We Installed 12 Solar Panels on our RV | Here’s What Happened! 

Nice panels with lots of busbars. That's important. Wow, 96 holes in your roof. I thought I had a lot, at 54. Sweet system. It looks professionally done - very aesthetically appealing. The system we built works great but looks like a home-built system. If you don't have a racetrack you don't have to worry about its sharp edges. No one looks at our wiring but us. We're old, retired FTers who discovered we love to boondock. We boondocked for 10 months last year. We designed and built our system ourselves, on a tight budget. It took us 5 years to gather the resources and finally complete the project, doing all the work ourselves. We started by building a 620-watt liftable solar array on the side of our motorhome. Our side array makes a nice bedroom window awning too, practically lifting itself with a couple gas struts, and it's easy to clean, standing safely on the ground. Next, we built a 12v, 560ah LiFePo-4 battery using 8, 280ah prismatic cells and a Heltec 330amp BMS with a 5a active balancer. These cells fit perfectly under the steps of our MH where our old pair of golf cart batteries used to reside. We insulated the battery compartment, cut a small hole in our step risers and installed a tiny computer CPU fan to keep this space at close to room temperature, so we don't have to worry about the BMS shutting down charging due to low temperature - or their life reduced from getting too hot. Our 12v system uses an 80A Progressive Dynamics LFP converter/charger, a 1,000w Renogy inverter, a 50a Epever MPPT charge controller and a Lnex battery monitor. By mounting the solar array on the side of our coach, we left the roof free to rack 8, 550w solar panels down the length of our 35ft Class A, 15" off our roof, above our AC, vents, etc. We built the rack out of 2" 6061-T6 structural aluminum angle. The front 2 panels slope down at a shallow 9.5-degrees to meet the roof, producing a smooth laminar airflow over the array, making the RV more stable with less wind drag while driving too. It shades our entire roof, allowing plenty of cooling air underneath, increasing solar output and reducing the heat load on the air conditioners. Our overall height is still just under 12 ft. Yes, it required making 54 holes in our roof for the mounting bolts, (3 in each foot) but each hole was filled with Henry's silicone caulking, before coating the entire roof, completely covering all array mounting feet, bolts, etc. with Henry's Tropicool 887, with a lifetime guarantee. Our 4,400w array can run both our A/Cs, household appliances and charge our batteries from solar at the same time. We mounted a Sungold Power all-in-one 48V, 5,000W Inverter/100A charge controller/battery charger, breakers and a Lnex battery monitor on the wall in our bedroom, saving us space as well as money compared to a system built with individual components. This all-in-one unit has the same 99% charging and 95% inverter efficiency as the high end Victron unit, though it cost us only $764. We chose this particular unit because it supports up to 500 volts of solar power which was needed to accommodate our 400voc solar array. Our 48v battery uses 16, 320ah prismatic cells and a 200amp Heltec BMS to keep it safe. Together with our 560ah 12v bank, we have a total of 23.5 kwh of batteries onboard - kept charged by 5,020 watts of solar. This is the equivalent storage capacity of 18, 100ah batteries. We removed the rooftop A/C we had in the bedroom and replaced it with an EG4 28.5 seer-2, 12k btu mini-split heat pump on the upper rear of our motorhome. It's super quiet and cools as well as our 14.5k btu soft start equipped Furrion we installed up front. This second phase provides 24/7 off-grid air conditioning and heat from the heat pump. We have a total off-grid electrical self-sufficiency without the need to run our generator, for a total budget of around $11,500, including the high-efficiency heat pump.

I mounted same solar panels to my toy hauler roof -basic same setup as you-love it. Put solar on my house too with 30 kWh of batteries-love it.

Also, more important to an RV DIY Power System is DC to DC charging. In the Military, I was a Fuel & Electrical Systems Specialist. Please let me help with a Powerful Suggestion: 1. Great Solar should be secondary. 2. Primary Power should be DC to DC charging. That's extremely powerful!! 3. You should use your Diesel Truck engine to supply power to your RV! Especially when you're on the go and the weather is bad. You could do it quite safely and efficiently. 4. MY SUGGESTION; to get a secondary Alternator install professionally in your Tow Vehicle. Perhaps a BALMAR XT-Series 250 Amp/12 Volt Alternator. Set up TWO Victron Orion XS 12/12-50A DC-DC Battery Charger. That will give you 100 amp hours of power going into your batteries as you move from area to areas. Or you can just idle your Diesel Engine when you're low on power, and if the Weather is bad. Nate from Explorer's Life shows people how to set up two DC to DC chargers. God Bless you 🙏

Use self tapping screws through the side ears so you can remove the panels if they get damaged Lotta work to unbolt them when you can’t get to the bolts

An idea for less holes in your roof..... add a 1 or 2 inch square tubing down the length of your rv. Bolt the tubing to the rafters then attach the solar panel feet to the tubing. Less holes in your roof, its more secure AND even more space to allow for even better cooling than just the feet of the panel.

