How to stay longer off grid (compressor fridge).

Grianan

Grianan

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Our set up is …

PVC van
2 x lead acid leisure battery
1 x 120 solar panel

We can just about manage (UK summer/France October) 3 days off grid The 4th day depletes the battery too far.

Is there anything we could do without swapping fridge to absorber yo run off gas that would give us 5-6 days comfortably off grid?
 
Could you get more solar up there or even more battery? LiFePO4 batteries even the same nominal capacity would effectively double it as they can be taken much lower and being lighter they would not eat into payload.
 
In my opinion not much, you could add more solar but that's unlikely to give you what you want at this time of the year.
Our PVC had 200W of solar and two 95 Ah AGM batteries. Last October in the lakes we lasted just over two days, compressor fridge and diesel heating.
We go back to the lakes next week for a few days now with two 95Ah lithium batteries and it will be interesting to compare performance as weather conditions are expected to be similar i.e no sun and plenty of rain.
In the summer months with the obvious solar gain we had no problems off grid, infact the lowest reading at the start of each day was 78% of charge remaining and by mid afternoon they were fully charged.
Lithium is expensive and not for every one, if you spend most of your time on four star sites it's probably not necessary but if like us you like nothing better than camping in the middle of a field it totally changes the way you can off grid.
 
If you have space for more solar and if you can make it tiltable to the sun that will help a bit . And then theres either lithium batteries or a 3rd lead acid . Do you have a b2b installed? As you know im always off grid . Currently dont have a compressor fridge but it is planned for my vario build so im installing 500w tiltable solar , lithium batteries and a victron b2b in the hope that will suffice. Im not installing 240v as i never use it

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I run a compressor fridge all the time, have 300w solar on the roof and a folding 100w panel to supplement them. If I am not moving and solar harvesting is poor I get my generator out to top up with my mains chargers. I am in the van most of the year and almost exclusively off grid power wise

Edit: forgot to say I have 2x100ah Lifepo4 battery bank
 
Cheshirecat57 said:
Genny
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And? oP asked about options to extend their time off grid power, I gave the real world solution that works for me. I find it much better to run my small genny that my 2.7 turbo diesel when stationary for weeks at a time in poor/no solar harvesting conditions.
Maybe posting what works for you may be more useful to op?
 
nabsim said:
And? oP asked about options to extend their time off grid power, I gave the real world solution that works for me. I find it much better to run my small genny that my 2.7 turbo diesel when stationary for weeks at a time in poor/no solar harvesting conditions.
Maybe posting what works for you may be more useful to op?
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Yes
I was re enforcing the suggestion
 
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I took 'genny' as a suggestion as something else to use, not a criticism of your post nabsim.

A genny, whilst not seen as a good solution would ensure that they never rang out of power - you can add as much solar and battery power as you like but once it's depleted that's it so a small genny would give the backup needed. However I'd still whack another solar panel up there to start with as that will help a bit especially if they can manage up to 4 days now it could give the additional couple of days they want.

Another benefit of a genny (yes there are some benefits!) is that other items such as remoska, small oven, toaster etc could be run from it too if required.

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Grianan said:
Our set up is …

PVC van
2 x lead acid leisure battery
1 x 120 solar panel

We can just about manage (UK summer/France October) 3 days off grid The 4th day depletes the battery too far.

Is there anything we could do without swapping fridge to absorber yo run off gas that would give us 5-6 days comfortably off grid?
Click to expand...

You've actually done really well Liz to do 3-4 days off-grid without moving. Nicky and I would do 4-5 weeks away in our Globecar with your equivalent set-up albeit we used 2 x L36 EFB batteries and a spare AGM LA95 in the rear to power the 24" Avtex telly.

Adding more solar will only marginally help your power regeneration at this time of year so I reckon the only option is to take Martin's advice.

If we had kept the van then the purchase of Lithium batteries was next on the list - for certain!

I had to spend all of my time managing the batteries to prevent them from dropping below 12.2v which meant me driving lots with the occasional hook-up.

Now that we are moving into November then your set-up will really struggle like ours did.
 
Changing the fridge, it is probably possible but would mean a lot of work to get the gas piping to where it was needed, install the external vents etc, money that would be better spend on Lithium batteries IMV and probably the latter would cost less.
 
Do look at an under seat battery. My new 200 Ah lithium fitted. Under the passenger seat and was less wide than the 2 old AGM’s. Depth about 1 cm less and height at least 1 cm less. I chose KSEnergy - cracking guy Neal owns. £1200. Roamer do one cheaper but KS give a 10 year warranty.
 
Minxy Girl said:
Changing the fridge, it is probably possible but would mean a lot of work to get the gas piping to where it was needed, install the external vents etc, money that would be better spend on Lithium batteries IMV and probably the latter would cost less.
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Yep, lots of work and best avoided IMO. Just the idea of having the bodywork cut gives me the chills, lol.

