Dedicated positive wire for solar?

[JimmyT]

We are hooking up a single 85 watt external/portable solar panel (Kyocera 85), to connect through the refrigerator access door to the buss bar there.
Our installer has done several other RVs but not an Airstream. I sent him the schematics from the manual.

He asked: "I looked at the schematics and can’t tell if the positive on the battery bus bar is a dedicated solar charging wire or not. If it is a dedicated wire that is good. If not some re-wiring may be in store."

I would think no re-wiring is needed here? What do you all think?

Jim Miller - getting ready for our first two week trip next week.

[SteveH]

I've not done a solar installation, but I would not hook any charging devise to a fused 12 VDC circuit such as the one to the refrigirator. I would wire it either to the battery directly, or to the battery buss at the converter. Just my opinion from years of electronic work.

[JimmyT]

Thanks, Steve. Sorry if it was confusing. My assumption is that by connecting to the buss bar at the refrigerator designed for solar panel connections we are not connecting to a fused 12 VDC circuit. I think it goes directly to the battery buss bar under the front bench seats.

[arodriguez60]

Here is a thread about the location of the wires prewired for solar on a 1999. apparently near the fridge .They are yellow and green http://www.airforums.com/forums/f196...fari-3674.html

[hhendrix]

I had similar questions and I contacted Airstream customer service to see if I could download or purchase a complete schematic or service manual. The response was astonishing to say the least. They don't have or sell any. Does anyone know how to get this information?? I know some manuals are available for some older ones, but mine is a 2009. This is crazy. If you have a problem boondocking, it's most likely to be electrical in nature. I've owned service manuals on everything from lawnmowers to airplanes. Can someone tell me why Airstream won't provide. What do authorized dealers do? Andy, 2air, any info?

[JimmyT]

Strange no schematics. Stranger STILL is the fact that we could find NO evidence of solar pre-wiring. Nada. Zip. Zilch. So I ended up with this configuration instead. See photo.

[thecatsandi]

If you are connecting directly to the fridge circuit without a charge controller you are asking for problems of over charging. 85W at 12-14VDC is 6-7A continous in full sunlight. This is too much for fully charged batteries. There is supposed to be a dedicated green (gnd) yellow (hot) for the Solar. You should see the green and yellow in the lower fridge door.

[JimmyT]

How true, how true. There were no yellow and green wires in the lower fridge door. So we are connecting via a charge controller to the batteries. The added bonus is that because we are not utilizing the 10 AWG "house" wires we can bump up the panel to 130 watt, 7.3 amps. I was astonished to not find the solar wires there. And if by some fluke we just missed seeing them, well, we can decide to wire it differently in the future.

[Al - K4GLU]

You might want to go back and check the lower refrigerator door again. Just checked my 2009 23' FB Flying Cloud and there is a set of green/yellow wires.