Solar panel add on for 2017 prewired

[klassic]

Yes. Your batteries will drain fast.
Just an example.. if you were trying for 500watts. That’s in the neighbourhood of 50 amp hours from your batteries. Your 12v batteries are, l’ll guess high, 80ah each. That’s 160ah. With the 50% rule you get to use 80ah before hurting your batteries.
If you run your, say coffee maker (300-500w), for 15 minutes...you’ve used around 10-12 ah of your 80.
Now your fridge, assuming is not a residential, is in the area of, I’m light, 1 amp. Times just 12 hours a day is 12amp hours.
Now you have lights, carbon monoxide detector, water pump, I hope no furnace, tv..roof fans.
That’s eaten lots of amp hours up. Your 200 watt solar needs to put it back in, and you better hope for no clouds.
Not to mention if you have slides or power jacks that need to work at the end of your boondock.

Your system seems ok to run basic trailering needs and to be wary of what you are using. I don’t think you have the capacity, as you sit now, to be running an inverter.
A 2000watt generator would sure keep you going though.

Anyone feel free to correct me.

I have 520 watts of solar and 210 ah of batteries and I struggle. The residential fridge kills me. If I didn’t I would be fine, but only if I had good sun most of the time.
I still have to retract slides and get the rig back on the truck. So to be sure, I keep a extra 12v battery on a separate bank.

[docdvm]

I don;t have a residential fridge. Do have on demand hot water and use propane for fridge , hot water , furnace and stove.
When boondocking for a few days I am hoping to use lights , poer cell phones , watch a movie a couple of times with a led TV, and maybe make coffee with a nespresso coffee maker. Naturally water pump will get used too. All my lights are led in the trailer. Then there are 2 slides and I could just connect the truck if I don't have enough juice to handle the stabilizers and hook up.

I have absolutely no experience boondocking as most I have done was overnight Walmart parking. No need for solar those days.

[bdreinv]

Good plan we did a 30 amp MPPT controller and are limited to 300 amps in panels!

[docdvm]

Why would you be limited to 300 watts? Turns out I also have 30 A MPPT charger. According to tech data the panel parameters are 390/780W Uses 6 AWG wire. O was planning on having 400W 4X100W panels. Assuming that panels are less than 100%efficient I should be well within the parameters or am I missing something?

Also since the charge controller can receive voltage with panels in series (24V) and then charge 12 volt batteries in parallel am I better to wire the panels in series or just stick with parallel (12V)?

[bdreinv]

Don't know that is what Blue Sky tech support claimed!Would like another panel. Thanks

[Timpey11]

I just bought a 2019 321 RSTS and am looking to wire in a solar controller down near the battery area. When I remove the disconnect panel you speak of I find the feed from the roof but there is only 1 wire there. Am I to assume this is positive wire and then connect the negative to chassis ground? Also, am I to wire the positive and negative directly to the battery from my controller? Please help.

Thanks,

Tom

[oldmanAZ]

Congratulations on the new Eagle and welcome to the forum.

[Gizmopilot]

Originally Posted by Timpey11

I just bought a 2019 321 RSTS and am looking to wire in a solar controller down near the battery area. When I remove the disconnect panel you speak of I find the feed from the roof but there is only 1 wire there. Am I to assume this is positive wire and then connect the negative to chassis ground? Also, am I to wire the positive and negative directly to the battery from my controller? Please help.

Thanks,

Tom

I did exactly this with my 322rlok - I cut the 8awg red wire from the 30 amp auto-resetting circuit breaker and wired it to a 150 volt dc- 30 amp manually resettable circuit breaker and from that circuit breaker to my victron 100/50 mppt controller. (I confirmed it was the positive from the roof connector with the tone generator - in my case it was cut behind a removable hallway panel)

I found the ground bolted on the front passenger side of the a-frame with several other grounding wires - I was able to use a tone generator to confirm which ground went to the roof and then connected more 8awg wire and connected it to the negative of the PV on the solar controller.

I then ran 6 awg wire back from the output of the controller to that same grounding bolt.

I also ran a 6 awg positive to a manually resettable circuit breaker and then to the “always on” bus bar of the the battery disconnect.

This has been working well.

Good luck!

[brettt]

We have a 15 Eagle 321RSRS there were two wires in a loop. In the wall behind the decal in the hall.Sniped both in half wired the controller working fine maybe 3 years now.We have one 300 watt panel.

[Akraft]

Originally Posted by Stephen Ling

Hello

Does the prewired arrangement allow for direct plug in to solar panel or are additional components required?

