Today’s the day we are starting to install solar, and when I say we I don’t mean me, I mean the guys are gonna install the solar fill and our friend Chris and Scott are all coming over and they Are going to knock it out, not sure how many days it’s gonna take, because we have not done anything so far to prep, except for ordering everything, and that was really a process in itself.
It took Phil quite a lot of time to figure out every little thing we needed to order, because not everything you can just run down and pick up at the hardware store. So while we were in San Antonio Phil made out his list, measured did dry, fits on the roof, ordered everything, and we were lucky enough to be able to send it down here to Florida to Scott who is sitting for about a month at his location.
You can see all the panels are in the back room, just waiting to be put together. We pulled in the slide on the side because they’re gonna be working putting in the controllers in one of the base and running the wire.
So we pulled in the slide, so they’re, not bending over and stooping the whole time. Phil’s already gotten started. We’re, just waiting on the guys to show up come in a tough job. It’s hot it’s sticky, and there’s.
A lot of bending squatting there’s, gonna be a lot of that involved. So finding the ideal placement for things is going to be key. As you can see, I’m, trying to put the charge controller in or size it up where it will best fit on the wall.
Space is limited in this thing, so I have to get creative. I just finished my workout, so I thought it would be a good time to check in and see how the guys are doing on the install now. As far as my workouts go, I am starting a new thing over on her blog.
It is my journey to back to health and fitness as a full-time RVer. It has been a little difficult with all the fun exciting stuff we’ve been seeing and eating, especially those truffles. We found in Stowe Vermont, but head to the blog.
I’ll, put a link down below. In the meantime, let’s, say hi to Scott from a big field trip how’s, everybody doing now. Scott just finished his install yesterday. How do you think it went great? We ran into some glitches, but we figured it out and everything’s good to go perfect now they will eventually have a video up on their website.
If I & # 39, ll put a link down below if their video is not up. I’ll, put a link to their channel. That way, you guys can look for it later, but eventually that will be up to. I’m, not sure the timeframe with this video in that video.
You know you never really know when they go up, because we’re all so far behind, but eventually it will be up. Now. Let’s head on over to the other side of the rig and see what Chris and Phil are doing.
You can see here. Scott is installing the brackets on our panels. So let’s peek on the other side. So here they are, this is Chris from run away with the Clarkes. He is the ringleader of this group, so he’s, the man without the brain right now they’re working on the solar controller installed it’s.
Time to drill the first hole into the rig, so you nervous not the first, but it’s, a big one and it’s, not really that big. So I am a little nervous. Alright, we’re good yeah. It went so we & # 39. Ve, got the output side of the pt100 wired from the breaker into the battery bay going alright, oh so far, so good, we’re.
We’re. Getting a lot done. My man Scotty on brackets on the panels he’s. He helped us out today with the brackets Scott, and I mean Chris and I helped out yesterday over at Scott’s installed. So so now we’re.
We’re on motrin, he said no, but he really is yeah, so Chris from run away with the Clarkes is the mastermind here. So when we were putting all this together, both Scott and I utilized his brain power and knowledge on how to do this, to accumulate everything that we need.
So we researched everything that he recommended and that’s. What we’re installing today, so we’re done as far as we can on the PT 100, the charge controller, our solar controller, and now we’re, going to move up to the roof and start installing and Martin And weary Souls and Ruth this is this – is where my palms start to sweat, really bad, because we’ve got to put a hole in the roof.
This is the one thing that I didn’t didn’t ever want to do, but it’s a necessity. So we’ll, get it done. [ Music, ], it’s day. Two of the solar install, so I thought I would get you guys up to date on what’s been going on yesterday, the guys managed to put in the solar controller.
They mounted all the panels on the roof. They can connected this. The controller to the batteries, so that side is done now. What they’re working on now is the wiring to the panels, and then they’re, going to connect the panels to the solar controller.
