Solar install with VHB tape, no drilling, but one big hole Options

[Dave and Ruth]

After a real shake-down trip to Chaco Canyon last week, with the emphasis on shake, I feel confident posting how I did my solar install using 3M Very High Bond (VHB) tape. We hit every kind of weather condition and the dubious road in to Chaco only got worse on the way out. The corduroy road was as bad as I have ever seen in some places. But the trailer did fine and so did the solar panel.





We bought the standard solar kit from RV Solar Electric in Scottsdale after reading the Kirkby book. The kit comes with the compact and incredibly rugged 54 watt Kyocera solar panel which is 26” x 26”. It fits nicely on the roof centered between the bathroom vents and the MaxAir vent on our 2007 LD (no exterior TV antenna). We upgraded the kit to include a solar controller with voltmeter and charge rate readout. Thirty feet of #10 UV-protected wire, a catastrophe fuse and flat mount brackets were also included in the kit.



The panel needs to be lifted at least 1.5” to clear the curved roof. I wanted maximum contact between the roof and the panel and didn’t think the Z brackets that were included would do this, so I bought a length of 1” square aluminum tubing which I cut into 4” pieces. I made 4 legs out of 8 pieces of tubing held together by VHB tape and taped them to the bottom of the panel. The curve in the roof both across and front to back required doubling up on the tape in certain places in order for the legs to sit flat on the roof. I sat on the corners of the panel to press it to the roof.

[img]http://www.jeeptrek.com/ForumPix/SolarMod/P4070076.jpg[/img]

Wiring was the hard part. Casitas are just built too well. I am sure there are others on this forum who would have been able to do this better. I ran wire down off the roof in to the upper refrigerator vent panel. I brought another piece of the supplied wire from the battery through the bench around the back to the same location where I tied in my own #10 wire out to the solar controller and back. I located the solar controller between the two high cabinet doors directly across from the location of the smoke detector. This required cutting a big hole in the fiberglass to handle the flush mounted controller. I really, really did not want to do this. But since most of the readout controllers out there are about the same size, I figured that a permanent mount would be OK. I cut the hole using a RotoZip tool and a template. I had to resize the template since the one supplied did not match the controller! Go figure.

[img]http://www.jeeptrek.com/ForumPix/SolarMod/P4070081.jpg[/img]

Even with all the bad weather, we always had power and the battery replenished every day, sometimes within an hour. We are using a new kind of LED lighting called Light Blasters, used a laptop and a big speaker for movies and music, ran the fans when appropriate, used the pump as necessary, ran the furnace in the morning, and used a catalytic heater for other heating. The permanent set-up cannot be aimed. It just points up. I’ll add a second, directional panel in the future, if I ever need it. The hard work is already done.

The panel is on very solid. I figure the air conditioner will fly off before this panel does. And there are no holes in the roof.