Thank you! Glad it was worth watching. Its a little intimidating making them but i try to make ones i wouldnt want to skip through. We have a bunch more coming out this season!

Thank you very much for the kudos! Its tough making videos and not getting discouraged when youre a small channel. We have a bunch more coming up this season with an entire rv renovation and a bunch of how too stuff!

No problem!

Glad it worked for ya! Have you given it a shot yourself yet? I try to make my how to videos short and sweet, just how i like them. No one wants to listen to 15 minutes of babbeling before getting to the nuts and bolts :)

Thank you. I tried to make it as no nonsense as i would want if i was lookin for how to do it

I tried to make it like video that I would want. Not one filled with crap to make it longer to make the algorithm happy. We have a bunch of upgrades coming to the RV this season with videos for all of them! Stay Tuned!

I didnt have any handy but knock on wood no leaks so far!

Ive got no complaints at all about this system a year later

@@InterstateAdventures Great to hear. I'm looking to set up a solar power system myself and your video was really helpful on seeing how simple it is and a dummy like me could potentially do it. XD But man planning subfloor, interior structure, plumbing, electrical, insulation, vapor barrier, flooring drywalling. The list goes on. It's just nice to know there's a simple electrical solution. I think I have a decent grasp of all of it to build a decent tiny house, just difficult to think about each detail that builds up into a full house. Hoping to build a Tuff shed into a tiny house.

Glad it was a good watch for you! I was really surprised with the lack of directions that came with it, so figured putting the video together couldnt hurt!

Thanks! How did it come out.

@@InterstateAdventures Came out really good!

Surprisingly they dont move very much at all. I was going to do a grommet but the silicone hasnf failed me yet

Glad you liked it!

Thank you very much!

Thank you! For this type of video I try to make one i wouldnt want to skip through. We are going to have a bunch more coming out this season

Definitely in our upgrade plans for this season!

Just screwed into the plywood. Was a little concerned about them pulling out but havent had a single issue

I put the sealant down over a year ago and havent had a single issue with it

Nope, just into the plywood roof. Zero issues. Even after the interior renovation, looking up at them they are solid as day 1

Thanks

I just screwed them into the roof, didnt need to find the studs. Once i put the lap sealant down there hasnt been any issue at all. To remove a panel you would need to remove the lap sealant and bracket. All i did to neaten the wires up was zip tie them between the 4 of them. you could use a cable stay screwed into the roof to hold them still but i havent seen any need. Definitely seal the holes for the junction box. Even if water isnt a concern, bugs are and lets face it, enough of them get into an rv on their own, no need to make it easier. The wire gauge im not sure of. I purchased the 400 watt kit from renogy and it came with everything. After using the system for half the year, The only other thing i would do is get lifepo4 battery. One 200 amp hour battery would supply as much run time as the 4 lead acid batteries i have now and be WAY lighter and take up a lot less room. On our system we have one 2000 watt power inverter that runs our residential fridge. I added the circuit that powers our living room outlets so we can watch movies while boondocking. And i would say as long as you arent running a real heavy power draw item like a coffee pot all day, it has been plenty of power for us

​@@InterstateAdventures if you switch to the life po4 battery do you have to change your converter/inverter? Anything else? Ty!

So i will be honest, i ran it for 3 months without changing the oil. During that 3 months, i literally ran it for 28 days straight. Only shutting it off to refuel it. Havent looked into the propane conversion, the built in generator on the RV is propane, and i like redundancy. I have the solar, propane generator, and a gas generator. if we dont have power when we want it, the apocalypse has started :) We have 4 panels up top, i dont see why you cant add more to it, you just have to make sure you wire it in a way that keeps the amperage under the rated load of the wires from the roof to the charge controller. I have ours wired in series-parallel and have had zero issues with it!

I tried lining up with studs, and honestly would have felt better if i found them. However i just screwed down into the plywood roof and havent had a single issue

Yup, basically the solar charge controller is charging your batteries when the sun is up. You just have to run the 12 Volt power wires from the charge controller to the batteries, and add it on to the terminals. Our batteries had a second screw on each terminal for accessories, so I just added the positive and negative to the accessory terminals and that was it. No concerns with the batteries already being connected to the RV. Same as if you put jumper cables on a car, your just making another connection. The system really was a fairly straight forward install.

