Chad Heiser

I am working on the rally schedule and am considering taking a day to go out to a nearby trail area to go run around with SxS's/UTV's/ATV's etc. I know a few of the attendees have such vehicles and I think it would be a fun outing. I will be looking around to see if anyone in the area has rental units for those that do not have their own and might want to come along. Does this sound interesting to any of you??? For those that do not wish to participate the time could be used for projects or other free time activity. It seems everyone always has something they want done to their truck or RV so I want to build in some project time as well.

If only everyone were that easy to please.

So I was experimenting with shirt colors for this year and I am leaning toward a Texas Orange Gildan shirt. It will look similar to this, although the picture is not exactly what it looks like in person. Anyone have any objections to this color or have any suggestions for something else?

I would agree with Jack. I currently own a DRV and it is very nice and I am very happy with it. I too have spent a lot of time installing electrical and other upgrades on multiple DRV’s so I am pretty familiar with them. Overall, it is a top of the line unit for a production unit. I can’t really say it has flaws, but there are some things I would change if I could. These things are infrastructure things. Some are minor, but others are not. I am not saying there is anything specifically wrong with my DRV’s infrastructure though. It is top of the line when you look at comparable units (of which, there are very few). My biggest complaint is the number of axles. I have a 42’ DRV (40KSSB4 model). I tried very hard to get DRV to build it with a third axle, but they would not do it. They will do some custom work, but nothing that extensive. The next size larger DRV from mine comes with a third axle, but nothing my size or smaller does. A New Horizons unit of the same size as mine (or even shorter) will have three axles standard. My trailer does have dual 9k lb rated MorRyde IS, so it isn’t exactly running on light weight gear, but I would really like it to have a third set underneath it for stability and carrying capacity. New Horizons on the other hand, are definitely a step above. I have not owned a New Horizons, but I have toured the factory and spent a lot of time climbing in and around various New Horizons trailers. The framing is just better. The running gear is the same that DRV uses, but they use more of them on their trailers. The wiring is more professionally installed as well. The side walls and insulation are also very different between the two. DRV uses a “hung” wall with residential style insulation. New Horizons uses a pressed wall with pinch rolled lamination with high density styrofoam insulation. I could list many other differences, but I think you get the idea. They are both good units, but they are not apples to apples comparable. This is why New Horizons cost significantly more than DRVs. DRVs are not exactly inexpensive, but a similarly sized and equipped New Horizons will always be more expensive. In my mind you can’t go wrong with either one, but if money is not an issue I would go New Horizons every time. My dream rig is a New Horizons. I have a pretty specific plan on how it would be designed and equipped. Unfortunately for me, I have a budget when it comes to my RV choice (more specifically my DW has an averse reaction to spending large sums of money ). I was able to get relatively close to what I wanted in my current DRV at a reasonable (to me and more importantly my DW) price. I then spent a lot of my own labor and some additional money to add more stuff to it after I custom ordered it from DRV. This all got me reasonably close to what I could have gotten from New Horizons equipment wise, but not completely infrastructure wise at a significantly lower price than the New Horizons would have cost This is a somewhat long winded way of saying they are both good units, but not directly comparable.

Too bad, it would be nice to have you. Hopefully you stick around in the west. We would be happy to have you at the rally.

Thank you. I will check it out.

Glad you are going to make it again. Let me know when you make your reservations. Thanks for the topic suggestions. I have most of those on my wish list for the rally as well. I am working on incorporating as many as I can. I’ve got several of them covered already. I really hope someone with some Alaska experience will step up and volunteer to take that on. 😎

Thank you

Looks like the framing for a large tank, maybe an oil storage tank under construction based on the picture.

That is the part I plan to work on (or maybe get a volunteer to make some calls ).

I am working on puttting together the schedule for the WCR. I am loooking for any suggestions for possible presentations or volunteers who would like to give a presentation. I know we have some very knowledgeable and talented HDT’ers out there. One that I would like to see (but don’t have the expertise to do) would be a dummies guide to traveling to Alaska or something along those lines. We have taken a cruise to Alaska and fell in love with the state. We plan to make the trek once we retire and I figure it’s never too early to start planning. 😁 As many of you know, the WCR is not a typical rallly where all of your time is regimented. We like to keep it as much of a social event as a learning event, so we keep plenty of time available for interacting and hanging out/getting to know one another. Seminars are not just HDT specific. We have had seminars on lots of topics over the years. Anything that may be of interest to an RVer or HDTer is welcomed. Believe it or not, the Caldwell area is a burgeoning wine production area so I am even considering putting together a wine tour day and would love to get a volunteer to cooordinate this. I personally don’t drink wine so I am probably not the best to put this together, but I will if necessary. Even though I don’t drink wine, I do like checking out wineries. I am pretty sure the campground has information on local wine tour companies so it shouldn’t be too difficult to do. We will have a few more days to fill this year since we are going for a fulll week for the first time. As a result, I am open to any and all suggestions. Last year, the shooting outing was so popular that I am working on expanding that into a little bit of instruction in the morning and then actual shoooting in the afternoon as well. Let me know what you think and what you would like to see.

