Thor Forums

[tinman01]

Hi, just thought I would give a update on my solar install. I tried to list everything with a link at the end of this post with the first item being THIS FORUM! and all the helpful advice I received.

Here is the system I installed:

Four 100 watt - Renogy mono panels mounted on my roof with a Rover MPPT 40 Amp charge controller. They are mounted with 1 1/2” X 6” long Aluminum angle mounted at each corner. Each bracket is screwed in to the alum trusses which vary in distance from 15 1/2” to 27” to 40” (to what ever they felt like i guess) This puts the mounts with in 8 inches or so of each end of the panel to be able for the mount to line up with the trusses. I used 1” alum angle mounted to the panels and on 2 of the panels I have vents under them so I used 1/8” X 2” flat alum bolted to the 1” angle on the panels, to add extra height to clear the vents. For the tilt brackets I used 3/4” 18” long Chanel Alum (2 per panel). This gives the capability to tilt in either direction in 5 degree increments from 50 degrees to 75 degrees, depending on my location (and willingness to climb up on my roof! LOL).
Everything is sealed with Eternabond tape under each of the 1 1/2” angle mounts as well as Dicor self leveling sealant over all screws and brackets. All cabling is held down with the Eternabond tape and enters through at the same place as my Sat TV. Again all sealed with Eternabond and Dicor.

I have added four additional Trojan T105’s for a total of 6 - 6 volt batteries (wired in series and parallel for 12 volt system) totaling 675 Amp hours with about 337 usable.

This feeds an Aims 3000 watt Pure sine Inverter going to a sub panel feeding the Refrigerator, Microwave, coffee pot, kitchen plugs, bedroom plugs and TV’s.
I put in a Victron battery monitor and remote panel for the inverter next to my control panel inside the coach.

I took the storage bin just behind the coach batteries for the extra batteries and put in a sealed tub from (Home Depot) that I vented out to the original battery compartment. The Sub panel is riveted to the side of the battery tub as well as the inline fuse for the Solar and all rivets and screws are sealed and rubber coated so there is no chance of gasses leaking out or something shorting out against a screw or rivet.

The solar panels each have an inline 10 amp fuse which runs down to the new battery compartment and hits a 40 Amp fuse before and after the MPPT controller, there are battery disconnects between the batteries and inverter and batteries and coach system, giving me the capability of disconnecting the whole system at any point should I ever need to trouble shoot it.

The Inverter runs almost everything, even the Microwave and induction hot plate with no problems. Although with hind sight, I wish I would have went to the 4000 watt 240 volt inverter instead, only because I could have had two separate 120 volt legs just to separate things out a little more, but this works with no trouble so thats more of a want than a need. Coming from the inverter to the sub-panel I used a 20 amp 12-2 wire (the yellow wire) and from the sub-panel to the outlets just 15 amp 14-2 wire. The only things not run on the inverter are my Air conditioning, hot water heater (its gas or elec.)and the Converter.

When I’m on shore power the converter, inverter and solar all charge my batteries back up very quickly.

I have left the shore power off just to see how long and how the panels are doing but I have only had one day of sun, however I was still at 100% at the end of the day and the next day with a cloudy sky it was at 86%.

The first day of testing I had clear sky and lots of sun and was pulling in about 365 watts out of the panels.

My wife retires on July 11th this year and although we will keep our house, at least for the 1st year, I'm sue looking forward to going full time!

Here are links to most everything I used:

This Forum!

Solar panels - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Solar panel wiring to MPPT Controller - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Inline fuse for solar panel - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Inline 40 Amp breaker to MPPT - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

MC4 Crimping tool - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Eternabond Tape - https://www.amazon.com/EternaBond-RS...70_&dpSrc=srch

Eternaclean spray cleaner - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

MC4 connectors - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

MC4 branch connectors 4 into 1 - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

MC4 tool - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Inverter - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Battery cable crimper - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Heat shrink for connectors - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Battery cable connectors - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Battery Cable - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Sub panel - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Victron Battery monitor - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Vent and hose for battery - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Battery disconnect - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Circuit breaker - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Dicor self-leveling sealant - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Screws for mounts - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

400 Amp catastrophic Fuse - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Battery tub from Home depot

Batteries from local golf cart dealer