Solar Questions - Work Truck Edition

I've done some searching, although I'll freely admit probably not enough to qualify making a thread yet, but I figured I'd throw this out there since this is somewhat of a unique situation.

There's a potential situation coming up where I might be able to start using my Tacoma as a work truck. This would be sweet since my monthly payments would be covered and I could put money towards the truck as a business expense and I could upgrade it quicker than if I didn't. I could then use it for camping/off roading on my free time.

The biggest problem is that often times for work I spend a lot of time sitting on a site idling while I run a computer and charge a bunch of random equipment I use for work and running A/C/heat.

One thing I thought of to avoid a ton of idle time while also not being miserable sitting in my truck and not draining the battery down was to get some kind of solar setup.

Now I really don't know much at all about solar, hence where this thread begins.

Ideally I'd have something strong enough to run a computer charger/radio charger/phone charger/other random stuff (which I know wouldn't be much), but also maybe some kind of A/C/heating unit for the cab to keep it comfortable.

Is this feasible? Would it be overly expensive? Would such a setup even be able to keep up with the heating/cooling of a unit for the cab? I suppose even if it didn't take the full load all the time even if it allowed me to not run my truck constantly that would be a win.

If it helps I have a bed topper so if I got a rack on the cab and the topper I'd have a decent amount of real estate to put some panels on.

The plus side of this is I'd use it for work but it would also be badass to have for camping as well.

 

Depends on how much your wattage over time requirement is. Most likely your situation requires a shit ton of expensive and heavy ass batteries because there won’t be enough real estate on the truck for panels. You’re probably better off just getting a Honda 2000 inverter and run everything off of that. Although if you get rid of your need for ac and it’ll be doable.

 

Yeah I know the chargers don't require that much juice. It's the A/C and heating obviously I'm worried about.

I suppose I don't even know what units I would use if I did. Does anybody know heating and cooling units you'd recommend for the task so I'd know how much juice it would require in the first place?

 

the honda eu2000 will run all day on a gallon of gas.
it will run a full size fridge or up to 12k btu a/c.

when your done with the generator the resale value
is very good. so you will get most of your money back.

id use the solar panels and small battery if a/c wasn't a requirement.

 

$1000 and no sunshine required, portable, lasts a lifetime.

 

A/C equipment require a lot of power. Especially electric heat. It would take up a lot of space and cost a small fortune to install all of the supporting electronics to operate air-conditioning equipment.

 

Could something like this tie in to the truck somehow to use the existing A/C and heat or would the trucks motor need to be running for those to work?

 

Totally separate on AC plug anything you want into the generator (110V). Anything you plug into the truck runs off the 12V battery.

 

The truck air-conditioner requires the truck to be running to function normally.

 

I imagine a little generator like that would be pretty noisy too though. That's kind of why I was hoping solar could be a solution for me but if it won't be capable of keeping up with my demands than obviously I'm out of luck I guess.

 

It isn't impossible. Just impractical.

 

Solar is not a solution unless you want to charge your cell phone and nothing else.
A generator is not a solution if you want to use your vehicle's HVAC.
If you want to buy a small space heater or a fan then a generator would work for everything.

This is fact.