We worked together with Nancy and John to come up with a plan for their trailer. They don’t full time in theirs, they mostly go out for a few days in a row. They do stay for a few weeks on occasion.
The main goal was just to keep generator time to a minimum for their overall usage. They are both retired music teachers, so they still practice with electronic pianos in the garage of their toy hauler. Their Raptor’s garage does double duty, sometimes the RZR goes in, and sometimes it’s a concert hall.
In essence, then, they wanted to be able to practice their pianos without running the generator. They also wanted to be able to watch the occasional movie and run the microwave when needed.
We planned out the following:
1 x Victron BMV-712
3 x 100ah Battle Born LiFePo4 Batteries
1 x Go Power IC-3000
1 x Progressive 50a EMS (To replace a faulty SurgeGuard EMS)
This would cover their estimated usage.
They would get 800 watts in panels, and 300ah in batteries.
One really cool thing about the Go Power Inverter is that it’s built with two 50a legs, meaning it can power a full 50a trailer. Of course it’s only 3000 watts, but it makes it easy to plug and play.
Panel Install:
After the solar panels, it was time for the inverter and batteries in the front basement pass through area, behind the wall panels. There’s lots of room back there. I always dislike how all trailer manufacturers have a lack of quality control over how wires and plumbing are run. It throws my OCD into overdrive. I’m sure when we have more time we’ll go in and clean the factory mess up right. Pictures:
Finally, here’s some pictures of the fuse and circuit breaker board we created, and the wall panel area where we got access to put the control panel for the Go Power Inverter and the Victron BMV. It came out beautiful in the end. If you’re asking why we put the board on the ceiling of the pass through, it was so they could still store things in there like tubs of trailer equipment, and not harm any of the components.
It’s working great. We’re still doing some fine tuning, but they’ve been out and have used it a couple of times now. It’s significantly reduced their generator usage.
As always, feel free to message us if you have any questions!