The Ultimate DIY thread - Ubuilding (Pics)
Hey all, There is another, albeit smaller, side to this whole RV thing - those crazy folks who build their own for whatever reason. Whether you've scratch-built it from the ground up, assembled a kit...
Forum Discussion
Thx recycler.
That nagging in the back of one's mind to 'git 'er done' ?...I know exactly what that's like.
Progress has been a bit slow, but I've got the three panels that make up the back wall together now and glued to the floor. Today it gets glassed down and tomorrow I should be able to start attaching the sidewall panels and glassing them in. I'll put up some pics tonight of how I'm glassing the back wall to the floor.
Cutting individual panels and glassing them on the bench has been a great way to control resin usage and to help break the job up a bit, but it's a bit more work to rejoin them in such a way as to maintain full structural strength. I was prepared for that, but it makes for less visual progress between build sessions. It also saves me from glassing overhead, which I hate doing !
I'll still have to tape them on the inside, but that's no big deal: after wetting out the tape you roll it onto a dowel and squeeze out as much resin as you can. Then it just rolls on without being a horrible, drippy (and wasteful) mess. There's still a bit of dripping as you squeegee that wants to run down your arm, but that can be caught in a small container and used on the next strip.
I've also set up my solar on the roof as a bit of a dry run.
These are the four 15W panels on a rack that's a mockup of the mounting ribs I'll glass onto the top of the roof. This will be a fixed array, but I can fab a tiltable rack from aluminum later if need be.
I can see already that I'll need to add a center rib to keep the panels from sagging. Combined with bumps and road vibration, this sag spells cracked panels for sure:
The kit is four 15W maintainer panels that plug into an octopus before feeding a single line to the 7.5A controller. From there, I dump the power into a Group 31 deep cycle and then to a 1000W Xantrex inverter.
For the last few days I've been using the inverter to make my morning toast (900W) then it's got all day to charge back up. I'm up before the sun, so I check the voltage on the battery after it's had all night to equalize after the day's charge and every morning I'm right back to 12.7 V
This weekend, I'll be running an extension cord from the inverter to the bedroom window to run the bedroom TV off it instead. That's more of the low draw/longer duration loading that deep cycles prefer, since that TV is on for 3 or 4 hours each day.
My goal is simply to use the panels to maintain the batteries while in storage and to extend my boondocking time between charges, rather to try and offset my entire daily consumption. A generator will do the heavy lifting as far as charging goes, so all I need to do is add a couple days between charges. For that I think this kit will shine.
And now, it's back to work !!
That nagging in the back of one's mind to 'git 'er done' ?...I know exactly what that's like.
Progress has been a bit slow, but I've got the three panels that make up the back wall together now and glued to the floor. Today it gets glassed down and tomorrow I should be able to start attaching the sidewall panels and glassing them in. I'll put up some pics tonight of how I'm glassing the back wall to the floor.
Cutting individual panels and glassing them on the bench has been a great way to control resin usage and to help break the job up a bit, but it's a bit more work to rejoin them in such a way as to maintain full structural strength. I was prepared for that, but it makes for less visual progress between build sessions. It also saves me from glassing overhead, which I hate doing !
I'll still have to tape them on the inside, but that's no big deal: after wetting out the tape you roll it onto a dowel and squeeze out as much resin as you can. Then it just rolls on without being a horrible, drippy (and wasteful) mess. There's still a bit of dripping as you squeegee that wants to run down your arm, but that can be caught in a small container and used on the next strip.
I've also set up my solar on the roof as a bit of a dry run.
These are the four 15W panels on a rack that's a mockup of the mounting ribs I'll glass onto the top of the roof. This will be a fixed array, but I can fab a tiltable rack from aluminum later if need be.
I can see already that I'll need to add a center rib to keep the panels from sagging. Combined with bumps and road vibration, this sag spells cracked panels for sure:
The kit is four 15W maintainer panels that plug into an octopus before feeding a single line to the 7.5A controller. From there, I dump the power into a Group 31 deep cycle and then to a 1000W Xantrex inverter.
For the last few days I've been using the inverter to make my morning toast (900W) then it's got all day to charge back up. I'm up before the sun, so I check the voltage on the battery after it's had all night to equalize after the day's charge and every morning I'm right back to 12.7 V
This weekend, I'll be running an extension cord from the inverter to the bedroom window to run the bedroom TV off it instead. That's more of the low draw/longer duration loading that deep cycles prefer, since that TV is on for 3 or 4 hours each day.
My goal is simply to use the panels to maintain the batteries while in storage and to extend my boondocking time between charges, rather to try and offset my entire daily consumption. A generator will do the heavy lifting as far as charging goes, so all I need to do is add a couple days between charges. For that I think this kit will shine.
And now, it's back to work !!
