Solar on our RV

[Starry2some]

We went with 4 Renogy bendable 100W panels, they fit nicely across the front of the roof, are light weight and low profile, mounted with Velcro and Eternabond. Home-made, fused combiner box, then #6 AWG across the roof and down the refrigerator vent. Switch/breaker on the input & output of the Renogy charge controller (selected because it's MPPT and its physical size) then tied to the battery. The drawer below the refrigerator now houses a Magnum MS-2812 inverter/charger on the slider rails. Unrelated, we also installed an AC current meter.

Have yet to fully charge the batteries (just the stock pair for now) and use the Trimetric to see how much capacity we really have, but we will likely need additional battery capacity. I hope this works well enough that my lovely wife will agree that we don't want to haul a generator but can shove a few more batteries in that compartment. The proper first test today was heating coffee in the microwave; the Magnum performed very well and the microwave also did its job promptly, as expected.

My apologies for the blurry photos but only had a cheesy phone camera.

[Batts-toy]

Did you program the Trimetric? It will not give accurate percent charge readings until you do.

[Starry2some]

That is correct, Dale, but until completing the project (more or less) today, I had been using it only to monitor battery voltage and current. It does that very well, too. I will soon "tell" the Trimetric when the batteries are full so it can let me know capacity. I was pleased the batteries fed 140 Amps to the inverter for 90 seconds while maintaining at least 11.5 Volts because these batteries are kinda old (we bought the last new 2013 model) and they have probably never been charged fully. The ability to run 120V appliances while not connected to utilities and not running the generator has a good feel to it.

[Batts-toy]

Yes I know what you mean, I just finished pretty much the same project as you 300 watts solar, MPPT controller, 2500 watt inverter, electrical sub panel, auto transfer switch, Trimetric monitor. Batteries are new but not what I would have bought, the dealer put these marine deep cell off brand ones in, I will wear these out then get better quality deep cells. I am in a Gulf Stream motor home now but I also did the same project on my 2013 Wildwood TBSS previously.