Oh Solar Me-O

We are Boondockers (i.e: dry campers also known as ‘not plugged-in camping’ 😎).  We usually boondock for 7-10 days at a time here on Vancouver Island.  The question then is: “How do you power your lights, fridge, AC and microwave 😲????”.  As the hologram of Dr. Lanning replied to detective Del Spooner in the movie: ‘I, Robot’ – “That is the Question!”.  So let me explain the power of the Sun (also a generator helps too).

Blue Streak is blessed with 200 watts of roof-top Solar panels.  We can add to that when in shady campsites, an additional 160 watts of portable Solar panel connected to 50 feet of cord (if necessary) to find the Sun.  This portable setup can directly attach to Blue Streak’s umbilical cord. The same umbilical cord used to connect to Red Dragon when towing.  The umbilical cord maintains the battery charge that operates the 12 volt power system of Blue Streak.

The primary 12 volt power source we use consists of 2x 6 Volt 250ah Trojan T-105 deep cycle golf cart batteries, in series. This provides us all the power we need to adequately meet all of our 12 volt system needs.

When it come to running our AC or microwave we have a very nice 3400 watt Champion Dual Fuel Generator that we run on Propane (LP).  This is also our backup to change our batteries if there is ‘no sunshine in our life’ (sorry about that but I have a song for everything 😊).

This year we have a goal to install either a Sunforce? 1,000 or 2,500  Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter – haven’t decided yet.  Will update later.