box. The box itself is quite customised with a bunch of stuff:
- Single plug on right for solar panel input.
- Two plugs in right for two boxes (see below).
- Isolators for solar and battery.
- 5V plug and switch for Outwell light.
- 12V socket for laptop and camera charger (also if needed an invertor).
- USB3 charger with volt meter.

Two 10 metre long cables with boxes on the end that had a 12V jack socket for a lamp and two USB ports - perfect for the bedroom. The length of cable meant it could be routed around the edge of the tent out of the way. The lamps were IKEA plastic lamps with the mains plug cut off and a 12V jack plug fitted. The bulbs are 12V SES from eBay.

Solar was a 60W briefcase from Photonic Universe. This charged the battery from our usage pretty much every day for two weeks during July/August.

Our usage was pretty much:
3 tablets
2 phones
1 laptop
1 DSLR camera
3 lights from dusk until midnight

For heat we coped with hot water bottles and a fire outside.

Cooking and hot was was gas.

If anything needed refrigeration then we bought bags of ice (£1 at the time) which kept things cool enough in a cool box or cooled beer down on in a bowl. Most fresh food like meat we bought on the day. I calculated I could not carry enough battery and solar capacity to run a fridge.

This worked so well for us we did it the following year on three camping trips even when we had a hookup as the distributed power was convenient. We now have a caravan which means we’re almost exclusively hookup now but on the odd occasion where we’re off grid then we work with just the 60W solar into the charge controller of the van and stick to 12V for most things apart from the fridge and cooking, which we use gas for.

I hope this helps you!

Dioncrozier

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That's great, thanks very much. I thought someone must've built something.

I have some food or thought now. Cheers

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