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Hi All,
For anyone that may be interested, I wanted to get back with the results of my many months of solar and electrical work on the 2022 28BH, and send on a picture of the completed project, with a lot of thanks to all you folks that helped out along the way. It has been a real learning experience and while not my first RV by any means, but my first trip down the solar rat hole. Expensive but enjoyable and all appears to work as designed (or in truth, evolved). For the final piece related to the inverter and ATS I ended up pretty much using a suggestion that AC graciously provided a while back.
My goal has never been to be able to run the entire RV on solar. We are not boondockers but if we ever got caught out or needed to use the RV in an emergency as we did in July when storms took out our house power for over a week, the RV was a life saver so I wanted to be able to do it if I have to. So the goal was to be able to run all the 12V and 120V outlets on the solar. That also includes the outside fridge, (so the beer stays cool on the road).
Here is what I ended up with:
A little explanation is in order.
I leveraged the inverter prep (after finding the wires), cutting it and bringing both ends into the ATS. I moved the microwave off the sub panel and moved the converter in its place. Its off as I added the Victron charger so just having a place to sit, its there if i ever need it. So the shore power comes in from the main panel to the ATS and powers the sub panel that now has both set of breakers for all the 120V outlets. If the shore power is pulled then the ATS switches the subpanel to the 1200VA inverter. All outlets and outside fridge stay on. Works as planned. Plug back in and ATS switches all back to the shore power. A little explanation on the 2 sets of outlets on the left. Far left are wired into the sub panel, so shore or inverter are always on. To the right, the outlet is wired to the main panel thru the ATS, so if we lose the shore power then that plug goes dead, and the Victron charger with it so no charging loops. Thats it, seems to all work and have not burned anything up as yet. I have room to add two more batteries which I will in the next few months.
I would appreciate any questions or critique from the group that have previously been down this rat hole as while this all works does not mean it cant be ipproved.
I must say I love the Victron gear, especially being able to use the VRM thru the Raspberry Pi that you can see in the upper right. I have a full time 12V internet connection in the RV thru cell so I can monitor thru VRM from anywhere. Far as I am concerned worth the price of admission to the Victron world.
Thanks to all for the help and looking forward to your feedback. Al
For anyone that may be interested, I wanted to get back with the results of my many months of solar and electrical work on the 2022 28BH, and send on a picture of the completed project, with a lot of thanks to all you folks that helped out along the way. It has been a real learning experience and while not my first RV by any means, but my first trip down the solar rat hole. Expensive but enjoyable and all appears to work as designed (or in truth, evolved). For the final piece related to the inverter and ATS I ended up pretty much using a suggestion that AC graciously provided a while back.
My goal has never been to be able to run the entire RV on solar. We are not boondockers but if we ever got caught out or needed to use the RV in an emergency as we did in July when storms took out our house power for over a week, the RV was a life saver so I wanted to be able to do it if I have to. So the goal was to be able to run all the 12V and 120V outlets on the solar. That also includes the outside fridge, (so the beer stays cool on the road).
Here is what I ended up with:
A little explanation is in order.
I leveraged the inverter prep (after finding the wires), cutting it and bringing both ends into the ATS. I moved the microwave off the sub panel and moved the converter in its place. Its off as I added the Victron charger so just having a place to sit, its there if i ever need it. So the shore power comes in from the main panel to the ATS and powers the sub panel that now has both set of breakers for all the 120V outlets. If the shore power is pulled then the ATS switches the subpanel to the 1200VA inverter. All outlets and outside fridge stay on. Works as planned. Plug back in and ATS switches all back to the shore power. A little explanation on the 2 sets of outlets on the left. Far left are wired into the sub panel, so shore or inverter are always on. To the right, the outlet is wired to the main panel thru the ATS, so if we lose the shore power then that plug goes dead, and the Victron charger with it so no charging loops. Thats it, seems to all work and have not burned anything up as yet. I have room to add two more batteries which I will in the next few months.
I would appreciate any questions or critique from the group that have previously been down this rat hole as while this all works does not mean it cant be ipproved.
I must say I love the Victron gear, especially being able to use the VRM thru the Raspberry Pi that you can see in the upper right. I have a full time 12V internet connection in the RV thru cell so I can monitor thru VRM from anywhere. Far as I am concerned worth the price of admission to the Victron world.
Thanks to all for the help and looking forward to your feedback. Al
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