Hey there! i'm sorry for my bad english

i'm looking for advice about a photovoltaic system that planning to make for cambing

the needs are:
1 or 2 laptops and a 12v cooler working all the time, and some led light for the night

it must be made by small size parts, to transfered with common car no matters the weight,

i don't have specific informations about the devices, because i have only the laptops right now, so im not expecting a specific answer. just want to get an idea about the cost and if it's posible to be somehow portable the whole system with a regular car

thank you very much

Hello and welcome potemkin.

There are a couple of details we'd have to know to be able to help you. So there are a few things you'd have to do.

First of, do you need the PV-System only during the "not winter time"?

You have to get a device to measure the energy usage of your laptops. You need to know the peak power usage of them (running full power with empty batteries).

You speak of some LED light. overall power rating and hours they need to run in worst case.

Well, the cheap cooling devices I know off, need something between 40W (small ones for up to 6 1,5l bottles) and up to 120W for ones with enough room for 20 or so bottles. Which size is it most likely to be?

And, this one would have been better suited for "Inselanlagen" (island pv-systems). So don't wonder if one of the mods moves it there...

thank you for the fast answer

- this is for winter camp in a greek island

- can you tell me a keyword for the device which measure the energy usage? where to look for.

the laptop models are:

http://www.laptopshop.nl/product/199469 ... 143nl.html

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pavilion-g7-120 ... B005SEXQ7M

- i have a ledlight already and it say 1W usage. needed for lets say 5 houers

the cooler needed must be small to be portable also, so something like ''6 1,5l bottles'' looks ok, i suppose that an expensive small cooler will have lots lower energy usage, no? so i will look for something good and small, any advices?

please ask me for anything more needed

all the devices i want to use are DC so i will not need inverter no?

potemkin hat geschrieben:the cooler needed must be small to be portable also, so something like ''6 1,5l bottles'' looks ok, i suppose that an expensive small cooler will have lots lower energy usage, no? so i will look for something good and small, any advices?

Something like this:
http://www.kuehlbox-profi.de/Waeco-FF40 ... derangebot
45W at 33% duty cycle. That is 360Wh a day which is pretty good.

DC/DC converters are needed for the laptops. It is a good advise to buy them at a store, where you can test if the supplied connectors fit well.
http://www.reichelt.de/Netzteile-fuer-N ... r=MWU+2873

Well. I looked Greek Islands up. That's the one in Illinois?

If so, the you get around 2.4 times the power rating of a photovoltaik module as daily production. So a 100Wp module will generate in average around 240Wh. You'll need to look up the ideal angle for the time of the year (that'll be around 60°).
Your 1W LED will need 5Wh for the 5 hours you want to use it.
A cooling Device like posted above will need 360Wh.
A Laptop with low power consumption will need around 25W, a normal one 35 to 40W. Let's say your 2 Laptops need together 100W and you want to run them for 5 hours, you need 500Wh.
So, the LED can be basically ignored. The Laptops would need around 200Wp Modules (most likely 2 times 100 Wp, or 4 times 50Wp). The cooler will then need 150Wp.

All in all I'd use 400Wp. Every 100Wp module has around 18lb weight and is 42 by 27 inches. As a battery you'll need at least 12V/100Ah. It has to be a deep cycle one. You'll also need a solar battery charger. It must be able to handle the max power when the module has a short circuit. Usually this should be around 6A per Module. So one rated for 25A or 30A should be fine. Those modules will need to be connected in parallel.

Honestly, I have no idea what this would cost in the US.

thank you for the advices and the analysis guys! very enlightening, the greek islands are in greece still:D

Well, then you'd have to look up the solar irradiance yourself. In Greece these values should be a lot worse. So you will have to calculate with a (quite a lot) bigger solar array in mid-winter.