Pure solar…

[mrcyber]

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[tingmo13]

Vendors trying all tricks to get our money.

 

[cybercricket]

It pretty much wouldn't do anything because of insufficient production and losses. They say it's 1.1kW, then there are geographic multipliers (sun angle), seasonal variations and less than ideal panel placement all of which will reduce the production from 1.1kW down to 700-800W or less. Then more than a 3rd of that will be wasted on keeping the computer running during charging, and if HVAC kicks in to condition the battery then even more will be wasted. And of course there is a bit of loss in the DC-AC-DC conversion. It would be a lot more interesting if the panels were over 2kW, without a battery, and direct DC output of 350-400V...

 

[hemiarch]

I gave them money at some point. Still vaporware. One of the internets best scams in my opinion.
They will offer me one for sale “soon”.

 

[Eka]

Once you start taking into account the losses, the needed solar panel area expands a lot. Another thing is how much energy is needed to move the box on the roof around? It will increase kW per mile.

For the CT I feel I need 3kW to 4kW for realistic charging when camping to get enough miles a day to make it worth it. That's a lot of area even with Maxon 24.5% solar cells. Something on the order of 3X to 5X the roof area of a cap for the back. My plan is to have a battery bank to serve as a buffer. A set of solar arrays charges the battery bank. A controller tells an OpenEVSE how much current to tell the CT to draw from the inverter for charging. The controller will keep the charge +/- 5 percent from some amount. When the solar input rate is too low, it will allow some battery draw down, then shut off charging when it gets too low. When the battery has recovered enough, charging will be enabled again.

I've been thinking of what one could do realistically. Some ideas below.

This is a sketch of a 9 * (400W to 450W) solar panel array. That is 3600W to 4050W solar output under ideal circumstances. Panel size is commonly used on homes. This shows a fixed center panel set with awning panel sets that pull out to both sides.

Folded up it overhangs the back and would have 10% to 15% energy use hit for driving.

I've been working on sleeker designs with the idea of minimal added energy use while driving. The tradeoff is smaller solar arrays. This is a cap that lowers to follow the back roof line while driving. When parked it tilts up to expose a tent that has a floor that hinges up to be level. It only has 800W of solar. It's simple, but is very low on the solar input. I have a newer design that is moderately thicker, not yet sketched out, that uses a super tough thin solar panel that I could have custom solar panel shapes made. It has much more solar output for the same area, and allows "drawers" of solar panels that automatically extend out and retract providing an awning. The core tent area starts out with roughly 900W and widens to provide a minimum of 1600W. An awning to one side adds an additional 2000W.

These designs obviously don't do well when normally parked. This shows a design that only has a fixed set of 3 * 450W panels over the back of the CT and a moving 3 * 450W panel set extends over the front of the CT for 2700W total. Open in flat mode.

Closed up for driving.

Panels in tent mode.

 

[TickTock]

Once you start taking into account the losses, the needed solar panel area expands a lot. Another thing is how much energy is needed to move the box on the roof around? It will increase kW per mile.

For the CT I feel I need 3kW to 4kW for realistic charging when camping to get enough miles a day to make it worth it. That's a lot of area even with Maxon 24.5% solar cells. Something on the order of 3X to 5X the roof area of a cap for the back. My plan is to have a battery bank to serve as a buffer. A set of solar arrays charges the battery bank. A controller tells an OpenEVSE how much current to tell the CT to draw from the inverter for charging. The controller will keep the charge +/- 5 percent from some amount. When the solar input rate is too low, it will allow some battery draw down, then shut off charging when it gets too low. When the battery has recovered enough, charging will be enabled again.

I've been thinking of what one could do realistically. Some ideas below.
<snip>

Yeah - anything that is not fully contained under the tonneau would waste more energy pushing it through the air than it could replace after a full day in the sun for almost any trip making it useful only for week-long outings near but not too near a super charger.

There is a lot of discussion in this thread along with good suggestion on getting the maximum efficiency:

https://www.cybertruckownersclub.co...le-charger-setup-with-black-friday-deals.5113

(TLDR: you do really need a good battery buffer and want to charge in short high current bursts instead of a slow trickle)

Also, when camping you can't always orient you truck optimally for solar. On my last trip I had to park my truck just so for camp mode to level it. In addition, I had to periodically move the panels around to find the sun. In normal circumstances it really just isn't practical - I only carry it for worse-case scenarios but go ahead and use it just because you don't want to find out something is missing/broken when you *do* need it.

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