Month: March 2011

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150 Watt Solar Panel from AM Solar

Ta-dah!

150 watt panel located in an open spot with few shadows and leaving me room to mount the kayak on the roof if I want

150 watt panel located in an open spot with few shadows and leaving me room to mount the kayak on the roof if I want

you can see the wiring going down the fridge vent

you can see the wiring going down the fridge vent

close up of the installation, lots of Dicor!

close up of the installation, lots of Dicor!

array amps in 'dry camping mode'. This is almost half of what I would get in ideal conditions and it's overcast! It's also about six times what I got from my 15 watt panel on a good day!

array amps in ‘dry camping mode’. This is almost half of what I would get in ideal conditions and it’s overcast! It’s also about six times what I got from my 15 watt panel on a good day!

array amps when in 'shore power mode'

array amps when in ‘shore power mode’

battery voltage (I'm plugged into shore power)

battery voltage (I’m plugged into shore power)

positioning on the side of the over fridge cabinet

positioning on the side of the over fridge cabinet

inside of the cabinet. The wire housing has two sets of wires, one goes left towards the front of the rig where the battery is and the other straight up to the solar panel.

inside of the cabinet. The wire housing has two sets of wires, one goes left towards the front of the rig where the battery is and the other straight up to the solar panel.

I am very satisfied by AM Solar‘s job. Their reputation is warranted! Thank you to Charlie who did the installation (and added some Dicor to other screws on the roof that needed it), and Deb and Roger in the office! It took 6.5 hours to get the panel installed, but I didn’t even see time go by thanks to the comfy waiting room with wifi. There was even coffee this morning!

My brain is a little fuzzy right now (I didn’t sleep last night), but let’s see if I can remember the gist of the important information. 🙂

First of all, the installation of the controller. AM Solar prefers to use the fridge vent over any other route and then they cut a hole in a wall and flush mount the controller. I had a very easy and even perfect set up to do this since they were able to use the side of my new overfridge cabinet for mounting instead of cutting into a wall. I’m still able to put my pantry baskets in there, so I haven’t lost any space. The solar panel is located right above the fridge so the wiring was brought straight down and then across to the batteries.

Second, they left my 15 watt panel on the roof and hooked up, but it’s not tied into the system. It gives me an extra half to one amp a day. What want to do at some point is hook it up to the truck battery when I’m parked for extended periods of time.

Third, I was advised to do a few tweaks to my battery bank, including added vented covers, which they gave me at no charge to install myself (left behinds from other customers). No major issues, just little things that would lessen worst-case scenarios!

Fourth, the HPV-22B charge controller is a nice little device. There’s an on/off switch that I don’t need to worry about unless I’m parking for an extended period of time out of the sun. There is also a dry camping/shore power mode that provides the best charging for both scenarios. I also have three LED displays: battery voltage, array amps, and charging amps. Right now, I forget the difference between the array and charging amps, but for the moment they are the same (I think array is the amperage going out and charging is the amperage coming in). Finally, I have two indicator lights. One tells me if I am charging (solid) or at full capacity (pulsing). Right now it is pulsing. There is another light that tells me if I am charging at maximum capacity.

The total was $1,600. That would have gotten me a 100 amp panel on special in Canada, including taxes, and excluding the tilt bars I can use when parked for extended periods of time. AM Solar is very good value!

The only thing my electrical system is missing now is a battery usage monitor. Voltage readings really mean very little since they vary depending on what I am using. They do not tell me how many amps I have left. Andy Baird explains this very well in Eureka.

I was warned that depending on where I spend the winter (so how much sun there is and how much I heat), I may be tight for boondocking in the colder months. The next week or so is going to be a good test!

Tonight, I am parked against the back of the building and plugged into 30A power with access to the shower room. I plan to take full advantage of it. 🙂 I was told that there is no rush for me to get out of here tomorrow, but I’ll try to do so before ten.

I have a viable solar system!!!!!

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A 180 Degree About Face

Yesterday, I spent about three hours with a friend climbing in and out of a staggering number of fifth wheels and… I fell in love.

I especially liked the bunk-model one that had two entrances, including one into the bunk area that had a door. Rip out the bunk, add a desk, and suddenly you have a separate office with an exterior access door… and there’s also a full bedroom. All within a foot print that is not much longer than Miranda.

Even the worst fiver designs were better than the best motorhome. And those kitchens… I’m still not a fan of slides, but they seem to be more useful in a fifth wheel than in a motorhome.

Suddenly, learning to hook up and back up a trailer made sense, especially when factoring in that a good used truck could come in at five to six thousand dollars and a recent-model high end 5er could be had for under forty grand. Compare that to the minimum $125,000 I’d have to spend to get a recent-model high end class C or B motorhome when it comes time to replace Miranda. And I’d only have one engine to maintain.

Is this what the “dark side” looks like?

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AM Solar At Last!

I pulled out of Eugene in light rain at about 8:10 this morning and made it to AM Solar at bang on 8:30 in time for my appointment. I was very pleased with the warm reception. We took a few minutes to go over the rig and discuss where the wiring was going to go in and the charge controller would be mounted. I also pointed out the location of the batteries and 12V disconnect switch.

The work will take all day because they are working on two rigs, but this is okay since I was offered a place to park for the night… including access to a shower. I’ve been dry camping for over a week, so a long shower is going to be appreciated tonight!

Getting ‘solarized’ has been a dream for two and a half years and I can’t believe this is happening at last!

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Sushi Station, Eugene

Tonight, my hosts, Joan, and I went for dinner at Sushi Station on 5th. This is a revolving sushi place where you can sit at a bar in front of a conveyor belt and sushi comes by you on small plates. The plates are different colours, which represent the price. Half the fun is not knowing what you’re grabbing! We also ordered two à la carte items, in my case the Hawaiian roll which had tuna, salmon, mango, and masago. I also had some really good eel rolls (first time I’ve enjoyed eel), spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, salmon sashimi, and a host of other tasty unidentified morsels. Yu-um.

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Long Term Weather Forecasts

I spent several hours today plotting my itinerary from the Oregon Coast to Lethbridge, Alberta. It feels like such a long one, across the breadth of Washington and Idaho and up through Montana. And, yet, I’m looking at just 1,500km, just a little over two tanks of gas. At US prices, that’s only about $400 in fuel to get me back to Canada, and I won’t need to budget for RV parks once the solar panel is installed.

Oregon Walmarts are RV unfriendly, so I’ve had a job and a half looking up other sources for overnight stops, including Our Odyssey (first time using this blog as a reference!), Casino Camper, Free Campsites, and All Stays which has good information about Walmarts.

I don’t know how my internet access is going to be in the next few weeks, so having this reference of good overnight spots along the way is reassuring. I tried to find some places no more than a couple hundred kilometres apart so that I can mix up short and long days.

The long term weather forecasts for Idaho, Montana, and southern Alberta point to days above freezing and nights below. I can definitely handle that! Since so many of the places I’ve found to stay at allow multiple day stay overs, camping rather than just overnight parking, I am going to try very hard to pace myself and stretch out the journey so that I don’t arrive at the border before the third or fourth of April.

I’m just about ready to pull out of Eugene tomorrow morning, but I might be back to spend the night, depending on how long the installation takes. If I get out of AM Solar at or before noon, I’ll shoot straight for the coast, otherwise I can go to the Valley River Center (a giant mall) here in Eugene.