Bunch of pictures. My 1.9kWh 24v solar install, to date.

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Panels have arrived!

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Starting point:

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No space. Made battery bank with 3/4" plywood sides, 1.5" bottom and diamond plate. Pretty tight even if it does add 700 lbs of tongue weight.

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To the roof. Who says you can't install 1.9k on an RV? 180" welded unistrut.

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Homemade roof brackets every 30". Add 1/4" steel lengths between the two for raising panel. More Dicor on its way..

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Electronics, only space available. Housing water and slider pump.:

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Cut to size and added insulating and sound boards.

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Moved water inlet to other side of camper. New door, added venting. Maybe I'll paint its edges white:

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Inverter and controller wired up:

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Concerned about heat so added external fan which is operated by controller's AUX port. Will monitor, but coolest part of RV, am hopeful.

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Ugly-ass combiner box - FAIL

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Better looking from the bow? I guess...

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Next up: Numbers

[Mike90250]

I think I will mention right now, you are going to need more ventilation. Maybe an exhaust fan up high to suck the heat out, or use both. My personal feeling is the Classic is under cooled, it requires the 3 internal turbine fans and still runs 45 - 50 C. With your small array, it may not be too bad. And there are a lot of tricks you can use with the LOCAL APP they offer (freebie), like backing up your settings, remote monitoring & control..... I hope you are not a day sleeper.

[littleharbor]

Those fans can get annoying cycling on and off throughout the day. I would think about adding some form of cool air intake from the underside of that compartment as well as the aforementioned exhaust fan.

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Agree about the concern. I'm hoping that the fan sucking air from the cooler air underneath the RV and the exhaust venting up front will work, but I'll be monitoring closely.

[Mike90250]

There are 3 fans inside the classic, and likely 2 fans in that inverter. You will need to move 2x as much air through the compartment as the integrated fans move, as the cases radiate a fair amount of heat. The Classic will never get hotter than 60C, it will start throttling back power to preserve itself, My array running 2Kw into Classic, has fans running 80% of time, in a vented building. Your inverter manual will list the shutdown and resume thermal setpoints.

[-TX-]

The present fan and venting work well with inverter which had been getting very hot, but if added controller substantially increases the heat again I think my next step would be to add 3 small exhaust fans at each vent. if that doesn't work I still have many options. What I would like to avoid and why I added Sound-x board to the compartment, is excessive noise and power drain. I'm not too concerned about the controller because I won't be around when it's fans are as loud as you guys say they are, it's the inverter I'm most concerned about. Right now the RV is dead quiet,certainly quieter then it was before with its stock converter.

[SunEagle]

The present fan and venting work well with inverter which had been getting very hot, but if added controller substantially increases the heat again I think my next step would be to add 3 small exhaust fans at each vent. if that doesn't work I still have many options. What I would like to avoid and why I added Sound-x board to the compartment, is excessive noise and power drain. I'm not too concerned about the controller because I won't be around when it's fans are as loud as you guys say they are, it's the inverter I'm most concerned about. Right now the RV is dead quiet,certainly quieter then it was before with its stock converter.

Using fans to move the hot air works but in case they fail or you lose power it is sometimes better to have heat removal through natural flow.

More venting (both inlet and outlet) would be my suggestion. With bug and water screens of course.

[littleharbor]

On my 5th wheel I added a 4" square 12 volt computer fan to help cool the refer coils. I added a small 12 volt solar panel on the roof and hard wired it directly to the fan. The more sun the panel gets the faster the fan runs. I did use an inline switch to shut down the fan when the refer isn't on. I actually did a larger version with 2-12 volt radiator fans to help move heat out of the garage in Baja where all my off grid solar equipment is.

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I did add a fan. It's a 4" inlet fan that works with front venting to create circulation passing each electronic..

I like your idea about a dedicated panel powering yours, which is similar to my controller controlling mine but without the power drain. It's something I will seriously consider if more fans are required to cool. Thanks.
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edit: I could stick this thing pretty much anywhere. What kind of wattage would you recommend?

I'm going to add a wire for it or similar before the panels go up.

[littleharbor]

Does your fan have any stats on it? I would go slightly higher wattage to ensure the fan keeps going throughout the day.

In the case of the garage fans, I knew when I connected the first 80 watt radiator fan to a 65 watt panel something was going to need to change. It was spinning at an incredible 10,000 rpm, (rough estimate, probably less but sounds good). If I wanted these fans to last while running all day, every day. I parallel wired both fans to said 65 watt solar panel and got a nice moderate speed out of them. The speed increases with the intensity of the sun. They've been running for over two years now without any problems whatsoever.

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.14 amp, which is pretty much expected. But I was referring to voltage. I assume that a higher wattage panel would supply more volts in lower light situations, although that could be wrong.

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I must have struck a nerve here because I expected more traffic here. If so, sorry.

[Mike90250]

.14 amp, which is pretty much expected. But I was referring to voltage. I assume that a higher wattage panel would supply more volts in lower light situations, although that could be wrong.

Nope, panels produce full voltage with very little light. Adding more light increases amps, up to the panel limits. Higher wattage panels are larger, and capture/convert more photons and provide more power under poor conditions that smaller panels (duh !), but the apparent voltage increase is only due to more amps preventing panel collapse.

[SunEagle]

I must have struck a nerve here because I expected more traffic here. If so, sorry.

No. Most are just in wonder looking at the pictures of your DIY project on your RV.