Finished my solar setup!

[55wed55]

Well, I just finished my solar setup that I've been working on since last year. Had to do it in phases (as the money was available). Last year I bought the batteries and the Trimetric Battery Monitor. This spring I bought the panels, wire, mounts and the Bogart Solar Charger. Put it all together last week. Plan on doing a 3 month trip out west this year and hope to get some good use out of it. The day I put it in I went inside and turned on all the lights, both fans, 2 TVs and plugged in a couple 100w incandescent light bulbs. It took over 4 hours to bring the batteries down to 85%. The next day was cloudy and the panels brought the batteries up to 94%. Today it was sunny and the batteries were 100% before noon. Using 3-160w panels with a 450ah battery bank. Very happy camper! Here are a few pictures.

[Lloyd]

Very very nice clean setup. Good job!

[johnboytoo]

Envious as mine has the four trojans, but only one panel that came on the rv... I want three panels like yours

however, I have something yours needs (and it's the only thing you will want to get)
A battery watering system like here

Batteries WILL go thru water and this makes it a 2 minute job to fill them...get the 1/2 gallon distilled water @ walmart, stick the hand pump in the bottle and pump a few times to fill all cells on four batteries at once !

the previous redwood 5'er had batteries that were impossilbe to get to and it took a whole day to add water...

[4kids2dogs&RV]

Curious...what does a setup like that run? Eventually I'd like to add solar to my rig.

[Papa-T]

Nice job. Let us know how it does on the trip.

[55wed55]

Here are some prices.

Batteries: $677.00
3 Panels: $460.00
Bogart Battery Monitor, shunt and wire: $212.00
Bogart Solar controller: $121.80
Inverter and remote switch: $367.00
Stainless Steel Mounts and Knobs: $240.00
Wiring and combiner box: $240.00

Plus misc items like plywood for my battery box, the mounting wall and to reinforce the storage floor, 3 breakers, battery cables, a tube of Dicor, 3 outlets and the wire to run from the inverter to the outlets.

That looks like around $2500.00

Dave