I am going to be mounting a single 300W, 24V panel on top of my E350 cargo van RV conversion. I have a set of 3 ladder rails mounted on the roof and have a luggage basket over the rear pair of rails. This leaves the section between the front and middle rail to mount the solar panel to.
Here are the ladder rails I have. I left off the ladder securing parts since despite how it looks this is not a tradesmans van.
The Solar Panel is 65" x 39" in size so I will mount the long dimension from side to side on the van. My thinking is if I park the van facing South and tilt the panel on the narrow axis towards the the front of the van, there should not be any shading. This also means I should be able to deploy and stow the panel without having to climb up on top of the van (something I really don't want to have to do.
To accomplish this I plan on using hinges, aluminum extrusions, and slides as shown in the attached document.
This is a very rough first pass at how I intend to do this, but I was hoping to get some advice from other inmates here about my ideas.
Here are the ladder rails I have. I left off the ladder securing parts since despite how it looks this is not a tradesmans van.
The Solar Panel is 65" x 39" in size so I will mount the long dimension from side to side on the van. My thinking is if I park the van facing South and tilt the panel on the narrow axis towards the the front of the van, there should not be any shading. This also means I should be able to deploy and stow the panel without having to climb up on top of the van (something I really don't want to have to do.
To accomplish this I plan on using hinges, aluminum extrusions, and slides as shown in the attached document.
This is a very rough first pass at how I intend to do this, but I was hoping to get some advice from other inmates here about my ideas.
Attachments
Last edited: