Beginning the Green Conversion of the Beaver Lodge
Welcome to our first Parachuting Beaver update! There are two big challenges on our plate currently... one is that we have to get the Beaver Lodge up to spec., and the other is that we have to work on training. Both are going to be projects that we work on until the day that we leave, so be sure to check back to see all the things that we get into. Also, always feel welcome to leave comments on the page or contact us as we love hearing from all of our readers.
So first things first. If you don't have somewhere to live, training is all for naught. So here is the Beaver Lodge. It is a 21' 2001 Phoenix Cruiser motor home. I will get into the training tomorrow so tune in then.
This company is located in Elkhart, Indiana and builds its motor homes in the USA. We are so happy to drive an American-made product. If you love it, you can click on the picture above to see some more modern versions of our home.
Our first big challenge is to order and install solar panels and deep cycle batteries. Let me just say selecting Solar Panels is not for the weak of heart. You really have to know what your lifestyle expectations are going to be. As an example, do you need to play XBox or PS4 every night? Do you need a TV? Will you run the microwave for every meal? Then you need to match this with the average solar output for the areas that you will be in. For instance, are you going to be in Florida, or Pennsylvania or Alaska for most of your trip?... or, like us, will you be from Canada to Panama?! Good efficient solar panels are expensive so you really want to have just enough. Too many are a waste because your batteries will be fully charged and unable to hold additional charge, and too few will leave you in the dark or running your batteries lower than the advised Depth of Discharge (DOD) mark.
Once you have decided on your electricity needs, record the Amperage, Voltage and daily use. You really want to get a good online calculator to help you decide on your panels. The one that we settled on can be found here. It helped me to feel that choosing two 100 Watt panels was the right choice. (Just click on the Solar Sizing calculator picture.)
Now that you feel confident that you are really learning something, you next need to choose the type of panel that you will buy... Did you know that there was more than one type? I really did not before I started to get into this process. So I will not bore you (TLDR) with how we came up with our final panel choice, but I can say that the people at Renogy are very helpful. Here is the system that we ultimately selected.
It is a Renogy 200 Watt 12 Volt Solar Starter Kit w/ MPPT Charge Controller. The one thing that I will get into a little is the Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT). You have to decide if this is an option that you want, because it is more expensive but more efficient at charging. Additionally, this controller will allow us to add a third panel if we decide to. MPPT is a DC to DC converter. It works to optimize the electronic match between your photovoltaic array (Solar panels) and the battery bank that you have selected. To put it more simply, the MPPT converts the higher voltage DC output from your photovoltaic array to the lower voltage that is needed to charge your batteries. I know that the word optimize is nebulous, but for me to explain that would take many paragraphs and math algorithms to do the explanation justice. If you are really interested in this part, as I was, you can just Google it. There are so many articles, especially in Google Scholar, that really go into detail.
So first hurdle down. Tomorrow we are going to look at our training to date... let me just preview by saying that Beaver One and Beaver Two think of training quite differently :)