Most pre-wired on the smaller unit are for portable solar panels. I have a 120 watt portable that I use. I park my trailer to far from my house that I can't plug in to shore power. It is as simple as hooking up a battery charger. That is what solar panels are, solar battery chargers.

My 120 watt unit charges at 6.6 amps. Most connectors that are pre-wired for portable are rated at 10 amps. That means that you are limited to 160 watts. That will charge at approximately 9.6 amps. You can use the clips that come with the portable panels and use higher rated portable panels. The highest rated portables seem to be about 200 watts that charge at just over 11 amps.


Did I mention that the connector that comes with the trailer isn't needed if you use the battery clips. It's just a way to use a $10 connector to say they have another option on your trailer. To use that connector you will have to pay extra for the Go-Power or Zamp brand units that fit. They cost close to double what you need to pay. It is just as easy to use the battery clip that come with the Eco-worthy.

The portable solar panel kits come with a controller mounted under the panel to regulate the charge to prevent over charging. You get approximately 25 amp-hrs per day with every 100 watts in good light.

Upgrade you batteries to two 6 volt/215 amp-hr batteries for about $250 (batteries Plus), use a 200 watt portable solar panel (eco-worthy 200 watt) about $308, use a (Century Plastics SKU-GCE-G) Battery Box $80, a 6 inch 2 AWG cable to connect the batteries in series $10 and for $648 it will add approximately 50 amp-hrs per day of off the grid use for power.

Good luck.

[wylan9021]

I have not found a wiring diagram for the solar prep for a 2020 28.5 rsts 5th wheel. I am thinking of using build your own LiFePO4 prismatic Lithium Li-ion batteries or a used tesla battery. The research I have seen is you do not want to charge them from your vehicles alternator. Are there certain wires that are associated for the alternator charger? Or can someone point me in the direction of a wiring diagram?

[klassic]

The alternator charge should have a 30amp fuse wired in line in the area of the battery wiring and connectors and stuff.
Perhaps a green wire and the wire would be attached to something else that goes to the battery.
If you see a fuse in that area it should be the only one.

[wylan9021]

Is there any site that has the wiring diagrams for the different Jayco's?

[2edgesword]

I think the prewiring on the Jayflight and Jayfeather are only meant for charging a battery. You would need a panel with a controller and as mention the wiring is probably only sufficient for a lower power unit.

[Timpey11]

Hello,

My pre-wired solar on the roof on my 2019 321 RSTS has been an absolute nightmare. Dealer has been little to no help. I used a tone generator to confirm the positive wire from the roof to the battery disconnect panel. Of course I found that my wires were cut and capped behind the wall in hallway. Had to cut a hole in the wall to cap these wires back together. Now good on the positive side.

I can’t for the life of me find the negative wire from the solar prep. I pulled them out of hallway wall and just found a loop that appears to go back up towards roof. I connected tone generator and tested 6 ga. Wire in front compartment at ground by landing gear and get nothing. I know panels are working as i used my old wires and ran them on exterior to charge controller.

Do i need to disconnect wires from ground to get a tone maybe? I need help please!

[Timpey11]

Gizmo,

Any advice on finding the negative cable from the roof. I am all set on the positive side as my 2019 321 RSTS has the battery disconnect similar to your and I was able to use a tone generator to determine the wires were cut and capped inside the hallway wall. After I connected them I received tone at batt disc.
I tried grounding my controller and got no output from my panels. I confirmed the panels are functioning properly by using my wires from previous 5’ver and running them externally. I have tried using tone generator to find negative wire to no avail. I did find a grounding location by drivers side landing gear in front compartment.

I am running 4 6v/230 AH batteries wired in parallel and series to get 12v and 460ah. I just want to maintain them while boondocking. I am concerned with the RV fridge and the 4 fans on top killing my batteries. If I could get my 2-100w panels to function properly with the solar prep I would be extremely happy. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Tom

[Gizmopilot]

You do need to disconnect your ground wires to verify -

I shut everything down battery/power wise and disconnected them to work through which ground was which.

[Gizmopilot]

Can you post a picture of what you found?

[Timpey11]

I took a picture of both my controller as well as the grounding bolt I found in front compartment. As you can see panels are connected to controller with exterior run 12awg wires to confirm output. Red 8awg at controller which is currently not connected is solar prep confirmed with tone generator.

The grounding location has 2 black 8awg wires grounded there. I did try checking them with tone generator from roof and got nothing. I will try taking out bolt and checking them that way. Im not feeling good about it though. Thanks for any help.

Tom

[Gizmopilot]

I only see 2 grounding wires - you probably have another location as well.

Usually you would have a larger grounding cable from your batteries.

If you have ground solar prep there should be a ground for that as well