Remote solar recharging

Dids

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The new measure of usefulness: how long can you keep an electric blanket running using your car battery.

For emergencies the electric blanket would be useful. But I’d be worried about having enough charge to make it home afterward. And last I’d heard the bed of the CT was supposed to be temperature controlled. Might be more efficient to just let the truck do the heating instead of the blanket.
If its cold enough to need an electric blanket vs a sleeping bag that goes to -50f it is very cold. Its a pickup truck, not a backpack. Use another blanket.
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Dids

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Haven't I been suggesting electric blankets?

Spouse was taunting me with a road trip through Texas, again (I got so sick last time. Who knew I could be agoraphobic?) and Big Bend and Boca Chica and the space museums and even the Alamo would be cool to see!

And rolling in with a made-in-Texas truck gotta help me with street cred, right?

-Crissa
See Hueco Tanks near El Paso
https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/hueco-tanks
Way cooler than the website , ancient cave paintings and easy rock climbing hike and mostly deserted.
If you are hungry in El Paso, L&J Cafe is the best Mexican.
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ajdelange

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The new measure of usefulness: how long can you keep an electric blanket running using your car battery.

For emergencies the electric blanket would be useful. But I’d be worried about having enough charge to make it home afterward.
I have one designed for auto use (plugs into the cigarette ligher) which draws 37 - 67 W in 10W steps. Thus a 500 Wh Jackery pack should run it 7.5 - 13.5 hours. In terms of running your vehicle battery down convert these power levels to miles range consumed: 0.08 - 0.15 miles lost for each hour the blanket is operated (assuming 450 Wh/mi).

Naturally, you will want, especially if using an auxiliary pack for this, to keep the heat loss down. Get into a good sleeping bag with the balanket or use additional passive blankets over the electric one and you should be toasty for a good long time.
 

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ajdelange

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Let's not get too silly. The max out of either of those devices is 5W. The CT is going to take about 500 Watt hours of energy to go one mile. Five watts is thus 0.01 mile per hour of charging. Twentyfour hours of charging will add about 1/4 mile. Those things are advertised for charging cell phones an that's about all they are good for.
 


Vrakpant

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Let's not get too silly. The max out of either of those devices is 5W. The CT is going to take about 500 Watt hours of energy to go one mile. Five watts is thus 0.01 mile per hour of charging. Twentyfour hours of charging will add about 1/4 mile. Those things are advertised for charging cell phones an that's about all they are good for.
Fully aware my quicksearch didnt find the most suitable solutions. Just wanted to angle the thread away from electric blankets and to solutions for recharging somewhere remote/off the grid. Wind turbines 400/500watt are not humongous. already used on boats and rvs.

And I guess you could technically fill your bed with this one. not very practical. but it is possible.
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Yeah, my back is gonna give out. T'is a bit on the heavy side. Guess you will just have to back it down into the river and winch it back in. But elon said the truck was gonna float. now you can bring your 5kw turbine with you down the river :ROFLMAO:
 

ajdelange

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I know there has been mention of the vault cover being use for solar, but I wonder what would be a good option in terms of a panel array that unfolds (manual is fine) for when the truck is parked for a couple of days.
It is always fun to think about such things. As many of the responses here and untold numbers of responses to similar threads indicate the available energy from the sun just isn't that great because the sun doesn't shine all the time and conversion of sunlight to energy in the form that can be transferred to the vehicle isn't very efficient. Just as a general rule of thumb a panel the size of the ones one generally sees on rooftops will produce 250 - 300 Watts in full sunshine and the full sunshine equivalent is perhaps 4 - 5 hr/da meaning 1 - 1.5 kWh for each panel. What will really determine the practicality of portable solar arrays is what Tesla decides to do. If they indeed offer a solar toneau then they will have to provide a converter which takes the 10's of volts produced by the cells and and boosts it to the hundreds of volts required to charge the vehicle battery. Such circuits are robust enough that a wide variety of panels can be plugged into them and so Tesla could put additional input connectors for auxiliary panels in the bed (or elsewhere) of the truck. Should they chose to do this then we can think of going out and buying protable 150W panel or panels, plugging it (them) in and getting maybe 600Wh out of each in a day. That wouldn't cover the phantom drain for my X but it is equivalent to maybe a mile and a half of range that would have to come out of the main battery otherwise. In any case we can think in terms of a handful of such panels and maybe 10 - 15 miles a day of battery saved even if most of it goes to cover phantom drain.

