Day 65, Tuesday, December 24, 2019 - La Posa West LTVA, Quartzsite, AZ, Day 16

With the limited sun yesterday & the day before as well as heavy clouds this morning, I decided to dig out the portable solar panel & propane generator. I added the panel, and while is was still fairly early in the day, I was getting a whopping 68 watts out of 480 watts worth of panels. No problem, just add the generator & I should be pumping 35 amps out of the converter. The generator fired up fine, but the converter decided to stay in the float mode at 13.2V, which didn't put anything into the batteries.

I pulled the cover looking for anything wrong, but since it worked fine back in Oswego, I didn't think I had a wiring problem. Everything looked good. I tried calling Progressive Dynamics, but they won't be back until Thursday because of the Christmas holidays. The PD lithium converter has a Charge Wizard button, but the manual states it isn't used in the lithium version of the converter. I tried pushing it anyway, and the converter immediately switched to the bulk mode, cranking out 32 amps. I'm not sure why, but during the early afternoon the sun came out & the combination of the solar & the converter was pumping 45 amps into the batteries. Good, because they started the day down 70 amp hours.

By 2:30, I was able to shut down the generator and, since the clouds thinned, let the solar finish off the batteries to full. During the clear periods, the solar panels were cranking out as much as 405 watts. Even after dinner there was enough sun to put back the 4 amp hours it took to cook the burrito in the microwave. A big advantage of the portable panel is it can easily be aimed directly at the sun any time of day. I would never see 250 watts at 4:15 PM from just the rooftop panels. It is also good that from now on the days are getting longer so more time with sun on the panels.

So. other than getting electricity back into the batteries, not much happening for the day. I did some reading, even sitting outside. Only 58°F, but in the sun it felt fine as long as the wind stayed away.

Dinner was an Amy's Non Dairy Burrito, a rice pudding along with a couple of Royal Dansk Butter Cookies - the ones that come in the blue tin can (I'm addicted to them, but only pick them up at Christmas time, although now they seem to be available year round) for dessert, and a glass of Thousand Islands Gewürztraminer white wine. I can't pronounce it, but I really like the wine. Too bad it is my last bottle. I suspect it would be hard to find any of the Thousand Islands wine here in the southwest. As to the Burrito, I usually get her bean & cheese burritos, but grabbed this one by mistake. Like most of the Amy's products, very good.

Until Next Time -