Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrades

Electrical issues, both 12 volt and 120 volt
Mgittrich
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Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrades

Post by Mgittrich »

UPDATED MAY 16 TO CORRECT A MINOR ERROR IN THE PHASE 2 AND 3 WIRING DIAGRAMS. THE ORIGINAL DIAGRAMS DEPICTED 2 WIRES CONNECTING THE FRAME GROUND TO THE LOAD SIDE OF THE SHUNT. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN 1

For those of you looking at various electrical upgrades I thought I'd share my experiences and wiring diagrams which might prove helpful.

By way of background I had a strong desire to do more dry camping and a need to reupholster the couch which was original to my 93" B190. So I figured while the couch was at the local upholstery shop I'd make a few upgrades to the electrical system.

When I started my B190 had a stock Magnetek 6332 converter and Interstate C50-XHD house battery under the hood. My generator also was not working and had not been started for at least 6 years.

So I knew I needed to add battery capacity and have a source of charging the batteries when not connected to electricity. I also realized that the old Magnetek converter would need to be replaced to a three stage charging system to support AGM batteries I would place in the interior of the B190. I also decided to repair the generator rather then go to an external Honda or Yamaha generator and eventually decided to add a solar array to the roof even though this was not part of my original plan.

I also want to thank all of those who provided expertise and guidance as I embarked on this series of enhancements! My numerous posts in this forum and the helpful advice I received document a lot of my machinations regarding converter upgrades, trimetric installation, battery selection, generator repair and numerous other topics.

So in the end I ended up implementing the following upgrades so this represents an "as built" view of what I did.

To do all this I decided to implement these upgrades in phases since I planned to start them in the fall, store the B190 in a cave over the winter and complete the upgrades in the spring before I left for my summer adventure.

Phase 1 consisted of:
  • 1. Upgrading converter to a Progressive Dynamics 4655 3-stage converter

    2. Installing a battery selector switch, 120 amp circuit breaker and 4 12v plugs in a Blue Sea 360 Panel

    3. Adding Trimetric RV 2025 Battery Monitor

Phase 2 consisted of:
  • 1. Installing 3 Diehard Platinum Marine 1 Group 31 AGM batteries: 1 behind drawer under the couch and 2 under the stove positioned vertically on there side.
Phase 3 consisted of:
  • 1. Installed a Blue Sky 3000i solar controller and 2 manual reset circuit breakers to isolate the solar controller from the solar panels and the new battery bank.

    2. Mounted 2 Kyocera KD 140 watt 12v panels on the roof. This was actually done by a local RV dealer repair shop using Stickyfeet 3M VHB mounts and the prewired solar wires installed by Airstream.

CLICK THUMBNAILS FOR LARGER VIEW OF DIAGRAMS

Phase1 Wiring Diagrams:

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Phase 2 Wiring Diagrams:

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Phase3 and Final Wiring Diagrams:

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Solar Panel Installation Layout

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Here's a list of major components used by phase:

Phase 1 components:
Phase 2 components:
  • 1. 3 Diehard Platinum Marine 1 Group 31 AGM batteries from http://sears.com. Look for sales I picked them up for $55 a piece less then the list price of $289.
Phase 3 components:
  • 1. Blue Sky 3000i MPPT solar controller from Northern Arizona Wind and Sun the link is http://www.solar-electric.com

    2. 2 Blue Sea Series 285 manual reset circuit breakers. A 25amp breaker between the solar panels and the solar controller. A 30amp breaker between the solar controller and the battery selector switch. Both were obtained from http://bluesea.com

    3. 2 Kyocera KD 140 watt 12v panels from Northern Arizona Wind and Sun the link is http://www.solar-electric.com

    4. 20 Stickyfeet 3M VHB solar panel mounts from http://rvsolarstore.com
I'll update this post with actual installation photos when I get a few moments.

