Solar Panels Top With Awnings for R1 by Solarrolla

[ccharie]

I cannot think of too many situations that this would be beneficial in. Obviously if you're planning a WAY out there overlanding trip, where you will be stationary for a day or two and you expect to run ~50 miles short, then congrats, you've mission-impossibled the situation. Much better/easier solution in this case is to bring a portable genset.
I'm a solar guy, and solar has MANY fantastic applications, but this is not one of them.
That's my take.

I wish I had this last summer. My car was parked in a private back yard in NYC and couldn’t charge. Then came the phantom drain stuff and it went dead. For a long (2+ month) parking period this would be ideal. Would have saved me lots of drama but all fixed up!

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[Yota2R1T]

I wish I had this last summer. My car was parked in a private back yard in NYC and couldn’t charge. Then came the phantom drain stuff and it went dead. For a long (2+ month) parking period this would be ideal. Would have saved me lots of drama but all fixed up!

Right on.
I can think of several ways your situation could have been avoided, short of a giant, expensive, permanently mounted solar array on your R1S.
But granted, this might have saved you.

 

[ccharie]

Right on.
I can think of several ways your situation could have been avoided, short of a giant, expensive, permanently mounted solar array on your R1S.
But granted, this might have saved you.

oh wait-permanent? No way would I want that flying nun thing on top of a vehicle that has the aerodynamics of a refrigerator box. I thought it was something I could take out of the garage, put on the roof plug in when not there and then reverse this process. Out of the question if it’s not portable.

 

[Herb]

Energy is measured in KWh; power is measured in. KW. The SI (metric) unit is the Joule (J). 1 KWh = 3.,6 MJ The peak solar input at sea-level is about 1 KW per square meter with no clouds etc. Pretty good solar cells are about 20% efficient, so there you are. As a rule of thumb, you can expect the average energy collected over a good day to be about 6.6 h x the peak output in KW of your array, assuming the panels are optimally oriented. Peak power happens if the panels are normal (90 degrees) to the direction to the sun. I guess that your panels are smaller than normal and/or suboptimally oriented. This is generally the case.
Back to the array in the picture. I'm guessing about 6 square meters. So 6 x 0.2 = 1..2 KW peak. Allowing 0.8 for the orientation i figure 1.2 x 0.8 x 6.5 = 6.25 KWh/day. That could be 15 miles. That's at least in the ballpark of their claim. My estimate is very conservative, so I think their claim of "as much as" is reasonable.
Not very many miles. However it could compensate for the drain while parked during an extended stay, e.g. climate controll, 12 V battery maintenance, gear guard, lights, entertainment, cooking, etc.
.

That is the first sensible response in this entire thread. If a small fraction of this power could be siphoned off to keep the 12V system charged, phantom drain would be eliminated during the day. That alone would gain a few extra miles. I think a PV tonneau cover could make sense. There's no impact on aero and if you need one anyway, you might be half-way there on price.

 

[Yota2R1T]

That is the first sensible response in this entire thread. If a small fraction of this power could be siphoned off to keep the 12V system charged, phantom drain would be eliminated during the day. That alone would gain a few extra miles. I think a PV tonneau cover could make sense. There's no impact on aero and if you need one anyway, you might be half-way there on price.

I'm not going to rank your comment, but I'd say you're missing the point.
If you're talking about an auxiliary 12V Battery minder to combat vampire drain, then you're on a different topic.
The only way a multi-panel array of PV modules will add miles to the vehicle is if they are AC-charging through the charge port. Which means the car has to be stationary.
The practicality and usefulness of this application is what I'm dumping on, just based on my experience and understanding of the technology.
Whether you find that sensible or not is pretty irrelevant.
Have a great day,
R

 

[mkhuffman]

I'm not going to rank your comment, but I'd say you're missing the point.
If you're talking about an auxiliary 12V Battery minder to combat vampire drain, then you're on a different topic.
The only way a multi-panel array of PV modules will add miles to the vehicle is if they are AC-charging through the charge port. Which means the car has to be stationary.
The practicality and usefulness of this application is what I'm dumping on, just based on my experience and understanding of the technology.
Whether you find that sensible or not is pretty irrelevant.
Have a great day,
R

I think you are missing his point. The vampire drain is mostly due to 12V maintenance from the HVB, and if you can keep the LVB charged with a solar panel, the vampire drain is reduced or eliminated.

He is not saying eliminating vampire drain adds miles, he is saying you gain back what would have been lost due to that drain.

 

[Yota2R1T]

I think you are missing his point. The vampire drain is mostly due to 12V maintenance from the HVB, and if you can keep the LVB charged with a solar panel, the vampire drain is reduced or eliminated.

He is not saying eliminating vampire drain adds miles, he is saying you gain back what would have been lost due to that drain.

Apologies, I think I understand now.
The scenerio is to generally replace what would be used while stationary (lights, charging, screen use, seat heater, etc.), which is powered by 12v, then supplemented by HVB.
Like an RV.
Okay, I gotcha. Like you arrived to campsite at 2%, thought you'd have 120v service and you don't. But it's party time anyway, because Sollarolla!
Fair enough, I'm sold.

