I am not sure that it is totally needed. Not a good idea to leave the awning out on a windy day anyway. My sensor was working and a sudden gust came up and folded the awning over the top of the coach. Broken one of the arms and made a mess. Thank goodness it did not tear the fabric.
Bill Johnson
Birmingham, Alabama
(This post was last modified: 08-24-2023, 03:40 PM by bikestuff.)
My nephew has a 45-ft party coach that he used in his business I was with him when a branch from a tree scraped the top lightly and he said that's a $500 mistake. I know now what he was meaning.
We very seldom leave the big awning out unless I know the weather is going to be dead calm. Thanks for the link.
(08-24-2023, 03:01 PM)Jack Houpe Wrote: Glen sounds like you went the extra mile I might follow your lead on the epoxying the rivnuts. Did you use 5/16"?
I did use 5/16 aluminum rivnuts to prevent any galvanic corrosion. I did not want the nut too big as I put them through the roof supporting aluminum L cross section that was not very wide.
I read somewhere that sometimes the rivnuts will spin on aluminum and the epoxy should help stop that as well as seal around the top of the nut.
I used stainless bolts to hold down my unistrut and added a dab of some zinc compound that should reduce any galvanic corrosion at the nut interface......but it should not be getting wet anyway.
(This post was last modified: 08-25-2023, 06:58 AM by Gnawrocki1.)
Almost done with the railing, I really like this stuff heavy duty and fully adjustable, all the hardware is stainless steel. Used 5/16" rivnuts with stainless steel bolts and washers, will cut some rubber washers out of rubber gasket material to go between the feet of the rails and the coach then cover the bolt heads with 3m 5200.
The only gap in the panels will be the generator exhaust.
Major progress today 60% done only four more panels to put up in the front. I purposely left the railing sticking off the back of the coach so that I could slide the panels from the easy lift onto the roof one by one. Now that the back side is done I'll cut them off.
Morning Steve hope all is well in your area of Florida, prayers are with you.
I had to alter my original plan as after doing some measurements and drawing it up on cad I could not fit 11 panels as planned, the generator exhaust really left me scratching my head there are two fans one on each side of the coach that have to go under the panels the distance from the exhaust would not allow me to do that but fortunately two panel side to side is the same as the length of one panel so thats why there are to panels length wise in the center.
I also went with a single 8k watt split phase growatt inverter, it will power everything in the coach but there will be a few limitations like you can't run the dryer and run all the heat pumps full speed at the same time. Of course that would be a challenge with just a normal 50A shore power.
I have 2 series strings of 5 panels each, the growatt has 2 solar inputs for 250v each so that will work out nicely. As the lack of a stand alone solar panel for the 12v house system they will have to be charged off a 12v battery charger and same for the coach batteries, there was just not enough room on the roof for a eleventh panel. The first picture is of everything, red is the roof cross members which are on 24 inch centers blue is solar panels, the rest is rails and vents, the second photo is a cleaned up version without cross members.
Are you implying that you have kept not only your 12V engine battery, but also you have a 12V coach battery?
Maybe I did mine wrong, but when I went to 48V LifePo4 coach batteries I only kept the 12V engine battery to run all 12V loads. I permanently wired my coach 12V systems up to the engine battery by skipping over the merge switches near the isolator.
I kept my 12V inverter as back up if needed. I charge the 12V battery from the 48V battery directly with a smart solar controller that is faked out by getting battery power instead of solar power. I sized it at 50A so I can power any important loads continuously without discharging the engine battery for a quick get away.
(This post was last modified: 08-30-2023, 12:13 PM by Gnawrocki1.)
