POPUPs with Solar Panels added to roof
Would like to see some photos of POPUPs with SOLAR PANELs added to the roof area. I am in the very early stage of looking into installing SOLAR PANELS on my Starcraft 14RT Off-Road POPUP roof. M...
Forum Discussion
Hey RoyB, Sorry I don't have any experience in this area (yet). I would like to one day.
Attaching support arms to the roof's sideboards is easy enough. But then, as you say, keeping the awning intact is a challenge. And from your picture, it looks like the awning bag pretty much goes almost completely from the front end to the rear end.
I still think it possible to do roof cargo carrier bars attached to the sideboards. And you'll have to be the eyes on the ground for your specific setup but when considering similar for mine, I have come to the conclusion that I can cut two slits in the awning's bag where I need to position the support arms. These slits would be right below the plastic bead used to slide into the track. I would technically be cutting the awning too but it doesn't look like water would be a problem when the awning was deployed. Water while sitting outside or going down the road might be a problem, though as it can get inside the bag and stay there until you open the bag up sometime later.
More likely is that I will cut a slit in the shoulder of the rubber that slides into the track mounted to the roof. I'm thinking a razor utility knife for the cutting. This will cut through stitches on mine but due to recent experiences, I now know how to use the Speedy Stitch Awl. I have used Super Glue with great success to "lock" any stitching that gets cut to keep it from unraveling. I would then use the Speedy Stitch to reinforce the stitching running right up to the slits.
Either option requires cutting into the awning. If you don't use the awning so much and/or switch over to using an EZup or other fast deploying canopy, you can just pull the awning off altogether.
OR...
You put holes in the roof. Properly sealed, this should not cause a problem. It won't be as strong of a hold going into the thin metal skin of the roof unless you can hit one of the possible integral wood roof supports.
You're stuck with making a choice.
Upon further review, it looks like your awning does not attach above the black screw trim strip. It looks like it is attached to the sideboard slightly below the screw trip strip. If that's the case, I would look at utilizing that area. Generally, that strip goes into a wood substrate. You could look at doing an upside down T bracket where the horizontal piece of the T runs along the line of that trim strip. Something like
or 
As for cabling it up while allowing it to charge when travelling, a couple of thoughts. One is to just run them along the screw trim strip on the road side of the roof line up to the front deck area, drop them down the front roadside corner of the box onto the deck area and have enough coiled up so that you can just uncoil them as you raise the roof. This leaves them with solid connections and the least electronic resistance when attaching to the solar controller and further connections to the batteries. Just secure the coil for transit.
The other thought is to use the quick connect connectors common to solar installations. Run the cables the same way along the roof line, drop them down the front but somewhere around the seam between the roof gasket and the hard bottom, put a quick connector connection point there. The rest of that connection is a short cable section that runs straight to the charge controller/batteries.
Then, when you get to the camp site, you disconnect that, insert the "extension" section that is long enough for raising the roof and then raise the roof.
While this might have a cleaner look when the PUP is down, it has risks such as forgetting to disconnect the short version and insert the extension before you crank it up. Possible cord or other damage may result. It also introduces extra junctions for the electrical flow, probably increasing resistance.
You also have to decide where it makes sense to install the solar charger controller. You could put it in a weatherproof box and mount it to the rails up on the roof and just run one cable pair (+/-) down to the batteries and save some cable cost. I don't think I would go that route as you can't inspect and check the condition of the controller unless you pop the roof down. I would probably go with a weatherproof box somewhere on or under but within easy access of your deck.
Of course, you can route the cabling through the interior of the PUP and have the controller inside but you'll still have to deal with cabling coming in and out of the PUP. I have ideas on that but they are complicated by your desire to charge while closed up.
Of course, this is all an arm chair exercise for me. I have walked around the PUP with this problem in mind but I've not put anything to paper or picked up a tool yet. Let us know what you end up doing.
Attaching support arms to the roof's sideboards is easy enough. But then, as you say, keeping the awning intact is a challenge. And from your picture, it looks like the awning bag pretty much goes almost completely from the front end to the rear end.
I still think it possible to do roof cargo carrier bars attached to the sideboards. And you'll have to be the eyes on the ground for your specific setup but when considering similar for mine, I have come to the conclusion that I can cut two slits in the awning's bag where I need to position the support arms. These slits would be right below the plastic bead used to slide into the track. I would technically be cutting the awning too but it doesn't look like water would be a problem when the awning was deployed. Water while sitting outside or going down the road might be a problem, though as it can get inside the bag and stay there until you open the bag up sometime later.
More likely is that I will cut a slit in the shoulder of the rubber that slides into the track mounted to the roof. I'm thinking a razor utility knife for the cutting. This will cut through stitches on mine but due to recent experiences, I now know how to use the Speedy Stitch Awl. I have used Super Glue with great success to "lock" any stitching that gets cut to keep it from unraveling. I would then use the Speedy Stitch to reinforce the stitching running right up to the slits.
Either option requires cutting into the awning. If you don't use the awning so much and/or switch over to using an EZup or other fast deploying canopy, you can just pull the awning off altogether.
OR...
You put holes in the roof. Properly sealed, this should not cause a problem. It won't be as strong of a hold going into the thin metal skin of the roof unless you can hit one of the possible integral wood roof supports.
You're stuck with making a choice.
Upon further review, it looks like your awning does not attach above the black screw trim strip. It looks like it is attached to the sideboard slightly below the screw trip strip. If that's the case, I would look at utilizing that area. Generally, that strip goes into a wood substrate. You could look at doing an upside down T bracket where the horizontal piece of the T runs along the line of that trim strip. Something like
or As for cabling it up while allowing it to charge when travelling, a couple of thoughts. One is to just run them along the screw trim strip on the road side of the roof line up to the front deck area, drop them down the front roadside corner of the box onto the deck area and have enough coiled up so that you can just uncoil them as you raise the roof. This leaves them with solid connections and the least electronic resistance when attaching to the solar controller and further connections to the batteries. Just secure the coil for transit.
The other thought is to use the quick connect connectors common to solar installations. Run the cables the same way along the roof line, drop them down the front but somewhere around the seam between the roof gasket and the hard bottom, put a quick connector connection point there. The rest of that connection is a short cable section that runs straight to the charge controller/batteries.
Then, when you get to the camp site, you disconnect that, insert the "extension" section that is long enough for raising the roof and then raise the roof.
While this might have a cleaner look when the PUP is down, it has risks such as forgetting to disconnect the short version and insert the extension before you crank it up. Possible cord or other damage may result. It also introduces extra junctions for the electrical flow, probably increasing resistance.
You also have to decide where it makes sense to install the solar charger controller. You could put it in a weatherproof box and mount it to the rails up on the roof and just run one cable pair (+/-) down to the batteries and save some cable cost. I don't think I would go that route as you can't inspect and check the condition of the controller unless you pop the roof down. I would probably go with a weatherproof box somewhere on or under but within easy access of your deck.
Of course, you can route the cabling through the interior of the PUP and have the controller inside but you'll still have to deal with cabling coming in and out of the PUP. I have ideas on that but they are complicated by your desire to charge while closed up.
Of course, this is all an arm chair exercise for me. I have walked around the PUP with this problem in mind but I've not put anything to paper or picked up a tool yet. Let us know what you end up doing.
