If you read my last post you know I was planning on installing a third solar panel. Well there it is (on the right) in the only none shaded space on the roof large enough for another 160 watt panel.
This addition brings our solar capacity up to 480 watts, potentially almost 25 amps which under ideal conditions would replace 50% (130 amp hours) of our battery capacity in about 6 hours.Woot!!! That was my target, I hope it works. Since I took pictures of the other components in the system after I tied the wires together and made it pretty (lol) I might as well show them to you. By the way, the red blob just beyond the far corner of the second panel is the solar powered drill that was used to drill and screw the 14 screws that hold the third panel on. What is not to like about free electricity?
This is the other component on the roof, the home made combiner box. I have to give credit to Handy Bob for this and most of my solar education, thanks Bob if you ever read this. This box does exactly what it says, it combines the power coming through those 6 black wires and hands it off the the red and white wires. Looks more complicated than it is.
Down inside the trailer, as close to the battery compartment as possible without actually being there is a piece of plywood with all this stuff mounted on it. The red wire goes to the 40 amp circuit breaker at the bottom right and into the charge controller. This is the programmable device that charges the batteries. Doesn't look like the one in my garage. On the other side the red wire emerges to hook to another breaker and attach the the battery cable in the upper left sending electrons into those lead and acid filled boxes. That thing in lower left is a 500 amp shunt. The white wire, all the other white wires in the trailer, and the battery negative cable attach to this. Mr. Shunts sole purpose is to allow the battery monitor ( no picture yet, oops) to show the number of amps coming and going.
Add you hook all this up to keep these charged. Or you could buy one of those quiet inverter generators and feed it gas forever.
The heart of the system, these are 6 volt industrial deep cycle batteries wired in series making them 12 volts witch matches the trailers system. All the lights, water pump, gas refrigerator controls, and our inverter powered tv run off the electrons stored in these. I'm not going to bore you any more with the number of amps a light draws and just say that based on limited observations, I think it's going to work just fine.
Other than that, I found and fixed the leak in the shower floor pan, finish sealing all the corner trim,windows, and door, and tried to get some more venting in the battery compartment. Clara has been moving stuff from the big house to the little one for the last two days and I think, if we go to bed tonight, we will set out for sunny beaches tomorrow. Still have to change the oil and climb on the big house roof but those are small jobs.
The first leg of the anticipated year long excursion will take us a relatively short distance to visit sand, surf, friends and relatives. More on that next time. Until then, we are C&L On The Road.
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