Chad Heiser

With the panels you are planning to use you will have 3550 watts at peak output if you run them all in series. I believe you are talking about running a 24 volt system in your rig, but I can't remember for sure. Even the bigger Victron MPPT 150/100 can only handle 2900 watts at 24 volts. If you are planning to run a 48 volt system (which may be the case, I just can't remember for sure), then you could run all the panels in series with the bigger Victron charge controller. The Victron MPPT 150/70 only allows 2000 watts at 24 volts and 4000 watts at 48 volts. With this controller you would have to break the panels up into at least two strings at 24 volts (just like the bigger 150/100) and be right near the max capacity at 48 volts. See the below charts. I personally do not like to run mobile set ups in all series wiring. It creates potential shading issues and some other draw backs. With 10 panels, I would do at least 2 strings of 5. I prefer at least some split in the panel wiring rather than having them all in one big series on an RV roof. If you were planning a 12 volt system, then I would most likely go 5 strings of 2, but I don't think that you plan on a 12 volt system. I also do not like the idea of running the smaller charge controller so close to its maximum rating with one large string. I would probably opt for at least the Victron 150/85 (not shown below) for that large of an array and maybe would go up to the 150/100 just to have a comfortable overhead. On Edit: some other posted while I was typing and I see you are planning a 48 volt system, so ignore my information about 24 volts above. Everything else remains the same. I would still break the panels into at least two strings of 5 and would strongly consider 5 strings of 2. Model MPPT 150/70 Battery voltage 12/24/48 Auto Select (software tool need to select 36V) Rated charge current 70A Maximum PV power 1000W (12V) / 2000W (24V), 4000W (48V) Maximum efficiency 98% Charge voltage (absorption) Default setting: 14.4 / 28.8 / 43.2 / 57.6 V Charge voltage (float) Default setting: 13.8 / 27.6 / 41.4 / 55.2 V Charge algorithm multi-stage adaptive Model MPPT 150/100 Battery voltage 12/24/48 Auto Select (software tool need to select 36V) Rated charge current 100A Maximum PV power 1450W (12V) / 2900W (24V), 5800W (48V) Maximum efficiency 98% Charge voltage (absorption) Default setting: 14.4 / 28.8 / 43.2 / 57.6 V Charge voltage (float) Default setting: 13.8 / 27.6 / 41.4 / 55.2 V Charge algorithm multi-stage adaptive

Just make sure the shunt for your new battery monitor is mounted correctly to your battery bank. It needs to be mounted to the negative post of your bank (single battery cable from the post to the shunt) and then all other negative cables need to be mounted to the other side of the shunt. This way it measures all voltage going in/out of the battery bank. The Victron is a very good piece of equipment and will give you a lot more information to help you diagnose your battery usage issues.

This is a bit off topic, but towing commercially generally has a different set of rules than towing recreationally. Federal regulations set the rules for commercial interstate vehicles and most states adopt some version of the federal regulations into their local vehicle codes. Oregon and Washington have chosen to not allow recreational doubles in their states. California allows doubles and does not distinguish between recreational or commercial for said doubles. California only distinguishes what type of license you have to determine whether you can tow doubles or not. California requires California residents to have a commercial class A license with a doubles endorsement in order to tow two trailers at once (whether commercial or recreational). The first trailer must be a 5th wheel, neither trailer can be over 28.5' in length and the overall length of the rig cannot be over 75'. I say this to let you know that not all states will allow you to tow doubles with your RV set up (in other words, recreationally). I too have a Commercial Class A license with doubles and other endorsements. I also tow a "toad" or a trailer behind my 5th wheel at times when I have the need, but because this is recreational it is not legal everywhere. This is a state by state issue and you need to be up on the laws in each state in which you travel. While I have not attempted to tow recreational doubles in Oregon or Washington, I have done the legal research and I know actual people who have been stopped at the Oregon border and turned around and sent home with recreational doubles even though they met all the legal requirements for doubles. This is because they were towing recreationally (a 5th wheel RV with another small trailer behind it) and Oregon does not allow it recreationally.

Transfer Flow is another very popular brand of auxiliary tank.

Maurice and Ginny are great people. We hope to stop by there in our travels in the future as well. And I agree, their rig is an excellent turn key set up that anyone in the market should take a hard look at.

Sitting at Ambassador RV Park in Caldwell, ID waiting for the WCR to begin.

