My first time with a solar panel!
My first solar panel
Ah yes, I can remember it well. It was a bright sunny day. I looked deep into my solar panel’s cells, looked up at the sun, and knew something magical was going to happen here. 
All the ingredients were bought together. I was on the cusp of making energy!! I built a small box, that housed the 130ah deep cycle battery, the 20A Regulator, and the 600w pure sine inverter. Everything was ready. Everything was hopefully connected up right. I connected the 80w solar panel to the 20A regulator and waited with baited breath . . .
Then the magic happened. The Regulator indicates there’s around 4amps of current moving into the battery. I did it. I made energy and that energy is being stored in the battery. This energy was renewable. My energy source was our Solar System’s largest energy source and sustainer of all life as we know it. That’s a pretty good energy source. This energy source never breaks down. It doesn’t have a day off and they say it has around 6 BILLION years of supply left. I felt like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway when he made fire. I made energy!! 
I ran inside loudly proclaiming my victory to my wife, who looked back at me with one of those looks only a wife can give you. “That’s great dear”, she said, as she went on with whatever she was doing. So I basically dragged her out to the front lawn, here the magic was happening. “Look at the readout”, I proudly say. I’m making renewable energy. 
Thus my first time with a solar panel, and our solar camping setup was underway. Camping is the reason I got into solar power, as I needed power when camping, and only camping at powered sites somewhat restricts you to where you can go camping. So solar power seemed the obvious choice for portable power.
There’s a special feeling sitting in your camp, under the shelter that you have provided, reclining in your favorite camping chair, cold beverage of choice in one hand, surveying your surrounds and admiring your endless renewable supply of energy device.
As with most things in life, that humble 80w solar panel setup grew to become 4 x 80w panels and 4 x 130ah batteries, with a 1Kw pure sine inverter, all built into the camping trailer. Portable renewable power tapped into the Solar System’s largest energy source and sustainer of all life as we know it.
I have plans to add a 300w wind turbine to the camping trailer, and also some solar panel concentrators around the edges of the panels, so the journey is far from over.
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Thanks. I quite like it.
Great little setup!