Solar for RV Boondocking

This is our 800 AH Lithium set up. We have a 43' Monaco Dynasty, with a residential fridge, ice maker, water heater and outside lights that run 24/7. We absolutely LOVE our lithium! Everything in the video is listed below: Batteries-
Ampere Time 12V 200Ah Lithium Iron LiFePO4
amzn.to/3Oy5K0y
Solar Panels-
Newpowa 210W(Watts) Solar Panel Monocrystalline 12V
amzn.to/3NcAIdL
Solar Panel Mounting Brackets (sold separately)-
Solar Panel Mounting Z Brackets with Nuts and Bolts A Set of 4 Units (8 Set)
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VHB Tape-
3M Scotch 5952 VHB Tape: 1 in. x 15 ft. (Black)
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Victron BMS-
Victron BMV-712 Battery Monitor with Battery Temperature Sensor
amzn.to/39OdjSd
Victron MPPT- Solar Charge Controller-
Victron Energy SmartSolar MPPT Tr VE. Can 150V 100 amp 12/24/36/48-Volt Solar Charge Controller (Bluetooth)
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Heavy Duty Cutoff Switch for the Battery and the Inverter (need 2)-
Blue Sea Systems Heavy Duty On-Off Battery Switch
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Switch for the PANELS ONLY!- (between the panels and the SCC)-
Ampper Battery Switch, 12-48 V Battery Power Cut Master Switch (On/Off)
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EternaBond Tape-
White Mobile Home RV Rubber Roof Repair 4" x 20' - 20 Foot, 20 Feet
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BULBS-
LED Bulb Lamp Super Bright Warm White DC12V Dimmable Pack of 10
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Wedge LED Bulb Super Bright DC12V DC13V Cool White Pack of 20
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Dream lighting LED 12Volt G4 Replacement Bulb / JC10 -Bi-Pin, Dimmable Pure White Light, Pack of 6
amzn.to/3nf8g0c

[@SEANRMZ]

Thanks for the sow and tell. Love the battery bank! Thinking on setting my 3 200ah the same way. Enjoy the boondoc life

[@2ustravels77]

You're very welcome, I hope it helps! Just remember to add the pad under them to take up space for the handle. Safe Travels! I'd love to see the finished project!

[@timaz1066]

I have a 2000 Monaco Dynasty just 40 foot and I’ve put 1100 W on the roof with a multi plus to make Tron 3000 W inverter and I have for 200 amp hour Lossigy batteries that I love. And I do have mine wired to run the bedroom AC which it has a soft start on also. With no problem whatsoever. As I Boondock 90% of the time I love your system. Maybe one day I will see you guys on the road. Thanks for the video.

[@2ustravels77]

I still have to figure out the a/c wiring situation, we have 2 panels one is powered only by the gen or shore power, I need to rewire the boxes to power the a/c off the battery bank, I know when Im a little over my head, this is going to take some real brain power and time on my part lol

[@SuperSushidog]

Sweet job! That sure is a professionally set-up system. I just found your channel and subscribed. We are boondocking in Sutherland, NE now and will be visiting the wall for the first time Sunday. We're retired FT RVers who love to boondock most of the time. 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. This also gives us some redundancy, so if one phase goes down, we've got a back-up. 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, made with 8, 280ah prismatic cells. We used a Heltec 350amp BMS, to start the 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! 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 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. 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, and a Renogy battery to battery charger (to protect the alternator) cost us around $3,600.
We'll be starting phase 2 soon. 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. 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. 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. Our 2nd phase will provide 24/7 off-grid air conditioning and supplemental heat from the heat pump and allow occasional use of our new Furrion front rooftop AC to cool things down for peak afternoon demand, as well as give us whole house 120v ac power. This will allow us to keep our generator in reserve for emergency use only.

[@2ustravels77]

Holy cow Chip, I did our solar setup and I understood about 1/3 of what you said! lol You will love the Wall for sure, and you will be very comfortable it sounds like. Every option is available for setting your rig as you need for optimal sun exposure. Safe travels, we hope to see you out here someday, I'd love to see what you've done and glean a lil knowledge from you!

[@SuperSushidog]

@@2ustravels77 We're on the wall now, and it is amazing! Hope to see you down the road!

[@2ustravels77]

@@SuperSushidog jealous!

[@MrOverclocked92]

Thanks for the video, getting ready to install a very similar system. Did you do the install yourself? Wondering about the bonding area on your solar panels, how you calculated the contract area requirements? Hope to meet you out there.

[@2ustravels77]

Yes I did the entire install myself, watched A LOT of youtube videos prior to taking it on, like months worth, to be sure I had everything right. As for the bonding area, Im assuming that you are asking about the feet of the panels? There are specs (somewhere) regarding the number of feet required for the size of the panel, ours are 4. Which, btw, are sold separately lol. As for the 3M VHB tape, I got the widest tape that I could that wasn't wider than the foot itself, which is about 1". Is your roof fiberglass? I'm not sure that I would use that technique on a membrane roof, I didn't do any research on that.
Likewise! We hope to see YOU, out HERE!

[@saintb6969]

With that MPPT on 12v are you maxing it out, I thought you only go up to 1400w with it?

[@2ustravels77]

I would have to look (ie try to find) back in my notes from my build, but, if memory serves, I did this with phone support from BattleBorn, where I bought it from, and the tech there had me wire the panels in series AND parallel, (4 sets of 2 panels) by doing that, it drops the watts and increases the amps (?). He was confident in his knowledge and explained it so I could, at the time, understand it, and it made sense. The other option, as you noted, would have been to add another MPPT.

[@2ustravels77]

and as a side note, you will NEVER get the full rated production out of the panels, our total rated output is 1680W, I'm pretty sure that we have never even come close to that number.