DIY Solar Combiner Box on RV Roof // How To
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- čas přidán 18. 08. 2018
- Learn how to build a solar combiner junction box to connect solar panels on your RV roof. This combiner box eliminates the clutter of excess MC4 and MC3 cable adapters and splitters often used to connect solar panels in series or parallel.
PARTS LIST
10 DIN Rail Terminal Blocks - amzn.to/2KUQU39
Weatherproof Box - amzn.to/2Ml0nX5
Cable Glands - amzn.to/2nFeSpJ
Double Stick Eternabond Tape - amzn.to/2MvPwZA
FULL LIST of MY RECOMMENDED SOLAR GEAR
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DISCLAIMER
The opinions expressed in our videos are our own or from a contributor. Before taking on any project or making a large purchase, we recommend you do your own research and consult a professional for advice. We are NOT liable for any damage to your RV or injury incurred as a result of following our tips, advice or instructions. We are not RV professionals or certified technicians. We are simply RV owners who work on our own RVs and have a desire to share what we learn with others. Be responsible and know your limits.
AFFILIATE DISCLAIMER
This video may include links to merchants with affilliate programs who pay us a commission on purchases made or actions taken after clicking the link. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. - Věda a technologie
With over 30 years as a professional in the electrical/electronics industry, you have no idea how refreshing it is to see someone actually work at getting things neat and organized. I see so many videos of people installing solar who I personally feel should never touch a wire. Much less make a video about it.
It's also frustrating to hear people say that it's no big deal, it's just DC. Well, guess they don't realize that you can actually weld metal with a car battery. So, yes, it can be a big deal under the right conditions. Batteries ... the stories I could tell about the misuse. Saved a man's eyesight once just by being at the right place at the right time. Others just stood and gawked, not knowing what to do. Had he been boondocked alone ... who knows how it would have played out in the end.
Thanks so much for the professional insight and for the reminder about taking appropriate safety precautions. 👍👍
As always, great info on your DIY videos! After looking over a lot of equipment, I am starting to understand your madness 🥸
Excellent Brian, even from 4 years ago. Good stuff brother : )
I find your videos to be helpful. Your explanation are down to earth and easy to understand. I even have used a few of your justification for getting a new tool or "toy" telling my wife to watch your video and that if YOU did it, it couldn't be a wild, crazy idea!😂 Thanks. . .honestly, THANKS!
Hey. That's my motto too. "Every new project needs a new tool" :)
Thanks for sharing your solar progress and upgrades. So often videos cover detailed 20 minutes of how to attach a spade lug and skip the entire layout and any reference to actual wiring layout. Appreciate greatly your thoughtful inclusion of parts list and active links for additional video related contents. All the best to you and the family.
You're welcome. Thanks for the feedback!
Nice job as always. I agree and can't recommend enough to keep any RV wiring organized and clean. Makes life so much easier down the road. Thumbs up.
Absolutely. This has been on the back burner for a while. Glad I finally got it done.
Great tips, Brian. Love your "cheat sheet" diagram! Hope you and Melissa are having a great time in Cabo. Probably good that we're all away from the PacNW right now, since we saw the images of the Space Needle practically blocked out by the smoke. Hope it improves before you get home.
Good video very professionally done we use those terminal blocks by mounting them in Nema 3 cabinets for whole building back up generators very durable
Brian, great job again! You were a big help getting my antenna mounts done right and I am now tackling a solar panel project. Great way to bring all of the cabling together!
Great! Good luck with your project.
Your videos are incredibly helpful, thanks for taking the time to make them, you have helped immensely in my solar setup.
Thanks so much for the feedback. Glad to help.
What a GREAT idea!! Well done. Thanks, your videos make it easier!
Very nice organization! Your continued upgrade path with solar is very informative. Keep up the great work!
Glad you got something from the video. 👍
Great information Brian. I want to do a junction box on top of the new RV and this was a big help.
-Thomas
Always enjoy your video's thanks.
Great video, I like your method of using simple but effective components. I too am installing solar on my RV and just want to keep it simple. The solar forums are useless, a million opinions and not two the same, people over complicating everything to the ninth degree. As for "solar installers" well if you go by what they say it would cost thousands to put a few watts of solar on a RV to use a few times a season, no common sense at all. Again well done.
Thanks. I'm always trying to find the easiest and most effective solution. It's nice to know where to and where not to spend your money. Glad this helped. 👍👍
Great Video Brian..
