Making a ifting roof on a 110

[wuntenn]

Hi Frank - glad you're still keeping up with it! And thanks for the link to handybob - been there! Love his outspoken opinions backed up with real world experience.

Just so folks have a sense of the details - here's some of the electrical doings - bearing in mind I am a novice in this department, but happy to experiment (but very very carefully with anything involving amps!).

Here's the solar controller and RCD for mains hookups. The 350W inverter is situated above it - that's its base you can see at frame top. Its still not wired in yet. All this is just behind the drivers seat, separated from the main area by a wood partition so its not easily interfered with, or can easily have a cup of tea dropped onto it.



The solar panel is at roof rear (the 'top' of the lifted part) and instead of running the wires down the outside I went down the inside, hard up against the inside of the alloy. The fabric sides will be screwed up into the pine panel at top leaving a good gap between the fabric and the solar wires.



All the wiring coming down the lifting section (solar and light wiring) has to flex round the end down into the lower area and I've run the smaller stuff through clear plastic tube (garden variety from the hardware store - I had a load of this left - I used it to run my brake pipes through to protect the piping). I reckon this will give the wiring a good bit of protection. The heavier solar cable is in flexy black plastic conduit. And all this well fastened down with cable ties or wire clips.

The lighting wiring will be hidden behind a piece of thin ply which I can fasten into the timber end to keep that looking neat and tidy.



The fusebox for all the stuff running off the aux battery is currently situated just beside the battery box, in the area between the front seats. However I've pulled out the third (middle) seat and replaced it with a home-made cubby box that conceals and protects the fusebox, and hinges forwards to reveal it.







I may relocate this at some point but at the moment its fine.

PS - The loose wires visible are yet to be properly trimmed and run through the black conduit, then fixed to the bulkhead - work in progress.

 

[ersatzknarf]

Hi John,
Have enjoyed every post of yours, thanks
Very, very glad to know you've been to that blog.
Agreed, really like his opinions.
Really like how you're doing the solar, too.
Also, especially like that you're putting the fuses and such in the cubby box in the middle.
That is an excellent solution.

 

[Arjan]

Very nice.

My 110 just passed the French MOT - stage 1 in getting a logbook - but blew the rear crank oil seal on the way back from the MOT station...

Interesting these solar panels. How difficult are they to wire into the vehicle ?

 

[wuntenn]

Hello Arjan - not hard at all once I'd got my head round it (with some excellent help from the folks in the electrical/solar forum here).

Crucial item was a quality solar controller - Morningstar products got consistent praise. I found a new one on Ebay for 1/4 of its retail price, and the panel was on sale too. To install simply stick the panel on the roof. Install the solar controller, run heavy gauge + and - wires from battery to controller with a fuse on the + (and two very light + and - 'sense' wires which help to monitor voltage) then switch on and watch the controller do its thing as it detects battery/voltage etc and settles into its routine. Then when all the LED's are in correct sequence so you know its all properly connected, run the wires from the panel into the controller and off it goes. Job done.

Hardest part was routing the wires.

The Morningstar unit I got is the Pro30 so will handle a 30 amp solar array although that's more than my present set up. The Pro30 has 'Load' outlet + and - connections to enable eg lights or a fridge to be connected to it. This is useful because it means the Pro30 monitors the battery voltage so if there's sufficient solar power it will use that to run the fridge as well as charging the battery, but if the solar dips the battery itself runs the fridge. It has a LVD (low voltage disconnect) function so if the fridge is going to seriously drain the battery to damaging levels the Pro30 disconnects the load to save the battery.

The solar controller is connected to the Aux battery and maintains it. My IBS unit runs off the alternator and maintains the main battery, and the newer IBS units (mine is too old to do this) will do a bi-directional charge so if the solar power is sufficient to fully charge the aux and has the capacity to charge the main battery too the IBS controller switches charge to the main battery. This is pretty much ideal I think as it's a relatively simple system that will ensure both batteries are maintained as best as can be managed.

My IBS unit is the older ones that dont do bi-directional but I can change the controller for a reasonable cost using a wiring adaptor to connect to the old wiring loom.

 

[Arjan]

Merci Beaucoup !

Sounds like a very useful addition to the 110 as that is away a lot. Almost always driving each day but from time to time it will stay at a location for a few days - most without mains..