You can hook it up to any of them. Which ever one works for you

Yes it can

Fantastically so far! It hasnt been plugged in for weeks and zero issues with power over a year later!

@@InterstateAdventures Good to hear

Thats THE ONE thing the kit didnt come with! Thats how i ended up with the box. It hasnt leaked yet, but would have liked to have had that included

They are, but the charge controller then turns it into 12V. I have since wired them in series-parallel, which is working out much better

@@InterstateAdventures thanks for the reply, i appreciate it. I did a bitmore digging and i understand it now. I suppose my question now is how do you know how many many whats of solar you need overall? How fast can a 200w solar array charge your battery? Vs a larger system. Is the maths as sinple as i think it is? Thanks again

Over a year later, and it works great. Short answer is yes we still plug in. Long answer... We have Four 100 amp hour deep cycle batteries, a 2,000 watt power inverter that runs our residential fridge and a few outlets when we are not plugged in. With the renogy 400 watt system, and 200 usable amp hours from our batteries, we do have the ability to be 100% off grid for days, which we have done. If i had to do it all over again, I would invest in a good LiFePO4 battery, much less weight, much more usable power

That was purely so that i could step over the panels if needed. You can butt them right up against each other pretty much

I dont know. I was wondering that myself

I did put a lil dab under the brackets before screwing them down. Figured it couldnt hurt, and they havent leaked yet

@@InterstateAdventures Thanks for the reply! Great video

No it would only charge one

Like I said in the video, ours happens to have a decorative column that the manufacturer used as a wire run, but every RV is different. So that is all going to depend on your particular layout, on where it needs to be

I have honestly never had an issue with either scenario. We boondocked in montana for a month and ran everythibg fine. We also have a 1000 watt inverter to run our residential fridge. We did install the 400 watt syatem, and have 4 100 amp hour deep cycle batteries (200 usable amp hours) If i had to do it all over again i would have gotten a single 200 amp hour lifepo4 battery, but when we put the batteries in was before the solar system, the day before running from a storm full of tornadoes, so we got as many as we could and ran

Ots not doing bad actually. We did zero math on how many watts we were using during the day. The residential fridge uses 360 when running ao we called that good enough. We have around 400 amp hours of battery, and if we dont run computers and extra stuff, it does just fine with wnough juixe left to run the tv for 2 hours without worrying about a low battery alarm. I did changw it from series to series-parallel which is working better for us for charging

How did you wire them in series parallel? How would I re wire I have mine like in your video

Came with a 10amp fuse from the factory

That is all going to depend on how you model of RV is set up

If i remember right they were about 1.5 inch. They came with the renogy kit

We did almost 50,000 miles on the road. Just acrewed them into the roof, not a single issue. One episode we literally had a tornado forming over our rig and not so much as a wiggle

On our list of projects for this season!

10amp is what came with it

LOL yeah that is on the list for this season

It is for a 12 volt set up. Theres a few factors that go into it. With the charge controller it handles all the math for either set up

As an electrician, why does he need #6? He is not pulling more than 20 amps here and the distance is minimal even for DC.

I honestly dont remember, we bought it about 2 years ago, but it was worth it for us

I just zip tied them to the legs on the panels

On our RV we have a decorative door jamb between rooms that the manufacturer used as a wire run, so we ran ours in the same spot. Unfortunately theres no easy answer to this one as every RV is different

Not the way its set up now. It charges the batteries for the 12v stuff and a power inverter for our residential fridge. You need LOTS of amps in batteries to run the ac

I got the good stufd. 2 years in and still no leaks

We had to do an unplanned replacement of the stock batteries last season, so we ran to autozone and got thw biggest deep cycles they had. We wanted to go with lithium ions, but there was nowhere local to get them

@@InterstateAdventures Do you know how to add 2 more panels and a 4th battery to the system. I currently have a 12V setup with the panels in series and i have 3 100AH lithium batteries in parallel.

The batteries, if i were doing it, would just add them in parallel. The panels is going to depend on your wiring from roof to charge controller. Dont want to send too many more amps down the line and burn it up. My four 100 watt panels were wired in series, yesterday i switched them to series-parallel. Im getting a higher charge amperage out of the controller without overloading the roof to controller wires. I would say your best bet is a call or email to the manufacturer with what you have, and they should be able to tell you the best way to add the panels in

Gueas its good thing im not a professional