Grand Design Imagine 2400BH RV Solar Install

We reworked the front storage bay just a bit and managed to fit 800ah of lithium batteries, the Multiplus 3000, solar chargers etc.

Here is the end result, you'd hardly know there is enough power to run an air conditioner all night behind there using hidden storage space. Follow along to see how we did it.

We started by removing the pretty covers and found there was abundant storage space in the front cap just asking to be used. We then built a platform from ACX plywood with hold down brackets. This all fit inside the original footprint and made possible by the use of our exclusive slim 200ah batteries.

This solar panel installation was a bit tricky, but we made it work. Like many modern RVs there is a small panel included, but hardly enough to get the job done. We started with our standard solar package of 800w of solar from 4x rich solar panels. To do this we usually do a 2s2p configuration, 2 panels are put in series then each of those groups are put into parallel. This gives each string a nominal voltage of around 85-90volts and each of our panels have a nominal voltage of 42-45v.

To use the existing panel which has a voltage of 18-22v, we needed to get it up closer to that 42-25 range. So we put another smaller panel in series with it to get the total voltage for the group of two panels in that 42 volt range. Now we parallel that panel group with one of the other panels.

That's all very confusing we're sure, to sum up in effect we ended up with a normal 200w + 200w series array, and then a second 200w+360w series array and both in parallel. In the real world this means if that one panel up front that is paralleled with two smaller ones is shaded, the system behaves normally and charges at near full capacity. We did not increase the overall charging capacity, but did improve partial shade performance.