7'*18' V-Nose Cargo Trailer Toy Hauler Conversion

[flboy]

flboy, Howdy;

Nice lookin' solar arrey. Where did ya get the panels? How many watts are you pullin from ol' Sol?
Where you droppin' the wires through the roof?
Inquisitive ol' fart ain't I ???

hank

Thanks.. The Panels are 100W Mono-crystalline Renogy panels. I bought them through Amazon a while back @ ~$1.10 a watt. I bought 4 first because I figured my need was 400W of panels assuming a certain efficiency. I learned later that I could get about 20% more out of them at certain times by tilting them some. Honestly, living in the south, that should not make too much difference, but at higher latitudes, it does add up. Nevertheless, not knowing where my travels may take me, I looked at the hardware and considered the hassle of getting up there to tilt them, spacing for cast shadows and etc., and decided it was easier and more cost effective to buy another panel to compensate and call it done. Theoretically, I should have 500W with full sun directly overhead, but if I am averaging 350W on a sunny day, I'll be satisfied. I did get the MPPT controller/charger which is much better than the PWM controller, especially in cloudy conditions

To drop the cables through the roof, I have made extender cables with mating MC4 connectors to join to the panels existing wires(that is what I did today). With the wires extended, I can home run each panel off to the side of the trailer on the roof directly overhead of my Electrical cabinet. I am then taking a regular 115VAC type outdoor junction box that seals weather tight and I have built two terminal blocks (one + and one -). My plan is to connect each cell to the terminal blocks and then feed just two 8 Gage wires (+ and -) to the charger/controller through the roof from inside the junction box. Once through the roof and before the controller, I'll run it through a 40A fuse block just to protect the wires if something goes crazy with the controller. I can't imagine what to reverse the flow, but I had the fuse block so I am going to use it. I will seal the Junction box down with Dicor tape and a few small screws to hold it down

Having the terminal block will allow me to easily connect more cells if I go crazy with more cells and batteries. In any case, that's how I decided to do it.

[McDave]

I didn't get much done today except I got the last Solar Panel installed and I have all the cables ready to mount and drop into the camper this week. I'll have to work on the cabinets again next weekend. Today was a good day though, I had family over for lunch and worked on my daughter's car a bit after a good morning at church.

Looking at the top of the trailer today, I figured I could paint whatever isn't covered with panels or etc. with that white reflective paint?

Hey Don,
That family stuff... is the good stuff. You're a lucky man.
Also, I'm diggin' the solar set up, I'm just getting knowed up on that stuff, and hope to install a proper system next season. I'm probably gonna have to pump ya for information at some point, fair warning.
Oh ya, I have about a cup of Henry 587 left over, there is not a lot of roof left to paint there, so you want I should send it to ya?


McDave

[flboy]

Hi McDave. When you get ready to do the solar.. let me know. I probably know just enough to be dangerous! :-) Thanks for the offer on the Henry 587. I still have to figure out the deck in the back for the cargo carrier and etc. A cup probably won't do it. I also am thinking of just unscrewing the panels and hitting the whole roof for the coverage and protection.


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[hankaye]

flboy, Howdy;

Thanks for the info. about the solar system. Nuttin new ... you be the man wiff da plan.

hank

[flboy]

flboy, Howdy;

Thanks for the info. about the solar system. Nuttin new ... you be the man wiff da plan.

hank

Hank, I meant to show you the pics of the junction box I made to connect up the panels and feed down through the roof as I mentioned in the previous post: I hope it is helpful for someone.


I have two inputs (+/-) and I have two terminal strips fastened down. I cut 1/2" holes for the conduit connections and one smaller hole for the Output that goes down through the middle. The 1/2" Waterproof inputs will accept 1/2 pvc conduit, so I will cut two pieces long enough to go under the closest panel. I'll run all the wires into the conduit under that first panel. I want to shield all the wires from the UV's given UV's will cause the insulation to break down over time. Additionally, that, along with the Silicone caulking I'll shoot into the end... should keep water out of the conduit.

I may be hooking it all up tomorrow night after work if weather permits. I'll post some pics.