My trailer is 42' long and the weights are as follows (just to give you an idea): 21780 lbs – 5th Wheel fully loaded with all our stuff, full fresh water, full propane (minimal clothes and food) total weight 16940 lbs – 5th Wheel axle weight (loaded as described above) 4840 lbs – 5th Wheel pin weight This is not exactly a light trailer. I am actually about 280 pounds over the GVWR of 21500 lbs as described above, but I am under the axle ratings of my trailer. My trailer is a Mobile Suite. DRV makes a higher level model called an Elite Suite built on the same frame/running gear as the Mobile Suite. The Elite Suite has a higher GVWR rating (even though it is the same frame and running gear as the Mobile Suite) because it comes with a fiberglass roof, quartz counter tops and fiberglass fender skirts (along with some other upgrades that all add weight to the base trailer). Based on this and the fact I very rarely travel with full water (100 gal capacity), unless I absolutely need to, I don't worry about being a couple hundred pounds over the GVWR once in a while. I have a large battery bank and solar system, along with a 6500 watt commercial generator in my trailer that accounts for approximately 2000 lbs of the above total weight. Without those added items, I would be well under GVWR even with a full timers load of clothes and food. (I have a full timers load of everything else - I tend to carry a lot of stuff just in case ). DRV makes bigger trailers than mine that have GVWR's of 24000 lbs. These trailers are triple axle trailers (mine is only a two axle trailer). They also make smaller trailers than mine. With all this being said, you definitely need a truck capable of handling heavy weight to haul a DRV. Any of the new super duty/heavy duty pick ups will do it. I personally prefer something bigger, but that is a personal choice and is not for everyone. On edit, someone just posted an Atlanta floorplan DRV for sale in the for sale section her on the forum. I don't know anything about this trailer, but it is a two bedroom floor plan that would make a nice office in the rear.

If you are looking at 5th Wheels, I would look at DRV. They are the top of the line mass produced 5er on the market (in my opinion) and have been around for a while so there is a decent used market for them. They have a heavy duty frame, use good materials in construction, have decent carrying capacity and have the thickest sidewall in the industry (good insulation). They also offer a toy hauler version. Take a look at Rolling Retreats or RV's for Less. They are usually the top two dealers for DRV in the US (for both sales and customer service) and have excellent reputations in the DRV community. There are also some DRV specific Facebook groups and forums where you can get specific questions answered if you have them. In no particular order: SOITC Forum (Suite Owners International Travel Club) Thor DRV Forum 5th Wheel Forums DRV Page DRV Owners Group - Facebook group for owners and prospective owners (must be a member of the group)

I'm not sure why being solo is a factor in not using Copilot on a tablet. I use Copilot on my iPad. I have a mount for it on the dash and it is exactly the same as using a dedicated GPS (which I have used in the past), but it has a bigger and easier to see screen. The fact that I already had the iPad made it a much cheaper option than buying a stand alone GPS as well.

Here is another recent topic on the forum regarding RV mattresses that may help you.

I agree whole heartedly.

I thought I would add a little more information to this, since this thread was brought back recently. I just spent 10 days (9 nights) going to Las Vegas and back for the NASCAR race last weekend. One night on the way out and one night on the way back were in RV parks. The other 7 nights were spent in a parking lot at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a group of friends and their rigs. Two of us had solar on our rigs (both installs done by me). I didn't spend time recording numbers on a regular basis like I did the last time I posted about usage, but here is what I can say. Over 7 days at the track, we used the trailer as if we were sitting hooked up to power. The residential refrigerator ran 24/7 (as it always does). We watched TV, had coffee, etc, etc. The water pump was on and used as necessary. My hot water heater is a Truma instant heater, but has a small accumulation/circulation tank and draws 12 volt to keep running. We had lights on at night, including my LED awning lights for extended periods to light up our camping area. The whether was windy and cool, so no need for AC. In fact it was cool enough that the heater ran every night throughout the night. We had one day of complete cloud cover and one day of partial cloud cover and the rest of the week was mostly sunny. Having those conditions in mind, my batteries were back to or near 100% every afternoon. I only had to run my generator for 3 hours over the 7 days to charge the batteries. Two hours of that was in the afternoon of the day of complete cloud cover. The other time was when we plugged the large electric griddle (20+ inch) into my trailer to cook pancakes and bacon for eight people one morning and drew the batteries down to 65% SOC (they were already down in the mid to low 70% SOC from overnight usage). I didn't really pay attention that we were using the electric griddle and didn't think about it ahead of time. My AGS started the generator when my batteries hit 65% SOC as it was programmed to do. If I had been paying attention, I would have just started the generator when we plugged in the griddle and my AGS would never have gotten involved, but it was a good test of the AGS anyway. My buddy has a slightly smaller system than mine (4 identical panels, instead of 6 like my trailer and 6 Fullriver AGM six volt batteries instead of the 4 large twelve volt batteries I have) with a PT-100 charge controller and Magnum 2812 inverter whole house set up with sub panel (all installed by me). His usage was similar to ours except he has an RV fridge instead of a residential fridge so he turned his inverter off and on as needed. He ran his generator for maybe 5 hours over the 7 days (and that is on the high side - I didn't record his actual hours of use like I did mine). The other two rigs in our group did not have solar. By comparison, they ran generators everyday for multiple hours a day to keep their batteries charged. One of them talked to me in depth about my system and my buddy's system and will probably come and see me later this summer to add solar to his rig. Overall, I was very happy with the system performance. If it had not been for the full day of cloud cover, the only generator run time I would have needed would have been for the use of the large electric griddle the morning we were responsible for breakfast for the group.

