Marty's Travels

My house has wheels

Batteries

Wow, I wasn’t watching for this. I have enough battery power to function quite nicely for four days without sun. Like, not even worth monitoring. I use little power, and always the sun comes out for at least a couple of hours every couple of days, enough to charge the batteries.

But LED lamps started blinking a bit tonight, indicating a low-voltage condition. When I looked, the batteries were low, 60% of capacity. Luckily I had installed an amp meter and immediately checked it and my draw was normal.

I have been sitting here for three days and my solar panels have been almost useless, that’s how little sun I’ve had. And it will get worse before it gets better. Now, I’m plugged in and have a converter that I can use so it’s not that I will be without power. Just that it’s very unusual to be in this situation. The first time was in the plains 5 years ago, the next was in Quartzsite 3 years ago.