Storing components in a weatherproof container

Tom Cleary

Hello Forum correspondents,

Thanks in advance whatever suggestions or advice you might have. I'm putting together my first solar electricity generator, and it’s taken more time than I thought, but I'm happy to report that it is working, thanks to you guys and to YouTube, and help from an electrician friend. While it is working, my problem is that the wiring and electrical components are strung out over several square yards at the moment, and it needs an enclosure box to protect the electrical components and contain the wiring.

My question has to do with protecting these electrical components. I would like to keep the components near the batteries (two Kirkland group 24 deep cycle 85 AH apiece) and keep them outside my Eurovan.

Does anyone have any suggestions for weatherproofing a container for the electrical components so that I can place them outside, near the battery box?

The components connected to a single 240 watt Kyocera 24 volt panel with 29.5 Max voltage. The components include:

a blue sky MMPT charge controller
a one thousand watt pure sine wave inverter
a Trimetric 2025-A

The system has a 20 amp breaker between the panel and the charge controller, another 20 amp breaker between the charge controller and the battery, and a 100 amp breaker between the battery and the inverter.

My question is, how to store all those components in a weatherproof box or container? It seems like there are several options, I could buy a steel enclosure box, which would be expensive, but would do the job. I could build an enclosure box, but only know how to build one using wood, which might not be a good choice because of the possibility of fire. It would be ideal to use something already available if the cost were low.

Thank you.

Tom Cleary

niel

Re: Storing components in a weatherproof container

hi tom,
i understand you want to keep things together, but i would not like the idea of the confinement of those components in order to weatherproof them. this will confine allot of heat too and could cause failure. it may be a better idea to use heavier wire to make a run into the interior where there's less of a chance the weather or even road hazards are likely to do in your stuff. your electrician friend can probably help you in routing the wires and mounting the stuff inside, but one thing electricians overlook is the fact that the voltage drop losses are 10x greater at 12v than 120v so he will need to use a voltage drop calculator in sizing different gauge wires for various lengths.

Cariboocoot

Re: Storing components in a weatherproof container

"Weatherproof" as in what kind of weather?

I would probably go with a "micro shed" structure to keep the rain and snow off them and screened openings to let the air through. It would not have to be much larger than the components themselves.

One issue you could still have is temperature extremes; exposed to direct sunlight could make things too hot in Summer and part time use in an uninsulated box could be too cold in Winter - all depending on what the climate is like.

I agree with Niel that what you definitely do not want to do is seal it all up tight; they must have air flow.

BB.

Re: Storing components in a weatherproof container

I guess you want to operate the system in the enclosure too? So, there has to be enough ventilation / passive heat transfer to prevent things from overheating during normal operation. The heat from operation should help keep things dry--If you are in a humid/damp location.

If you are going to build a wood enclosure--You could get some green board (sheet rock for damp locations) or concrete backer board to install behind the electronics/wiring and at the base of the cabinet (any flaming plastics fall on non-flammable floor/ceramic tile/etc.).

Otherwise, you might look around for used equipment/surplus dealers and see what you can find.

-Bill

Tom Cleary

Re: Storing components in a weatherproof container

Attachment not found.

My original idea was to build a separate enclosure for the battery compartment, and a separate enclosure for the electrical components, i.e., the inverter, charge controller, and trimetric monitor. For the sake of safety I thought to keep the batteries and components outside. As pointed out though, it's hard to weatherproof enclosures for a camping arrangement where they are moved around frequently. On the other hand without adequate ventilation and a weatherproof enclosure the components can be easily ruined.

I wonder, going to an opposite solution entirely, instead of keeping the batteries and components outside the van, how about moving everything including batteries and components inside the van?

I saw this rig while browsing the web for enclosures. I attached a picture, that hopefully will upload correctly. Originally, I thought it would be necessary to keep the batteries separate from the electrical components, because of possibly generating hydrogen gas and explosion, but this enclosure shows that someone at least thought it would work to keep batteries and components together, although most of the components are on the outside of the box. This picture shows a box that would be heavy to move, but at least safe from the elements.

My main question is whether such an arrangement is safe to keep indoors.

Thanks in advance for your views, I am unclear about the current problem, and appreciate the information. Best,
Tom

Cariboocoot

Re: Storing components in a weatherproof container

Other than the batteries all the electronic components would be perfectly safe inside the van. In fact they'd prefer to be inside (more stable environment).

Batteries present their own issues, if they are flooded cells: acid vapour and gassing. If they are in an enclosure that can prevent these from being a problem (isolation for the vapour, ventilation for the gassing) it will work.

Quite a few RV's have everything inside, with the batteries in cases underneath outside. They tend to have problems with moisture getting in and corroding battery connections though.

Otherwise pony up the big bucks for AGM's and the problems all go away. Well, the battery storage problems anyway.