Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueVelvet
Hi Bob,
Well, I mean, obviously another huge part of my needing/wanting to do a portable solar generator is also the cost of install.
I talked with my dealer and discussed why you can’t just drop two lithium batteries in, slap solar panels on top and keep driving. He said there’s a whole system that needs to be changed to do the lithium/solar install. I am not about to take on what would go into what you described as an easy install and definitely not what my dealer explained.
I’m a pretty handy gal I’d say but I’ve watched a lot of lithium solar installs and idk, I’m ok with saying it’s above my skill set. I want it to be done right and I don’t know that I want it in my trailer permanently.
Now I could be totally wrong on the lithium install- am I?
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Hi
Solar is a different beast than just putting in some batteries. With the "solar generator" you don't get solar. ( = it does not come with any panels ....). If you just look at the part you *do* get, then it's pretty much what I listed.
How much *should* this sort of thing cost to install? How much of the quoted price is markup on parts? How much better a job does the dealer do than you would? None of that is easy to answer.
Doing the install as I described without adding an inverter / bigger inverter would not require much re-wiring. If you go for 4 batteries a cable would need to be run to them. If they are "up front" in the trailer, that's not a big deal. Indeed this is very much a "that depends" sort of thing.
In the simple case ( two batteries into the battery box) this is a "couple of weekends" sort of project. The first one would be tearing into things to work out what's what. Things like missing tools, mounting locations / fit, and wire lengths would be figured out. This and that would be borrowed or bought. The completion would be a weekend later on once everything was in place.
The "full detail" obviously will be specific to your trailer, here's what it would have been on mine if I stopped at 2 batteries:
1) Pull the old batteries ... wow are they heavy.
2) Chop off the battery post mounts and crimp terminals on the ends of two cables.
3) Drop in the new batteries, see that the other two terminals need to be bigger, replace them. Screw down all the terminals with the hardware that came with the batteries.
4) Pull the (broken) converter and toss it in the dumpster. Mount a new fixed voltage version in the same space. Same wires used for all of that.
Poof !!! It's all done. You now have two lithiums where you had two lead acid's before.
For 4 batteries the process is the same except for mounting them somewhere and running a pair of cables to them.
Again, that's the "no new inverter" case. It's also the "don't add solar" case.
Bob