A/5 Montana

Any Montana owners out there interested, my Montana pop top is finished. The last couple of jobs being to coat the original grey plastic bumpers with USA U-Pol Raptor truck bed sealer (black satin textured finish) and fit two 100 Watt Biard solar panels along with a Votronic regulator & remote control unit, plus two new Varta LDF90 Batteries fitted under in front seat boxes. One is used as the starter battery under the passenger seat and the other as the leisure battery under the drivers seat.... after some modifications. The control panel is above the fridge next to the ZIG control panel and fuse board. Sorry about the two pics, can’t work out how that happened:shrugg:

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Fixed one for you Biffo, but can't see the other.

Gromit wrote:Fixed one for you Biffo, but can't see the other.

That’s strange Dave. I can see two identical photos one above the other  thanks Dave

Hope mine looks as good as yours when I’ve had a good go at it. At the moment it’s sitting on the drive waiting for something to happen. Been unable to get to grips with the jobs needed due to poison leg which has put me out or action for the past 6 weeks with daily visits to the hospital.
Only got my Montana 8 weeks ago and looking forward to getting out and about once it’s been serviced.
I’ve got two flexible 100 watt panels which I intend to fit to the roof, was impressed to see yours. Mine were left over items from my previous fit out of a Autotrail Cheyenne 634. Sold this on as my disabled wife could not mange access to the passenger seat.
Before I purchased the Montana the seller brought it to my home and allowed us the morning to try it out. Was glad my wife could access via the side sliding door and use one of the rear belted seats with comfort.
Just waiting for my leg to get better and get on with the improvements I want to make.

Good to see another one Mac. Hope you can start restoring your Montana pop top soon

Hi Biiffobear, good to be in contact with another Montana owner.
Can you give me some advise please? How did you route the cables from your solar panels through the roof to the controller?
My controller is a Victron Blue Solar Charge Controller MPPT75 with a Blue Tooth smart dongle.
I intend to mount the Victron controller alongside and behind the AS control panel above the fridge.
Any tips or advise with regard to the wiring and routing would be appreciated.
Mac Man

Hi Mac. I’ve been dreading being asked this because of the complicaition of the pop top and drop down bed. Anyway, here goes. Mount the panel/s as far forward as you can but not on the curved part at the front. Do not drill any holes as Sikaflex is quite sufficient. You will need four double cable flanges to make a water tight passage through the roof. (2 for outside and for a neat finish inside. The inside flanges can be screwed in place with very short screws) again fix to the roof outside with Sikaflex. See my photo. ( this will need one hole through the roof for each solar panel big enough to take the pos. and neg cable) You will need To join the panels togeather once the ends of the cables are between the roof and drop down bed. This way you will only need two cables (+ & -) to run down to the regulator. This I did by running the cable along the gully at the foot of the bed  to the drivers side and removing lots of trim carefully, ran it down the centre door post past the seat belt to the floor then in a gully under the carpet through a hole (drilled) at the back of the drivers seat box. I mounted the regulator inside the seat box on the front panel as this reduces the cable length from regulator to battery and so reduces voltage drop. (Plus, I couldn’t find anywhere else to mount it near the battery :-) the joys of owning a small van) Try and keep this cable as short as possible. I can’t see the regulator LED’s so my regulator came with a hard wired remote control panel which involved running the cable up the door centre post and behind the trim and behind the fluorescent light trim. You have to remover the light carefully as the cream trim panel has a big screw fixing it to the body. Then I took the cable behind the 240 v wall socket and mounted the control panel above the fridge between the Propex heater control and the main ZIG panel. This involved making a big square hole to flush mount the LCD screen and controlled buttons.  I modified the driver seat box some what to get a Varta LDF90 battery installed.  The passenger seat box is the location for the starter battery and needs no modification to take the same Varta LDF90. These are multi purpose batteries and come highly recommended. In my case it is possible after a years use to swop them over to extend their life so both are used as the leisure battery over a two year cycle. I would recommend using the correct plugs and socket to connect your panels together and always connect the battery to the solar regulator first before connecting the solar panels and it will be safer to cover the panels during this operation. One more point make sure you vent your battery bank via tubing through the floor to the outside even if they are gel etc check the capacity of the regulator to make sure it can handle the output of those panels.

Hi
Many thanks for the detailed instructions of your solar installation.
I have one difference, I don’t have the roof mounted bed so it should make installation a little easier, I hope!
I now see that mounting the controller next to the battery will reduce the cable runs and better battery charging. Fitting my dongle allows me via Bluetooth to monitor the battery and charge from my mobile or iPad so no cable run needed!
Hope I can get to grips with the various projects soon if my leg gets better soon.
Mac Man