good morning guys Wayne's driving us into town here in
quartzite to get a few supplies for the solar install job today and the town
looks a little different then you might see it in its hustle and bustle of like
RTR times it's dead in fact many of the stores that we were visiting are already
closed for the season they'll reopen in November they just shut up shop and wait
for it to get a little less hot I guess anyway this is a quiet times and it's
cash only almost everything in quartzite is cash
and only got to go find out ATM so I can get my stuff what's going on everybody
good afternoon to you coming to you from the deserts of Arizona here in quartzite
and I got a magnet to commemorate my stay here in quartz a little camel on it
as I previewed in my last video Miranda here is getting ready to get solar a
massive solar kit put on an RV pepper Wayne's doing the work and today's
project we got pulled the fridge out because the wires from the roof are
going to go through the fridge vent so we're not drilling any more holes into
the roof they got to come down the edge and tap into the stuff going on down
here the batteries and the inverter and the charge controller and all that stuff
so fridge got to come out Wayne's prepping that up on the roof
above us getting ready to drop the wires down and figure this out the panels are
all wired up on the roof they are all mounted with VHB tape and metal screws
metal wood screws we just need to seal it with some dye corn later let's go up
on the roof and I'll show you what it looks like use my trusty aluminum
ladder here oh yeah there we go guys 320 watts 320 watts another 320 and
another 320 Watts twelve hundred and eighty watts of solar on the roof
oh and Wayne already tested the voltage coming down raw from the panel's right
now is about seventy five volts coming in from this 1280 watts and from
everything all the research that I've done so far these panels should be
bringing in close to 80 or 90 amps once it goes through the charge controller
and gets messed around to the actual battery bank we are probably going to
see 80 or 90 amps on a sunny day even here in March but all summer long which
I don't care how you do the math I'm gonna be able to run one air conditioner
roof air conditioner all day in the summer time off of solar probably not at
night very long I probably won't even try it at night but while we're
producing the power and it's still sending some to the battery we're gonna
be running an air conditioner essentially off of the Sun not even on
the batteries because the batteries should just stay at a hundred percent
you know I'm not able to use up all of that so really exciting and he's making
them look all pretty not doing any redneck fixes this time like tape and
cords but all mc4 connectors safely secured underneath Here I am running the
generator right now for a couple hours with air conditioning but basically just
to charge the two deep-cycle batteries that are currently in Miranda because
that's the only way we have to power stuff out here right now until this
system is installed that's why it was so important to get here to get all the
supplies from northern Arizona wind and Sun and to have Wayne install it here
before he probably moves on from the area too so there is one hardware store
in town remaining open for this desert heat coming it's about 88 degrees today
here in quartzite so a little warm it's just the making it making it work
man it's gonna be high I'm gonna be happy to running running everything off
a solar but that waiting get back to work
not as bad as it looks this is the cost of doing it the right way okay at the
empty up fridge remove the fridge slide the fridge out so that Wayne could
evaluate the opening here because there's the roof part we got to get rid
of that mesh to bring the wires down it's going to tack it against the wall
so it's away from the fridge and then somewhere in here we need to put a
display so trying to decide whether it's going to be here put it here the fridge
does produce some heat so yeah we've got some things to think about in the
meantime just cleaning out the space and cleaning off the top of the fridge here
and I'm going to clean the flue well we got it out - guess what we're just about
ready to put this back together just want to show you how good Wayne did put
that flush right at eye level for me they're looking all good inside he's got
all of the wires coming down all nicely put aside in the corner out of the way
of the fridge completely and then down here before the gas line he's gone back
inside if we were dropping back down between this false floor and the bottom
floor everything looks clean we're gonna put the fridge back in and hook it up
and then he's gonna be working outside for a little bit looks really good and
clean a lot better than any wire job you guys have ever seen me you working hard
or hardly working Jax you helping oh really man you're cute as a tooth though
that's for sure alright you enjoyed my seat okay I'm glad that swivels around
so you can see me and keep an eye on dad yeah all right man
hey guys yeah that's right Wayne so working on into the night here in
quartzite right now he's doing the part where it's like really tricky to get all
the buses and fuses and breakers and the wires make sure they have room to go
where they want to go I'm admit to make it look good I think that's the I think
that's the main part there so I appreciate his hard work he's really
good at this kind of stuff that's not that I don't have the patience to do it
it's just I don't know how to make it look good like I just don't have that
that that I don't have that ability I never have so it's worth it for me he's
ahe's a great electrician mechanic and he's helped a lot of people in the RV
community I am seriously looking word to boondocking cutting the cord
again and enjoying things like this like the desert look how beautiful this is
with the silhouette of the saguaro cacti everywhere out here no it's nice it's
pretty it's kind of beautiful in a way and it has finally dipped under 80
degrees here this evening it had been warm so anyway this is day three might
