2014 Vista 26HE Solar Cable Routing

[jwcolby54]

This weekend, God willing and the creeks don't rise, I will be installing solar on my new to me Vista 26HE. And so I am asking for words of wisdom. Here's the plan.

I purchased 8 BougeRV Yuma 100W CIGS Thin-Film Flexible Solar Panels. They are 4.4 lbs each, 42.59"L x 25.98"W x 0.06"H. Maybe. There are several of these panels, 100w or 200w and the dimensions are different. Anyway, the dimensions are not the issue here.

I will be mounting them on the roof, forwards as far as I can get. Then I will string them 4 serial x 2 strings in parallel. That gives me ~100v x 4 amps per string, times 2 for 100V x 8 amps or 800 watts.

What I want to do is run the cables for the resulting strings to the side of the roof above and to the left of the door (as you face the rv side). There is an external basement storage box off to the left of the door where the entire system will live. So I need to get the cables down into that storage box. I am attempting to discover whether the wall is hollow right there to the left of the door. IOW can I drill a hole in the roof and fish the cables directly down the interior of the wall and into the storage box, essentially below where the AC electrics are below the stove and to the left of the stairs up into the coach.

Yes I know that I could run the wires back to the existing holes for the vent pipes for the black water but I really don't want to do that as it involves now fishing the wires forwards from there into that storage box. IMO, assuming the wall is hollow in that area, a single hole in the roof with a solar cable entry gland mounted on the roof will work well.

So... does any one know if the wall to the left (from the outside) of the door is hollow? Is there any way, other than calling Winnebago, to discover this? Has anyone tried what I am about to attempt?

 

[klook]

Morich may come up with a schematic and you can go to the Winnebago website and pull them up yourself perhaps. If it is an exterior wall, no, it is not hollow. If it is an interior wall and has some switches or wired things mounted in it it may have some hollow access but I have found horizontal stiffeners in most thin RV walls. On my old 2004 431C, it had a tiny panel and the wires went down the refrigerator chase and could be threaded thru to that area.

 

[jwcolby54]

It is an exterior wall. There is an external light, level with the top of the door and 4 inches back, with a switch down at the floor as you open the door and look in at the cabinet wall . Which tells me that wires are getting up there somehow. Schematics are good but I have looked at many of them and they tend to be light on the physicality of how they get from point A to point B.

Where I am trying to get is directly under the floor under this area. I could run it into the box that the microwave is mounted in, but then I still have to get it from the bottom of that box down to the box that holds the stove and electrical stuff.

I suppose I could just run a pair of wires down the inside of the rv, attached to the interior wall and then cover it with molding. That may well be the least involved and cleanest way to make this happen.

 

[klook]

Yes, no telling where they put the wires or where they come from. I just opened up the back corner of mine to repair some water damage and delamination. About 5 inches in from the corner in the panel are 2 wires. The back wall of this Class C is made up of 3/4 plywood strips with the areas in between filled with styrofoam beadboard and 1/8 inch luan glued to both sides. Does not leave a lot of space to run new wires. I don't know how these things stay together going down our roads in the US.