It’s been incredibly hot this week in Victoria. We have more days than I’d like to remember above 40 and I’m so glad I was able to complete this job before the heat hit. In fact the amount of sun we are getting is powering up the battery perfectly. I just wish I had the van out camping to give the setup a good run. Anyway onto part two of the install.
I did this in two steps. I mounted the panels to the roof first. I used a whole tube of Sikaflex 252 to ensure they aren’t going anywhere. That stuff is amazing and should do the job.
A couple of days later we took the plunge and drilled through the roof into one of the wardrobes.
I drilled a 1 mm pilot hole so we could make sure that it was going to go exactly where we wanted it to go. The wardrobe has a “channel” that the cable could run down and never been seen or get in the way.
As always measure twice and cut once. We confirmed we had the correct spot but I needed to cut away quite a bit of the original silicone in order for the cable entry box to fit snugly.
Then it was just a matter of drilling the large hole through the roof. As always it’s a little daunting drilling into your van but we had made sure it was the right spot.
The cables were inserted in the entry box and threaded through the hole in the roof. We then ran the cables all the way to the battery and connected it to the battery so that we didn’t need to move them any further and we could silicon up the entry box.
I again used another heap of sikaflex to ensure no leaks and no movement of the entry box. Placing a brick on top of the box also ensured that while the silicon cured it didn’t move.
The next day the brick was removed and the cables tied and clipped to the roof to make sure it was all neat.
The two 50w panels mounted on the roof.
All up it cost less than $150 to put our panels on the roof. Obviously we already had the panels and we had the REDARC BCDC 40A unit which has solar input. I am very happy with the result and it’s keeping the battery completely full. Within one day the REDARC unit had gone from Boost, through absorption and is now constantly on float.
Due to the REDARC unit being able to convert a lower voltage to a higher voltage it starts charging the battery a lot earlier in the day and stays charging later in the day. I really don’t think we will ever need to increase the size of the panels.
Now I want to add another battery to the system. Ssshhhhh….don’t tell the better half.
Not nomads yet! 