(can opening)
(upbeat music)
- [Michael] Hi, this is Michael,
KB9VBR your host for Ham Radio Q and A.
I'm on a mission to inspire and educate
amateur radio community.
So you can help us out by pressing that like button,
hitting subscribe and also checking us out on Patreon.
Patron's help keep the mission alive
and it's greatly appreciated.
Well today, this is a beautiful sunny day
and it's a perfect time to work on the solar project
for my camping trailer.
We've got all of the parts assembled here,
so hopefully we can get everything done today.
But basically this
project is kind of broken down
into three phases or segments.
So first off, we're going to have to install the panel.
And this is a 180 Watt monocrystalline solar panel.
It's going to be mounted
on this aluminum strut.
And then the strut will go onto the frack,
of the trailer here,
behind the awning.
Next, after we get that done,
we're going to have to run some cable.
A wire will come down the front and then underneath,
underneath we'll install one of these SAE connectors.
It's a waterproof type connector.
And from there, cable will go into the cabin
and then to the galley
where we will be installing the charge controller.
And this is the DIY Solar for U,
solved 20 amp MPPT charge controller.
I did a video on this,
taking a look at the controller itself.
So you might want to check out the link for that
If you weren't interested in this device.
I got it prepped here for the install project.
So we've got the battery cable
and also the panel cable already in place.
This ferrite on the end of the panel cable
will help reduce any RFI emissions from the controller.
I want something that's very RFI quiet,
and this one of the features and benefits
of this controller
is that it will work quite well
for amateur radio applications.
That's part of the reason why we're doing this project today
Then this will be installed in the galley,
and then once everything is hooked up,
hopefully we'll be making some power.
So stick around as we put together the solar project
on this beautiful sunny day.
(upbeat music)
I think I'm going to have to do
a little bit of modification here.
We're going to drill some extra holes.
So I'm going to put an extra bracket.
This is the front of the panel, cause here's the plugs are.
I'm going to put an extra one
right here in the front
just to give it extra stability.
And then I think I'm also going to have
to re-drill the hole on this one
and move it back just enough.
So, we don't interfere with the,
where the U-bolts are going to come through.
And I think, and I may have to,
because things aren't quite lining up here,
so I may have to drill some extra holes
into the Z brackets so that we get everything
to line up on the panel.
But.
(upbeat music)
So I guess this is probably about a good enough time
as any to take a little bit of a break
because I've run out of parts.
I got to run to the hardware store
and get a few more of these stainless fender washers,
because it decided to put an extra Z bracket into place.
I'm a couple short,
so I'm get a couple more of those.
I think I'm going to put some Loctite on these nuts.
There's a lock washer on there
along with the standard washers, but we'll put some Loctite
on those two, the rest of these, these are all nyloc.
So I'm not really worried about those.
I think those will be fine, but otherwise it's
I think it's coming along nicely.
So we get some extra parts
and we'll get this panel on the roof of the truck.
We've got the solar panel mounted
on the roof of the trailer.
And this process was probably a little bit more involved
than what I was expecting, but overall
I think it turned out pretty well.
We are using a couple
of aluminum munis struts as our main support.
And this thing feels pretty, pretty sturdy.
I'm not really concerned about it coming off in the wind.
And then these a Z clips,
I had 2 4-packs eclipse.
So I added a couple extra clips onto the
front side
of the panel, just to give it a little bit more stability
on the leading edge
and had to redrill a couple of holes
just to make sure to make everything kind of line up.
But other than that, it, it went on nice.
And it's a good, solid stable platform.
I think this will, this will work really well.
Now, one thing to really be careful of when
you're doing a solar project is the polarity of your cables.
You'll notice that both of these cables coming off
the solar panel are black
and they do have different connectors on them
little MC4 weatherproof connectors.
So a female one and a male one,
and also
the manufacturer of the panel put little stickers on here.
So, you know which one is the positive
and which one is the negative
and may just make sure that you trace back.
So that positive is positive.
Negative is negative.
You don't want to leave anything to chance
of poking up your panel backwards or
reversing the polarity.
Now to get this cable inside the trailer
I initially wanted to put a port
in this gap right here
between the utility box and the trailer itself.
But all of the, all of the ports that I've I
found online were just just way too thick.
