[OFB Cafe] Cool Electric Bike

[Derek Broughton]

On July 13, 2008 21:38:19 Chris Olson wrote:
> We'll have to compare some notes sometime on our setups.  My wife bought
> 106 acres of lakefront property last fall and I logged out a road and a
> nice spot to park our RV on the lake for the summer (it's our "lake home").
>  A few weeks ago I pulled the generator out of the RV and installed a deep
> cycle battery bank in its place, along with a 12 VDC -> 120 VAC power
> inverter, and a solar panel to keep the batteries charged.
>
> Our RV is the size of a small house (as far as electrical load) and so far
> it has worked extremely well.  We don't live there, but we spend a
> considerable amount of time there, and the RV has been completely power
> self-sufficient all summer.  We even got an HDTV in the RV, which we watch
> in the evenings sometimes and which draws quite a bit of power, and so far
> the solar panel keeps up with the load.  A good deal of our lighting in the
> RV is 12VDC florescent, which is quite power efficient, and all the AC
> light bulbs are energy efficient ones too.  One of these days, out of
> curiosity, I'll have to throw an ammeter on the various circuits in the RV
> to see what they actually draw when everything is lit, but I'm thinking
> we're in the (average) .5-.7 kW load when the RV is occupied. --

Propane fridge?  We figure on putting in about 500W more panels just to allow 
us to run an electric fridge.

My first year in this place, I lived off a 100W panel (but with minimal 
electrical needs - reading lights in my living room, a stereo, and my water 
pump), and I know a couple who have a weekend cottage that they run off a 
100W panel.  If you've got the battery capacity, and the sunlight (I dare say 
you get pretty well full advantage from the sun at this time of year), and 
you're only using it on weekends, you don't need a lot of panels for 
recharging during the period you're not there.  This is my bad period for 
sun.  I actually get more sunlight with the short day in January-February 
than I get in June-July, because of the fog at this time.  We might be coming 
out of that now...

Smart RVers put about 300W of panel on the roof with a hinge and a way to tilt 
them up at an appropriate angle when they stop.  If they tend to stop in 
Walmart parking lots, as so many do, they don't get electrical connections.
-- 
derek