[RodeWorthy]

Hi retirement bound,
First let me say congratulations on your choice of fifth wheel and, from your signature, on your upcoming retirement. Enjoy!

I have just finished installing a 4 x 135W solar panel installation to my '07 36RS3. It has been my intention to do a write up for this forum discussing all the good and bad things I came across during this process but I am waiting until I have some experience with the system.

Since you are in the purchase mode I am going to give you a basic overview and I will follow up with a private message. For the rest of you I will post on the full information on this public forum when I get all my information and photos together.

The additional batteries and inverter option provided by DRV has some good and bad points.

The inverter I received is an Xantrex RS3000. This is a pure sine wave 3000 Watt inverter with a 150 A battery charger. It has 2 50A phases which converts to a single 50A phase while in invert mode. It also has a 50A built-in transfer switch. All this is good news. The only bad thing I can find about it is I have not found a way to adjust the charge voltage and it appears to switch from bulk charge to Absorption charge and then to Float charge before the batteries are compeletely charged. In my opinion the transfer voltage for Absorption charge is too low.

Please note also that the standard converter may be deleted from the build when you order this option. This is not a good thing. The inverter is too expensive to be considered a throw away and if you have to send it for repairs you will need a converter to keep your batteries charged while the inverter is removed from the system. IMO a converter is a necessary standby item. Negotiate this with your dealer.

The 2 extra auxilliary batteries (Interstate U2200) are installed in a separate compartment on the opposite side of the trailer. While this is good for physical load balance it is a very poor installation electrically. The 2 battery banks, which are paralleled, are separated by several feet which is not good. It does not help that the battery cables are not optimized either. My system had 4/0 cable from the inverter to the auxilliary battery bank, 2/0 cable between the standard and auxilliary battery banks and #6 wire to series the two banks of 6V batteries to create the 12V banks. It did not help that the charger output from the inverter was connected only to the auxillairy bank. Good practice dictates that in order to charge all the batteries equally the charger should be connected at opposite corners of the entire battery system.

The solar prep wire drop from the roof to the battery area is (was) 10 gauge wire. This is inadequate for anything other than a small battery maintainer solar panel. I provided 2 x 30 feet of #2 welding wire to the factory to install in place of the normal wire. The instructions were to coil the excess equally in the roof area and the battery area. Unfortunately, (and I blame myself for this for not providing drawings and explicit information) the cable got strung from the roof and was cut and attached directly to the batteries. I lost about half of my 60 feet of expensive #2 weld wire.

Given the high cost of making changes to correct some of these problems I would not order the extra battery/inverter option again if I was ordering a new trailer. It can be done much better and cheaper if one starts from scratch. I may yet end up with 4 to 6 batteries located in a common location. If one chooses AGM batteries in lieu of the wet cell batteries it can be done much easier as the AGM batteries do not require the venting that the wet cell batteries need.

For the record, John Palmer assisted me with correcting the wiring problems for the batteries and he is an A1 guy in my book. He does use parts from AM Solar and there is nothing wrong with that. I know several people who have AM solar installations that are very happy with their systems. At the time I dealt with John Palmer he had some fairly low wattage (80?) GE panels that he was promoting. Since GE was getting out of the business I was not interested in those. If you are ever in the Lake City, FL area drop by John's camp. He knows solar -- they live on it out there. It is a very interesting place and John is a neat guy.

I checked out several companies while on a trip to the SW last winter. I could not find the deal I wanted in Quartzsite or Yuma. I ended up dealing with Northern Arizona Wind and Sun in Flagstaff and they were excellent to deal with. They do not do installations but that was OK by me since I was doing the work myself. There is a nearby installer recommended if you are in the Flagstaff area.

I installed 4 135 W Kyocera panels. My solar controller choice was an Outback 60 which is probably overkill for most RV installations. I bought this stuff in April of this year and it is distressing (for me) to note that the prices have dropped by hundreds of dollars for my system since then. This should be good news for anyone contempalting a purchase in the near future.

I have no experience with the system. I literally only completed the wiring and other upgrades today. So I cannot comment on the success of my choices. I have planned for future expansion if it proves necessary. There is room for 1 or 2 more panels on the roof and the Outback controller will accommodate them. Adding to the battery bank will require major rework and that will not occur until the present batteries need to be replaced.

I hope this is useful to you as you move forward with the big purchase. I have been where you are and it is an exciting time. Please feel free to ask about anything I have not covered here.

Safe travels.