MASSIVE 4,350W Skoolie Solar Install | Part 1
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- čas přidán 10. 06. 2024
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I am so excited and proud of you guys!!! I have been getting a few projects done around my place, lately. And almost finished with my latest big one, which is getting a 500 gallon tank plumbed into my water system. (Which included all the work of making space for the tank, getting it set solid, etc...) And I know the feeling of excitement and accomplishment I get. I'm feeling that same feeling for you guys right now! Congrats on the birth of your new solar system. It took a lot of labor to get there!
Looking forward to the stats!!!
Thank you! And that's a huge tank! Definitely a lot of feelings of accomplishment when you get something that large done. Congrats on getting such a big project on yourself!!
When we were kids dad used to tar the riveted joints in mobile home.
Black tar or you can use white. Will never leak after.
If you get flexible tar that hardens enough, you can paint it.
Oh man. This is a great opportunity to put shag carpet on the ceiling. 😎
absolutely! 🤣🤣
BLAHAHAHAHA Absolutely! LOL!!!
Congrats on your new array! We're retired FTers who discovered we love boondocking, so designed and built our solar system ourselves. We're living this lifestyle off of a limited retirement income, so had to take the low budget route too. We started by building a 620-watt liftable solar array on the side of our 1999 National Tropical MH. 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. Lifting the array improves its efficiency 20-30% compared to horizontally mounted panels, even more in the winter, when the sun is lower in the sky. Next, we built a 12v, 560ah LiFePo-4 battery using 8, 280ah prismatic cells and a Heltec 330amp (1,200a surge) BMS to start our 5,500w generator. These cells fit perfectly under the steps of our MH where our old pair of golf cart batteries used to reside.
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 the roof, above our AC, vents, etc. It shades our entire roof, allowing plenty of cooling air underneath, increasing solar output and reducing the heat load on the air conditioners. Our 4,400w array can run both our A/Cs, our household appliances and charge our batteries from solar at the same time, even in winter. We can even run our mini split heat pump 24/7 providing both A/C and heat powered by the sun. We use a Sungold Power all-in-one 48V, 5,000W Inverter/100A charge controller/battery charger that saves 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 lacks some of the bells and whistles to come in at 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 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. We removed our old rooftop bedroom A/C 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 have up front. It only draws about 1/3rd the power and heats efficiently too, reducing our propane usage. We have no need to hook-up to power pedestals or run our generator anymore, as we can now run everything in our MH strictly off the sun.
We travel around the country a lot, visiting National Parks, and doing the tourist thing, mostly boondocking out west. We spent last winter in Yuma, AZ, where we finished up our solar install. We're visiting our son in NC now, where boondocking places are pretty rare. However, we found an RV park that is letting us camp in a spacious site without hook-ups for only $100/mo., saving us $500/mo. off their FHU rates.
Take care. I hope to see you down the road one day.
That is one insanely impressive system!! I have thought about solar awnings as well, I'm very glad that worked out well for you! How did you mount them securely to the sides? through bolts and washers?!
I was looking at those sungold systems, far more cost effective though we would have had to also purchase another battery or a new set of batteries so it wasn't on the table for us right now. I can absolutely see us doing that in the future and we wouldn't have to change anything else on our system to go to 48 volts. $100 a month is a steal! Talk about living the life!!
@@CozyLivingMachine We built a rack for our side array using both 1" square aluminum tubing and 1" aluminum angle. We attached it to the upper wall of our motorhome using 5" stainless gate hinges which we bolted through the wall using 8, 1/4" bolts with fender washers and lock nuts on the inside. We use a pair of 44" gas struts to lift them, achieving neutral buoyancy so they practically lift themselves. We use gate hasps to latch them securely to the side of our RV when traveling.
@SuperSushidog quite the system! That's fantastic!
The black is to dark for me I would lightly sand it so the wood grain shows through or white wash
Ohhhh Yeaaahhhhh! I keep wanting to ask questions, but nope... I'm just going to wait it out and see. THAT roof is spectacular and I am sure you will get at least "1.2 gigawatts" out of that humungous array! I am happy to hear you are going to change the ceiling, even if it is just the color! I had asked you about why Emma went black when she has always leaned toward light, or white colors in your past RV's. So, it's another part of the build to look forward too. Part 2 will be interesting! Great work!
I'm shooting for 1.3 gigawatts minimum. 🤣
I guess in retrospect you probably should have put the solar on the roof before you did the inside roof but hey on the next bus you will know ;-) on a side note, that is a HUGE Solar setup WOW!
It worked out alright, but definitely easier for next time. 😂
Good job Joel Big 👍 for your hard work. It looks really nice.
Thank you so much 😀
Nice work guys ! 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Thanks!! A lot of work indeed!
No. The road is not private property, just because that guy wants it to be. In fact, with the building being right up against the road like that, that makes about 16 feet deep into the building is ALSO public property by dint of 'access' parallel to the road.
Good Job.
Thanks! 😊
Will you put an air scoop in front of the bus to direct air over the panels.
You can put air holes on that scoop, that way some air gets under panels.
Just a thought.
We may but with the curve of the roof, I suspect it won't do too much for us looking at it now!
Good job
Thanks!!
#power #offgrid #progress 😊
I do hope you are using either nylock nuts, or some threadlock on that hardware.
All lock nuts and lock washers. 😎
@@CozyLivingMachine Excellent!!! I don't think those panels are going anywhere. Seeing how you have built it so far, my only remaining concern is the structural integrity of the panels themselves at 50 to 80 MPH... 😁
@selador11 I will say at 60 miles an hour they are just fine! At least so far. We don't really travel much faster than that lol
I got 3.5k on my 30ft bus. They are bifacial though so technically rated around 4-4.4K. didn’t think it would do anything on my bus but I was getting 3.95k at one point.
Your system is very badass! I'm glad to see that your bifacial panels are paying off a little bit, especially with the curve in the roof letting some light reflect back up! That's awesome!
@@CozyLivingMachine thank you! Unfortunately my engine blew on my first trip 😂. Currently rebuilding the engine
@@9-5Adventures Noooooo!!! I was wondering where your videos have been! I hit that notification bell! Lol I hope that's fixed soon and you can hit the road soon enough. What a shame, but at least you weren't thousands of miles away from everything you know!
So black rat fur? That will look nice. Beautiful job! 😍
Basically! Slight difference, but we liked that material in the Scamp, it should do well in Lenny and it's rather forgiving!
How did my last comment on the video get in here too????
Anyway, yes, I bet the warm truck feels good in the sun.
You keep interrupting my chores (not that I mind), one of which happens to be...doing laundry lol.
Hahaha I do my best to distract from the monotony of life!
Another bus with that kind of solar setup is Nomadic fanatic’s friend Robert. His actually might be bigger than yours. (Kings auto shop). BUTTTTT yours seems to be cooler. Since Lenny IS THE GOAT!
I've watched his channel too! I saw those videos a while back, though I've never seen the watt rating on the panels or the total amount. I'd love to see those numbers and I hope we have him beat for the most ridiculous setup. 🤣 Kidding, that dude is awesome!
COFIRMED! He has a badass 3kW system but ours is 4.35kW! Phew... I thought I was going to have to add more panels for a second...
🔌
🤘🤘
New tattoo?
Nope! I have no tattoos, and Emma's has been there a while!