Solar panel install

Does that panel on the roof increase or decrease the temps inside the truck?

 

Post up when you get it mounted. I'm looking for a good way to route wires now that I have my topper lift installed. Ideally I'd like it to go on the canopy, or maybe I'll swap for a rigid panel and mount to the cab roof rack.

 

i have tried tape and magnets, both will work fine. If you use magnets i would suggest silicon the side making contact with roof otherwise it will pull paint as it moves around. have fuses or breakers at both the battery and panel side as well. Given all that i have mine both mounted to the roof and have ran it in both hot and cold without any big issues

 

Looking to add some type of solar panel to the drivers side of my Prinsu rack maybe, or figure some type of clever way to have one flip out off the rack or something while setup to camp.

 

Subbed. Great idea.

 

Interesting stuff. Is there a way to store power? What about over charging? Is that an issue? Awesome man!

 

This is badass!

 

Think I could make this work? @ilubtimmyhos
I could fit two panels on my cap

 

Seeing that I have a dark blue truck, with black seats, no tint, matte black roof, and live in the desert (it's 115 today), I honestly couldnt tell you if there is a temp difference. Once you crest 100*, its all the same.

I got the stick on zip tie mounts but they dont really stick well. i'll have to think of something. I will definitely update the first post when that happens.

This setup just keeps the main battery topped off. The solar charge controller is like a battery tender in a sense that i reads battery voltage and keeps the charging at optimal levels. Once battery is up to threshold, it engages a "float" mode which modulates a trickle charge to lightly keep it at a certain level. If you hooked it straight solar panel to battery, you will overcharge it.

You trying to use two panels or just one? You could stacked two of them. Not sure if room permits but you could do like the front runner table and mount one under the rack bars. Then once you are at camp, slide the hidden one out, plug it in and Bob's your uncle.

 

Yeah probably but it won't be as efficient as the removable. Let's talk later. I read and followed this for a while when I first had the thought

 

Not trying to threadjack, but I couldn't figure out where else this question might belong.

Does anyone know of a solar panel that roughly matches the dimensions of a plano tactical case and could bolt onto one that's bolted onto my roof rack? I'm thinking about rigging up a system that could run my aux outlets during the day while I'm parked (allowing for charging of various gadgets without need to keep the engine running) and maybe even run a low-wattage air circulation system for the cab to keep temps down in an L.A. summer.

 

Been wondering this exact thing myself! I haven’t found any yet but to be honest I haven’t really spent much time looking yet.

 

My initial research on Amazon is finding a lot of products that give detailed dimensions on the components of the system but list none for the panels themselves.

From the handful I've found with panel dimensions, it looks like a blank prinsu rack could handle a fixed installation for 300W worth of panels (with the right structure) since the 100W/12V panels tend to be about 47"x20".

I have also found some 18V panels that are 16x11 for a 1A/18W panel. Three of those could probably be rigged onto the lid of a 36" case (the size I used on my rack since I wanted to keep my 42" case intact for other uses) to make 54 W of power. That seems like it'd be more than enough to keep the fan and lighter outlets running without depleting the battery at least.

 

That would be close. 54w would handle maybe 2 good cell phone chargers.

 

You could easily run a fridge on 54w. Assuming charge controller output is at 14V, you get 3.85amps. Most fridges run on 1-2amps. Fridges, also do not run continuously.

W=A*V
54W=A*14V
A=3.85amps

Even if you correlate 54w with 18v, you get 3amps.

 

A lot would depend on the loss in the voltage conversion. At 5V even a 2.1A charger is under 11W of draw in an ideal system. The only way 2 phone chargers would run close to 50W at 12V is if they're using pure resistance to reduce the current to 5V at the port; given how cheap most phone chargers are, that's definitely possible but it seems like they'd heat up a lot more than I've ever noticed.

The more I look into the specs, I'm starting to think maybe a deployable system is better for usage situations (maybe set up to run an inverter for tailgating/camping for example). I'm still tempted to at least put a small panel or two on the roof to trickle-charge the battery when I'm parked just to have it (looks like a single 18W unit for that purpose can be had for under $20); at least I'd never get stranded dead in the daytime without having done something dumb like leaving the fan and stereo running for 2 hours while loading up like I did a few weeks ago on vacation...

 

One thing I discovered when running wires for a NMO antenna bracket on the side of my Prinsu rack is that on the access cab, it's possible to rout wires down the side of the body under the rear portion (behind the weather-stripping and near the hinges) of the rear doors without having any issues with pinching due to the way the compound hinges on those rear doors move.

Gives the option to either run wiring to the floor grommets with nearly full concealment, or to punch your own hole and add an after-market grommet (if you're feeling more adventurous) to get the wires into the cab. It also allowed me to rivet a ground wire into a bare spot I sanded in the body then touch-up over the whole connection to seal the DIY body ground location.

Your wiring looks pretty clean down the back, but it's another route to consider that keeps the truck looking even more "stock" when the doors are closed and doesn't make any new exposed leak-paths for weather/dust to get into the cab.

 

That's interesting, I may have to look into that.. Those tiny little ziptie mounts I used are nearly all unstuck. My wires are just hanging at this point in time. Then again, I'll be adding a second panel so that adds a bit of fun. Have to figure out how to hook a sharp 90 on the edge of my camper, and allow some slack for the roof to hinge up. But not in 110+

 

I'm very rusty on voltage conversion so i'm not sure what the actual outputs would be. Going from 18v to 14v to 5v has got to cost a decent amount of amperage. My fridge can be suffering in the truck (upwards of 180* in that beezy) and i'll still see upper 12 to lower 13 volts on the battery. I can pull out a frosty 31* beer when I can't even touch anything in the truck. It's nice.

 

You might try using the panel mounting tape on those little zip tie mounting blocks.