Recently I was offered for review one of Jackery’s newest off-grid products. The Explorer 500 portable power station. The product looked pretty sweet and boasted decent power capacity via a 518 watt-hour lithium battery and a 500-watt pure sine inverter plus 120 watts max DC power output ports. I decided to take Jackery up on … Read more
Now that I have installed and begun my review of the Lion Energy Safari UT lithium iron phosphate (LIFePO4) battery, there have been quite a few questions popping up from my LYRV readers and viewers. Rather than continue to answer the common questions over and over, I’ve decided to publish Q & A type post … Read more
In this first video, I introduce you to Lion Energy’s Safari UT battery that I will be installing in our Cougar fifth-wheel trailer. The Safari UT is a 12V 90AH Lithium Iron Phosphate battery designed as a drop-in replacement for typical lead-acid type batteries found in RVs. I’ll be removing my current battery bank consisting … Read more
In this video, I give a quick overview of our 500 watts RV solar power system. You can see the full detail explanation and diagrams in the past post and video – Detailed Look at Our DIY RV Boondocking Power System I go through all the things it powers in the rig. From devices, we plug … Read more
Last year I reviewed a flexible type solar panel for a company called Lensun. In exchange for the review, I received the 100-watt panel and controller free of charge. But, what to do with it? I could have mounted it on the roof with my four Renogy panels but decided instead to make myself a … Read more
Last summer I received a flexible Lensun solar panel for a Love Your RV product review. Once I completed my review, the panel was mine to keep. I just needed to figure out what to do with it? I had been toying with the idea of making myself a remote ground panel I could move around … Read more
We love to travel the Southwest US during the winter. Camping out on BLM land, exploring wildlife refuges and State/National parks. This means camping off the grid without electrical hookups. Some sort of boondocking power system is essential if we want to camp more than a couple days. We started out using a 2000 watt Champion generator … Read more
Introduction Recently a solar panel manufacturer called Lensun sent me out a 100-watt flexible solar panel for a Love Your RV! product review. One of the reasons I agreed to review the panel was a plan in the back of my mind to utilize it as a portable solar panel. It would make a handy … Read more
I’ve always been curious about those super thin flexible solar panels. So I was thrilled when a company called Lensun Solar asked if they could send me one for review. It couldn’t have come at a better time for me. I’ve been kicking around the idea of building myself a portable remote ground panel for … Read more
Improvements to our Home on Wheels Last spring I detailed 20 RV upgrades I had done to our 2011 Keystone Cougar fifth wheel trailer to make our RVing life a little more enjoyable. Well, I have been a busy boy since then and I’m back again with another 20. Many of these upgrades are designed … Read more
RV Solar Upgrades So, if you have been following my blog for the last while you will know that I have upgraded the RV battery bank from two six volt golf cart batteries to four. And just last week I added two more Renogy 100 watt panels to the roof for a total four. Now … Read more
Our First RV Solar Experience About a year ago I popped my RV solar cherry and installed a simple little 200 watt RV solar kit from a company called Renogy. We didn’t have too much dough to spend on solar, but I believe I got a good bang for the buck with the roughly $400 … Read more
Last spring we had the great pleasure to meet with some fine folks from Wyoming, Eddie, his wife Aileen and daughter Laura. We spent about a week or so boondocked with them including the spectacular Valley of the Gods BLM area of Southern Utah. They have a 40-foot wheel which they live in full time. … Read more
A Little of My Rigs Battery History When we bought our 30 foot Keystone Cougar fifth wheel new it came with one preinstalled deep cycle battery rated at 85 ampere hours. Having camped for many years in a campervan with a similar sized coach battery, I knew that 85 AH capacity wasn’t going to cut … Read more
Guest post by Eddie from Mobile Homestead Solar Services One of the biggest and most liberating changes in the 7 years that my wife, daughter, and I have been full-timing is to go solar in our RV. This was not without hesitation, followed by many mistakes before getting it to work for our “Real World” Boondocking … Read more