You miiiight want to look into Mini-Split AC systems. Those rooftop ACs are so inefficient. For some reason none of the manufacturers will use more modern inverter compressors, and the condensers and evaporators are always undersized. The BEST rooftop AC on the market uses twice as much power as an average minisplit system. You can get a 3-4 zone minisplit system for ~$2000 nowadays, and have one large unit on the back of the RV with 3-4 registers throughout the RV. They ALSO do heat, and are MUCH quieter. You could probably also sell your rooftop AC's for $1000 each since they look to be in good condition, so you could buy the minisplit, tools, mounting brackets, etc for under $3k. It's a pretty easy project that just requires a few hours of learning.

Good job Harold, looks like it's working well.

That is so awesome, Harold and Cindy. It looks great. Can't wait to see it the next time you're in AZ, and I'm home. Stay safe and happy travels to the whole family.

Really nice job on your install. We love having our system. It opens up so many options and freedom

Im in the process of rebuilding my entire roof and solar setup in my 1994 30' 5th wheel. We dont have many needs and live on the west coast of Canada. But we'll have 4 x 405w 36v panels. 3 x 200ah lifePo4. 2 x 60A Renogy MPPT and a 3000w Renogy/Rover Charge/Inverter. Should be plenty for our current needs with low sun in the winter. Love your tidy basement setup. Super clean 🤌

Great job on the install! I am jealous, we need more panels for when we are boon docking. Glad it all worked out for you guys. Miss ya! --Jen

yes love your set up

Neatly done! 👍🏾

That is one slick wiring job! Nice work!

Impressive system there.

Nice system!! We have a similar setup but single 12V Multiplus II, 1200 Watts of solar feeding a Victor 150/85 charge controller, and currently (2) SOK 206 Ah Lithium batteries (limited on space in my front bay but have room for 1 more battery) I installed all this myself on our 2017 Road Warrior 427 Fifth wheel Toyhaule that we also tow with a Ford F450 Platinum. We have more space on the roof for more panels but will have to add an additional charge controller and an additional Lynx distributor (space is the issue)

Well done 😮🎉

Thanks for sharing 😊😊😊

what a sweet system, I have the same setup but 1 multi plus, 600amh bank, and 1000w solar. It fine for what use it for. My next build I am going to try to with a 24v system. It will be a tad more efficent. I will go over you YT vides and look at your starting build.

After that installation, Harold , you just had to ...18:41😂👍🏾

I'd love to see you guys weigh in at a CAT scale with the new truck and rig updates.

I prefer two points of contact/attachment with the Z bracket and panel such as the Z bracket and the roof. Lots of other videos don’t cover the panel during installation. Safer to cut the light off until completely wired like you did.

FWIW good quality wire loom (flexible cover) will protect the wire from the rough edges. I do a lot of wiring in boats that run through holes cut in aluminum and that is what I use to protect the wiring. I've never had a customer failure in 12 years.

Nice tip.

Great system guys!

Nice job on the install. I have two comments - I would get rid of the rooftop isolator. They are nothing but trouble and a common failure point. They used to be mandatory in all Australian rooftop solar installations but they've been completely phased out in favour of isolators at the inverter/mppt input. They caused a bunch of fires and completely negated the added "safety". If you think about it an isolator at the inverter does exactly the same thing in a way more convenient and protected place. Secondly I'd like to see that exposed rooftop cabling in exterior PVC conduit (the corrugated flexible type). While the wire is rated for the use and (I hope) double insulated the roof is a particularly harsh UV environment. Not essential but it also offers some additional mechanical protection.

Great job. Question how do you connect 2 inverters to your AC panel? Both in parallel to panel and from pedestal?

Nice job Harold!

Such a nice clean system. The #1 perk of a van.... roof rack. all those holes scare me, I would have used 4 tubes of lap sealant 🤣 love the DIY gromets for the metal protection. Great job guys.

Great job on the solar Harold. I see you slipping in some dad jokes, too.

Very nice system, you just found a new way to make money!

Adam De Lay breaks down how to quite well on his home system he installed recently. Multiple ways to do it.

I was thinking about mounting some panels vertically on the sides of my Class A. Might look a little gaudy, but there is plenty of surface area. Maybe with some adjustable brackets to tilt them upward a bit.

great job.

