Our Perfect VAN LIFE SOLAR SET UP // We talked with the pros 

Solar makes #vanlife a lot more comfortable. I have 400 watts on the roof, a Blue Sky Solar Boost 3000i and 4 Trojan T-105s under the sink. I also have an 1100 watt Vanner Power Inverter tied into the campers electrical panel, so it's like being in a house...just plug stuff in. There are limitations, of course, but 90% of the time, you don't think about power at all, you just use it.

14:37 You said the Magic words.. "ITs quiet"... I like the sound of that! (pun intended) ... LOL

The way 200W is working for you is because you have HUGE amount of battery capacity - 320Ah of usable energy. Obviously 200W solar is not enough to power on it's own even half of your day working with iMacs etc but the amount of stored energy is helping you greatly.

The number 1 reason I want solar... is NOT lugging around heavy Propane tanks... Okay, they're not that heavy, but the point is, trying to find a place to have them filled and Electric is so much more clean.. I "Flip" RVs and being 64 years old, and am working on my 24th & 25th RV Flip a Vintage 1972 Travel Trailer, and a1982 Class A RV... this year... I had never thought about going solar, or replacing carpet with vinyl tile, or many many other upgrades that the 21st Century needs now... I am the new and improved RV Flipper... I'm seriously thinking about making the Vintage Travel Trailer into a Mobile Office.... upgraded to 2019... Again, Thank you both for such a great video... Let me know if you have other videos that could help me update my RVs although now, I might be thinking a VAN... (Smile).

Sara really does have amazing hair! 🤣 love the videos guys keep being you

The answer is that 200w of solar isn't power all that. Your batteries are. You might as well not have solar and just plug in from time to time.

Really glad I found your video today! I’m on the Oregon coast, I’m gonna call AM Monday! Thanks! Y’all are great too! Easy, comfortable, honest! Thanks😎☮️🌈🎈

11:50 You said you have an Electric Water Heater... That is what I want too... Do you have a video on you installations of the Water Heater... or can you provide me the name and how many GPM... (I am so loving this GREAT Video)... So many questions being answered... Thank you both for such a great video..

Really good information thank you for the video

This shit is so confusing...what have i gotten myself into😂

thanks you so much for story. I now don't have to look at any more video on the subject. Keep posting.

Thanks for making this video! Super helpful!❤️

Good video. Thank you for the info on AM solar. I do think that people would be far better off if they stopped thinking an RV/van is just like a home on the grid. IMO, if you need 3000 watts to live in your vehicle, you would be better off changing your lifestyle instead of buying a ton of solar. People keep getting sold on "lifespan" of panels and batteries. Realistically, you won't own that panel or battery for 10 or 20 years. Technology changes too quickly for that. Curious though, will your insurance cover your solar costs if something happened to your van?

Thanks for sharing 👍 I've found this very helpful. 🙂

Great video, thanks for sharing and congrats on your 10 months!! ✌️🐾🚐💕🤘

Just found you guys, great video! Thank you

Nice video! One thing I am still not clear on, is why you do not have more Solar. You are living off your batteries, which are pretty well sized and have a large inverter. The only thing that would need to be upgraded is your charge controller, I think, plus additional panels. Adding more solar (maybe 200 watts) would mean either longer boondocking or, more importantly, more hot water 😉. Having to run your engine if you get low is inefficient and even the additional load while driving costs money. Also, I have heard that the lower charging rate from a mppt solar controller is better for your batteries than coming from the alternator. Am I missing something? Was roof space the problem ?

What a powerful video

*very informative I’m adding more solar*

So thats how all the alot of electricity came from...... Nice, i like it!

You said you'd say why you took the 3000 watt inverter , but didn't? Thanks 😊

Thank you. This was so helpful

You two are the Best! Heading to OR after this post.., Aloha

What’s the best location for solar? I’m trying to figure out my layout for my 3 panels and 2 roof fans

I did it quickly and efficiently with instructions from Avasva .

Nice job on this !

It would've been nice if you talked about the setup and components used for alternator charging. Do you use a secondary alternator?

