 Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Michael. Happy birthday to you. Best birthday present ever is going to get solar. That's right guys. Today we're going down to AM Solar. We're going to pick up a bunch of stuff. There was like four companies who agreed to provide all of the solar, which makes my life a lot easier and better. It makes my life happy because it's going to be fun to wire it. It's going to be great top of line stuff. So let's head on down there and go pick it up. I don't know if you guys met him before, but super rad guy and was the catalyst of putting all this stuff together with these different companies. So we have four ZAMP 170 panels and then we have a whole packing list full of stuff. So do you want to explain what we got here? Yeah, so basically we broke the system down into several components. Solar charging, battery bank, alternator charging, AC input and AC output and DC output. And we try and keep everything organized so you can see which parts go with what. Some of the major components are the solar panels, which were provided by ZAMP. They're 170 watt panels. Victron provided a 2000 volt amp inverter charger system and it's very generous of them. They also provided the solar charge controller and several other smaller components. And Lifeline is contributing two 400 amp hour AGM batteries. So starting from the roof, we got your four panels there. They go into the combiner box here, then to a master switch, then to the charge controller, then to a breaker. We've got your lugs, your heat shrink, your cable management, mounts for the panels, sealant to seal the mounting feet and the combiner box. So that's everything you need there. Next box, let's see, we're going to do battery bank. Putting two 6 volt batteries in parallel, I mean sorry, in series. So you've got your cables to do all that and to connect to this shunt here. This is the battery cable, this thick stuff right here. You also get contributed by Victron, a battery monitor that talks to your phone via Bluetooth. I had that one on the last one and those are amazing because you could just open the phone and see where you are. So easy to use with the Bluetooth communication too. Instead of having to remember which sequence of buttons you push, you just talk to it on your phone like you do any other thing. And if you guys remember when I was in Texas, I had a little issue with the alternator. How I knew that was I checked the battery monitor and I noticed I wasn't getting a current from the battery combiner. So I went back to O'Reilly, swapped out an alternator and parking lot and didn't get stranded on the side of the road. So for a couple hundred bucks, it's highly worth it. And this is the DC output section of your kit. A lot of people don't do this, but I find it's really helpful adding a battery protect, which is a small device that interrupts the flow of current from your battery to your DC loads. And it keeps you from over-discharging your battery. So here it is right here. This one's a Victron BP65. And we also applied a switch to turn off all your loads. Six position DC fuse block, cables, breaker to keep your current from getting too high. And just to make it easy for you, we threw in an outlet, which is dual USB and normal 12 volt. So that takes up one of the positions. You still have five other positions for bands and lights or whatever you want on there. I'm really excited for this device here, this piece of equipment. If you guys remember, I stopped by here frantically because I accidentally drained my AGM battery past 12-2 or 50%. And so I had to buy another $700-800 in batteries. So that is not some of the stuff you get what you pay for. When you get quality stuff like this, it will save you in the end. Dean, the schoolie, is dealing with some issues right now because he used some products that weren't top-notch. And he might actually have to call you and order like three grand and stuff. Like it's not fun to repurchase stuff. I'm sure you have some stories about that too. Yeah, I've killed batteries. I've killed charge. Yeah, it's not fun. The money you spend is worth it when you're doing solar. Don't buy the cheap stuff. That badge had actually a panel with one of the cells burnt out. Same thing with Dean, the schoolie had one that burnt out. And yeah, I mean you can definitely go the cheap route, but just know that something might fry and mess up everything just because of one small cheap part. Yeah, we warranty our system so we try to make everything as idiot-proof as possible. Like we don't let people screw it up. Well, I'm sure if there was a way in the beginning I could have screwed it up. Alright, let's check out this alternator charging kit. So the key piece in this is the Victron Syrix battery combiner. This allows for 230 amps to flow from your starter battery or alternator to your house battery. And it comes with a system which is a boost. We've got this momentary switch here which allows you to, if your starter battery is dead, you push that boost button and it will allow your house battery bank to start your rig if you killed your battery. Yep, those come in handy. The last one I had was a 50 amp, so this bigger one is going to be even better. And for sure I'm going to have to upgrade my alternator because that's a lot of current. That's more than my alternator puts out. It's going to be a big lifestyle upgrade for you with all of this equipment. Oh yeah, this is like a pro equipment. This is like class A type stuff here. I'm just excited to wire it because it's all like, you don't have to figure out what parts you need. It's like all right here and it's just, yeah, there's not much thought that goes into it. By the way, AM Solar is doing schooly kits. So if you want to see what quality components they're using, head on over to the website. Are we still doing the Jax 5 and the Jax 10? Yep, those promotions are about... 