Solar for Your RV
Although I spend most of my time hooking up residential and small commercial solar, I decided my RV needed to be solar powered. A good friend gave me some Evergreen 110 watt panels. As they were damaged and needed rewiring, I decided to wire them in their 24 V configuration. As my RV has a 12 VDC household system, the batteries were already wired in a 12 VDC configuration.
I used a Solar Boost 50 battery charge controller from Solar Depot to manage the battery charging and a Xantrex inverter to run the lights, computers, printers, TV, Satellite dish and DVR.
I installed the modules on the roof. RVs with a rubber roof are easier than I thought. If you look closely, you can see where the ribs run across the top. I found the ribs and verified them with a stud finder. I bolted down 4 feet with (8) 2" lag bolts and a lot of Rubber goop sealant. I ran the cables across the top parallel to the length of the rig. I was able to run the wires down the refrigerator vent with no problems.
I mounted aluminum crossbars and 3 modules, making sure they were far enough back from the front of the rig to minimize uplift.
We are now on solar for everything but the refrigerator and microwave.
This was a good project but took longer than a residential installation due to a number of trips to Home Depot, Solar Depot, Lowes and the local Marine supply store. Marine supply stores are a great resource for hardware required for 12 and 24 volt battery systems.