Glad you enjoyed it!
You always give me great ideas. Thanks for another great informational video.
You're welcome. Glad you enjoyed it Steve.
A Dymo Rhino labeler and some heat shrink tubing works great to permanently label wires.
Thanks for all the helpful videos!
You're very welcome.
Thanks Tito for that information.
Great idea!
Wires sure do because messy overtime. Looks great and now is easy to troubleshoot. Thanks for sharing
Yes. Nice to be able to having everything in one place.
Thank you very much for the video! Will have similar set up soon.
Awesome!
thank for tips, l need some ideas for my campervan and caravan thanks again
You're welcome. Glad to share.
Thanks!
Great video that I’ve reviewed a few times while I built mine. Have you ever had a problem because it’s only taped to the roof material and not screwed down to the wood underneath? Lots of folks seem to take the tape approach and I wonder about its long term effect on the adherence of the roof material to the wood underneath. Thanks for the always useful info.
Thank you so much for sharing your solution :-)
Great video, very informative, thank you. Do you have a back round in electrical work?
You're welcome. I do. Long long long ago I was an electronics tech in the Navy.
Well done.
Nothing worse than a rat nest of confusion.
I still need to get a fantastic fan ordered and installed before fall, but it's kinda orange out. Can you see off the Island at all?
Brian, another excellent video showing another very professional organization of all the solar cabling. I have added your approach to my solar panel system install. Watching all your related videos and reading all your articles on this topic has certainly made me much more knowledgeable and confident on my install. I'm loving applying all your lessons learned to hopefully get it right the first time.
One question I did not see specifically addressed, but I'm sure you have gone through multiple iterations on, is how do you mount your cable "connection points" to the roof?
Again, thanks for sharing. -Jim
Thanks Jim. I'm glad to hear my videos have helped you out. I've mounted most of those cables using regular adhesive backed cable anchors, zip ties and covering the top with eternabond tape. In my latest flex mount video, I'm also using a track system. This makes it easy to simply attach a bolt and some cable anchors where needed. Hope that helps.
@@RVwithTito Thanks for the response Brian. I was thinking about using some left over pieces of the T-rails as cable mounts, securing the T-rails the same way with the double stick eternabond tape. I’ll give that a try.
Brian, also to let you know, I saw your reference to 10% off discount code with Sun Powered Yachts and ordered several of the 170W Sun Power solar panels with that discount, so thanks for that as well 😀. -Jim
@@jimrodrigue8906 That's great. You'll love those 170W panels. I have two and may get two more when I get home.
Hi, Brian. I placed an order thru Amazon for the combiner box you used. It’s coming from China and I’m too far into the order to change, I think, but I’m wondering if that happened to you when you ordered yours. I used your link, so I was surprised about it. I should have looked a bit closer before hitting the order button. Thanks and enjoy your channel.
Your video's are always great and informative. I have upgraded my electrical panel to a 3 phase as not overcharge our newly installed 2 AGM 6v batteries. I am adding a battery shunt monitor to see how much energy I am using and to be able to see what state of charge my batteries are at. We will be going on a 3 weeks road trip from Silverdale Wa. to Michigan and back. We want to be able to use a small coffee machine and a small 110 crock pot. To start out with what size inverter would you recommend? Thanks Brian on any information you could provide to me.
1500 to 2000 watt inverter. Not sure what your total battery capacity is. You may want to consider an Instapot in lieu of the crock pot. The crock pot may draw too much energy for a long period and draw your battery down. The Instapot will use much less energy for a shorter period. When will you be heading out? You should shoot me an email. I'll explain more.
Thanks Brian I was thinking after I install the battery monitor. I will look into a 1500-2000 watt inverter. And do a trial run on cooking a meal or two on driveway camping to see how much the Instapot draws. We are thinking the end of August hopefully all these fire smoke is gone. Again thanks Brian.
Brian I went out to my RV and found out my batteries are Lifeline GPL-4ct 220 amp hours. With this information, would it be okay to go with the 2000 watt or stay with the 1500 watt inverter?
Nice
thumbs up !
I really enjoy your innovation and DIY projects. However, on this one, I think a commercial combiner box is better. It has 10 amp circuit breakers. I have six panels, on my coach roof, connected to a combiner box, with a MaxAir cover over it. So far, working well. It was $169.00. Your project was probably a little less but not by much.
