New owner torn on a new truck.

My truck decided to give me a heart attack today. Just dropped almost 16k last month so i am beyond broke atm lol.

Blew out my hydraulic tank on a bloody deer, had my windshield wiper assembly fall off because someone never did the recall and that cost a fortune to fix. Had 4 truck batterys from 2019 that got replaced with 4 new ones. Then redid my axle like ive been planning for months.

So when this popped up my heart skipped several beats lol



Pulled codes all 1 instance and all inactive so....im going to just ignore it.

 

Popped the slave cylinder on my clutch. Had to get that fix as i was going through a bottle of oil every hour to get it to the shop. In and out in a day for $1500. 16 years of driving and thats a bloody first.

 

Hay @Siinman you have the most experince with electric that i know of. What do you think of vertical mount solar pannel? I got this big ### metal trailer with nice flat sides. That is a LOT of surface area and there is a local place selling 4 big flexable 400w pannels at $400 a pop of a good brand. They are already in the same voltage as my truck pannels plus they are only 47 pounds for the set of 4 too. Just what i have on the truck already gives me around 250 peak and im doubleing that with my new hood pannels.



If i do the 400s 2 per side plus the call it 450 to be conservitive from my current set ill be in pretty good shape even if they only piss out 200 each most of the day.

Meanwhile a gas generator is 80 pounds not counting a storage box and fuel and all the giblets that go along with that. And is $3200 for a honda and even a predator is $800.

Thoughts?

 

Same as i do now. Truck has an engine and currently i only need to idle around 6 to 8 hours a week on my 34 already. This will just bring it to zero or close to. I already have an electric APU which works good 95% of the time.

Where im currently hitting issues is keeping my actual truck batterys topped up over a 34. And getting my idle to 0 on 34s without adding more weight since my truck has precious little to spare as it is (note to self next time, get lighter truck)

Edit: also in the winter if i only use the bunk heater and dont do anything at all with the laptop and such. The bunk heater will run for around 12 days off the charge. The solar pannels have made that entirely free already even when they only #### out 20 watts which is rare.

 

Im an end dump lol, so roll tarp ontop. And im out of room on the roof of my semi.



That said @Siinman true its going to be a thing either way though even blocked by other trucks i should get a good amount of power, and i can always park in a back corner facing N/S and even E/W ill likely get at least 30-40% of rated during peak hours. Though i keep waffleing between a generator and more pannels honestly.