That would be great to have you guys again. While it is too bad about yooour Alaska trip, I hope it works out for the WCR. We would definitely be happpy to have you. Once I retire, I plan to come out to the ECR and National rallies as welll. I just need to get rid of this darn four letter word, w-o-r-k. Ambassador RV Resort is a very nice park, especially for our big rigs. Their sights are a good 90’ long. I can pull in with my HDT, 5er and side by side (doubled behind the 5er) all in line and still have room left in front and back of the rig. Now that is some good planning. I see a side business you can get going on. 😎

Excellent!

Excellent. I look forward to seeing you guys again and yes, Jen will be there this year.

That’s a bummer you won’t be able to make it.

Excellent. See you in June.

Thanks, the WCR is a fun event and I enjoy meeting up with everyone. I'm really looking forward to it.

2019 West Coast HDT Rally Monday June 10th, 2019 (arrival day) Monday June 17th, 2019 (departure day) Ambassador RV Resort Caldwell Idaho. http://www.g7rvresorts.com/idaho/ambassador/ Please call the office at Ambassador RV Resort (888) 877-8307 between 8:00 am & 5:00 p.m. MST to make your reservations. When making your reservations, please mention that you are a member of the WCR HDT group. Ambassador has weekly and monthly rates if you wish to stay at the park longer. 32 sites have been set aside for our group. Sites will be released back to the campground in May so please make your reservations early. After you make your reservations please email me at chadheiser@att.net so I can get you on the attendees list. There will be a nominal Rally Fee this year of $20.00 per rig payable at the rally to help cover some expenses. Rally T-shirts will also be available for $20.00 each. When you email me, let me know how many people will be in your party and their names (for name tags) and whether or not you would like T-shirts (and what sizes). The agenda is open format so if you have any ideas or suggestions please pass them along. This will be our first week long rally and I have some ideas for the extra time, but I am always open to suggestions. I will put out an official agenda once I have it all nailed down. If any of you would like to volunteer for a presentation, I am happy to have you. We are looking forward to seeing lots of folks! (Edited to add rally schedule 4/14/19) 2019 HDT West Coast Rally Schedule.pdf

You are correct, Lou's diagram does not show a combiner box. It is just an example of connecting things in series/parallel configuration. That diagram is typical of how 6 volt batteries would be connected in series/parallel to make a 12 volt battery bank. It is always beneficial to keep wire lengths the same, but usually combiner boxes on an RV roof aren't centrally located. The combiner box location is dictated by where it is easiest to run the wire down from the combiner box to the compartment where the charge controller is. If you try to keep all the wire lengths the same going from each series pair of panels to the combiner box you would end up with a lot of excess wire laying around on the roof. Inevitably there will be series pairs close to the combiner box and others a long way from the combiner box. The the ones that are close would have a lot of extra wire coiled up if you tried to keep the wire lengths the same as the runs from the series pairs installed far away from the combiner box (hopefully that makes sense to you). In my case, my combiner box is on the driver side of the trailer near the front cap. I have a pair of panels at the front of the trailer installed over the top of the combiner box. This pair has short wires run to the combiner box. I have another pair of panels in the middle of the trailer with medium length wires run to the combiner box. My final pair of panels are at the back of the trailer. These panels have a long length of wires run to the combiner box. When I wired my series pairs of panels, I cut the wires (pos and neg from each series pair) to length so the wire runs were the most economical and easy to route/secure on the roof. I didn't worry about keeping them all the same length. I did leave some excess wire under the panels themselves so I could lift the panels and move them a little (either for future tilting or for possible servicing, etc.). I also kept the positive and negative wire coming from each series pair the same length so the electrical path for each pair of panels is the same. Here is a link to some pictures of my combiner box and the layout of my panels on my roof. You can see the wiring laying loose on the roof before I connected and secured everything. Here are some pictures of the final installation with all the wires secured and panels in place. I ran the wire in split loom cable sheathing and then stuck the split loom to the roof with dabs of Dicor every few feet. It has all been in place for over a year with no issues. Some people put Eternabond tape over the wiring to secure it to the roof. I'm not as much of a fan of that method because it is very difficult to undo once it is all in place that way.

