NTL1991
Advanced Member
I'll be installing a solar setup this coming week. While the initial setup is 200W, I plan to get that to 400-500W. I had a 100W setup on my Coleman Westlake and we could camp indefinitely as far as power was concerned. While the Hi-Lo has slightly more electrical consumers, I still expect to have a surplus of power with our light usage.
I was going through the Water Heater manual and saw that some units have 120V heating elements in addition to propane. I got to thinking... If/when I need to replace the water heater, I could go with a gas/electric model and swap out the 120V heating element and thermostat with a ~200W 12V version, and wire it up to the Solar setup. When the batteries are fully charged, I could use that waste PV power to passively heat water in the tank without using shore power or propane. According to some rough math, 150W would heat 6 gallons of water from 70 degrees to 100 degrees in under 3 hours. Definitely seems doable to me!
Just a thought...
-Nick
I was going through the Water Heater manual and saw that some units have 120V heating elements in addition to propane. I got to thinking... If/when I need to replace the water heater, I could go with a gas/electric model and swap out the 120V heating element and thermostat with a ~200W 12V version, and wire it up to the Solar setup. When the batteries are fully charged, I could use that waste PV power to passively heat water in the tank without using shore power or propane. According to some rough math, 150W would heat 6 gallons of water from 70 degrees to 100 degrees in under 3 hours. Definitely seems doable to me!
Just a thought...
-Nick
