hello everyone katherine here if you are
new to the channel i have been living
full time on the road for three years
exactly three years i just celebrated my
three year anniversary yesterday i lived
in a trek camper for the first three
years and now i just purchased this
keystone
uh springdale
1750rd mini travel trailer
it did come equipped with some solar 200
watts of solar on the roof however
i needed to boost up my solar capacity
so that is what we're working on i also
needed to install an inverter and so
that was done in a separate video if you
missed that video i will go ahead and
link it here you might want to go back
and check that out first
with me today is my friend dan and he is
doing all of the work
i want to give credit where credit is
due
i'm just lending a hand here and there
and i'm very grateful for his help
today we are going to talk about solar
he will be mounting these two bad boys
on the roof in conjunction with the 200
watts of solar that the trailer came
with and i'm going to let him take over
now and just talk to you about what's
going to happen today
hello again
today as kat mentioned we are going to
be tackling the uh
and i have to give her a little credit
she's been very helpful
uh but we're going to be tackling the
solar install and this is not a
technical how to video
this is a broad brush overview and it's
going to have some things a few things
that will be unique to the keystone
mini series and their solar install but
otherwise everything else applies to any
solar install
so what i thought we would do to start
is just kind of cover all the bits and
pieces that are involved in this instead
of doing that as we go through and then
we'll have lots of little segments
showing you the actual installation
process
the keystone springdale minis as cat has
there's a series of them there's about
i think six or so floor plans and they
all come with
solar flex and the the it's new for 2022
the solar flex has several different
levels but all the minis come with the
basic level which is called the 200
series or 200 watts of solar
no inverter which we already took care
of
but the actual solar itself is there's a
200 watt panel on the roof and i don't
want to talk about a few things that are
specific to the keystone mini at this
point and then we'll go again more broad
brush
the solar flex has a
200 watt panel that is a a little unique
it's a 24 volt panel
so if you're going to add any additional
solar
then
you need to match up the voltages and
i'm not going to get into all the
details you need to do the research i
just want to make you aware you cannot
just purchase any panel off of amazon or
wherever and install it it will work but
it won't work well
so there are some things that have to be
uh matched to what is already there
keystone in their promotional videos and
their brochure that i look through they
promote that it's ready to add a second
panel
not so much
the only thing that's ready is the port
that's on top of the roof was wired with
a big enough gauge wire that you can add
a second or even third panel if it's
done properly
but everything else has to be upgraded
and that's what we're going to talk
about as we go through some of the
components here
and what you what you need to take into
consideration
so the panels that we are installing
uh are two
210 watt
panels in addition to the 200 watt
that's already there from keystone that
will give cat a total of
620 watts on the roof which will match
nicely to the future planned batteries
the solar panels
that are purchased here
again you have to match up the voltage
so these two panels will be hooked in
series
and then these two panels will be
paralleled to the existing panel
i don't want to get any more technical
than that but just so you're aware that
there is a very specific way that they
need to be connected
this amount of solar should be perfect
for for what she needs
the keystone mini comes with a
good quality solar controller the
problem is that it is only large enough
for that 200 watt panel that's up there
so if you want to add any additional
panels you will need to upgrade the
solar controller
uh what we're going to use uh we're
using renegy products both for the
inverter and this and the
solar controller
and that's kind of a middle road can you
get cheaper yes can you get way more
expensive absolutely renegy is a good
product
for a a good price so the value is there
there are two types of solar controllers
pwm which is the older much less
efficient style and
mppt i'm not going to get into details
again
but what you want is an mppt controller
it gives you a lot of advantages what
we're using is the renegy 40 amp mppt
controller it's uh the brand or the
model is rover
and this one has a nice feature
it comes with this little dongle that
will allow
a bluetooth connection so you can use an
app and you don't have to climb
underneath where we're mounting this is
often out of the way
to be able to see the display you can
see all that information on an app on
your phone
one thing that's very important is to
keep both the inverter which we did and
