John&Joey wrote:
What was the logic for running so much wire on top of the roof vs plunging inside?
Has mostly to do with ease of installation (....and/or the fear of the unknown!). I don't really know much about how the roof and walls of the RV are designed and what space is in between and how easy/hard it is to route wires "invisibly" in the walls/ceiling. Because I knew I could do it, I routed the wires from the panel and shot them down the refrigerator vent.
And then punched through the bottom of the RV and routed underneath the RV (easy access) over to the driver side dinette.
~10' run on the roof....~10' drop from roof down to the underside of the RV...~15' run from underneath the refrigerator to the driver side dinette...and then about 4' punching back up into the RV under the dinette to the solar charge controller.
According to my calculations, I'm looking at a max of ~3.5% voltage drop (if the panels were at max output of 16 amps). 500w becomes 482.5w. Negligible.
-Chris
