When I got my 90 Suburban it had no roof rack. I need a rack to install the solar, move the spare to the roof, and add an awning. All the racks I found are for new trucks, or were stupid expensive.
A couple of weeks ago my father in law was visiting and we stopped into Lowe's to see if there was anything that would work to make a rack out of. I stopped by the Unistrut rack and was thinking through how to make it work, when a helpful employee came by and we started to talk.
As I explained what I wanted to do, he said he had a better idea and walked us back to the plumbing section. There in the middle of everything else, was Structural Pipe. This pipe is not threaded. It has fitting that are held on the ends, or the middle with set screws. There was a ton of different fittings and I found some that would work for me. The best thing is, I got what I needed to get started, and can add as I go with more stuff. Right now I just put a single bar on each side, no cross bars. As I get more money I will go back and add cross bars, ends, more hold downs, etc.
You can see the rack in the pictures. Simple for now, but will grow as I get the money.
Next up is my solar. The system is a bit overkill for my needs, but I had it. A few years ago I build a school bus that my wife, oldest daughter and I lived in. We did this for a little while, then sold it for a 30 ft travel trailer. When I sold it, I pulled the solar system I had install and I saved it. The complete system is 400 watts, with 4 840CCA deep cycle batteries.
For the Suburban I did not need that much, nor the weight. I installed one 100 watt panel on the new rack and one battery. The MPPT controller is a 40 amp and the inverter is 2000 watts. I do have a 800 watt inverter, but it is Modified sine wave, not pure like the 2000. Again, this is overkill, but it is what I have. I will see how I use it, and may go back to the 800 watt if I don't need the pure sine wave.
The main reason for the solar install is that both my wife and I have CPAP machines. We need them and can't go without them. When I travel on my motorcycle I have a spare motorcycle battery that I use the bikes charging system to charge and even the small bike battery will run my CPAP all night. So, this much larger system should be plenty to run 2 CPAP machines all night.
Down the road I will add some lights to the inside and maybe some LED flood lights to the outside running off the battery.
Anyway, I still have some clean up to do, I want to get a solar wire pass through for the roof, but right now the wires just come through the door seal. I also left the wires long for now, I will cut them down when I know I am happy with the system.
A couple of weeks ago my father in law was visiting and we stopped into Lowe's to see if there was anything that would work to make a rack out of. I stopped by the Unistrut rack and was thinking through how to make it work, when a helpful employee came by and we started to talk.
As I explained what I wanted to do, he said he had a better idea and walked us back to the plumbing section. There in the middle of everything else, was Structural Pipe. This pipe is not threaded. It has fitting that are held on the ends, or the middle with set screws. There was a ton of different fittings and I found some that would work for me. The best thing is, I got what I needed to get started, and can add as I go with more stuff. Right now I just put a single bar on each side, no cross bars. As I get more money I will go back and add cross bars, ends, more hold downs, etc.
You can see the rack in the pictures. Simple for now, but will grow as I get the money.
Next up is my solar. The system is a bit overkill for my needs, but I had it. A few years ago I build a school bus that my wife, oldest daughter and I lived in. We did this for a little while, then sold it for a 30 ft travel trailer. When I sold it, I pulled the solar system I had install and I saved it. The complete system is 400 watts, with 4 840CCA deep cycle batteries.
For the Suburban I did not need that much, nor the weight. I installed one 100 watt panel on the new rack and one battery. The MPPT controller is a 40 amp and the inverter is 2000 watts. I do have a 800 watt inverter, but it is Modified sine wave, not pure like the 2000. Again, this is overkill, but it is what I have. I will see how I use it, and may go back to the 800 watt if I don't need the pure sine wave.
The main reason for the solar install is that both my wife and I have CPAP machines. We need them and can't go without them. When I travel on my motorcycle I have a spare motorcycle battery that I use the bikes charging system to charge and even the small bike battery will run my CPAP all night. So, this much larger system should be plenty to run 2 CPAP machines all night.
Down the road I will add some lights to the inside and maybe some LED flood lights to the outside running off the battery.
Anyway, I still have some clean up to do, I want to get a solar wire pass through for the roof, but right now the wires just come through the door seal. I also left the wires long for now, I will cut them down when I know I am happy with the system.