the solar controller as close to the
batteries as possible so this will be
mounted within about four four and a
half feet of where the batteries are
currently located
you need to size the wire properly
and the wire sometimes is included
sometimes it's good sometimes it's not
but for our install for the full
40 amps which she will be able to get
with her 620 watts of solar
we need to use number eight
wire this is a battery cable or welding
cable sometimes it's referred to
uh pure copper cable and then most
importantly is to have a way not only to
have a circuit breaker or fuse but a way
to disconnect the solar
very important that you can disconnect
the solar if you need to do maintenance
most solar controllers
uh
if you disconnect the battery cable and
the the solar is still connected it can
do damage to the solar controller so
this one is kind of interesting that
it's both a circuit breaker but yet i
can press this little button and it acts
as a disconnect
so that's a two in one for us so we
would be installing that in line on the
positive side to mount your panels on
the roof you're going to need several
items you're going to need some of these
z brackets they're in the shape of a z
and they will mount to the solar panels
which we will be doing on the ground
we're going to do as much as possible on
the ground before we get up on the roof
you're going i have some stainless steel
hardware here and then
these i don't know if you can see we'll
get a close-up for you
and these are called well nuts and i
have used these with great success on
solar installs instead of trying to
screw the solar panels to the roof with
the hardware they provide
which creates a lot of unsealed holes
that you have to seal up
we're going to use these they're rubber
and they as you tighten them they
collapse like a rivet so not only do
they hold very well on the very thin
roofs on rvs nowadays they're very thin
they'll work on fiberglass roofs they'll
work on rubber roofs but they also seal
out water
in an abundance of caution we're still
going to cover up all of those screws
with a sealant dye core but these are
fabulous i strongly suggest the well
nuts
just gonna try to get it on the roof
uh
[Music]
beep
me
do
up here on the roof
we got the solar panels installed uh
there's again two
210 watt panels in addition to the
original
200 watt panel so that gives her 620
watts total
because these panels are considered 12
volt panels these two are wired in
series and then paralleled to the
existing panel
the prep that keystone provides
which is nice is they do put a port
on the top of the roof
and that port allows you to make the
connections and get down to the solar
controller and it is wired with 10 gauge
wire which will handle about 600 watts
of solar so that part did not have to be
modified
also we showed you earlier when we went
through all the components of what's
being installed about the well nuts
which are actually down inside the roof
here and that's how these pan panels are
very firmly attached to the roof
they are waterproof but we're going to
take the extra precaution of putting
the
dicor which is made specifically for rvs
over all of these it's uh
in transit to us right now so that will
be put on in the next couple days
well we got the solar panels installed
on the roof on a very windy day but we
managed to do it it is a few days later
and there's been a lot of work that's
been done dan's gotten
pretty far along on the project so i'm
going to go ahead and pass it over to
him and let him tell you where we're at
now
as cat just mentioned we're all finished
up on the roof and moving on down to
installing the other components of the
solar system the panels are wired for
the keystone mini owners
the
wiring that was supplied from the roof
jacks down to where the existing solar
controller was
is sufficient to handle a lot more solar
so that part
we could use everything else will need
to be is either added or replaced
upgraded
so what we have done is installed a
new solar controller that will handle of
the 620 watts that she has on the roof
and put in safety devices etc we're
going to show that to you now
all right we're going to give you an
idea of what's involved with upgrading
the solar controller and adding in the
necessary
disconnect and safety components
if you have not seen the previous video
where we installed the inverter we cover
some of the other components that are in
here i'm not going to talk about those
this time so refer back to the previous
video
so here we are inside the storage bay
where we installed the new
renegy 40 amp
solar controller the previous controller
for the keystone mini owners
is only large enough it's only 15 amps
so it's only large enough to handle the
1 200 amp panel that's there luckily we
can use the same wiring which comes out
right over here that they provided
and
that is sized appropriately for the
number of panels we now have
so this solar controller takes the power
from the sun through the solar panels
converts it into the voltage necessary
to charge the batteries and goes out
