Smartphones are a full-time traveler’s best friend, providing music, navigation, email, social media, a camera, and occasionally even phone calls. Of all the places we put our phone on a daily basis, there are two more important than most. We have a car mount that holds the phone in a good place for navigation, and…
After spending months wandering around Florida, we were starting to miss our summer backpacking adventures. After some research on The Outbound, Jess found Cumberland Island, located in Georgia, just North of the Florida border. Although we could do just a day trip, we kind of have a thing for camping on islands (see here and…
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Most of our activities are chosen and planned by Jess as we travel. I spend much of my time working and don’t always adventure with the family. Every once in awhile, I choose a place that I’m particularly interested in, and Jess and the kids are awesomely accommodating. My chosen adventure this time was a…
Our Airstream didn’t come with an inverter installed. There is one AC panel inside the Parallax power distribution center which distributes the 30 Amps from the street connection to all internal plugs, the refrigerator, the DC power converter, and the air conditioner. Adding an inverter complicates this setup considerably, for reasons I will now attempt…
Thanks for posting this information — might be very helpful down the road. Quick question: on your diagrams, you show the line from your solar controller going to the DC bus, and then to the battery. Wouldn’t that line go to the battery first, then to the DC bus? Otherwise, you be powering your lights and fans directly from the solar panels. Thanks again.ReplyCancel
This surprised me as well during the install: The existing converter (battery charger) was also just wired to the DC Bus. But really, it does make sense. The battery doesn’t have different charging terminals than usage terminals, so connecting at the bus is nearly the same as connecting at the battery terminals themselves. Running only one set of wires from battery to Bus is actually much simpler as well, with only one set of connections to deal with at the battery.
That DOES mean that incoming solar power powers the lights and fans before charging the battery, but that is actually the desired behavior anyway. There is a loss involved charging the battery vs using the power immediately, causing immediate use to be better. The presence of the battery in the circuit means that the fluctuating voltage of the solar panels is smoothed into normal 12V ranges.
The battery will charge if the voltage on the DC Bus is higher than its internal voltage, and discharge if the voltage on the DC Bus is lower than it’s internal voltage. The Solar Panels (and also the Converter) charge the battery by raising the voltage on the Bus.
In the photo i see you’ve attached the magnetic portion of the mount to the wall. Did you buy the whole mount and remove the magnetic part and tape it to the wall? I don’t see that these are sold separately.
Thanks for all your help and tips. Absolutely invaluable to a new AirStream owner. You’ve done all the trial and error!
You are welcome! I’m not quite sure I understand the question though. There’s links in the post to both the car mount one (dash mount), and the one we attached to the wall (flush mount).