Solar panel

[Adam Borchardt]

So I have a 100w panel that charges my optima. Current optima works great. I can run the 100w solar panel with an article fridge for 4 days no problem in the summer. I'm going to burning man and I'm thinking of running two fridges. I have done it in the past woth one solar panel but I filled the beer fridge with ice. I'm wondering if anyone has bought the marebeo or something like that solar panel combo and I'd connect the two color panels to run the fridge. Or one on solar panel charges the battery generator and one charges the jeep battery. My question is if those batteries are any good. Perhaps connect the two solar panels together and getting more than I need for the jeep battery and running the fridges off that. Together woth the fridges I have it would be about 60 watts. Curious of anyone has done this setup?

 

[Dave in AZ]

Buy a kill a watt meter for $12. Plug in fridge, run in car in sun at same temperature for 24 hrs, get actual reading.

All else flows from that. 60 watt an hour? Thats 1440 Watt-hrs a day. A 100W panel will give maaayyybe 70w for 5 hrs a day, 350W. Leaving 1090 to be made up. A 100Ah 12v battery has 1280 Watt-hrs, about 1100 usable. You need to bring one of those batteries for each day there.

 

[LostWoods]

A 100Ah 12v battery has 1280 Watt-hrs, about 1100 usable. You need to bring one of those batteries for each day there.

Correct for lithium but Optima is AGM and you shouldn't be going below 50% under normal use for optimal life. You can dip lower in an emergency but too often will reduce the total cycles available to you. This is why lithium is so good... for any given capacity target you're talking half the space and a third of the total weight compared to AGM.