through these two wires right here
that's why they're a little bit heavier
wires thicker wires because it can
handle up to a 40 amp charge to the
batteries
the other two wires here are what's
coming from the solar panels so that's
feeding into this device
and these are feeding out and charging
the battery
a couple items to point out here very
important items is over here you have a
disconnect and breaker
for the wire going to the battery you
would always put that on the positive
side
and that does two things it's safety in
case you ever had a short it also if i
press this button
it trips it open
and now i can do maintenance on this
without having a live wire so i like
these a lot better than fuses
with the exception for an inverter but
everywhere else i like to use these so
we have one here
going to the battery
and then over here
we have a 20 amp one sized appropriately
for the amps coming from
the solar panels
so
it's going to take that 20 amps at a
much higher voltage and be able to
charge the battery at 40 amps
so here we are at the batteries
and these are the two wires that are
coming from
the solar controller
your positive and negative going to the
batteries
this device right here
is a shunt that's going to measure the
current
that's being put in and taken out of the
battery so we always know exactly how
much bat usable battery capacity is
available
there's a lot of other connections here
inverter
the main 12-volt going to the
all the 12-volt items in the rig the
power jack
and if you want to see what some of
these other things are about that is
again in the inverter video
that was done previous to this
all right
we showed you part of the battery
monitor when we uh showed you the
batteries the shunt is mounted out at
the battery and that actually sends the
information in to this little monitor
right here
this monitor will tell you
uh how much power you're currently using
how much power you have left in the
batteries and most importantly state of
charge
what percentage of usable capacity that
you have so this monitor right now is
set up with the lead acid batteries to
work from 100 percent which is what it's
at right now
down to 50 since you you should never go
less than 50
on a lead acid battery once she gets the
lithium batteries
then she can go down to zero percent
and that's what's another nice thing
about the lithium batteries
this uh it's flashing right now because
that indicates with the renegy that it
is it has more solar than we're
currently using so you have a net plus
on energy right now
this is the again just for the ones that
didn't watch previous video this is the
uh inverter switch so you can turn off
the inverter
one last thing is i went with the renegy
i personally have the victron the
victron is very expensive it's well over
two hundred dollars where this one was
65 or 68 dollars and from what i can see
it's going to do everything you need to
do so i would suggest the renegy
this is a
no-name version of the renegy but
they're exactly the same
all right the solar
install is complete and it is working
fantastic this is something that will
allow cat to live a much more normal
life and have
some of the things that you take for
granted in your home available to her
the
solar was tested what we did to test the
capacity of it
we actually ran her hair dryer for an
extended period of time
and it was even in the morning it wasn't
even uh noon or solar noon yet and uh we
were getting 448 watts out of the 620
watts that are on the roof so that's
fantastic
she'll never get the full
watts unless she's at the equator on
june 21st
but that's why we installed a little
extra solar so so she can actually get
somewhere around 500 or 520 watts on a
regular basis
i am so incredibly relieved and
eternally grateful to dan for his help
getting this solar install completed
i have functioning outlets in the camper
and it's imperative that i have power
since i'm out boondocking and dry
camping so often and i run my business
out of my trailer which is editing these
youtube videos for you all so owned the
trailer for just over a month and
already have this solar dialed in so
thank you so much dan you are welcome i
really appreciate it dan did this out of
the kindness of his heart he's a good
human he
did it as a favor he is not for hire
everyone he is retired so he's happy to
stay that way
i also want to send out a huge thank you
to the do it best escalante home center
for their help with letting you know
helping us getting this project done
they lent us a ladder they allowed me to
receive packages there and we couldn't
have done it without them they're the
only hardware and store in town so make
sure you stop in and say hello and get
all your hardware needs taken care of by
them here in escalante thank you so much
dan thank you for joining us again if
you missed the inverter install video i
will link that here and also link it
down below in the description make sure
you catch that as well
and we'll see you soon thanks everybody
bye-bye
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you