They did drill a hole in the roof yesterday and they dropped the wires down to the solar controller. But let’s, go on the roof and see what the status is. It appears they’re working really hard up here again today.
I guess they’re gonna have to be rewarded a little bit when this thing is all over all right guys. How’s it going. What do you think it is going great yeah we’re. I tell you: we have one kind of left to wire in well just place the wiring in that to the back of it to each other yeah, but that those three are done wired into the box.
He’s, checking to see what the voltage is down at the bottom at the pt100 and clubs in clubs in close progress, progress, yeah, positive progress, yeah yeah and we you know, I’ve – only killed a couple of these but fences.
I have, and we do so debonair oh yeah, there’s. Plenty to forget it. I don’t, know anything that they’re doing. The most idea has turned a few bolts that’s it. So we connected the panels to the wiring that’s.
Gon na go into the combiner box down to the charge controller again you need to green hold on. We need technical support here, so he can have the Greenland we through the ones Tintin. Chris is connecting the wire from the combiner box down into the charge controller, so he’s working down there.
We already have the back three panels. The back panels are tied in to the combiner box, so he’s. Testing that now to see, if we’ve connected everything correctly, Scott was just finishing up shrinking the butt splices on the wire connectors.
Now we’re, going to shrink, shrink, see you. We’re, going triple seal these babies. That thing is, you have the one on the back, yeah yeah, all right, so everything has been connected to the pt100 and we’re gonna check to see what volts we get now.
So we had sixty seven point: seven volts coming in on so now we’re, going to trip the breaker on the output side and what’s? The pt100 come to life. So yesterday we installed the Magnum vmk so that we could actually get a state of charge up at our new Magnum, a RC 50 controller.
So yesterday, after that was tied in, we went into the controller and turned off the charger so that the batteries would kind of come down a little bit. So today, when we trip the input side of the breaker, we could see what kind of harvests were going to get from the Sun.
This is super exciting. You’re, getting 500 watts right there, 500 kilowatts. 0.5. Kilowatts is 500 watt. Another 1,200. In a cloudy day, you were pulling 500 watt dropped in so you go inside you’ll, see it’s, a 500 Watts 500.
One of the things I did prior to our solar insolation was to change out our Magnum controllers. So I had the N e rc 50 Magnum controller, and I switched to the MEA RC 50 controller, because this one, my old controller, I had no way of establishing the state of charge with the batteries with our current battleborn batteries.
So this one, I was able to get the state of charge shown on the screen to RBMK that I added as well the battery monitoring kit. We put six 200 watt panels for a total of 1200 watts of solar and, as you can see behind us, the layout worked up pretty good and I still have room down the road.
If we discover we need more, I can probably put comfortable yeah and, as you can see where we’re in our shoes today, because the Sun is beautiful and shining and if we weren’t pulled in plugged into electric, the solar Would actually be useful right now yeah, so we just thought it was fitting that you know we’re talking about solar wearing our shape, that’s right.
Our solar install did not start the day. The panel & # 39. S went on the roof; it actually started months and months before that yeah I got with both Chris and Scott and we came up with an entire list of items now I should research that I should consider before we even purchase one item here, so everything that You see is based on what Chris and Scott recommended and I’ve compiled it all in one nice, spreadsheet, yep, and I did put this broad sheet on the latest blog roast, which is out today.
So if you want to download the spreadsheet and see exactly what Phil ordered right down to the length of wire, you can hop over to the website and check that out. Yep and just remember this is not a how-to.
This is a what we did yeah and it’ll. Just give you an idea of what it what it took for us to get our solar insolation in the products that we use may not be your product, but they’re out there, and this just gives you a good idea of what it’s going to take right and also in the blog post, we talked about pros and cons of solar and who can benefit from solar, because we don’t think every our viewer would benefit from a solar install.
So if you’re thinking about it, hop over and check it out and see if solar will benefit you and your are being lifestyle, we would have saved our money on adventurous stuff. It was not thrilled about having to drill a hole in the roof.
