theboondork's RV blog

yet another project I can put off doing until I forget why I even wanted it.

6/6/2019

Old Denver dairy farm.

Another beautiful day in Denver, but as usual a small chance of showers are expected by late this afternoon.

I got my 200 watt solar panel kit from Renogy yesterday, unpacked it, and started thinking about the best place on the roof to put the two panels, and what other items I might need for the installation.

I put the feet on the panels last night since its an easy job to do in the Arctic Fox but more annoying to do while up on the roof. The wires provided with the kit seem awfully small to me compared to what I used for the Arctic Fox's solar system, but of course the wires for the pop-up don't have to be anywhere near as long as the wires in the Arctic Fox and therefore don't need to be anywhere near as large.

But nonetheless I scrounged around in my box of extra wires, another thing I could've gotten rid of but here I am maybe using them again, and found some leftover wires from my previous solar projects which I might use instead of the wires provided by Renogy.

Since I'm going to be able to mount the solar panels on the roof almost directly over the batteries location in the camper, I think the number 10 wire's that came with the kit and go from the panels to the solar controller should be fine. But from the solar controller to the batteries and from the batteries to the inverter I think need to be bigger.

I'm hoping these two solar panels that put out 100 watts each will give me enough electricity to keep me comfortable in the little Bronco pop-up. But if it doesn't then adding another panel would be an easy addition to make.

I ended up getting a 20 amp MPPT solar controller figuring that 20 amps of charging should be the most I would need with the Broncos limited use. And I got the MPPT version just to see how well it works, and if it works as well as they say I might consider getting an MPPT controller for the Arctic Fox in the future.

theboondork

The Renogy solar kit.

The wires on top are leftovers I had when doing the Arctic Fox solar project. The sickly looking wires on the bottom that resemble little dead worms are what came in the Renogy solar kit.

8 Comments

Barney Ward link

6/6/2019 04:01:37 pm

After running the engineering calculations about a dozen times for my 350 watts of solar and measuring the distances a few times, I found that my need was well less than 10 gage for any part of the system. But I like the sturdiness of 10 gage from all my powerboat wiring days just for the mechanical strength. None of my calculations came close to requiring 10 gage, usually 12 or 14 with room to spare.

Tom

6/6/2019 05:41:13 pm

I can't remember many of the details of when I installed the solar system on the Arctic Fox but I know the six 140 W panels can put out about 50 amps in full sun. And the run from the combiner box on the roof to the solar controller was about 18 feet so I looked up a 2% loss chart and then went one size bigger than it recommended, no scientific reason, just because, so I ended up with some pretty big wire.

But the little bronco pop-up is not going to be like that the run from the roof to the solar controller looks like it will be less than 10 feet, and the two solar panels together will only put out about 11 amps, so I'm sure the 10 gauge wire they gave me will be plenty.

But I'm a firm believer in having the biggest wire you can lay your hands on going from the solar controller to the batteries and from the batteries to the inverter. So even though those three things are only going to be a couple feet apart in the Bronco I've always felt better seeing big wires attached to a battery, there again no scientific reason it just makes me feel better.

Tom

6/6/2019 07:18:03 pm

The controller to the battery is the same size wire as from the panels in a well designed system. The charge system stops there.From the batteries is a whole different story. A battery can throw everything it has at the inverter in an instant. This is the wire or wires that need to be BIG. Make them at least a size bigger than the inverter draw needs is my opinion. Do not over size the inline fuse in the inverter circuit though.

6/7/2019 08:46:21 am

Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you but I was helping assemble the Grandkids New Trampoline until almost my bedtime. It should've been a two hour job but with two guys that don't know how to read instructions doing the work, a two-year-old and a four-year-old "helping" and one wife supervising, we were lucky it didn't turn into a Christmas present.

I'm hoping I will get around to doing the wiring on the camper this weekend because I would like to take it somewhere next week just to test it, but who knows. When I'm working with large batteries things have a tendency of melting down no matter how big the wires.

Tom

6/7/2019 10:03:58 am

I use a lot of fuses in my RV and Boat wiring circuits. They are cheap to put in and wonderful friends to the OFM.

6/7/2019 12:12:31 pm

They gave me a couple of fuses in the kit and I have more laying around from previous projects. I don't necessarily trust my wiring jobs so I put a fuse on everything.

Tom

Tim link

6/7/2019 02:54:59 pm

I ended up oversizing almost all of my wire at least one size. I wasn't sure of the length of the run from the roof to the front compartment (because I wasn't 100% sure how to get down there), so I ended up oversizing it two sizes. I also agree about fuses - I have fuses on everything.

I have a commitment tomorrow afternoon, so trying to decide if it's worth running up tomorrow and working for a few hours or just going up Sunday. Either way, I hope to make a little bit of progress this weekend. I was reading through the directions for the battery monitor and the shunt requires two 1 amp T fuses, which I didn't realize I needed and can't find them local. So, they've been ordered through Amazon and I won't get them until Monday. In other words, I won't be finishing this weekend of the solar project.

Hope you have a great weekend. Good luck and have fun with your truck camper!

6/7/2019 03:30:38 pm

Thank you Tim, I'm always having fun no matter what's going on because my life is fun.

My memory is I had a problem figuring out the wires on my Bogart Engineering Trimetric Battery Monitor and the reason I remember this is because it was the only thing in the whole installation that gave me any trouble. I couldn't get the meter to read correctly, so I had to call the company for help and talk to one of the engineers who walked me through the whole thing and found out I had a wire in the wrong place. Remember I never said I was an electrician or had any more than the most basic understanding of DC circuits, so to me it's amazing that was the only problem I had.

I've still got things I need to do to the little Bronco pop-up before it can go on its maiden voyage. It would be great if I could get the solar system installed so I would have a way to charge the batteries other than running the truck. It would also be kinda nice if I had an inverter installed so I had a place to plug in my 17 inch Asus laptop.

Other than that the little pop-up is ready to head for the hills, and so am I, so I'm hoping I can have this all sorted out by late next week so I can get in a little mountain time.

Tom

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yet another project I can put off doing until I forget why I even wanted it.

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