If Tesla does not provide a direct to panel interface then the responsibility for converting 17 V to 400V falls on us which means we need additional equipment. The only feasible path is to convert the DC from the panels to 240VAC and then use the car's charger to get that up to 400 VDC. Extra equipment is required to do this. For example we might build a lean to, shed or garage on a vacation property with solar panels on the roof and a Powerwall or two and charge the vehicle from the Powerwall. This is expensive and, if your cabin is in West Virginia, the equipment will be stolen. More portable solutions are possible involving gear like Yeti or Jackery battery pack inverters but this stuff is still expensive and the basic principle - that you just can't get that much from the sun generally will probably convince you that you can't arrive at your mountain retreat with 10% SoC, set up some panels, fish for a week and depart with 90% SoC. But do do some calculations. It's the next best thing to driving the truck during this seemingly interminable waiting period.


I recently had Tesla Solar and a few PowerWalls installed for my home and the thoughts are racing about what's possible for my CT overland rig plans.
Compare the production of your new system to your charging needs.
 


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I'm open to looking at anything and everything. I know folks are wanting to get the CT to offset the costs associated with ICE rigs; but I'm not opposed to lugging along a generator, if it serves a purpose (I realize this rehashes any number of threads ?)

My goal is to be as self-sufficient/independent as possible, all while in some fairly remote areas. That means if I have to set up camp for a few days to a week, just to get back enough juice to drive out, that's perfectly acceptable for me.

I'm all about maximizing the benefits of wind, solar, and even gasoline (generator) as needed.
 

ajdelange

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My goal is to be as self-sufficient/independent as possible, all while in some fairly remote areas. That means if I have to set up camp for a few days to a week, just to get back enough juice to drive out, that's perfectly acceptable for me.
The point I keep trying to get across that people just don't seem to want to accept is that this may not be possible with solar. Studying the output of the solar system you have should give you some insight as to how the sun behaves in your area at given times of year. Put that together with the rather hefty consumption of a CT, how far you have to drive out etc. Figure out how you will handle a week without sun etc.
 
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The point I keep trying to get across that people just don't seem to want to accept is that this may not be possible with solar.
oh, we're in 100% agreement there. As much as I get raised-eyebrows for suggesting it, I'd love to see a bolt-on factory accessory that includes a highly-efficient inverter ICE generator and mounts with a few jerry-cans :cool:

Solar would be great though, but probably for emergency usage at first--or for recharging enough to power in-cabin accessories during the night; etc. I'd love to see it maxed out as much as possible, but the tech may not be there. The unfolding solar array could be promising--offering up to the equivalent of (say) 10 panels for a decent recoup.

Edit to add: not opposed to building out a trailer rig that carries the necessary equipment to set up that solar-farming capability. Just remember to pick up power inverters from the Toshe Station before heading out (sorry, had to make a Star Wars reference) ;)

I figure (without any hardcore data to back up my assertions), I could tow that trailer and get around 300 miles before having to set up shop to recharge.

Edit to add #2:
Quick Google search comes up with some builds that I would have to dig into deeper. Here's a 2.5 kW rig that could likely be optimized. Firstly, the trailer is too long for my purposes (overlanding), so I would have to build it in a way that it either fits in the bed of the CT, or on an overland/offroad trailer (think: military M1101/1102 aluminum trailers).

Tesla Cybertruck Remote solar recharging 1609526075136


I've owned an M1101/2 before. They are extremely lightweight (1500 lbs.) and maneuverable. This would be the platform for the solar array build.

Tesla Cybertruck Remote solar recharging 1609526379749
 
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Crissa

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Should they chose to do this then we can think of going out and buying protable 150W panel or panels, plugging it (them) in and getting maybe 600Wh out of each in a day. That wouldn't cover the phantom drain for my X but it is equivalent to maybe a mile and a half of range that would have to come out of the main battery otherwise.
Your X loses how many miles of range a day?
Also, panels produce power on a curve, not a square, and so do much better in the summer than your pessimistic calculations.

If Tesla does not provide a direct to panel interface then the responsibility for converting 17 V to 400V falls on us which means we need additional equipment. The only feasible path...
You do understand that an MPPT system operates at a higher voltage than a 12v system, right? Mine operates at over a hundred volts. Yeah, current panels won't want to get to 400v, but it wouldn't be difficult to make such a system custom. There are portable DC charging solutions out there and given more than a handful of EV enthusiasts in the wild but hundreds of thousands of possible customers would make it possibly profitable.

How do you get the 3.7 volts from cells to make the pack voltage? The same rule applies to solar cells.

-Crissa
 

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I get that this topic has been talked about in multiple threads and never seems to come to resolution for everyone.

The only fix to that I can see is for our CTs to get shipped. At that point most of us will be satisfied by the existing specs. A lot of us will be out experiencing our truck and won't have time to be imagining speculative use scenarios. And the experimentalists around us will have a real truck to work with and will come up with example builds that the rest of us can point to for any further questions that come up.

In the meantime, the dreamers among us will continue to dream and post. LOL.
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