[hankaye]

flboy, Howdy;

Don, appears to be a very imaginative and well thought out contraption. Are you going to put a layer of butyl tape
between the box and the roof to keep the elements (water), from drippin' through the wire hole and the screw holes?

hank

[flboy]

flboy, Howdy;

Don, appears to be a very imaginative and well thought out contraption. Are you going to put a layer of butyl tape
between the box and the roof to keep the elements (water), from drippin' through the wire hole and the screw holes?

hank

Absolutely... Butyl Tape underneath and some Dicor to surround for good measure.

With all these Holes I have been cutting in this tin can... Dicor and Butyl tape, as well as good old Silicone RTV are my best friends.

[hankaye]

flboy, Howdy;

flboy, Howdy;

Don, appears to be a very imaginative and well thought out contraption. Are you going to put a layer of butyl tape
between the box and the roof to keep the elements (water), from drippin' through the wire hole and the screw holes?

hank

Absolutely... Butyl Tape underneath and some Dicor to surround for good measure.

With all these Holes I have been cutting in this tin can... Dicor and Butyl tape, as well as good old Silicone RTV are my best friends.

, !

hank

[flboy]

I still need to clean up the wires and insulate from the UV's, and add the Dicor.... but you can get the idea of how this worked out. I think it will work well and I can easily isolate a cell to troubleshoot and etc. by removing a wire from the terminal. I'll get it all wired up through the controller in the next few days and test it all out.

[hankaye]

flboy, Howdy;

Ya got me curious again ... I see all the RED wires on one side and all the WHITE wires on the other Ok, ...
so then I see a lonely WHITE wire on the RED side and a lonely RED wire on the WHITE side. OK, WTHeck ???
Bottom pic. I see one of each, are those the lonely wires from above? How do you keep the Pos(+), remembered
from the Neg(-) if you're swappin'em back an forth ????? Dealin' with a large puzzlement on this end.
Other than that ... truly a nice peace of work.

hank

[flboy]

Hank, Good eye! Wow!

When I built the connectors and extender cables, I got the polarity of the connectors and wire color swapped . I intended red as positive and white as negative. It turned out that I had negative on red and positive on white on the panels. When I dropped the cables through the roof, I just got the polarity back to red for positive and white for negative so I was not confusing in the electrical panel.

I didn't want to take the cables back apart to fix my error since they were all soldered and etc..



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[hankaye]

flboy, Howdy;

Thinkin' you might want leave yourself a note with that information on it inside the junction box
for yourself or the next owner should you/they need to go in for a repair at some later date. I
know that my forgetter is startin' to work better than my rememberer lately ... Still think you've
done a bang-up good job there.

hank

[warnmar10]

Hank, Good eye! Wow!

When I built the connectors and extender cables, I got the polarity of the connectors and wire color swapped . I intended red as positive and white as negative. It turned out that I had negative on red and positive on white on the panels. When I dropped the cables through the roof, I just got the polarity back to red for positive and white for negative so I was not confusing in the electrical panel.

I didn't want to take the cables back apart to fix my error since they were all soldered and etc..



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[flboy]

Well, I have Solar Power now. It was charging with 13A at 8:15PM with the sun low in the sky with clouds. I can't wait to see what it does on a sunny day in the middle of the afternoon.



I do have a problem with the inverter setup. Right now the inverter is on the top shelf about 6' or so from the batteries. When I load the inverter to 600Watts (it is a 1500W inverter) with a heat gun on low... the cables I built drop about 2.5 volts. When I fully load it with 1500W.. it drops down to about 9.6VDC at the Inverter and it trips the inverter to shut down for low voltage. I am using 4ga cables but the are not solid copper type... and I could probably fix the problem with 0ga or even 2ga solid copper... but that gets expensive to run that long of a cable. I think I am just going to move the inverter down by the batteries and be done with it. I can get some short 2 Ga battery cables and I bet it will work fine then.. We'll see.

[warnmar10]

Something like this might be your friend:
WELDING CABLE 2/0 20' 10'BLACK 10'RED CAR BATTERY LEADS USA NEW Gauge Copper AWG
You would still need terminals to finish them. You're right, not cheap, but probably worth it in the long run.