How many watts do you see on a sunny day? Also, what is with the tattoo on your forearm? It looks like a barcode or something

So then it seems you guys mostly rely on the alternator and the fact that you drive at least 30 minutes every day? Im guessing 200 watts of solar wouldnt be nearly enough for your uses if you were to stay in one place for more than a day(if you didnt have so much battery capacity already stored up)? I was hoping 200w would be enough for me but I will only be driving every 3-7 days most of the time

Do you not run your air conditioner during the summer months. I didn’t hear you mention it please explain

American made does not mean quality like it used to. There are many Asian made products these days that surpasses American made. They are light-years ahead, and they are much cheaper since you are not paying for the "American made" tag.

New subbie. Great video 👍.

Great stuff, thanks.

Huge help, thanks for posting! Just subscribed

what are the safety measurements for lithium? is there any way that it could over heat and blow up?

These guys rock..... very good.

4:49 What is a Shunt?

Do you have a cut sheet for the install that can be downloaded

Do you have a diagram of how your solar system is set up?

This is #goals Love it

Also you said you would talk about the muliticharger/inverter and didn’t. I am thinking about buying something similar but really don’t know it’s full usage. Is this what you use to charge off the alternator? And it also converts your dc power to ac... correct?

I think a heat pump would have been a better example of something big.

Great vid much appreciated, going this way then maybe 300ah lithium, 300w of panels and worst case start the motor and idle charge..Stressing over sun or no sun, loading the roof up with panels just ain't worth the grief...What dc to dc charger, not listed??

Great, thanks

you need at least 600 watts of solar panels.. At the most ideal conditions your 200 watt panels will only get max 100 amp hours a day...

water heater... use a heat exchanger... runs from your radiator heats a coil which your water is in... you just run the engine for a bit.

ok, I'll bite. How does Sarah have that amazing hair?

How u use solar pannels

10:22 What is AGM Batteries?

Did you guys mean that you can go off-grid for 5 days without sunlight to provide energy for the batteries? Or were you saying you could go five days without your batteries in general or what? Lol I'm so confused because you've been on the road for months.

Why though solar is so cheap, like I think you should just go with as much solar as you can fit, like I would get only going with 2000Wh of batteries, batteries are EXPENSIVE, but solar go nuts.

Great, so how much was it?

I'm sorry if you already said this, what was the cost of your solar system?

Sarah does indeed have amazing hair

Excellent information 👍😎🌎🚌🎥thanks for sharing and safe travels

Thankyu

How much was your complete solar system?

Great video! Does your $10 van blueprint include your solar panel electrical setup and wiring diagram from AM Solar? Thanks

What was the total cost of the entire solar system setup? You said 5% would save you $450, but that would mean the entire system cost $9.000 and that can't be possible!?

