First I want to thank you for reading this post and I hope it will not be too much an inconvenience. I know I need to learn a lot more and hopefully I will in this forum.
Has anyone here built their system on the battery side first before getting the
solar panels? In my thinking I wonder if I can build my power shed first, install a battery bank (sized after finding a good spreadsheet calculator) and using the used 4 KW Onan RV generator I picked up on Craigslist a couple of years back to keep the batteries charged up. It seems I once read of some folks in the old days who never had
solar panels but used a China diesel system to charge up once or twice a week. Is there a way to tie the battery demand to auto-start the generator when needed? I got the generator as a backup in case the weather was cloudy/snow etc on solar panels but would this have to be a manual start as needed?
Also, strange as it may seem, I recently picked up an older ('93) RV for use on my
land until I can build a cabin and other infrastructure
but the generator had been removed before I got the RV. Now it would be possible to rig up my generator into the RV, though it is smaller than the factory unit, but I have to consider whether I could just fill the generator bay with a battery bank and rig up some solar panels that I could carry along with the RV. Maybe get one of those little, and very quiet, portable generators in the event of a situation where I could not get
enough sunlight etc. I don't expect I would be able to run the AC system, or at least not for long, but perhaps some of the other house current things, microwave etc. Rather than adding a generator to the RV add a portable RV solar system.
After I get a cabin built I may use the RV on the road a little but in the beginning I just want it to allow me to
sell my house and go up the country. Solar ought to be portable too, right? Helpful ideas are appreciated, thank you.
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