The goal for summer of 2023 is to get off-grid (solar) air conditioning working.  This is the last step to having a completely off-grid RV.

The first steps are to increase solar absorption and battery capacity.

Since we haven’t used the big RV in a number of years, I decided to harvest from it the solar panels and solar charge controller.

I laid out the solar panels from the big RV (left), the truck camper solar panels (center), and the seven new panels I purchased.  The Starlink dish will be mounted to a wood panel in the empty spot:

The panels will completely cover the roof, so the existing power-hungry and noisy rooftop A/C unit needs to be removed:

Hello down there!

I installed a powered roof vent to plug the hole:

Let’s get mounting panels:

As I approached the rear of the roof, I realized that the Starlink would be easier to work on if it is mounted not surrounded on both sides by panels, so I switched the middle and right rows:

All panels installed, Starlink installed:

Taking voltage and current limits into account, I put the 4 big-RV panels on the big-RV’s Morningstar controller (left).  The 4 original truck camper panels and 7 new panels are electrically identical, so I wired 8 of them in a 2P4S configuration and attached them to the truck camper’s Renogy controller.  The 3 remaining panels are attached to the new Rich Solar controller:

More battery is always better, so I ordered 4 more LiFePO4 cells and a new BMS.  Combined with the original cells, I now have a 24V, 304AH (7.3kWh) battery.  Fits nicely in a milk crate!

Testing the new battery, using the new 24V inverter to run a space heater:

All that’s left is to install the new air conditioner!