And this gap is,
is pretty small.
So it would, it was kind of difficult to
find something that was going to work.
So my alternate route
is to
use and put this underneath and
we'll use an adapter here.
This adapter's got MC4 connectors on one end
and it's got an SAE automotive style connector
on the other end
and then we'll come underneath and plug it in here.
And I think this is going to have the added benefit
of now I can get
underneath the trailer and unplugged the panel.
If I ever need to,
I can put a white cable on here
and add a second panel easily
from the underneath of the trailer.
So it's kind of, I think it's going to really well.
Now, other problem I have is I initially wanted to
drill a hole into the steel frame
but I don't think I'm going to do that.
But instead,
this box is
sitting on top of
sort of expanded
steel mesh.
And I think I can walk in,
eventually I'll just remove this box
and kinda make a little channel
for this to thread this cable through.
And we'll clean it up with some grommets and what not.
I don't think that's not going to happen today.
I think today, we're just going to kind of come in
come in around, underneath here
and get the cable connected.
But that's well, before we really start taking off
with this thing, I'll get that cable properly
routed underneath between channel here
Well, at this stage
I'm going to be putting the solar charge controller
down in the galley here.
The trailer
has a little metal
mounting plate
where the power distribution box is located.
I'm going to have to drill a few right here
because nothing lines up with the controller.
So we'll mount the controller to this plate
and then we'll wire it
it's going to wire directly to the battery.
And then the battery will go
to the power distribution and then et cetera et cetera.
So we'll have to modify this a little bit.
So I think we're pretty close
to the moment of truth.
I got my battery here.
We're to get the battery connected.
We'll connect the battery first and then do the,
make sure everything's working with the controller.
And then we can connect the panels and see what happens.
We have the battery connected, but not the panel.
So that all looks normal.
And we have success.
Oh, let's see.
This project took me about six hours from start to finish.
It's about six o'clock here.
So not much sunlight left for the panels to catch
but it's working.
Right now, my battery is fully charged.
It shows over 14 volts on the meter
and the charge controller won't kick
in until the floating voltage
of the battery drops down below 13 and a half volts.
So I could probably put it
I could put a load on the battery
and that would get things going, but otherwise
it's showing what the controller is showing is open circuit
on the panel at approximately 21.6 volts, 22 volts
which is normal
for this panel.
And the little meters
or the little displays going through its cycle.
So it's, it's telling me the batteries in essence fall
and it's waiting for the voltage to drop down.
So the controller can kick in and do its job
but otherwise
pretty rewarding project.
I had a lot of fun putting this together.
It's a lot of, a lot of bits and pieces
but just kind of thought it
through logically and everything's sort of came together.
So I'm really excited now
that we've got a full-time solar power on this trailer.
We're going to put in the galley here, we'll stick a
out an electric refrigerator
so I don't have to buy ice anymore
and we'll be
off grid,
totally off grid camping.
So it's a great project.
I'm really excited.
And the, the DIY Solar for You
controller, seems to be it's.
It's doing its job.
So the next day I decided to do a little test
and I plugged in our 12 volt electric blanket
into the trailer to put a load on the battery.
And the solar controller kicked in
started charging the battery.
It is,
sun is just coming up over the top of the house.
So partly cloudy day.
And we're getting
from the panel
52 Watts,
19.6 volts
batteries at 13.6 volts,
3.7 two amps output of 51 Watts,
72.8 is the board temperature.
So it's, it's working
it's grabbing sunlight and making energy.
And with that, thanks for watching.
If you have any questions or comments about this video
about questions, about solar, the charge controller
or anything like that, I'd be glad to answer them
and leave them down below.
And I'll filter through the questions and comments
and who knows how maybe they'll end up on our next
your questions answered live stream
but for more articles and information,
be sure to check out my blog and our website
within tennis for sale at www.jpaul-antenna.com.
Support of this channel drives the production
of future videos.
So you can do a few things for me.
(upbeat music)
You can hit the like button.
You can subscribe to the channel.
You subscribing is the best way to be notified when
a future video is released
and you also can check us out on Patreon.
Patrons help keep the mission alive over here.
And their support is really appreciated.
And with that, Michael, keep an eye on the DVR
have a great day and 73.