Golden_HVAC wrote:
Here is a post that I made a couple of days ago. It also includes pictures of my solar system on the roof of my 30' long Bounder. The larger panels are difficult to locate space for them on the roof, without shade from the antenna or A/C unit, and still offer space to walk past them for roof or other maintenance.Golden_HVAC wrote:
Check out this website for solar panels. You will want one with a aluminum frame to attach to the rooftop mounts. The very lowest cost panels are designed for home installation, not moving vehicles, and usually are designed to have a frame mounted to the home, then the panels mounted to the frame attached to the roof already. I saw a 140 watt panel on this site for $229 a few weeks ago, with a '12 volt nominal' voltage output that is actually about 21 volts open circuit. You could use a PWM controller with it, say 20 amps for a pair of panels, and they are very low cost, only $15 from AliExpress.com
SunElec.com
I used mounts that keep the panels about 1" off the roof, so they actually keep the roofing membrane cooler under the panels, than the exposed roof temperature.
Here are some pictures of my solar mounts, when it rains they are under the panels, so the rain is not directly over the screw holes. Also it makes it more difficult to remove without the proper antitheft Torx screwdriver adapter.Golden_HVAC wrote:rickthescot wrote:
Sounds like a great idea. I guess asking for pictures again is not going to persuade you though. We are visual creatures and I don't think 1000 words will accomplish what one image will. You can do it, just one pic.
More pictures that I took a few days ago to post pictures of my solar panels, and their mounts. Some pictures are really close up pictures of the solar panel mounts, and give a clear picture of howrough the surface is.Golden_HVAC wrote:
Hi,
This is my front pair of panels. 120 watt mounted on a curved roof, 102" wide.
This is the mount it is held on with three rivets into the frame, and then the bottom half is 6" long aluminum, (Home Depot 2" angle aluminum) with nutsert in the upper piece, bolt you can not see from the outside edge pointing inward.
This picture shows the bigfoot panel mount sold by RvSolarElectric for $35 a set back in 1994. I wonder what they cost today?
This picture shows the panels tilted while I was working on the roof.
Fred.
If you google Nutsert insert tool, you will see several videos of people installing nutserts, and they are easy to install, difficult to remove, easy to use to install, tilt or remove the panels.
Let me know if you have any further questions. I have a 415 rated watt system. With it I am covered for my normal 35 AH daily (what one of the 120 watt panels will put out in one day) to run the refrigerator, CO detector and propane leak detector.
The water pump only requires 7 amp hours to pump for 1 hour at 2 GPM, or will empty a 120 gallon tank for only 7 AH or about 85 watts! I would not include that in any estimate of your power usage.
Lights - if you change out 3-5 of your favorite light fixtures to LED, then you do not really need to count them in your amp hour figures to estimate your total energy use per day. You need not replace each fixture bulb, that is not cost effective, and if those fixtures are only run 2 minutes at a time, only say 30 minutes per trip, then the 1 AH they use each trip is not worth calculating into your daily use. This would include my 15 + luggage area lamps, that are rarely used.
Thanks for the info... all my lights are LED
Here is a post that I made a couple of days ago. It also includes pictures of my solar system on the roof of my 30' long Bounder. The larger panels are difficult to locate space for them on the roof, without shade from the antenna or A/C unit, and still offer space to walk past them for roof or other maintenance.
Let me know if you have any further questions. I have a 415 rated watt system. With it I am covered for my normal 35 AH daily (what one of the 120 watt panels will put out in one day) to run the refrigerator, CO detector and propane leak detector.
The water pump only requires 7 amp hours to pump for 1 hour at 2 GPM, or will empty a 120 gallon tank for only 7 AH or about 85 watts! I would not include that in any estimate of your power usage.
Lights - if you change out 3-5 of your favorite light fixtures to LED, then you do not really need to count them in your amp hour figures to estimate your total energy use per day. You need not replace each fixture bulb, that is not cost effective, and if those fixtures are only run 2 minutes at a time, only say 30 minutes per trip, then the 1 AH they use each trip is not worth calculating into your daily use. This would include my 15 + luggage area lamps, that are rarely used.
Golden_HVAC wrote:
Check out this website for solar panels. You will want one with a aluminum frame to attach to the rooftop mounts. The very lowest cost panels are designed for home installation, not moving vehicles, and usually are designed to have a frame mounted to the home, then the panels mounted to the frame attached to the roof already. I saw a 140 watt panel on this site for $229 a few weeks ago, with a '12 volt nominal' voltage output that is actually about 21 volts open circuit. You could use a PWM controller with it, say 20 amps for a pair of panels, and they are very low cost, only $15 from AliExpress.com
SunElec.com
I used mounts that keep the panels about 1" off the roof, so they actually keep the roofing membrane cooler under the panels, than the exposed roof temperature.
Here are some pictures of my solar mounts, when it rains they are under the panels, so the rain is not directly over the screw holes. Also it makes it more difficult to remove without the proper antitheft Torx screwdriver adapter.Golden_HVAC wrote:rickthescot wrote:
Sounds like a great idea. I guess asking for pictures again is not going to persuade you though. We are visual creatures and I don't think 1000 words will accomplish what one image will. You can do it, just one pic.
More pictures that I took a few days ago to post pictures of my solar panels, and their mounts. Some pictures are really close up pictures of the solar panel mounts, and give a clear picture of howrough the surface is.Golden_HVAC wrote:
Hi,
This is my front pair of panels. 120 watt mounted on a curved roof, 102" wide.
This is the mount it is held on with three rivets into the frame, and then the bottom half is 6" long aluminum, (Home Depot 2" angle aluminum) with nutsert in the upper piece, bolt you can not see from the outside edge pointing inward.
This picture shows the bigfoot panel mount sold by RvSolarElectric for $35 a set back in 1994. I wonder what they cost today?
This picture shows the panels tilted while I was working on the roof.
Fred.
If you google Nutsert insert tool, you will see several videos of people installing nutserts, and they are easy to install, difficult to remove, easy to use to install, tilt or remove the panels.
Let me know if you have any further questions. I have a 415 rated watt system. With it I am covered for my normal 35 AH daily (what one of the 120 watt panels will put out in one day) to run the refrigerator, CO detector and propane leak detector.
The water pump only requires 7 amp hours to pump for 1 hour at 2 GPM, or will empty a 120 gallon tank for only 7 AH or about 85 watts! I would not include that in any estimate of your power usage.
Lights - if you change out 3-5 of your favorite light fixtures to LED, then you do not really need to count them in your amp hour figures to estimate your total energy use per day. You need not replace each fixture bulb, that is not cost effective, and if those fixtures are only run 2 minutes at a time, only say 30 minutes per trip, then the 1 AH they use each trip is not worth calculating into your daily use. This would include my 15 + luggage area lamps, that are rarely used.
From the title of your post, I was going to suggest this solar system:
...Sorry. ๐ I'll leave the real answers to the more knowledgeable folks.
...Sorry. ๐ I'll leave the real answers to the more knowledgeable folks.
