Lets Finish this Solar Project.

WHERE ARE WE? Lake Mead, Nevada 

NEXT DESTINATION? Pahrump, Nevada

Another beautiful day here in Lake Mead.  We had our morning Happy Hour and discussed, well we didn't really discuss much.  Just a bunch of bologna being rehashed!!!  We actually are positive that we know how to change the world but be damned if we are going to share our information with anyone else. 

Even Murphy got tired of the banter and went and laid down!!!

Chuck and I have been working on working on installing his solar panels and controller for a few days now.  Tours and hikes have taken priority but today the hammer was falling!!  His Jayco was sent "Solar Ready" except they made it like a scavenger hunt to find the wires and then figure out where they were on the breakers behind the 12V disconnect.  The block of wires were all labeled nicely, except none of them were what they said.  That took a little bit of head scratching but after crawling around in the bowels of their basement we finally figured it out.

Chuck got the panels up on the roof and we wired them together and then to the roof connection.  At least the wire they provided was heavy enough for the 2 - 100 watt panels.  Chuck is going to screw them down a little later.

Next we wired in the solar controller which was no problem at all.

And everything was hooked up to his 2 Lithium batteries. And then turned on and poof.......nothing!!  What the heck.  I had to go back over everything to find the problem.   Very little current coming to the controller.  Up on the roof and check the connections which were good.   Hmmm.... finally I saw that when I hooked up the Y connectors between the panels, I had mistakenly hooked a positive and negative together.  Because the ends are different for positive and negative one ASSUMES that if they hook together they are right.  Not when you introduce a Y into the mix.  So change the 2 wires around and we have solar power.  

Next on the list was to temporarily hook up their new inverter so they can run some things like fans and the TV without starting the generator.   Because they have Lithium it is possible to hook the inverter right above the batteries which made it easy for a temporary fix.  And an extension cord will work for the power source until we hard wire the inverter in Quartzite.

It is a 3500 W inverter so will serve them well for what they need.  We just ran the extension cord in the door for now and they can watch TV to their hearts content.

Pat and Harold have got all set up in their spot and we will hang around here till probably Sunday when we will move to Pahrump. 

Another great day in the desert.  Beats the heck out of shoveling snow.  Hope you didn't have to shovel any either!!!