5 or 10% off for you guys on everything under the sun, right? All your products? Yeah, the Jax 5 works on everything. The Jax 10 works on select components. Cool. So the AC input, your vehicle's going to be able to charge on shore power on a standard 15 or 30 amp connection. Going over all this, we include the inlet. We're going to have a shore power cord for you. This is the device that regulates the MultiPlus inverter from Victron. You've got your sub panels. You've got your breakers, your fuses, communication cables, master switch. We even gave you an AC outlet so you could see how everything works for one of the circuits and then you could just add whatever circuits you want with easily sourced, you know, residential wiring. Excellent. Looks like you've got everything you need. Holy crap. Dude, hi 5. Thank you for helping me set this up. Huge shout out to Victron. You guys are amazing. Lifeline, thank you for the batteries. Zamp, thank you for the panels. And I don't know, did I miss anything? AM Solar. AM Solar, I think you guys are ready. If you guys are curious how a proper school-y system kit, what it looks like, what you should have in your kit, head on over to the site. There's also diagrams and things like that. Happy birthday. Yeah, this is... You get to play with all this stuff. I get to fire all this stuff. It's very exciting. Sweet. So, we're actually using the handicap door. Yeah, we'll take the whole pallet, dude. We are transferring batteries. Oh, you can lift that thing up, too. Yeah, there you go. We're transferring batteries. We've got all the gear in here. This is insane. I feel so blessed to be the recipient of so much high-quality stuff. So, yeah, these are 116 pounds each. Look at that. So, these are 6 volt, 400 amp-hour batteries. So, thank you, Lifeline. Thank you, Victron. Thank you, Zamp and thank you, AM Solar. Holy moly. Wow, this is unreal. What a cool day. How much do these things weigh? 120 a piece? These things literally weigh as much as me. Alright, let's fire away. Let's get this thing lifted, huh? Nice. Oh, like a chair. I'll take the stairs. Holy crap. We just filled up the bus with so much stuff. Unbelievable. I am blown away by the generosity of everyone, and those are massive batteries, dude. They weigh more than meat, no they don't. They're probably 30 pounds less than me. Yeah, that's crazy. So, I guess what happened was, Victron saw the video that we did when I installed a battery monitor and then got a hold of the guys here. And almost the same time I was selling my bus, I received an email saying, hey, you know, we're thinking about doing some stuff with this and that. And I said, oh, cool, you know, I'm just about to sell my bus. Oh, no way, let's do something together. So, this is how it all happened. Serendipity is all I can say. We got cruise control in this bad boy. Alright, so on the topic of quality components, I perhaps mentioned my buddy Dean had some issues, the schoolie with his solar system, Mitch over at AM Solar was on the phone with him for 45 minutes. And also, Dean sent me a message and was like, oh my god, thank you so much. He's awesome, he was on the phone with me for almost an hour, blah, blah, blah. And I didn't know details. Mitch just texted me from AM Solar and he said, it turns out his cheap charge controller not only blew up his stereo, was cooking his batteries at 16 volts. For everybody who doesn't know, that's more voltage than batteries require. And apparently, Dean put his head down next to the batteries and they were hissing, hissing. Like some kind of serpentine slippery snake, like sssss. So anyways, just another example of what can happen when you get the cheap stuff. But also what can happen when you get good things from good people. They'll get on the phone with you and troubleshoot for like an hour. So yeah, high quality and great customer support. And I'm super curious what Dean is going to do now. Oh, holy guacamole. You know what I mean? Hey, birthday boy! How's it going? We made it back, back of the pad, got all the stuff inside. Man, I'm exhausted from driving. Are you exhausted? I'm just happy there's no leaks or anything. The thing ran like a champ. It did. It did? Yeah, we took it down, it was like two hours each way. So maybe 200 miles plus today. Tomorrow, we're going to work on the plates. We are going to get new headlights. I'm going to pick them up on the organ side, because they were like 300 bucks or 250 bucks, I forget. I saved on sales tax, state sales tax. So it's worth it. So we're going to get rid of these hideous, terrible, dangerous headlights. And we're going to replace them, yet again, with the GE Nighthawk, which are fantastic. No, that's not sponsored, but I'm choosing to get them again because they are phenomenal. And the price went down, I think, 100 bucks from the previous time I bought them about a year and a half ago. So that's great. And then otherwise, we're going to load this thing up full of stuff and get ready to leave in two days. So tomorrow is basically our last day before we hit the road. Head east through Idaho, Montana, hot springs, mountains, maybe glacier, maybe not, because it might be full of snow. It's probably still full of snow. And then on up into Canada. So thanks for watching. We'll see you guys on the next video.