Got the panels mounted last night before dark. Finished up the wiring this morning just before 11. Will post completed pics when I get home, as I did this all while we went camping. But to start, I installed the z brackets into the bottom of the solar panels, 6 each, for a total of 12 z brackets. Normally, on smaller panels they'd only need 4... I got a pair of 125 watt panels. Up the ladder I went with my panels, a tube of dicor, some pico clamps and stainless sheet metal screws, along with my Milwaukee M18 drill and impact. I put the panels in place where they wouldn't get too much shade from the ac unit, and where all 6 z brackets sit flat on the roof, but not so the panels were totally flat on the roof to allow for water drainage. Then I put the cables up, ran then under the forward panel. Happy with my mockup, I then blobbed the dicor where I wanted to use pico clamps to secure the cables, screwed them down, then blobbed dicor over the screws. Same for the panels. Blobbed dicor where the z brackets sit, screwed down and more dicor over that. Here comes the hard part, drilling a hole in my roof to run the cables. Drilling was the easy part, but to put a hole all the way through to the interior, of a roof that doesn't leak... Called it quits once I got dicor to cover that hole. Will post the wiring story probably tomorrow night, as that was part two of the job anyway.
Sounds like a fun camping trip Joe. I can understand drilling a hole in the roof making you nervous, was there no way that you could have went through the side wall?
They lay flat, raised off the roof about an inch. Due to the contour of the roof, they are tilted slightly.
#ad Okay, now for the wiring portion. Ran the MC4 cables from the ceiling along the corner and into the closet that my wife uses. They are UV rated, 10 gauge wires. Mounted the charge controller into a panel at the top of the closet by drilling 4 holes in the corners, then using a drywall saw to open it up to fit. Drilled a couple 1/2" holes in the bottom of the closet into the forward storage bay, then 2 more through the bottom of the storage bay to underneath. Threaded 4 gauge cable in red and black back up through the previously drilled holes back into the closet, crimped on #10 lugs on the 4 and 10 gauge cables, with a fuse holder on the solar + input. All connections got the heat shrink treatment. Pico clamps here and there to hold everything in place, but I need more. In the storage bay I left an extra loop of 4 gauge so I can have a junction box and fuse panel for expansion later. My expansion plans are for step lights for the main and rear door, a 12 volt output for a cpap adapter (for dry camping) and usb power for various devices. Then I threaded the 4 gauge across and over to the batteries. Pico clamped there too. 5/16" battery lugs, and another fuse holder for the positive battery cable. Installed the fuses, disconnected from shore power, looks like it works. #ad #ad #ad #ad
I don't have them wired up to power anything, they're only there to keep the batteries topped up. But I will have to wait and see. There are some charge controllers with terminals that go to the load, and will supply power to the load first and batteries second, but mine isn't one of those controllers. Yesterday in the direct sun, with the way they were angled, I was getting just over 7 amps. Not sure for how long. But that was also with shore power, so it might have been more. With shade from a nearby tree I was getting 1 amp. For most of the day, every time I checked, was between 3.5 and 4 amps. The controller slows the charge rate as the battery comes up, so I did see it at 0.1 amp today when I checked on it before I locked it up at the storage yard. Then, as I was heading out the door I glanced back and noticed one of the lights were off, so I went back to check and it showed "not charging" and "battery full". I'm gonna go back to the storage yard next weekend to install the usb ports and 12 volt outlet, so we'll see if it maintains well enough. But, in ideal (read perfect) conditions they are supposed to produce 125 watts each. But then I would have to angle them towards the sun, be above 5000 feet elevation, and a whole bunch of other conditions to even come close to that. The real test will come in a couple weeks when we go dry camping. Hoping for a spot that isn't too shady for the panels, but shady enough that we're comfortable. And it usually rains when we go there too, so there's that...
It wasn't a kit as I had to supply my own terminals and 4 gauge cable. All the parts I ordered came from different manufacturers, but through the same supplier. I would have gotten a 200 watt kit from ebay or amazon but we were on a time crunch. Can't wait 10 working days for it to ship as that's when we planned on leaving for a week long trip. I may have paid a couple hundred more that way, but at least it's done, and I don't have to scramble to find parts that might have been missing from a kit on the day we leave, or worse, try to find those parts while I install it on another camping trip, and possibly in the rain... And there's nothing worse than finding you're a foot short on a prepackaged cable.
