Jayco Sterling 17.55.3 <span class="highlight">Solar</span> <span class="highlight">Panel</span> fitting

Hi Mapesy,
I have a 2008 Jayco Discovery Outback poptop 17.55.3 which would be the same layout as yours. It came with an 85w panel on the roof and the wires came down into the righthand front cupboard next to the bed. In the cupboard was a junction box with wires leading down under the bed to the 15 amp Morningstar solar regulator which was mounted next to the battery with the output wires connected direct to the battery. I have since fitted a 50amp regulator and 3 more panels each 120w.
I hope you are not thinking of connecting the panels direct to the Setec Transformer as this will not work. You must have a dedicated solar regulator fitted between the panels and the battery.
If you have no provision for solar already on your poptop roof I would advise that you run the wires down into the left hand cupboard instead of the right as on the right the 240v wires from the airconditioning also come through and you should avoid drilling through the roof near the 240v.
You need a square plastic junction box on the roof to run and join your wires in and be sure to use plenty of sixaflex to seal and penetrations.
Hope this helps
Guy

Hi Mapesy,
Connect the solar regulator direct to the battery not the Setec.
Use the provided channels in the poptop curtain.
Guy

With all solar installations the wire cross section in both the pos and neg lines is very important. It is not much use fitting more and more panels unless the wire size is adequate to allow the extra current flow to reach the controller/regulator without much voltage drop VD. A small amount of voltage drop will wipe out an extra panels ability just because you have some unnecessary resistance in the circuit. A small resistance at this relative voltage makes a big percentage of loss if all is not ok. Once you get it set up, measure the voltage from the pos line at the panel and at the regulator at the same time. eg extend multimeter probes with a long wire to do this. Measure both lines. Every 0.1 of voltage drop will cause a continual loss of performance. Try to get it reading under 0.3 v drop in each of the panel to regulator lines for good output to batteries. VD is bad, low resistance is good and equates to more current flow to batteries and it is the current flow at a certain voltage level which you are trying to achieve.

Regards
Ross M