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Must be a different van lol- when you talk about a 'Bongo van' here in Australia- it isn't something you would think of as being a suitable camping vehicle... Unless your name is Dopey, Sleepy, Grumpy or the like... ;-) They were TINY vans...

Add another of the older ones, mines jeez at least 25 years old, and still going strong (pressed steel legs, dual height)- I looked at getting a second one from the local hardware store, and I will say the new ones aren't half what mine is (as in literally about half the weight) Sure nothing...

Unless you are a teenager or younger.... then the panel life is of absolutely no importance- there is a lot of - well what you find coming out of the south end of a male bovine facing north- about 'short panel lifespans'... In reality- any panel made in the last quarter of a century that costs...

LOL- I 'might' even consider turning the aircon on for a while tomorrow, but probably not, just the fan is enough until its 36 or so... Where I am, we sometimes get down (just) into the single digits when there is a strong southerly coming up from Antarctica, and thats jumper AND jacket...

22 is positively chilly for me too- by that stage its jumper and trackies time for me ... Today's quite pleasant at 31C- tomorrows a warmish 34C (overnight low of 19C!!!) Much better than over summer when we had over a week on end where it was over 42C every day, and overnight lows of 27....

lol- showed up for me... first one was

Just realised that I was in PM when I was talking about this lol, but direction is of far less importance than many think... Your roof looks like it would be ideal for an 'east/west' split... That was from a PM conversation

This was about ten km away from where I was just before Christmas, most arrays were still intact, there was a few broken panels here and there, but mostly they survived... (they did better than the cars did- smashed windscreens and 'panelbeaten' bodywork everywhere- the local car dealership lost...

In Australia, most roofs are metal, with older buildings using clay tiles (falling out of favour these days)- and rarely if ever require 'reroofing'- the Colourbond on my shed for example is guaranteed for 35 years- and there are buildings in the area that are a hundred year old 'corro iron' on...

That's not opinion- its fact... The brand I bought I chose for my own place because of their long term known reliability.... they have been on sale in Australia since 2008, so their longterm lifespan is a known quantity... many are already at 14 years old... (mine were bought in 2019, I know...

Just to correct a few points... L/A is obsolete and despite it being 'apparently' cheaper, in terms of actual storage versus life expectancy, is the poorest choice by far.... Say you want a '200ah' capacity (which in a 12v bank would be 2.4kwh, in a 24v bank 4.8kwh) With lead acids- you get...

Short of physical damage, panels will outlast most of us actually posting here... There's a lot of nonsense floating around the net (mostly coming from the US, which is notoriously antisolar) about short panel lifespans, with claims they won't last long enough to payback their cost... (well the...

Not so much the charging itself (but yes L/A can take a bit of abuse) but the fact that depending on which way around it was plugged, one battery clip could be connected directly to the mains Active!!!! (even around the other way in the lamp fiting, you only had a relatively low resistance bulb...

I am not pushing them hard (atm) with only 1.5kw of solar feeding the 20kwh bank temporarily, but our ambient air can be over 40C for weeks on end in summer- to date I haven't seen them much above 50 while charging, but that could change once the full array is up on the house (when its finished...

Jeez, that is a very high cycle capacity- I live offgrid here in Australia, running LiFePO4 cells off solar, and I thought mine were good lol- 5000 cycles (13 years) for 80%DOD, and 7000 cycles plus for 70% DOD (near enough 20 years) (I am expecting mine to outlive me as most of the time they...

I had many years ago my grandfathers copy of an old UK book from around the 30's??? with many 'diy' electrical projects- one of which was a battery charger that plugged into a light socket, had a home made diode and used a lightbulb in series (they recommended a 15w from memory for most car...

Depends on the local regs, here in Australia, you can certainly make your own (but its design has to be approved by an engineer here- about $100) Here all trailers are required to have suspension- 'rigids' used to be allowed but not anymore as they caused way too many crashes for their numbers...

Steel is cheaper in Australia as well, plus its termite resistant... My place was at 40C plus last week, and over in Western Australia (where I actually used to work) one town hit 50C several days in a row!!!!)...

Its funny seeing people still using timber, 'sheds' here in Oz tend to be all metal (bushfires tend to be more of an issue than cold/damp lol) even houses these days are metal framed rather than timber... Took me a year to build by myself (9mx 19m), but got there in the end- now to finish the...

Most of the Swanns I have seen (quite a few, very popular brand) of the 'bullet' type exteriors, will only light up about 5mor so at night reliably The 'dome' ones less My driveway one is a 'narrow field' (85 degree???) camera and during the day, you can reliably read a numberplate almost 100m...