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
TEEJAYWHY - I have come to the conclusion I will install mounting hardware for three panels on the POPUP roof. Two panels mounted inline with the roof area on each side of my front mounted fantastic fan, one additional panel mounted across the roof between the roof mounted air conditioner and the rear roof edge.
I haven't really tried this yet but got concerned about the extra weight of the panels for my electric motor to raise the roof. I can probably do ok with just one panel installed but plan on installing the two panels on each side of the fantastic fan after the roof is raised.
I will come up with a quick disconnect for these two panels into the Aluminum angle mounts using pins and latches. I can reach this area rather easy with my three step ladder. This will also give me the ability to use these two panels as portable setups as normally we like to park the OFF-ROAD POPUP under tree shade when setting up.
SHADOW CATCHER- I am planning on using the sides of the roof for mounting the support for my aluminum angles but do have a situation with my patio side mounted awning. My roof is fiberglass as I have used a couple of small etherbond patches for fixing a hole in the roof caused by overhang limbs. I think the stick-on pads would work just fine on the roof. I may have to resort to this as well for support of the aluminum frame in the middle of the roof and possible on the patio side where I may have trouble getting to the side of the roof due to the awning pouch mounted there.
I like the idea of working on the POPUP roof in the down position where I can have both feet firmly on the ground haha...
I am still deciding on the roof DC Connections for the panels and will want to work in the idea of moving the two panels to the ground with some sort of DC connector. Will most likely end up with a side mounted PVC Electrical box with quick DC disconnects pigtails. Since the roof has to move up and down it may be better to install the DC connections on the outside of the trailer and just live with a long Dc cable plugged into the PVC electrical box.
I already deal with this when I mount a couple of easy-up HDTV and Radio Comms PVC pipes after the roof is raised. The solar panels cables can easily follow these PVC pipes down to the bottom part of the trailer.
I also haven't decided on the size of the panels yet. I think I have some lee-way on sizes of the 120WATT and 140WATT size panels. The Panel on rear end of the roof could be a pretty large size panel with the available space to use there.
I would love to be able to get 14.4VDC@20AMPS of "USABLE" solar panel DC outputs from the three panels to route to my battery banks for re-charging. Once I get past the high battery draw for the initial recharge start-up the 20AMPs of DC current will really do a great job for me getting to my 90% or even 100% charge state during a single SUN day of using the panels. Each of my batteries like to draw around 20AMPS each if available for the first 15-20 minutes during the initial charge-up procedure.
My ultimate goal using the solar panels is to get to my drop dead re-charge time around the 4:30PM time frame each day as this is the usual last possible time I have to use my 2KW Generator to re-charge my batteries following the generator run time restrictions we usually run into here on the East side of the US camp sites. I will not start my run off the batteries unless I am at the 90% charge state or better to be able to make it thru the night until 8AM the next morning and not be below the 50% charge state on the batteries. These are my rules that have made me very successful over the past five years or more of camping off the power grid...
Roy Ken
I haven't really tried this yet but got concerned about the extra weight of the panels for my electric motor to raise the roof. I can probably do ok with just one panel installed but plan on installing the two panels on each side of the fantastic fan after the roof is raised.
I will come up with a quick disconnect for these two panels into the Aluminum angle mounts using pins and latches. I can reach this area rather easy with my three step ladder. This will also give me the ability to use these two panels as portable setups as normally we like to park the OFF-ROAD POPUP under tree shade when setting up.
SHADOW CATCHER- I am planning on using the sides of the roof for mounting the support for my aluminum angles but do have a situation with my patio side mounted awning. My roof is fiberglass as I have used a couple of small etherbond patches for fixing a hole in the roof caused by overhang limbs. I think the stick-on pads would work just fine on the roof. I may have to resort to this as well for support of the aluminum frame in the middle of the roof and possible on the patio side where I may have trouble getting to the side of the roof due to the awning pouch mounted there.
I like the idea of working on the POPUP roof in the down position where I can have both feet firmly on the ground haha...
I am still deciding on the roof DC Connections for the panels and will want to work in the idea of moving the two panels to the ground with some sort of DC connector. Will most likely end up with a side mounted PVC Electrical box with quick DC disconnects pigtails. Since the roof has to move up and down it may be better to install the DC connections on the outside of the trailer and just live with a long Dc cable plugged into the PVC electrical box.
I already deal with this when I mount a couple of easy-up HDTV and Radio Comms PVC pipes after the roof is raised. The solar panels cables can easily follow these PVC pipes down to the bottom part of the trailer.
I also haven't decided on the size of the panels yet. I think I have some lee-way on sizes of the 120WATT and 140WATT size panels. The Panel on rear end of the roof could be a pretty large size panel with the available space to use there.
I would love to be able to get 14.4VDC@20AMPS of "USABLE" solar panel DC outputs from the three panels to route to my battery banks for re-charging. Once I get past the high battery draw for the initial recharge start-up the 20AMPs of DC current will really do a great job for me getting to my 90% or even 100% charge state during a single SUN day of using the panels. Each of my batteries like to draw around 20AMPS each if available for the first 15-20 minutes during the initial charge-up procedure.
My ultimate goal using the solar panels is to get to my drop dead re-charge time around the 4:30PM time frame each day as this is the usual last possible time I have to use my 2KW Generator to re-charge my batteries following the generator run time restrictions we usually run into here on the East side of the US camp sites. I will not start my run off the batteries unless I am at the 90% charge state or better to be able to make it thru the night until 8AM the next morning and not be below the 50% charge state on the batteries. These are my rules that have made me very successful over the past five years or more of camping off the power grid...
Roy Ken
