Escapees November-December 2023

SHARI GALIARDI & DAVID HUTCHISON have turned their higher education back grounds, desire for life-long learning, and thirst for adventure travel into writing, photography, video production, and public speaking tours from coast to coast. Known to their friends as simply Shari & Hutch, you can learn more about their full-time, solar-powered adventures on their website at freedominacan.com. Or, follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube as “Freedom in a Can, LLC.” into solar panels: how they do what they do, the options available and what the latest technology has to offer. Deep-cycle batteries come in various voltages (12V-24V-48V), but their capacity is rated in amp hours (Ah), so that a consumer will know the length of time they can expect aspeci fi c fl ow in amps. There are four types of solar deep-cycle batteries: fl ooded lead acid, gel, AGM and lithium iron phosphate. Deep-cycle batteries are designed to be charged and discharged many times over their lifespan and vary signi fi cantly with regards to their chemistry, lifespan, charging time, cycles etc. Inverters are rated in watts (W) because they do the work of changing DC power to AC power for your appliances that require AC power. The rating (700W, 1000W, 3500W) indicates the maximum power output that an inverter can handle without damaging or tripping the fuse. In our next installment we’ll dive deeply

Why Do You Need to Understand These Terms? Let’s introduce the cast of characters that make up a typical solar powered system: solar panels, charge controllers, DC to DC chargers, batteries and inverters. While we are going to do further character devel opment in future articles, it’s important to have an overall understanding of who they are, what they do and how each is rated using the different units of measure mentioned above. Solar Panels are rated in watts (W), because they produce an electrical current that is capable of doing electrical work. You can run an appliance directly from a solar panel should you want to, though most off-grid systems involve storing that energy in a battery bank to do work at a later time (when it’s dark, cloudy, raining etc.). The watts of a speci fi c solar panel (e.g., 100W, 200W, 300W) will indicate the maximum power output of that panel under optimal solar conditions. Charge Controllers/DC to DC char gers are rated in amps (A), because they manage the charging current going from the panels or engine to the batteries and keep it in check. In simple terms, they serve as the brain of the system! The speci fi c rating (20A, 40A, 100A) is the upper limit of the current that the controller can handle without doing damage or trip ping a breaker.

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ESCAPEES Magazine November/December 2023