Day 21 - Quartzsite, AZ

I can’t believe that it’s already been three weeks since I was in Fairbanks. The days seem to pass quickly.

Last night, the temperature dropped into the high 30s (°F) and we ran both furnaces. The thermostats set to 66°F. At 8:30 in the morning, the SOC was at 60% and we had used 178 amp-hours from the batteries. RV furnaces do use a lot of power to operate the blower. One popular solution are the catalytic propane heaters. Most are radiant heaters and a few have fans to help circulate the heat. Since we have the animals loose, running something with an open flame doesn’t seem to be a good idea. More useable battery capacity may be a better option.

I had mentioned in yesterday’s post that we visited with a couple whom we had met in Alaska. He was upgrading his batteries from six six-volt Trojan T-105 golf cart batteries to three 12-volt LiFePO₄ batteries. The 20-hour capacity of the 6 volt T-105 is 225ah so, when they were new, 675ah @12 vdc or 337ah useable for the bank of six batteries. The three LiFePO₄ batteries have a total and useable capacity of 300ah. But going from 372lbs to under 90lbs is a huge weight savings. He is currently using a MorningStar Tristar MPPT solar charge controller and with custom programming, it can be used for these batteries.

At some point, I’m thinking that at least three LiFePO₄ batteries may be a step in the right direction given our consumption. Especially if the Magnum inverter/charger can be configured appropriately. The real question is before or after solar...