Hi from Sydney, Australia

[qwerty_steve]

Hello there,

Nice to meet you all. I have been reading information on this forum for a while now. I posted my first post yesterday and realised that people would benefit from an introduction, who I am and what led me here. I'll try to keep it brief as I wouldn't want to bore you all!

As the title says, I live downunder in Sydney. I'm a 38yr old husband and father of 2 girls (10months and 2 years). My interests involve the former plus travel and leisure, photography, hiking, fishing and hobby DIY.

I should say upfront that I do not own a boat. My family and I are gearing up for a road trip around Australia in 2017. I'm in the middle of modifying our camper trailer and 4WD so that we can camp in remote areas that have no facilities.

I have found a great deal of useful information here in the solar/lithium area of the forum. I plan to run solar panels on the roof of my 4WD, lithium cells and all associated parts in the cargo area, with the addition of extra charge input from the car's alternator. Sound familiar?

We're also working towards using our road trip experience to start a new business idea so who knows, if it takes off one day I could be talking to you all about a sailing boat. Now that would be a dream come true.

Look forward to chatting with you

Cheers and regards, Steve

[JPA Cate]

Welcome aboard, Steve.

Cute name.

Enjoy your road/off road exploration of Australia, that should be a super trip.

Ann

[KASHMIR]

Hello Steve,
My wife and I just completed a four week trip like you are planning, we did a combination of camping and hard accommodation. Interesting that your are putting the solar panel on the car roof, we did exactly the same thing. Mine was a 200w panel and we had a large (140l) fridge in the back of the car.
It was a good learning curve running the LiFePO4 batteries off solar.

Cheers

[qwerty_steve]

140 Litres! Must have been a big car

I have an 80L Engel ready to go in. Planning to have 360w of solar on the roof and 100ah Li batteries. A Balmar alt charger also just incase if bad weather hits for days on end, we can go for a drive and charge up the batteries that way.

Did you have a trailer Kashmir or just the car?

Where did you go? What was your favourite place/ best experience?

[clownfishsydney]

For a camper van/camping in Australia you probably do not need anywhere near as much solar. We have done five week trips in the Outback with only 30 W panel and 100 A/hr battery and no problems. This powers lights, 60 litre Engel and inverter etc. We can easily stay in one spot for three or four days without running out of battery.

[qwerty_steve]

Hi clownfishsydney

I'm actually setting up for permanent off-grid. Well for one year at least. It may seem like plenty of solar, but when its stinking hot and no sun, like up in the tropics, and Engel will draw down a battery fast.

360W is the maximum I can fit on my tug's roof, might as well max it out Happy for it to be overkill, just not under!