Re: [VACList] intelligent battery charger

["Mitch Hill" <fmhill@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Jon, 

I have been working on this one for years, and finally broke down and 
spent the money to go SOLAR, and for two years it has been totally 
trouble free and reliable. I no longer have to worry about the 
batteries. I also have a 12VDC Astron 20 amp (actual voltage 13.8 
VDC) wired in that I can plug into 115VAC to carry the load during 
less than ideal times like sitting in the driveway with a foot of 
snow on the SOLAR array, however, much to my surprise, even with a 
foot of snow, the SOLAR charges. So far I have not really needed the 
Astron supply to maintain batteries. I use two Siemens 75 Watt panels 
on the roof and a Morningstar 20 AMP controller which I believe is a 
pulse type controller. The array cable drops down through the 
refrigerator vent, and the SOLAR panels are mounted side by side 
between the first and second roof vents on a pair of 1/8" x 2" 
aluminum angles riveted to the edges of the center roof panel running 
fore and aft. I bought the aluminium angles from a local hardware 
store out of their decorative aluminum display rack as these are 
lighter weight than structural aluminum and are hard coat anodized. 
To keep the IR loss down in the wires, I used 8 ga. from the array 
which is about twenty feet from the charge controller, however, I had 
the wire handy, and I think it is way overkill. The array puts out 
9.8 amps at 15 volts according to the specs and I have found it to be 
more than adequate for my modest usage.