Winnebago ERA - Adding additional Solar panel and battery

[shawcal]

I have placed an order of 2019 Winnebago ERA 70x recently and it has 200w solar panels installed with two AGM group 31 house batteries.

Since I mostly will do dry camping I want to add one more solar panel on the roof and add one more AGM battery to meet the demands from inside RV except the roof AC.

Have anyone done this before? Is there any space left for another battery?

Thank you,
Shaw

[wincrasher]

The batteries are in trays underneath the van. There is no more space to add additional unless you have some kind of bracket made, or run cables to a location inside the van where you could mount another battery or two - not ideal.

One thing you could do is change over to lithium drop-in style batteries. Stark Power makes a great battery. What you would get is essentially double the battery capacity. The downsides to doing this are that you would need to change out your converter to a lithium compliant one (~$200), and you can't charge them below 32 degrees F. So if you like winter traveling, then this is not for you.

WGO uses the Zamp solar equipment. There should be a combiner box on the roof with 3 inputs. So if you are getting the 200 watts, there is one open connection on the box. If there is room on the roof to mount another panel, you just plug it in - there is nothing left to do - no settings on the controller to worry about. So it's just a matter of figuring out if you have the space, mounting it to the roof and plugging it in. I would recommend you purchase a Zamp brand panel and make sure the voltage is the same as your other panels - they work most efficiently when matched.

[shawcal]

wincrasher, thank you so much for your insightful reply.

I see you have a Travato GL on order as well. Congratulations! I like GL too except I need 4 captain seats in front to take my two kids on the road. ERA does not offer the Lithium Powered option in 2019 yet. My goal is to eventually remove the generator with the same GL lithium setup.

How long have you ordered you GL? I ordered mine in the beginning of May. Initially I was told I can pick up the rig in November and just got update this week in September now.