be a couple more days out here I'll show you the progress tomorrow morning when
it when it's lighter and show you how everything's going in this compartment
well good late afternoon everybody it's the next day on a cloudy overcast day
here in Quartzsite Arizona and Wayne has been at it here working back on the DC
side of the inverter friend Robert stopped by over here hanging out with us
drinking drinking some barley pops with us and I'll show you what Wayne's got
going on now I want to interrupt him too much but on the DC side he's built the
jumpers in here with the batteries picked telling them to gather he's got
the battery shunt down here we got this terminal up here with this guy called
fuse the fuse itself and big wires everywhere everything's looking and
clean being put away and just finished at the last touches of well transferring
the old DC system over here and what I mean by that is my old batteries were in
here and they were not direct replacements with the battleborn
lithium's they were actually bigger than 24 groups so I could only fit one in
here and there was just no reason to do that so that's why we decided to bring
all three batteries in the same port here and now Wayne is working on back
there with those grommets bringing the wires that were over here you got the
alternator charge wire you got the stuff that goes to the converter box and a
bunch of wires everything is being diverted over then this space will be
changed over into something different it won't have any batteries anymore it'll
just be for storage but Wayne's making sure he's got all the right wiring and
battery connections and everything figured out and then I'm gonna have two
extra old deep-cycle lead-acid batteries there to give away to somebody else so
right now the DC in the RV is turned off or this so that he can reroute
everything to this cubby hole and then the last part after that is going to be
hittin this up with the fuse box converter in there to power all the
outlets but in order to do that we have to run thick cable to the box and back
because it's going to be a pass-through system down here so that it goes through
solar first and then the generator or Shore power and more on that later oh
and then up on the roof we still need to tack down the panel's they have been
secured but we got some dye core to put over the screw holes and all the cable
ties that are holding to the roof and then we should be finishing up here
pretty soon so I think my next video I will just show the finished product here
from the desert we shall see how it goes but let's see let's give a little water
update as I mentioned I had bumped that water issue I was having video - - a
live video just to kind of generate some feedback and I really appreciate
everybody chiming in um the most common thing people were saying was just capped
those two vents the leak while you're driving and you can't do that guys I I
know it sounds like a good idea you know just cap your league but the
water tank is designed to have that pressure so that in order to pump water
from your water holding tank you have to have something open on another end to
allow air to come through so and while you're driving especially when you're
going up mountains and elevation and stuff like that you especially don't
want to have that a closed system you can rupture it and the tank can collapse
as you're driving over the mountains so it's definitely not a good idea to cap
your water tank vents and drive with them capped that's a terrible idea
but thank you for trying yeah and then a lot of the rest of the people are
basically saying put in a one-way valve on the on that you know which I get it
because a one-way valve will allow the water to still flow out so that when I'm
full when I when I have filled the water tank full the water Wilkes will flow out
and I'll know it's full but it can't go back the other way the problem is
remember what I just said about that water tank and eating air to come in you
can't have a one-way valve because you need air to be sucked in the opposite
way through this same port vent vent so that the water pump can pump otherwise
you turn on your water pump and try to use the sink it can't even pull water
out of your tank because you have capped it on the other side where you've put in
a one-way valve so I guess it's a little trickier than it seems but I will say
that based on a couple people's suggestions and Wayne and I put in our
heads together we have come up with a solution that I have not done yet
because I can't order parts because all the stores and Quartzsite are closed for
the season until October but the plan is still to reroute both been separately
under the chassis along the frame we'll come to the back
once we get past the floor line this hollow fiberglass cap right here there
is room to put in a 90 degree elbow or 40 45 degree elbow come up a few feet
and then create one of these and that means that guaranteed this spot up here
will always be higher than the water tank can ever be that's below the
surface here meaning we can both vent and we have an overflow that will spray
water out when I have acquired and made that tank full of water so that's where
we're at and that's the only real fix that's going to work that I know is
gonna work and then you know scientifically it'll definitely work so
I'm gonna work on that soon but but we're not going to be doing that project
here in the desert because all of the services here in the desert are closing
up for the years as I mentioned there's one hardware store open until I think
April 15th otherwise it kind of turns into a ghost town here in the desert
because not a whole lot of people stay out here when it's 120 degrees I guess
imagine that including me so Angela and I and rezian Jax will be hitting the
road soon I will give you one more update before we leave or as we're
leaving just because Wayne's doing an awesome job and I'm really glad I hired
him to do this job instead of somebody else cuz he's doing awesome but anyway
guys have a good night we'll see you here in a couple days okay