I hope this information will prove helpful and will answer any questions anyone has. I'm no electrician but I've been around the B190 electrical system quite a bit with these modifications


Mike
Last edited by Mgittrich on Fri May 16, 2014 9:03 pm, edited 4 times in total.
VT964x4
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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by VT964x4 »

Mike, this is really helpful, thank you. I will be curious to hear how the dry camping changes with the three AGM batteries. I appreciate both the descriptions and the diagrams,
jml
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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by Kentuckian »

Mike,
Really great job documenting your new boondocking electrical system. It looks like you've put together a high quality practical system. Let us know how the system performs!
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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by lido14co »

Thanks for the great info.


Cliff
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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by Mgittrich »

Updated Phase 2 and 3 Wiring Diagrams to correct a minor problem with them. See the original post for more information.

Mike
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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by Mgittrich »

The installation of the 2 Kyocera (140 watt) solar panels have been completed and I wanted to update this thread with some pictures of the upgrades and a last minute change to the solar panel installation.

By way of explanation the original installation approach consisted of using Stickyfeet from http://rvsolarstore.com/ . Mounted directly to the fiberglass top of the B190. No screwing into the roof of the RV. If you look at the http://rvsolarstore.com/ website they indicate that 6 Stickyfeet are sufficient for mounting solar panels under 150 watts. I was a little concerned that this might not be sufficient so I decided to go with 10 feet per panel arranged as illustrated in this drawing:

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With this approach I ended up with one tilted panel and one flat. Not a big deal. But as I was looking at the roof I noticed a slight crown to facilitate rain runoff and when coupled with the slant between the AC and the roof vent I was concerned about the installation since once you place the Stickyfeet on the roof they cannot be removed.

So I thought about ways to install both panels flat and thought that placing a hollow square aluminum tube between the Stickyfeet and the roof could be used to raise the rear panel enough to take the slant out of play. So I looked at the rvsolarstore website to see which specific 3M VHB tape they used for the Stickyfeet since there are many to choose from. Rvsolarstore's website does not say specifically which formulation they use so I emailed their product support with the approach I just described and asked. They said this was proprietary information and would not divulge it even though I had already purchased 20 Stickyfeet from them.

So I decided to contact 3M Technical Support to get their recommendation. They indicated that they would NOT recommend using VHB tape for this purpose and said that if I were I should consider the amount of VHB tape needed. They recommend 4 sq inches of tape per pound for a static sheer load, think picture hanging on a wall. Solar panels on an RV would require more tape since this is a dynamic sheer load subject to wind moving across the the top of the RV. If you do the math, 10 Stickyfeet have 30 sq inches of adhesive and the panels way about 30 lbs apiece. This information raised a lot of red flags so I asked them what would work. 3M Technical Support recommend an industrial structural epoxy, specifically DP100, DP110 or DP125. For the most part these products are very similar with different work and cure times. They also said that as an individual consumer obtaining these products in small quantities might be difficult since they are designed for industrial applications and required special applicators to mix and apply the epoxy to the substrate. These products are also not available through Homedepot or Lowes. I did find them on Amazon for about $25 per 50ml duopacks.

Not deterred by this I thought 3M DP110, 10 minute work time and 48 hour cure time, was what I needed. I found this product on Ebay being sold for $100 for a case of 12 50ml duopacks with mixing nozzles and an applicator for another $40. Not cheap but worth the piece of mind

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So now armed with a workable approach I modified the installation design and the approach for mounting the panels to the aluminum bars while still using the Stickyfeet I already had. Here's the drawings I used to convey the approach to the RV service shop doing the installation.

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The installers used 6 50ml duopacks during the installation process. Since I had lost confidence in the VHB tape I also had the installers screw the Stickyfeet to the aluminum tubes through the adhered VHB tape.

Here's a couple of pics of the Stickyfeet mounted to the bars and the solar panel.

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The installation also used the pre-existing B190 solar panel wiring and some MC4 cables and MC4 parallel connectors to wire the panels to the junction box on the roof.

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Here's a couple of pics of the solar panels mounted on the aluminum bars and their placement on the roof. Please note the rear panel offset on the aluminum bars.