5 strings of 2 is in reference to 5 sets of 2 panels wired in series which is what Lou depicted above. The two panels wired in series make one series string. Then each additional set of two panels wired in series is another string. With 10 panels, this gives a total of 5 strings of two panels each wired in series. You could also wire 2 strings of 5 panels wired in series.

Correct. The amps in series stay the same. So two panels in series will have the same amps as one panel. The voltage in a series will add. So two panels in series will have double the voltage. When you connect in parallel, it is the opposite. The voltage stays the same and the amperage adds. In the above example, five sets of two panels in series will give five times the amps and two times the volts of a single panel. Two panels in series keeps the same amperage and then five of those series in parallel gives five times the amperage. Two panels in series gives double the voltage and five of those series in parallel keeps the same voltage. On edit, Lou typed faster than me again. Although his second line should say parallel instead of series.

My answers are based on using high voltage panels. If using an MPPT controller, I always recommend higher voltage panels because of the advantages the MPPT controller has when supplied with higher voltages. If using 12 volt panels with an MPPT controller, then you would definitely want some series wiring involved somewhere to get to a higher voltage to take advantage of the MPPT technology. With higher voltage panels you can get away with parallel only wiring, but it still can be advantageous to have some series wiring for efficiency purposes. I just do not like one large series string in a mobile environment for the reasons I mentioned above. In a static/residential environment then I would use one large series string, but not in a mobile environment. This is just a personal preference of mine. There are some who have gone with one large series string in the mobile environment with no issues. I just prefer not to.

When I design the systems I use or build, I always hope for the best but plan for the worst. In my case that meant having two inverters (one whole house and one dedicated to the refrigerator for redundancy and efficiency when traveling). My large inverter is also a Hybrid inverter that allows the system to augment low output shore power with inverted battery power. I also broke my panels into three series strings of two rather than two strings of three or one string of six, again for redundancy. Finally, I have a built in 240 volt capable generator just in case all else fails. My system is all based on Magnum equipment because DRV started with a Magnum inverter from the factory. As I have mentioned in other threads. If I were designing a new system from scratch, I would probably go all Victron. I like some of the advanced technology they have for remote monitoring that Magnum does not offer. I also like the fact they offer more options for solar controllers. I would run two large inverters, one on each leg of the 50 amp panel and program them to be capable of 240 volt operation (because I have a 240 volt dryer in my rig). This would also offer some redundancy if one happened to die on me. I would probably also run multiple (at least two) smaller charge controllers in series for a large solar array. Again for some redundancy in case I ever had an issue with one of the controllers. The only thing I haven't decided on is whether I would go with a high voltage battery bank (48 Volt) or stay with a 12 volt bank. I like the advantages a higher voltage bank offers, but I am still not convinced a step down DC to DC converter will work in the long hall to run things like leveling jacks and slides. There are some out there doing it, but no one has been doing it for a long time yet. By the time I am ready to build my next system, hopefully there will be enough data on the DC to DC converters to see if they will handle high amperage loads over the long hall. Of course I would build all of this around a lithium battery bank (regardless of what voltage I decided to go with).

This is typically true, but if you get a faulty panel for whatever reason it can kill your entire string. With multiple series strings, a faulty panel will only kill the string it is in rather than the whole system. In the mobile environment, I plan for redundancy. You may never need it, but it is nice to have. What if a tree limb or some other hazard smashes a panel as you are going down the road. With one big series string, your whole array is dead. If you break them up into at least two strings or potentially five strings, then you will still have productivity from the remaining strings in the array.

The wiring would be similar to running series and parallel 6 volt batteries. Positive from Panel 1 goes to negative of Panel 2. The remaining positive cable from these two panels goes to a common positive buss bar and the remaining negative from these two panels goes to a common negative bus bar. The wiring between panels and to the bus bars is typically 10 gauge wire. The bus bars are typically located in a combiner box on the roof somewhere. You then repeat this four more times for the remaining 8 panels. Then you run one positive wire and one negative wire (larger gauge than between the panels determined by voltage drop calculator) down from the roof combiner box through to the charge controller. You will also want to add some type of disconnect in the positive line between the combiner box and the charge controller. Here is a link to the wiring diagram of my system. I have three strings of two panels in series (for a total of six panels) on my roof. My system is based on a 12 volt battery bank, but other than that would be no different than what you are planning to do. On edit: Lou typed faster than me. The only difference between my explanation and his diagram is that I use end runs between each series pair back to the combiner box whereas he diagrammed out interconnecting all the pairs and then continuing on without using a combiner box. I would make one change to Lou's diagram in that I would have the positive and negative leads coming out different ends on the series pairs rather than the same ends as he depicted.