Planning on Solar

JimHamlin

Active Member
My wife and I are new and excited owners of a 2008 3400RL, and plan to install a decent solar system and battery bank. Before I decide on the solar system particulars, I'd like to know the specifications of the factory installed inverter and converter. In particular, the maximum draw from the battery - ie., does it have it's own breaker/limiter - to produce 110V in the coach, and the type and capacity of battery charger that uses shore power. I searched thru all the literature that came with the unit (it's like new, by the way), but didn't see anything that would help. Is there an internal wiring diagram available, showing all the components?

Hoping I'm in the right forum, if not could you redirect me? I also need to locate the ceiling ribs on this model so that I might optimally locate the solar panels on the roof. Thanx in advance for any info you can provide. We spent alot of time searching for the right 5th wheel and the Big Horn fits us to a tee!

Jim & Jan Hamlin
 

danemayer

Well-known member
Hi JimHamlin,

Welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum. There's lots of useful information here and this is the right place to ask questions. There's a great bunch of friendly and helpful people here.

I moved your thread to the Solar Power sub-forum where it's more likely to get relevant answers.

We have quite a few manufacturers manuals in the manuals section of the forum. More specific to your questions, we have several Power Converter manuals (convert 110V AC to 12V DC). To find out which converter your 2008 has, you may need to take down the rear basement wall and look at the unit. Alternatively you might call Heartland Customer Service at 877-262-8032 / 574-262-8030. Have your VIN # ready. They may be able to tell you which unit was in your 2008.

So far as I know, Heartland has never shipped inverters (12V DC to 110V AC), so if you have one, it would probably have been installed by the prior owner. You'll have to locate it and look at it and then do a search for the specs/manual.

You might want to look through some of the other threads in the Solar Power sub-forum to see if you can find older discussions that might help.
 

cookie

Administrator
Staff member
I used to own a 2008 3400RL.
They did not come with an inverter, nor was it offered as an option.
I liked that coach.

Peace
Dave
 

caissiel

Senior Member
I have the 2009 3500RL by Big Country and the converter is 60 amp capacity at 12 volts. The highest amps charging the batteries I have seen is 23amps. Also truck and generator was same. That was with 3 batteries in fair condition. Under 12 volts.


From that I installed 200 watt solar setup with a 20 amps tracer MPPT charger controller with remote meter in the panel area.

It keeps the 3 12v 114AH batteries charged properly.

I have 2 inverter. 800 and 300 Watts.
Just installed the 300 Watts controlled from the power side of the MPPT controller. Using it to power the slide and bedroom circuit I can operate all the entertainment equipment on the road and off the grid.
From the meter panel I can trade and control the power to the inverter and if it draws more then 20 amps the controller will shut it down. Its great as I can track the accumulation of AH used during the time inverter is on and also gather info on the power required for my gadgets.

My $500 solar system is the best thing I added to the unit. Never worry about batteries going down and a display of solar cell performance. They have never peaked so far while keeping up 342 AH of battery power.

We have been on the road for 3 weeks an batteries reach full charge by 2 pm.

Sent from my SPH-M910 using Tapatalk 2
 

JimHamlin

Active Member
Many thanks to all who responded to my query. Guess I thought we had an inverter, because I was able to get the TV and DVD player to come on and thought they were working off 110. Will have to revisit with a digital VM and check things out more thoroughly. We have the unit stored two lots down for the winter. Long story short, we thought we had our house sold this past Summer, then the buyer lost his job so here we we sit. Gives us plany of time to search for the right tow vehicle!

I do have one add'l question however, for those "seasoned" in solar systems. Regarding the panels themselves, are Chinese units specifically to be avoided, or are all the panels I see on the internet actually made in China? It's sad that so many inferior products made in China have created a bad reputation. I will be installing a 500-600 watt system with MPPT controller. Along this line, is it best to wire them in parallel or series -assuming the controller can handle the input voltage? Not an engineer here, but it seems like line-loss to the controller would be less, the higher the voltage and heftier the wire itself. Thanx in advance for your comments . . .

Jim
 

Rmcgrath53

Well-known member
I am using 4 140 watt panels from china, bought when the prices dived a few years back. Have had no problems with the panels, I evan was in a hail storm and the plactic face didn't break at all.(Did bust 3 vent hoods, thats how big the hail was). Bought the wire and panels and controller (ts tristar mppt 60) .at solar blvd..Bought 4 cc batteries at Costco.440 AH.The system works good with 560watts.Also installed 2000 watt inverter and changed most of the lites to led .The wire for batteries was bought at welders supply. I did run the wire in series, the wire is cheaper that way ,for the wire doesn't need to be as thick. I drilled a hole on the roof in the wall above the toilet and ran it thru the wall into the basement. If you buy the wire premade with the ends on them buy a 50footer and cut it in half to go from the last and the firstpanel down the hole into the electrical panel array mppt controller will conver the 75 volts from the series to 12 volt for the batteries. One more use for the MPPT controler
 

dcwettstein

Well-known member
Hook panels up in parallel would be best. That way if one part of a panel is shaded it will not affect the other panels. Make sure when you mount the panels anything on the roof will not shade the panels ie antenna, air conditioner, etc. Shade is a major problem with installs. If a part of a panel is shaded the efficiency of that panel drops significantly. The wire size is very important to avoid voltage drop. The inverter should be a 3 stage inverter and be able to be set to charge at 14.8 volts any less the batteries will not charge to 100%. This is a common mistake and a reason the batteries do not last. The shortest wire length from the controller to the batteries is best and at least #6 wire from roof to controller and from controller to batteries. Wire is expensive but is important to make your system run efficiently. #8 wire from battery to battery.
 
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evolvingpowercat

Well-known member
Panels designed to charge 12 volt batteries should not and do not need to be wired two in series. They will produce 19 volts in full sun and well over 14 volts in partial sun still charging without being wired in series. I bought a good domestic 80 watt solar panel on Amazon.com and it outputs about 4.5 amps in full sun and still about half that in partial sun. Depending on how much power you want to generate you put more panels in parallel to up the watts. There is a key part you need called a solar charge controller it will cut off the the solar panels from the 12 volt system when the voltage goes above the level that indicates that your batteries are fully charged, or indicating that your batteries are being charged another way i.e. from your tow vehicle or from the converter via shore power. The size solar charge controller you need depends upon how many watts worth of Solar Panels you choose to install. Without the solar charge controller you will boil water out of your batteries due to over-charging as there will be nothing to shut the current off from the solar panels when the batteries are fully charged.

Finally, the best thing you can do is minimize your 12 volt load, by changing all the 12 volt bulbs you can to LED type. This is much cheaper then buying solar panels to run regular 12 volt bulbs.

How much 12 volt amp-hours will use in a 24 hour period? With no lights on, the 12 volt load of the refrigerator, etc. 12 volt control boards and the propane detector will use about 15 amp-hours per day. Run your propane heater on a cold night, that can use another 30 amp-hours. Personally, I also have a Yamaha generator, and I ran that in the mornings once quiet hours were over to bake with my convection oven and fast charge batteries for about an hour. Then the solar panel would keep charging rest of day and run the weak drain loads.
 
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