 

[wuntenn]

Another little step forwards this afternoon - fitted a 12V socket for the fridge to run off. Put it into a piece of wood that will be screwed in behind the cupboards well out of the way, but easily accessible by simply pulling out one the storage boxes. I decided to put the rear end of the socket in a little plastic junction box for protection. Tied the cable in with a couple of cable ties and as the Engel plug is so tight I cant see it easily popping out. I may at some point get the proper Engel Aspan cable/socket that locks in place (expensive) but for the moment this will do just fine.

A few view of front back and side.

 

[wuntenn]

Today major leap forwards was a visit to the fabric makers to have the van measured up and a template made. The various angles and shapes make it critical to get right and because the roof is swinging up on a hinge at one end, the other end scribes an arc and the fabric cannot be aligned square at the back end because the point furthest from the hinge on the lifting section ends up not perpendicular to the furthest point from the fixed lower section. (do a drawing to see what I mean!).



So we'd to tape the template fabric up onto the van and then get inside to draw the dimensions on the fabric to be able to make the pattern.







Once we'd the dimensions and lines on the template we were able to cut the fabric for the end and get the off-square shape for the rear end. The template fabric is cheap pvc so can be heat-welded. Once that was done it was tried back into the van and it looked fine.

Proper fabric arrived Monday and should be stitched up by the end of the week, all going to plan.

 

[Arjan]

That looks very promising !!

 

[krl81]

Wow! Now we're talking! :-D

 

[wuntenn]

Just to clarify my comment above in case anyone is out there beavering away copying this!

I said:

"The various angles and shapes make it critical to get right and because the roof is swinging up on a hinge at one end, the other end scribes an arc and the fabric cannot be aligned square at the back end because the point furthest from the hinge on the lifting section ends up not perpendicular to the furthest point from the fixed lower section. (do a drawing to see what I mean!)."


Here's a drawing showing the difficulty.



If you look at where the upper end of the lifting section ends up relative to the lower section you'll notice that there's a big difference (I think its about 8 inches) - they are not in vertical alignment. This means the fabric has to have a slope to it, and that means that you CANNOT (as you might assume) use the straight edge of your fabric as a guide, and fasten it directly to the lower perimeter frame all the way round - it just wont work. You can see in the red dotted line where the top edge of the fabric will end up. In space!

Here's another drawing showing the correct fabric alignment:



And as you can see this means the fabric has to be a totally different shape and you cannot use the straight edge of the fabric as a guide to work from. This is the reason why we had to go to the bother of making a pvc template - just to make sure we got it right!

 

[Arjan]

You are really getting there !

Looks good & well thought out.

 

[wuntenn]

Ah well another step backwards!

Came out this morning to find the flexible solar panel had parted company with the roof! Seems the Sikaflex 291i had adhered perfectly to the back of the solar panel, but despite cleaning and abrading the new roof, the cellulose paint has been affected by the Sika and seems to have been dissolved and allowed the panel simply to pop up off the roof. The solar panel has a natural curve across its width which has exerted some force but not a huge amount - the paint has just simply given up and you can see the lines where the adhesive has been, as defined by the grey colour which is the etch primer that was underneath, paint simply eaten away!







Anyway I've got all the old adhesive scraped off the back of the panel and what was left on the roof (very little!) and will abrade the roof further, down to the bare alloy before I refix it - might use marine silicone mastic adhesive next time. We live and learn. Anyone got any other adhesive suggestions?

 

[smithco1]

Sorry. No help with the adhesive here.

I'm very interested in the fabric though. I don't suppose you have the dimensions handy for your application. I'm sure your truck would be the only one to need that exact size but for someone like me it would give a rough estimate for sourcing materials.

Awesome build!

 

[Red90]

I would use silicone sealant. It is resistant to almost all chemicals, adheres well and stay flexible forever.

 

[wuntenn]

Cheers Smithco - well you'll need 8m linear, and the fabric I chose was (luckily) available in 1.6m width. Unlike all the other fabrics stocked by the company this one is very wide - a lot are only 1.2 or 1.5 but this is 1.6m. I cant give you any more accurate dimensions than that, but you could do it cheaper if you were on a really tight budget by having more seams and using some of the wastage caused by the 'wedge' shaped sides - basically get two pieces out of one width. I chose not to do that to minimize seams on the rear corner.

RED90 - well to be honest I've had more success sticking things with boring old silicone than all the fancy pu/marine stuff. So I think I'll be taking your advice!