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RV Solar, What You Need! | RV Living | RV Boondocking
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ส.ค. 2024
- Getting Solar for your RV is a great step, but if you're like us, you'll find it VERY confusing! What do you actually need? How many Amp-hours? How many batteries? Do I line my roof? Will it cost me my life savings?
What all do I need to consider?
That's why we decided on this Solar series. We got our Go Power Solar package and its AMAZING! The package is simple yet effective and it meets are needs with flying colors.
I hope you'll indulge with us and learn about RV solar and what you need to know before designing your package.
Leave us a comment and like! We hope to connect with you soon.
Links:
@GoPowerSolar
@ForestRiverInc
Go Power
www.GPElectric.com
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Our Website:
www.IntentionalAdventure.com,
Nice set-up. We really enjoyed your video. We built a similar system - great minds think alike. We're retired FT RVers who love to boondock most of the time (we're living off-grid now), so we decided to build our solar system in 2 phases, a 12v basic phase to run all our 12v appliances and a 48v system for our AC high power needs. The main issue we faced is we are retired and living on social security and a small pension so have to do everything on a tight budget forgoing name brand components like Battleborn and Victron for lesser-known brands and must do all the work ourselves - which keeps getting harder as we age.
We just completed the first phase in January, with the addition of a custom built 560ah of LiFePo-4 battery, similar to your battery capacity, made with 8, 280ah prismatic cells. We used a Heltec 350amp BMS, to start the onboard 5,500watt generator in our motorhome, along with a 5a active balancer. We built our 12v battery with grade "A" LiFePo-4 prismatic cells having a 6,000 cycle manufacturer projected life at 100% DOD. This means that if we cycled them 100% every single day, 365 days a year, they would last over 16 years! So they're obviously going to wear out from age before they wear out from cycling. It only cost us $1,500 to build this 560ah battery, including the high amp BMS. The main reason we chose these cells (other than their price and quality) is that they fit perfectly under the steps of our motorhome where our old pair of GC-2 golf cart batteries used to reside, saving 35lbs compared to our old FLA batteries while having over 5 times the energy storage capacity. We insulated the battery compartment, cut a 1" hole in our step risers and installed a tiny computer CPU fan to keep this space at close to room temperature.
We started our build 4 years ago with a 620-watt liftable array mounted on the side of our motorhome. It serves as a nice bedroom window awning too. It practically lifts itself to the desired angle with a couple gas struts and it's easy to clean with a windshield squeegee, standing safely on the ground. Lifting an array to the correct angle for latitude and month, produces 25-30% more power than a flat mounted array - even more in winter when the sun is low on the horizon, so it harvests about the same wattage as your 760w horizontal array. This first phase, including the liftable array, wiring, breakers, a new Progressive Dynamics 80a Li compatible converter/charger, 600w PSW inverter (to run our TV and PC), an Epever 50a MPPT controller, a Lnex battery monitor/shunt, (which looks the same as your Go Power monitor) and a Renogy battery to battery charger (to protect the alternator) cost us around $3,600.
We'll be starting phase 2 soon. It was delayed a little because we just replaced 8 tires on our motorhome - $$$. By mounting our current solar array on the side of our MH, we left the roof free to rack 8, 460W bifacial solar panels in a single row down the length of our 35ft Class A. If you're not familiar with bifacial panels, the front side of these is rated at 460 watts with up to 25% additional wattage output from reflected light on the back side, for a total of up to 575 watts, depending on how they are mounted. We will be racking ours about 13" off the roof to clear our front AC shroud and vents. This clearance should conservatively produce another 10% output off the back of these bifacial panels, from sunlight reflected off our white roof - more during off-peak hours and in the winter. It will give us some nice shade too, reducing the heat load on our air conditioners. Our MH isn't as tall as your fiver, so we will be able to keep the RV height to 12' 2". Rather than buying individual components, we will be using an all-in-one 48V, 5,000W, 120V PSW Inverter, 80a MPPT charge controller with a 40a ac battery charger by Sungold Power. The reason we chose this all-in-one is because the idle power consumption is only 25 watts - and it's only $800. Most this size have an idle power consumption over 70 watts and cost at least $1,200. Our 48v battery bank will use 16, 310ah prismatic cells (15.9Kwh.) So together with our 560ah (7.1 Kwh)12v bank, we will have a total of 23Kwh of batteries onboard. We will be replacing our old rear 13.5k btu rooftop Dometic AC with a super high-efficiency 12k Btu 48v DC mini-split heat pump that only draws 750 watts at peak output and less than 500 watts when it's cooling normally. This second phase will cost about $10k, including the heat pump. So both phases together will cost around $13,600 as we plan on doing all the work ourselves. Our 2nd phase will provide 24/7 off-grid air conditioning and supplemental heat from the heat pump and allow occasional usage of our front rooftop AC to cool things down for peak afternoon demand, as well as give us whole house 120v ac power. This will give us total off-grid electrical independence, allowing us to keep our generator in reserve for emergency use only.
You're right about weight capacity. Our complete system will add about 900 lbs which will put us right at our MH's weight limit. It would have put us over, but we sold a couple electric bikes, replaced a heavy glass shower door on our tub with a curtain and moved some heavy tools to our toad to get us under.
Just a note: a good weight saver would be going with bougeRVs flex panels. Super super light!
Nice video, learned quite a bit . Bought a new fifth wheel that has 2 200 watt panels . Dealer had little information to give about how to use them ! Glad you made this video 😀
Thank you for the comment! Always great to hear good feedback! Congratulations on the new rig 👌
Great information y’all
Good info. 👍
Thank you!
So how much power do you get in a day out of 760watts of panels. Amps, Watts, Amp Hours???
Nice camera, what kind is it?
Same question.
did you two install it your self's?
Great explanation. If you ever decided to add one extra panel would your system support that?
Yep! I could add as many as my roof has space 😂
@@IntentionalAdventure didn't know if the charge controller had a limit on input or if it was high enough that it didn't matter
Oh, That is a great question, I do not know, but I believe I would need one charge controller per 2 panels.
Nice video! One question, who do you get your solar from?
Why thank you ma’am for the comment, we got everything from Go Power Solar! Have a great day.
@@IntentionalAdventure thank you I will