Yeah, in fact, my hand is wet right now. Thinking about it, that was that was the hardest part for me was putting a hole in the roof yep. So we’re gonna show you exactly where Phil dropped the wires. The area I found to drill in on the roof so that we could get the the wiring down was right next to our plumbing ventilation, and I found this by luck.
Remember back when we had our kitchen sea sink leak, and I was trying to figure out what was leaking where it was coming from. Well, I discovered a panel in the bathroom on one of the on the back wall and that led to the plumbing vent trunk and we & # 39.
Ll show you that down below this is the panel that leads to the ventilation trunk that I found. While looking for a leak in the kitchen, this was the perfect solution to my angst about where the wire was going to come, the ventilation trunk comes down into the wet Bay and underneath this top panel here was the bottom side of that ventilation trunk.
So there was an opening, so I found that they or two openings to get the wiring from underneath here the wet Bay into the storage Bay, where the pt100 was going to be. We know you are dying to know how much this all ran.
Wasn’t that expensive. It was far less expensive that I initially thought it was less expensive than I thought it would be that’s for sure yeah. So the answer is oh, so we did our whole install for about three thousand dollars just a little over almost on the button.
It was like three thousand forty seven dollars or something like that, but remember that did not include labor costs, because thankfully Chris only charged us some beer in Scott well, since Phil did work on his rig.
Now it’s kind of a wash yeah. We kind of helped each other out, but I tell you what getting it done for for three thousand dollars is to me. I mean that’s, a win all in itself. So if you in trust us Chris, is not a professional electrician, he’s, not a professional installer.
He just knows a lot about the systems and things like that, so none of us are professionals. You know we. I’m, still learning. Well, we don’t have a how-to video. This is not a how-to video. This is just so what we did, video that’s.
All it is right. You know I’m, still learning the system and it’s only been in for a couple weeks and I’m, really learning the controller and what you know all the settings. I’m, still learning that, and I can’t always rely on Chris.
I’ve got to dive into the manuals in the websites and stuff, so it’s. It’s, an it’s, a never-ending process. I can tell you that yes, but well worth it, so we have calculated that, with the cost of our solder, we are going to have to boondock a minimum of a hundred days next year and that will equal a staying 34 30 bucks a night at campground.
This year she means it’s, so high this year minimum I mean that’s, just to maybe break, even because we did already boondock 66 days so using our generator, though so we kind of calculated our generator, the fuel and the Oil and the filter changing all that and is about $ 9 a day, nine ten dollars a day: fuzzy math, yeah, fuzzy math, because it’s, not an exact science, so yeah and everybody’s.
Generators gonna be different. It’s, gonna cost, you a different amount. You know that was just how much electric few so it you know there’s, a big variable there, and that is on average for us, but that’s kind of how we’re looking at it.
So let’s, see if we can accomplish our hundred days next year. Oh easy, peasy! Okay, we & # 39. Ll, see you about that. So thanks for joining us and make sure you continue to watch us throughout the year to see.
If we make our hundred days of boondocking – and I want to give a special shout out to Kris and Scott – because I know they’re gonna watch this – and I tell you without the two of them – we couldn’t have Done this in the timeframe past, all of that! So again, if you, if you haven & # 39, t checked them out, go check them out their channels out give them a little love, and I’m gonna give them a lot of love for the thanks that they did for us yep And Scott’s, video for his solar, install fits not up on Saturday should be up shortly.
Thereafter, I make a cameo in it. So alright, thanks again for hanging out with us, make sure you sign up for our newsletter. We send out a lot of information in our newsletter that does not make it anywhere else, so the link is down below so make sure you hit that and join us in our newsletter yeah.
Looking forward to seeing you on that as well. Alright, don’t forget to hit that like button, give us a thumbs up and don’t forget to hit the notification belt, find us on our social media, and we will see you on the road [ Music, ], [ Applause, ], [, Music ], we are getting turn backs backs.