 

[mkhuffman]

Apologies, I think I understand now.
The scenerio is to generally replace what would be used while stationary (lights, charging, screen use, seat heater, etc.), which is powered by 12v, then supplemented by HVB.
Like an RV.
Okay, I gotcha. Like you arrived to campsite at 2%, thought you'd have 120v service and you don't. But it's party time anyway, because Sollarolla!
Fair enough, I'm sold.

Yes!

But actually it is more than that. The HVB drains when you are not using the truck. When it is just sitting there, all alone and lonely. For some reason, probably data traffic between the truck and Rivian servers, the LVB drains and when it reaches a certain point, the truck wakes up to charge it. Forum members have found that putting the LVB on a tender keeps the truck from waking and practically eliminates vampire drain.

The problem is much less significant for Gen2 owners, but Gen1 owners still are fighting the issue I think. The battery in my truck drains about 0.75% every 24 hours just sitting in the airport parking lot.

 

[Herb]

I'm not going to rank your comment, but I'd say you're missing the point.
If you're talking about an auxiliary 12V Battery minder to combat vampire drain, then you're on a different topic.
The only way a multi-panel array of PV modules will add miles to the vehicle is if they are AC-charging through the charge port. Which means the car has to be stationary.
The practicality and usefulness of this application is what I'm dumping on, just based on my experience and understanding of the technology.
Whether you find that sensible or not is pretty irrelevant.
Have a great day,
R

Well, ditto. Eliminating phantom drain adds miles.

 

[Yota2R1T]

Yes!

But actually it is more than that. The HVB drains when you are not using the truck. When it is just sitting there, all alone and lonely. For some reason, probably data traffic between the truck and Rivian servers, the LVB drains and when it reaches a certain point, the truck wakes up to charge it. Forum members have found that putting the LVB on a tender keeps the truck from waking and practically eliminates vampire drain.

The problem is much less significant for Gen2 owners, but Gen1 owners still are fighting the issue I think. The battery in my truck drains about 0.75% every 24 hours just sitting in the airport parking lot.

But, it's an absurd product to deal with vampire drain for a 1kWh/day drain - right? I mean, I can't tell if you're defending the overall concept of replacing lost energy due to VD with solar, or saying this is a good product to address that issue.
Because it's not, by any measure.

 

[Dasoss]

I'm not going to rank your comment, but I'd say you're missing the point.
If you're talking about an auxiliary 12V Battery minder to combat vampire drain, then you're on a different topic.
The only way a multi-panel array of PV modules will add miles to the vehicle is if they are AC-charging through the charge port. Which means the car has to be stationary.
The practicality and usefulness of this application is what I'm dumping on, just based on my experience and understanding of the technology.
Whether you find that sensible or not is pretty irrelevant.
Have a great day,
R

If you wake up the vehicle once in a while it will charge the 12 V battery.

 

[Dasoss]

If you wake up the vehicle once in a while it will charge the 12 V battery.

The 12 V battery charges if the car is connect to an AC charger. It also charges from the HV battery if its voltage falls below a preset voltage.

 

[Herb]

But, it's an absurd product to deal with vampire drain for a 1kWh/day drain - right? I mean, I can't tell if you're defending the overall concept of replacing lost energy due to VD with solar, or saying this is a good product to address that issue.
Because it's not, by any measure.

My original comment was two-fold: First, I comment on Dasoss' analysis that this product can actually add 15 miles under circumstances he mentioned (if connected to the HVB, presumably via the charge port). In any event, Dasoss' calculations are correct and just about all other prior posts were rants without any technical analysis. I am not defending that this product is unwieldly, perhaps impractical. Hence my second comment which refers to a tonneau cover for R1T made of a photovoltaic material which would reduce or eliminate phantom drain during daylight hours (if connected to the 12V system). A tonneau cover is actually a practical device, as is evidenced by ubiquity, and its practicality would not be unduly encumbered by a thin film photovoltaic layer and a couple of wires.
Note that I am not using the flawed term vampire drain as the LVB charge cycle also happens in broad daylight.

 

[mkhuffman]

But, it's an absurd product to deal with vampire drain for a 1kWh/day drain - right? I mean, I can't tell if you're defending the overall concept of replacing lost energy due to VD with solar, or saying this is a good product to address that issue.
Because it's not, by any measure.

I am neither defending nor criticizing.

I appreciate thinking outside the box, and entrepreneurs who take chances on products they think people might want. Personally I don't have a use case for it, but that is just me. Someone might actually want it, so why should I pee in their corn flakes? Who cares if they want something I don't need or want?

My response was to the guy who didn't understand why the product could help with vampire drain. That is all. Just helping him understand that use case, which you obviously don't think is a worthy one. I get it. No issues here!

 

[DeafPug]

What your thought about the Aptera...

Solar panels on a vehicle that consumes 100 Wh/mile (Aptera) is MUCH more useful than solar panels on a vehicle that consumes 500 Wh/mile or more (R1T).

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