Also, if Liz can achieve a suitable and seperate power supply set-up for the fridge then she can keep her precious gas for cooking and heating.
 
Wondering star said:
If I was off grid enjoying peace and solitude the last thing I would want is some inconsiderate neighbours starting up a generator.
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Agree which is why us considerate ones would use it only when necessary and not 'inflict' the noise on others.
 
We have 240 watts solar, 2x100ah AGM's, and a compressor fridge, now its Autumn I am not considering any site that doesn't have leccy.
 
Wondering star said:
If I was off grid enjoying peace and solitude the last thing I would want is some inconsiderate neighbours starting up a generator.
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For me personally I would never have a generator in conjunction with a PVC.

The storage of the generator and its fuel would probably be a PITA.
 
Northernraider said:
If you have space for more solar and if you can make it tiltable to the sun that will help a bit . And then theres either lithium batteries or a 3rd lead acid . Do you have a b2b installed? As you know im always off grid . Currently dont have a compressor fridge but it is planned for my vario build so im installing 500w tiltable solar , lithium batteries and a victron b2b in the hope that will suffice. Im not installing 240v as i never use it
Click to expand...
Thanks - no b2b at the moment … but that is something we could look at of changing batteries. I’m not really a ‘site’ person (although Collioure is an exception) much more comfortable on an aire …
 
Northernraider said:
If you have space for more solar and if you can make it tiltable to the sun that will help a bit . And then theres either lithium batteries or a 3rd lead acid . Do you have a b2b installed? As you know im always off grid . Currently dont have a compressor fridge but it is planned for my vario build so im installing 500w tiltable solar , lithium batteries and a victron b2b in the hope that will suffice. Im not installing 240v as i never use it
Click to expand...

That'll be one heck of a set-up there Tam. Nice one.

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nabsim said:
I run a compressor fridge all the time, have 300w solar on the roof and a folding 100w panel to supplement them. If I am not moving and solar harvesting is poor I get my generator out to top up with my mains chargers. I am in the van most of the year and almost exclusively off grid power wise

Edit: forgot to say I have 2x100ah Lifepo4 battery bank
Click to expand...

That sounds like a nice usable set-up. We also thought about the addition of a portable solar panel but it all came down to storage space.
 
I suspect it's probably not really a response that is helpful, but would it be worth considering changing the van to one that has a three-way absorption fridge / freezer fitted as standard?

Unless we are on a campsite, we generally tend to move on every day or couple of days - and even when staying somewhere with a hook-up, it's rarely more than three or four days before we get itchy feet and want to be on the road again. But appreciate everybody uses their vans differently.
 
Blue Knight said:
That'll be one heck of a set-up there Tam. Nice one.
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25% of the van build budget but hopefully not have to worry about power.
Heating was/is my biggest drain in winter hence fitting dual fuel heating in the new van.

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davidroxburgh said:
Do look at an under seat battery. My new 200 Ah lithium fitted. Under the passenger seat and was less wide than the 2 old AGM’s. Depth about 1 cm less and height at least 1 cm less. I chose KSEnergy - cracking guy Neal owns. £1200. Roamer do one cheaper but KS give a 10 year warranty.
Click to expand...
Looks a good option for when ours need replacing - which model battery do you have? Would be an easy, effective option to know it just fits in :)
EDIT Presume it's this one https://www.ksenergy.co.uk/blog/200...ttery-for-the-worlds-most-popular-van-chassis ?
 
Northernraider said:
25% of the van build budget but hopefully not have to worry about power.
Heating was/is my biggest drain in winter hence fitting dual fuel heating in the new van.
Click to expand...

You've done really well to future proof your power needs. There's nothing worse than being on the bones of your arse when it comes to the power availability in a MoHo.
 
Liz:

All you need is the Lithium set-up for now.

Keep the compressor fridge in situ as it's a very efficient unit that's easy to repair.

Keep your gas seperate for cooking and heating as gas too is a big commodity for off-grid camping.

Easy job :cool:
 
Thanks everyone! As Andrew says, I’m not sure I’d like a generator in the PVC so it looks as if another ir larger solar panel and swapping to Lithium would help as Martin suggests.
We usually only stop a couple of nights but I would happily have stayed on at Gruissan for another night. On our 4th night we were completely out (I know we shouldn’t).
In Scotland in summer sometimes we are struggling after 2 nights on current set up.
Really interested in an update from @wonderingstar after next week please!
 
I'm relay surprised you have manage to last that long off grid.
As you know we are in Spain at the moment so a lot more sunshine, fridge running on gas we have not been able to get the batteries above 90% with 300 Watts of solar.

Lithium is the best answer but expensive and not much point in fitting unless you have the means to charge them so you will need a lot more solar whatever you do.

Gel batteries would give you more useable power as you can take them to 80% DOD but they take longer to recharge as they need an absorbtion phase of several hours. But they don't suffer from premature failure if not fully recharged like ordinary flooded cells do.

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