If you’ve been reading my travel talks (or following me on Instagram), you probably know I just got back from my first trip in the van. I planned to travel for a few more weeks but ended up heading home early when my batteries wouldn’t charge.
The day they stopped charging was the first sunny day I’d seen in a while. There wasn’t even a cloud in the sky. The solar panels generated power, the charge controller worked, but my batteries never charged past 40% (around 11.9 volts).
As the hours passed with no change in my batteries, I realized I had two choices:
- I could head home early, get my batteries on a trickle charger, and save the food in my fridge.
- I could wait it out, eat the ice cream before it melted, and hope my marine batteries started charging again. I can survive without power if I need to.
I decided to start heading home. Actually, I ate all the ice cream, and then I headed home.
A week later, my batteries seemed almost back to normal. The day after I drove home, they were slowly charging. They got up to 80%, but it took all day. By the next morning, the batteries were fully charged.
It’s been two weeks, and my solar system appears to be functioning like normal. I know my batteries got pretty low that night, but they are supposed to handle several deep discharges (around 300, according to the company). I’m still doing my research to figure out what happened.
As much as I wish I could have traveled for a few more weeks or even another month, the entire purpose of my first trip was to see what need to be changed, fixed, or updated. My dry run to Arkansas served its purpose.
It was still a great trip, regardless of how it ended.