This worked out better for me and gave me more options for under $50. I already have circuit breakers for each array in my solar compartment. Glad you're setup is working well.
What size hole for the cable glands? Thank you
Using the terminal blocks you used if your going down to two controllers would it be a problem tying the negative outs of the panels together at the terminal blocks in the combiner and only running two positive outputs and the one ground output to the solar controllers? Trying to save some cable runs down inside the RV. Enjoy your videos and keep the ideas coming!!
No that would cause problems. Each string needs to be separate from the other.
Thanks Brian. I suspected as much but had to ask.
Brian,
QUESTION:
Brand new on watching your vidoes...if you can answer these questions...I'll hit the bell. I recently watched your solar panel video and I like the flexible panels smart move.
Question:
1. Have you changed your outside compartment locks? if yes what new locks did you use?
2. Have you thought about installing or attaching Spot/flood lights for security?
3. Have you added extra security to your RV? If so what were they?
Thank You in advance looking forward to your answers.
1. Yes. All replaced. There's a video about it.
2. Yes. Motion sensing flood light. May be in the same video.
3. Yes. Side and rear camera plus front dash cam running from house batteries.
RVwithTito Awesome! Bell is hit and I'm going to find the video(s).
Thank You
Another question :)
Do you get internet/WiFi in your RV? I looked through your videos to see . I have yet to seen one titled Internet or wifi. Have you done an install for that? if not do you know of a way to do that?
Thank You :)
We get Internet primarily through our mobile devices.
Man, you lost me on all that ! I got a lot to learn!!
Sorry about that. There is a lot to learn. Better to do it a little at a time.
Hi Brian. I'm still learning, but your diagram of array #1, looks to me that the two 64 watt panels are in parallel and those are in series with the 128 watt. What do you think?
Yes. That is correct 👍
The reason I asked is your web page says: "The two smaller panels are connected in series and those are connected in parallel with the 128 watt panel."
Did you get any performance gains in charging over using the branch connectors? Thinking about trying this and running 6 awg from the combiner to the charge controller to see if I can increase charging since I'm running PWM.
I don't think there are significant performance gains just convenience and easier to make changes in one place.
@@RVwithTito Since my system is all parallel with the longest distance panel to the charger being 35 feet was thinking of going to 8 awg to the combiner and 6 awg to the controller to try and improve the losses but not sure it's worth it. Might wait a bit and do some testing of the 10/8 wires I have in place now. Thank you.
Brian, With all your solar I am surprised you don't have it connected to the starting battery to keep it charged while not using your RV.Phil
I hookup a small 50 watt panel some times and PWM controller. I find that as long as I run the engine every so often I'm good.
Sounds good
What brand of white paint did you Use?... Also would you consider a small vent hole in the box to drain any water that might get in thru the top or thru the glands?
I used Rustoleum appliance paint. I've considered a hole but haven't had any water leakage yet so I'll hold off for now.
I used Rustoleum appliance paint. I've considered a hole but haven't had any water leakage yet so I'll hold off for now.
hi tito, i like your videos very much, i would like to know something, while i am driving it is possible to use electricity from the solar panel or from the generator, i mean can my son watch tv while i travel on the route?, thanks, and i hope your answer .
Yes. Both solar/inverter or generator should work fine while driving.
RVwithTito thanks Tito.
jose santos I had a 36 ft class a and we ran the generator to cool the rig down while driving. It worked great. Had to keep an eye on the fuel so we didn’t get below the generator turn off point. I think a quarter tank is the cut off.
Jim Davis Thank you very much for that information, I'll be waiting, thanks.
Hey Brian, I know it's been a while since you posted this and please excuse my ignorance but: If I understand it right, you are connecting both of the wires from each of the solar panels to the box, so 12 wires from the solar panels. This means 12 MC4 connectors at the panels and 12 cables from the panels, correct? Wouldn't it be simpler to connect the panels from each array in series so that it would only require four MC4's and four cables total for both arrays?
In many of your projects I've followed in your footsteps after you made it simple and clear. Thanks so much.
You're correct, it is more cable, but it gives me more flexibility to make changes to the system. Example: If I want to change the configuration from series to parallel, or remove a panel from string, I don't have to redo all the cabling. I can do it all from within the box.
Where do you guys live? AZ here
We live in Washington
Our son moved to Beaverton, OR and we will start full timing for the summer in McMinville, OR next year.
Your "KIT" page is blank.