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Here's a couple of pics of the completed installation:

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I'm sure you're also interested in the output of this setup. During full sun in the middle of the day with batteries needing to be charged this setup will put out between 18-20 amps per hour to the batteries.

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I hope this helps anyone looking to do these modifications.

Mike
Last edited by Mgittrich on Tue May 20, 2014 2:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Mgittrich
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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by Mgittrich »

To complete this thread I thought I'd post a couple of pic of the completed installation.

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Mike
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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by Kentuckian »

Mike,
Congratulations on getting your system installed! Looks great. Our system has half of the capacity of your system and it has been performing great! So I know you'll enjoy yours. Great job!
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Mgittrich
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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by Mgittrich »

Kentuckian, thanks for the kind words! Without this forum and people like you and others reading and posting here I might not have tackled these projects. But this forum and knowing that people were ready and willing to lend their expertise and experience were immensely helpful and I thank all of you.

Mike
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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by Mark »

I'm getting ready to install panels on my B190's roof and thought I might have to tilt one panel as you had originally shown. I really like your solution of raising both panels. Was it hard to find the aluminum stock?
"Gluing" the panels onto the roof freaks me out but seeing you've done it successfully calms me a bit.

How many 50ml packets did you need?
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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by Mgittrich »

The aluminum stock was really pretty easy to find. I didn't want to call around locally looking for it do I found this place on the web.

http://www.metalsdepot.com/index.php

I purchase 2 each of the following in 2' lengths

T322316 2 x 2 x 3/16 wall 6061 Aluminum Square Tube
T32118 2 x 1 x 1/8 wall 6063 Aluminum Rectangle Tube

With shipping I think the cost was about $80. Not cheap but I was in a hurry and I think I had it within 5 days.

A total of 6 or 7 50ml 3M DP110 tubes were used.

I took off for the summer with this setup and put 7000 miles on the van driving from Kansas City to the Oregon coast and back via Glacier and Yellowstone. I encountered a lot of wind and typically drive 70 mph on the highway. I had absolutely no problems with this and the solar panels are firmly attached to th RV.

I am very pleased with the 2 kyocera panels and they provide more then enough amps to keep my 300amp battery bank fully charged. I had to look for excuses to start the generator just to make sure it was properly running.

Good luck on your install and just let me know if I can provide any additional information.

Mike
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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by Mark »

Do you want to sell the remainder of the epoxy and tool? I haven't decided if I want to go the extra mile with the aluminum stock just yet.

Was the idea to level out the panels a "must do" or only because it made the install look slicker? It seems like the adjustment in the Sitcky feet would have been enough to allow for the curve of the roof.
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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by Mgittrich »

The epoxy has a 2 year shelf life and mine has expired. One of the reason I found it on eBay at a reasonable price was someone had an over supply and could not use it all before it expired.

As far as the applicator tool, I think I'll hold on to it. 3M has many epoxy formulations which use the duo packs dispensing method so I think I'll keep it just incase I find another project that needs to be epoxied.

I like you was initially skeptical about gluing the panels to the roof so I went the extra mile to make sure they would not come off. After talking to 3M the VHB tape approach really scared me. However, there are several RV solar installation places which use VHB tape. My web research located a couple of posts from people where the panels had come off using VHB which is why I went with epoxy.

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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by Mark »

hmmm... it does look slick, and I like slick.... AND that it stayed on your roof. That's a big plus!
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Re: Wiring Diagrams for bat bank, trimetric and solar upgrad

Post by Mgittrich »

The DP110 is really tough stuff. 3M called it a "structural" adhesive and I can see why.

I think the issue with not using some form of adhesive is finding structure in the roof to screw into and I don't think just screws into 1/4" fiberglass are enough. Using screws and glue is probably fine but I didnt want the holes in the roof.

The Kyocera panels need to be mounted at least 1" above the roof to dissipate the heat they create collecting the solar energy. So there going to take some stress with wind and driving highway speeds.

Mike
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