After getting the rig ready to travel again we headed to Houston and lived inside a friend’s warehouse for almost two weeks while I took it apart, installed solar and put her back together. It was quite a job, with me working 10 to 12+ hours a day. Our son Gabe came up and helped out with JoAnn and I doing the bulk of the work. I plan to do a technical post around the solar install, just email us if you are interested.

The system we installed will run most of the critical components and even give us an hour or two of air conditioning in the bedroom. We installed 400 Ah of lithium batteries that I ordered from China (Winston/Thunder Sky), a 3000 W Victron inverter and 800 W of solar panels on the roof.

The learning curve was steep, I had to learn a lot about LiFePO4 batteries and how to manage them without killing them. Interesting stuff but it absorbed me for a while designing the system, really glad I have an automation/instrumentation background. I was also lucky to have an automation/panel shop at my disposal that really facilitated the install. Origin Automation opened their facility and supplies to me with open arms! Thanks John and Bevin!

Just by coincidence, we pulled the camper out of the warehouse and captured 1.2kW of solar energy on Earth Day! We happened to be driving back to Louisiana so our efficiency may not have been as good as it could have been in a more ideal situation but we recharged our batteries.

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