The open circuit voltage (Voc) on my panels is 36.9 volts. That puts me up over 70 volts with my series pairs. I have seen around 70 volts plus or minus in good sun conditions. I discussed my install with Magnum before I installed it. They gave me there blessing with my proposed set up and said it would function fine, which it has. I could easily go to two series strings of three with my system, but I haven’t seen the need to do so. It has been functioning fine as it is. Even in full cloud cover, I get right around 60 volts to the controller (although the wattage drops considerably).

The PT-100 does require high voltage to work properly. In an RV install, that simply means running a series/parallel set up with the panels to get the appropriate voltage. There are some drawbacks to series installs on RV roofs, but having integrated components is very nice and is worth the trade off in my opinion. If starting from scratch and wanting an integrated component system, Victron would edge out Magnum in my opinion because they have more options for solar controllers and some other nice components. When starting with a factory Magnum inverter, then a Magnum system makes sense rather than spend extra money to change out the inverter.

Yarome brought up pretty much everything I would have mentioned about flexible panels. The only things he didn’t bring up are warranty and cupping. Look at the warranty on a flexible panel vs a rigid panel. There is no comparison. The flexible panel manufacturers know that flexible panels won’t last nearly as long and warranty them accordingly. Also flexible panel cells can cup slightly and create little indentations on the panels that can collect debris and dirt. This debris and dirt will in essence shade those cells and affect the efficiency/output of the panel. Gone with the Winn’s had a video on their YouTube page about this a while back. Your equipment list looks good to me. The only thing I am not familiar with are the Vmax batteries. I do not know anything about them, so I can’t give an opinion on them. I personally like Fullriver as they are an excellent bang for the buck and I have personal experience with them. I also like US Battery and Lifeline (again because I have personal experience with them and know they are quality products).

Arrived at Las Vegas Motor Speedway today at around 11:30 am. We are here with a group of friends for the NASCAR race next weekend. dennisvr spotted us setting up and came over to say hi. I’m sure we will see more of him since he is working the event this week. I also plan to meet up with Vegas Teacher and hopefully Vegas Flyer while I am in town.

Yes I am. I’m heading out in the morning and will arrive in Vegas Monday afternoon some time.

I usually scan/read pretty much every new post on the forum, but I appreciate the PM suggestion. Also, thanks for the compliment.

I’m happy to help and I would be happy to discuss my build out and why I did what I did. I added the small inverter in my system for several reasons. Primarily, I wanted to be able to isolate the refrigerator for travel. I did not want to power the whole house while rolling down the road, just the refrigerator. The second inverter is also a redundant system in case I ever have an issue with the main inverter. When boondocking, the small inverter running just the refrigerator will also draw less power from the batteries than the large inverter powering the whole house (as you mentioned above). There are some other reasons, but these are the main ones. My main battery disconnect does completely isolate the batteries from everything. This disconnect has never been turned off since I installed it. It is really just there in case I need to service/replace the batteries or in case I am working on an electrical component in the 12 volt system. With this switch, I can completely remove power from the 12 volt system in one place. For a full timer, the batteries would only be isolated for servicing the system. I am not full time, but I do not need to isolate my batteries for storage. I am fortunate to have indoor storage with shore power. Because my storage is indoors, I actually isolate the solar system when in storage and leave the inverter/charger on to maintain the batteries. If the PT-100 goes more than 24 hours without sensing solar generation, it errors out and has to be reset. By isolating the PT-100 on both sides (input and output) when stored indoors, I don’t have to deal with the error and resetting it. If I were storing my trailer outside with no shore power available, I wouldn’t have run the PT-100 output through the main power disconnect. I would have connected it directly to the battery bank. This way I could disconnect all power draws from the batteries and allow the solar and PT-100 to keep them charged up. Feel free to PM me with contact information if you would like to actually talk about my system and what you plan to do to yours.

We really like our sleep number mattress. It is very comfortable and even better, it is very light. It came OEM in our DRV, but you can buy the RV version mattress direct from sleep number. It does require 110 volt power to air up the mattress, so if you are a boo docked you will need an inverter to make adjustments (or run the generator for a minute while the adjustments are made).

Did you mean "including" instead of "excluding"? Coach net should cover the towing of your MDT under your Platinum plus policy (at least that is my understanding - since I have Good Sam, I can't say for sure).

X3

Jack, does it have anything to do with us being linked in Google +? Is this why I can see the photo you linked but others can’t?

I can see the photo in Jack's original post, in my quote of his original post and in your quote of his post. Not sure why you can't.

I can see this one.