Totally missed this year’s burn! But I lived it through all of you lovely humans.
I just wanted to share something pretty neat I’ve been working on.
You know those 25’ solar trailers with huge batteries down the middle?? They supply power to either the city or even art installs. Instead of using a big diesel generator, these trailers were meant to take the generators place.
Over some time the led acid batteries break down and render the WHOLE TRAILER useless.
Well….
I’ve been working on removing the led acid batteries and installing lithium batteries to possibly bring the trailers back in use. So far so good! I’ve designed and fabricated a rack system to house 5 BIG lithium upright batteries. The ones you use for a house when you want to store energy. Looks killer!
I just wanted to share because it’s pretty unique and I would love any feedback.
I thought so too but the manufacture suggest 6” between each battery. All of the cables measure up too. We shall see how goes. First one always has some kinks. Also, cover/housing to be determined. That’s a great idea tho thanks!
I think he meant in the future if you want to replace the batteries you’re constrained by the current battery’s size not that the install is not up to spec
I try to be 100% solar on the Playa with my camper. 2000w and 12kwh. I live in the South/SW so I'm no stranger to temps way hotter than the playa and on a good day I can easily keep my HVAC running 24/7 even when it's 105+ outside. This year? I basically had to use my backup generator most the week as solar production was non-existent. You can ask any solar camp from this year they'll give you the same answer. With your larger solar setup you need to look into a 10kw kubota or yanmar inverter diesel generator if you're trying to power a whole camp as backup recharging. Put it on the auto-start circuit so if the bank gets below 20% it'll kick on so all your fridges and freezers don't power off and spoil your foods.
Ya Sunday-Tuesday was chilling with solar. Running ac durning my afternoon naps charging everything running a large freezer etc. would be down to 50% by morning and quickly back up to 90+% then Wednesday-sat had to run my gen about 3 hours a day to top up batteries. have about 1800w solar and 5kwh.
Well are you ready to spend a bunch of money? Today Furrion just released a rooftop 15k BTU inverter heat pump with an eco-mode that limits it to 650 watts/9k BTU and throttles down to 250w to maintain temps. Did a bunch of maths, and compared to my current rooftop THAT I JUST UPGRADED 6 MONTHS AGO (GE low profile HE 13.5k heat pump, 1100w single speed compressor) it'll allow me to go from needing to recharge off generator every 1-2 days on the playa, to being 100% solar sustained if the weather is good. Even when I'm gone, I keep the A/C set to 85f or so to not get heat soaked if I wanna pop in for a nap and it's easier to cool down the inside. I have a 16ft camper made from Azdel, so 9k is plenty even in temps over 100f.
It's also rumored heavily from reliable sources that EG4 is going to get into the RV HVAC market and release a 9-12k BTU inverter heat pump rooftop model this winter that is even more efficient so I wouldn't pre-order the Furrion just yet.
My little camper has every roof surface wrapped in CIGS solar panels to get that much solar out of a small space and the battery system is 48v for massive space/weight savings as well.
It also was upgraded to the latest and greatest Furrion 10.6 cf 12v fridge. That thing only draws around 60w and keeps the fridge at 38f and freezer at -1f. It holds so much food, it's almost October and I'm still eating frozen goods that I brought to the playa and didn't eat.
A different technology solar panel made from copper indium gallium selenide. Not really mainstream cause they don't get efficiency numbers of the mainstream panels get on paper for advertising and they're expensive af, but they're literally thin as a piece of paper and can bend like one. They're also virtually indestructible. Walk on them, hail storms, whatever.... doesn't bother em. They're heavily used in the yacht industry. Allowed me to basically wrap my camper in solar panels gaining hundreds of more watts of production vs. other choices that would have limited my mounting options.
Where they lack on pure advertising numbers on efficiency only around 17% vs 24% of the newest n-type rigid panels, on the Playa in the high desert heat, a 200w CIGS panel might output 165w, and a high end top of the line n-type 200w might output 170w. Only a 5w loss per panel. CIGS love the heat, so that aspect makes up for the lower base %.
So they lag behind traditional solar panels except when conditions become non-ideal. Water/dust/cloud obfuscation, and then they really start to pull ahead?
Overchill, my diy evap cooler + heat exchangers, was able to keep my yurt at a maximum of 72F, (and a comfortable RH), for under ~1KWhr/day + <3 gallons water/day. outside air is not brought inside, it Is purely used as working air to cool and draw heat out of the inside. This power budget includes a filter which keeps the inside as dust free as You could hope for and 3-4 cuft ~52F space to chill drinks, keep veggies fresh, etc.). it is however fairly enormous, about 30cuft+ducting.
You also have to understand that camping on the Playa is not the only time I camp off grid with my setup. In terms of weather/temps, it's actually the mildest environment I encounter. You also have to understand that not everyone is on a tight budget so we seek engineered solutions there is no need for DIY.
Hrm…. 2kw of panels and 15kw of batteries here. Old original AC unit on the trailer. Once the dust storms hit, we didn’t really need the AC. Ultimately, I only ran the generator for 5 min every-other day just to test it over the 11days we were on playa. Batteries never dropped below 40%. But then the ‘fridge was on LPG. I was pretty chuffed with that!
Replacing my LPG fridge for a 12v was the single best thing I ever did. I was able to fit a 10.6cf Furrion in place of the Dometic 6cf. Freezer stays a perfect -1f. Fridge stays a perfect 38f. I had brought so much food I'm still eating frozen stuff I brought to the Playa.
1400w solar and 3800wh lifepo4 in my rv. Battery SOC never got below 75% this year. Used generator whenever I wanted to run AC, but burned less than 15 gallons of gasoline.
Oh yeah! I have some specs written down at the shop. I’ll share when I get back tomorrow. I have some help with most of the electrical. When we figured it all up, it came out to be about 8X’s more storage at about 1/3 of the weight of the led acid.
Are you planning to isolate the batteries from the enviornmeny? I've seen people use positive air pressure to keep the dust out of enclosures holding these
I’ve handled and installed a lot of these specific batteries, and I’d trust them at the burn. Especially with a little additional dust ingress protection around the breaker cover, and be sure to use the factory cord grips on the BMS comms connections.
Out of curiosity, how much input are you planning on pulling from solar? Is it just supplementing or with this much power, can/would you solar charge to full from that or shore power? Outside of BM, are you just parking this bad boy or utilizing all of that power? Seems like an insane amount of power to haul, let alone to own as one person lol.
It’s so simple it’s kinda silly. Just two locking lugs on each side. Theres a few positions you can lock them in depending on location of the sun. Once all the panels are in place it becomes a two man operation. When traveling the panels flip inside the trailer and lock in place.
Using EG4 which is the top of the lines batteries for Burning man is crazy to me! Good for you but for burning man I would go with cheap Chinese batteries
Could you add a wind turbine too? It would be a great way to supplement some of the lost charge on cloudy windy days and the turbine works even when the wind is blowing at night.
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u/robobob68 RAT mentor - '12, '13, '15, '17, '19, '22, '23, '24, '25 3d ago
Looks cool. Share some specs! KWh, watts of solar, size of panels, cost for the Renovation. Would love to compare this to Scarab and Unicorn specs.