How to Solar Power your Alu-Cab Canopy Camper
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- Опубликовано: 12 дек 2024
- Here is a video about installing a basic electrical system in the Alu-Cab Canopy Camper. I install a 150 watt solar panel, a 700 watt hour battery, and clean up the wiring. For personal reasons, I had the goal of creating a system completely independent of the truck's battery system so I also rewired the camper's high brake light to not use the common negative of the camper's system (many thanks to my friend who reviewed the wiring plan for me). In addition to the parts listed below, I also used a variety of marine grade electrical terminations, shrink wrap, and bolts with 1/4" heads to secure the panel to the roof bars. For roof bars, I did use the alu-cab load bars, but I may switch over to 80/20 extrusion to save some weight.
Parts:
Battery-to-fuse block cable: SCCKE 6FT 14WG 12V Cigarette Lighter Plug to SAE Quick Release Adapter Extension Charging Cable With 20A Fuse and LED Light
SAE quick connector on the junction box
Blue Sea fuse block
MC4 connectors
Generic Aluminum Z brackets
Rich Solar 150W mono solar panel
BLUETTI EB70 battery
Cable to attach solar panel to camper's anderson plug from powerwerx.com: 50 amp anderson powerpole-to-mc4 adapter, 10 amp PV wire
Music: Go Tell It On The Molehill © Doctor Turtle as found on freemusicarchi... (Licensed under CC BY 4.0 - creativecommon... )
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Right on thx this is exactly what I was thinking of doing myself..I wanted to have my brake light totally independent of the camper lighting..now I know it will work.. did it and it works perfectly thx
Andrew! This is such a help for us electrical noobs not paying the big bucks to get everything installed.
Quick recap,
Black - Negative for 3rd brake light tapped into trucks brake light ground.
Purple - Positive for 3rd brake light tapped into trucks brake light.
Pink - Negative for all camper accessories.
Liked, sub'd, and followed. Great pictures you take, I appreciate you sharing the knowledge man.
You got it. Thanks for watching and commenting. I am happy it might be useful for someone.
@@AndrewReineberg Hi Andrew, one QQ, is there a new ground for the solar/battery setup? I am not sure that I need one.
@@jaredvoeller5457 Sadly I am probably not the right resource for that question. When researching this specific system I didn't encounter anything about grounding. I did see grounding discussed in van systems with significantly more solar input than I have here.
Hey Andrew, thanks for making these videos. It's cool to see how other people are building out their Canopy Campers! I pulled my wires back up into the channel and drilled a new hole in the front passenger side to drop them down. I mounted all of my electronics (solar controller, DC-DC charger, fuse block, 125AH batteries, etc) to a plywood panel on the front of the truck bed and then built a wall out of plywood to protect/hide them. I considered mounting mine in the same spot you did, but I felt that it would have been to cluttered with the amount of stuff I had. I'm curious why you wanted to isolate the brake light negative. I'm an electrical noob, so that is a genuine question and not a criticism...
Hi Tim, thanks for taking the time to watch and comment. Your setup sounds nice and clean. I do agree it would be nice to have a hidden system but hadn't thought of that idea at the time I made these decisions. Another benefit of your design is it will allow you to get the optional propane heater, if desired, whereas my panel is in the same location as the intended location of the heater.
Regarding the wiring, I don't think it is problematic in any way to have the systems joined. I am also not an expert but I did have a friend comment it could be fine to have two systems share a common neg "so long as the wiring can accommodate the combined load and neither battery has an earth ground or another circuit ground". For me though, the decision came down to the fact I might be registering my truck abroad and the initial vehicle inspection/registration process might consider the camper as a topper versus a camper (or some other distinction) depending on whether or not the electrical systems are tied to the vehicle. I couldn't get a firm answer on the specifics of the inspections (seems like it is luck of the draw on what inspector you get), so I am making it very clear my trucks electrical system is undisturbed other than the high brake light.
Can you please show me how the anderson connector looks. I jut for the same canopy camper and never seen this connector. In amazon if I search for it give me something that does not look like the one in the camper.
Great video man thanks for sharing! could you link the 50 amp anderson powerpole that connects to the alu cab input. Im having a hard time finding it on their website. Thanks!
powerwerx.com/anderson-sb-connectors-sb50-50amp
I'm getting ready to wire my battery just like you have yours. I was wondering why there wasn't another negative. I'm a little annoyed I have to go through the wiring harness and splice wires to get it to work. Doesn't make sense to me. It's not recommended to run the lights on the vehicle battery yet they didn't pre-wire for a second battery.
Good luck, Andy, and feel free to reach out in PMs if you have any questions. I have a wiring diagram from Alu-cab I can share if you think it would be useful. It isn't too hard, but I agree it is definitely an inconvenience if you have this design intention.
What are the dimensions of the roof? If you flipped the panels sideways how many panels
do you think you could put up there? Sorry for all the questions, I hope to get a basic shell
soon (relative because of the wait time) I would like to put more solar up there, also what is
the weight capacity of the roof?
Where did you find your brackets for the solar panel? I'm having trouble finding ones that fit the 80mm load bars that the canopy camper has.
Sorry I can't provide a specific recommendation. The ones I used came with the panel I bought. I just had to drill the holes bigger to fit the bolts that slide into the extrusion.