Solar systems aren't complicated. All you need is third grade math skills and you can design a solar setup. The problem is that most people approach solar power the same way these people did. They go to a shop and ask "how many panels and how many batteries do I need?" That question right there smells smells like money, because you've admitted that you have no idea how solar works. Listening to this AM Solar guy talk in this video, knowing absolutely nothing about this channel or the van they have, the way the salesman talks about "what do you NEED to run vs what do you WANT to run," combined with the self proclaimed 200w of solar panels, I KNOW that guy sold you a ton of batteries for your setup. Shops make profit off of markup. Let's say they're nice guys and only add 20%. Where do you think the most money comes from? Like the video says, wire is cheap. 100w solar panels are about $40 when you buy them by the pallet instead of individually. It's good GP, but their size and weight make them a hard sell. Good, pure sine inverters are expensive - but you really only need one. So the last component of a solar system is energy storage, and that is where the money is made. You can think of a solar power system as a barrel of water with a hole in the side. How big of a hole the barrel has is determined by how much power you need every day. The bigger the hole, the faster the barrel drains. Water is added to the barrel every day by a hose, which represents the solar panels. As long as the amount of water added to the barrel is more than what is spilled out through the hole, then the barrel will never run dry. However, if the hole leaks more water than the hose can provide, then the barrel WILL become empty and dry. You can delay this truth by increasing the size of the barrel, or by adding more identical barrels in series. But the truth still remains. If your barrels leak more water than you can supply, they will dry out. The same is true for solar power. If the amount of power being produced is less than what is being used, then the system is not balanced. An unbalanced system is not sustainable. If five deer share the same space as fifty wolves, what do you think happens to the population of both species? One of two things. If the wolves eat all five deer, then both populations go to zero. But if most of the wolves die off at the start, then the deer population can grow. More deer in the area means more food for the wolves, so the wolf population also increases. Over time, a balance is met, and the number of both species in the area stabilizes. The system is balanced. Adding more batteries to a solar setup is like adding more land to the deer/wolf problem. More land doesn't change the amount of calories the wolves need to survive, it only slows down the rate at which the deer are consumed. Adding more batteries doesn't solve anything, but it does stretch out the problem over a longer period of time. And since people usually ask "how many panels, and how many batteries," and batteries are smaller than panels, they're easier to sell. You probably can't fit six solar panels on your van, but I bet I can find a way to add ten batteries with room to spare. And once you're convinced that you need 6+ batteries, then I can sell you on the lithium ones because they weigh less. Let's discuss that for a minute. Generally, vans are just trucks with a different body style. For example, the vans made by Ford are exactly the same as the F150. Same engines, same transmissions. The only major difference is the body style. The truck body is designed to haul things, while the van body is designed to haul people. Besides that, they're exactly the same. Now, a marine battery can weigh as much as 75 pounds. Typical marine batteries are around 55 pounds. We'll go with 75 pounds in this example, just to emphasize how ridiculous the battery weight argument is. Let's say you have a van with third row seating. That means the van is DESIGNED to haul seven people. The average self-reported weight of adults in America is 181 lbs. So the weight capacity for passengers in our example van is around 1,250 lbs. Remember were being extreme and using the heaviest batteries around, weighing 75 pounds each. We also assume that our hypothetical van only has two seats for the driver and passenger, everything else has been gutted and replaced with "van life" amenities. If we assume occupancy of two people of "average" weight, that leaves our van with 900 lbs of cargo capacity. Let's subtract 200 lbs just for fun, because I'm sure someone will say the conversion process adds weight. And let's take another 100 lbs for the two 100w solar panels. So now we only have 600 lbs we can add to the chassis, according to the manufacturer. And we can finally answer whether or not six, 75lb batteries are "too heavy," making lithium the better choice. 75lbs x 6 = 450lbs, which means our example van, fully converted, with 100 lbs of solar panels and 450 lbs of cheap, lead acid batteries, weighs in 150 lbs less than the maximum weight for passengers. So do you NEED lithium batteries because they weigh less? Probably not. But if your van needs six batteries of any kind, then you obviously have a problem with your system. Large RVs don't even have that many batteries. You mentioned charging laptops and that you "heard" it uses a lot of power. But Apple told you it doesn't, so end of story. This is also a clear indicator that you know nothing about this topic. I can see why AM Solar liked you so much as a customer. To put it as simplly as possible, charging a laptop or a cell phone via the "normal" way in an off grid setup uses about 95% more power than plugging into an outlet on the grid. If Apple says your laptop charger uses 15 watts, inside your van it's using around 30. This should be obvious to you, IF you understood how any of your equipment worked. Solar panels output s DC current. Your overpowered 3000w inverter changes DC to AC, losing around 30% in the process. Then you plug in your laptop charger. A laptop battery uses DC, so your charger converts the AC back to DC, this time losing around 45% of the power, because you don't care if it's efficient, you just want it to work. If your laptop charger outputs 15 watts, it's consuming 30. That's what you're not understanding when you say apple told you it's low power. You don't understand how solar power works. You don't know what an inverter does. You're probably confused about why your laptop charger has that box thing attached to it. You just know you have an outlet in your van, and you plug stuff in. And your good friends at AM Solar charged you thousands of dollars more than market price to make sure you could charge that laptop, but only for a short time. You said you can only run off grid for 5 days - for the price you paid, that's pathetic. But that's also the point. They told you that more batteries were the way to go. Then they talked you into buying expensive lithium ones. All while installing only 200w of panels. We're right back to the barrel thing again. All they did was give you a bigger barrel. It probably feels like they improved something, but they didn't Sooner or later, you're gonna go back to them because you need more power. And they're gonna sell you more batteries. Oh, they're probably gonna tell you that your first set of batteries are trashed too. You'll never come out ahead this way. They'll keep selling you batteries, when your problem is generation, not storage. I feel so bad for you

So about 10,000$ ?

One thing everyone forgets is that Lithium batteries get destroyed if you charge them when it is freezing cold...

👏👏👏👏

Some of the background sounds/effects added seem a bit loud. Constructive criticism. Hope no one gets worked up over this comment

It would take 20 hours to recharge your LifePo4 batteries off your 200w solar setup. Why not add more solar? It's dirt cheap compared to everything else.

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