We had another good trip out to the Bay Area and back. The van was very comfortable for sleeping and the electric cooler we used in place of a fridge didn’t draw down the batteries much overnight.
We didn’t get the full kitchen in — just a cabinet to house the cooler (below) and drinking water dispenser (above).
I finally found time to mount the solar panels — 280 watts, feeding the 220amp-hour battery bank. Fiddly job, because of the curvature of the fiberglass roof. Every pedestal had to be shaped to fit a compound curve. But it’s on, and with only a single through-roof penetration for the wires. The following day I wired in the combiner box, charge controller and inverter. It was our first cloudy day in weeks — here’s the charge controller showing 4 amps coming into the system. The combiner box sits near the floor, where it will live in a kitchen cabinet. The inverter is under the bed, next to the battery bank. I’ll run a multi-strip to the kitchen when the time comes.
Now we’ll have no trouble running the fridge. We’ll even be able to put electric heating pads in the bed for winter coziness.
Eventually I’ll build a wind dam for the panels — if only to keep the snow out.
gailandsethtravelling 
You must be logged in to post a comment.