I have a Sungold power system in my 35' pull behind trailer. The inverter is the 6500w with 4 100 amp 5.12kwh batteries and 8 415w solar panels. Had it almost a year now and its been doing great. Where im parked there are a lot of trees but the system doesn't seem to care. If i need a little more power i have a pulsar 4000w generator. Haven't used shore power since October of last year. Its nice not having to deal with shore power. I have it set up so the original shore power cable goes straight to the inverter AC in. The inverter AC out goes to the trailers original electrical box the shore power went in so i can still connect to shore power if needed. That is also where i plug the generator into. Really loke this equipment even though it is larger and takes up a lot of space. I could go 5 or 6 days without sun if needed.

Its odd nobody in RV's are building there own battery boxes. You can get MB30/31 cells which have 330ah each for $70 per cell so $1120 for 16 cells which give 16kw of power and you can get a box for $550 so that is $1670. do that 2 times $3340 for 32kw of battery storage. This is for 48v systems which is much better than 12v. Also each box can put out 10kw each of power. Buying those 100ah cells for 5kw each is much more expensive. They also have less cycles of life.

would've liked to see your mounting process on the roof

Show how you ran the solar wires from the roof through your RV and down into you battery/solar charge converter box.

just put up a fresh solar system today also just studying it. See how it goes.500w

What would be the cost to set this setup done? If the company didn’t sponsor you? $15k? My wife and I will most probably go solar when we get our travel trailer. We’re considering ORV, Nash or Alliance. Happy camping!

I have lightning and EMP arresters on my system, just wondering if that's an option for your system?

yay do that to mine

Just saw your video. We are wanting to convert to a system like yours. I am curious of what the system cost and what all can run at night and can you make it through the night. Thxs

What does you battery banks look like

nice job

How many and what size batteries, can't read the qr code at the moment..thx Was it hot on that roof setting g those panels??

Are there 400 watt panels that are the same size of the 200 watt you have?

Was there something wrong with y’all’s old system? Like using battery cable versus welder wire? And the multi pluses you already had?

if you are on a pay for electric site you can also set your multiplus to run on solar and battery with only drawing shore power when batteries reach a set point you make or a surge requiring.

We have 4 200 amp lithiums and 1 200 amp agm that runs the 12 volt The inverter is 6000 Magnum running 24 volt. It was set up on 48 volt and the new inverter went bad . 12 volt only has a 3amp charger that doesn't keep up so I have a portable charger that goes up to 15 amp. The solar is around 1050. We have been in 1 park under trees for 4 months while building our home . It's covered in sap. Do you also run a generator ? How many dogs do you have ? We are looking at a 5th wheel but worried about having something big enough for the 3 dogs. Probably have to go with an HDT. BTW you did a great job with your new system !

I imagine that place is super hot. I live here in Canada. I don't know places like that that are so desertic and hot.

You may want to use a drill /7mm socket to mount your z-brackets, it is 100 times faster. And you want to make sure all the brackets are at the same place on each PV panel. Yes, the panels will produce as soon as the sun hits them, but most good panels use the MC4 connectors and you cannot get shocked, just never plug the connectors together on the same panel. I have several solar systems at my house, at my business, and I do have an RV Class A. I have always used the Z-brackets, but was skeptical about using them on the RV as the roof is so thin. The wiremold was a nice touch. Nice job, does not look like a bird's nest. You can get metal clips to secure your wiring on the roof to the panel frames.

What did you use to create the diagrams/drawings of your solar solution? Who did you send it to for verification and how much did they charge to review it?

Great idea new EcoFlow delta pro 3 and EcoFlow delta smart Duo fuel Generator 4000 watts test it out on RU-vid video 😮👍

Great video! What was total investment? Including batteries, victron equipment and panels? Close to $20K?

Hey Harold n Family how’s the Ford doing n improve mpgs

heres my new solar panel problem. ⚡ amazing lightning storms. NEVER in the past was this an issue. 5 close hits lately. so grounding has become job 1

How much is a system like that cost?

Where are you?

C4YT God Bless

C4strange

You guys really should have done research before installing 96 holes into your roof

Too bad the panels are going to get way too "hot" it's going to compromise the panels, there's just not enough air flow under them, shame to have a beautiful system and compromise its output and its longevity, I've been working with solar longer than these people have been alive, you have to have adequate air flow under your panels

KUTGW

for your own sake its important to be independent, not consult anyone, especially if they are getting paid for teaching you, you dont have anything that you cant yourself make

Talona Ridge is a terrible RV resort

12 panels?? something wrong with you people--- you dont need 12 panels

I'm looking into getting it. Have a 2019 Miniewinnie WINABAYGO 15000 miles mint condition. Leaving Long Island NY END OF AUGUST WANT TO LOOK INTO PANELS. GOOD VIDEO TALK SOON

So does the partnership with Signature Solar mean you got this system for free ?