Angling the Front Solar Panel

Early Revels shipped without a fairing or air dam, so the leading solar panel caught a lot of wind and made a lot of noise. Several people in the Revel Facebook group ('Winnebago Revel 4x4') inverted the crossbeam and lowered the panel on the leading edge to improve the aerodynamics, and I finally got around to doing that.  Here's what I did...

After detaching the solar panel and removing the crossbeam, I had to remove the rivets that were introduced by Winnebago in one of their early Revel recalls.

After removing the rivets and freeing the L-brace, I was able to invert the bar. However, to maintain the function of the L-brace, I had to drill a larger hole to replace the rivets with a 5/16" carriage bolt. I chose a 3/8" bit, matching the other 3/8" inch hole on the L-brace.

When this was complete, I was able to reassemble the crossbar fitting with carriage bolts and stop nuts (should have used stainless, but couldn't find it).

When the cross bar is back on the van with the lowered solar panel, it's much more streamlined than before.

Battery Monitor

It's become clear that it's necessary to monitor the battery health of our Revel in more detail than the Zamp solar controller can provide, especially since I recently performed the popular CTEK modification. Ideally, it would be good to see their performance over time, looking at their behavior overnight, under load, etc. 

This little bluetooth battery monitor is the best $35 that I've spent on the Revel this year. It allows me to use a free iPhone-based app to wirelessly connect to the battery monitor to see various parameters, including a time-series of the battery behavior. It stores the data for 30 days, so as long as I sync with it once per month, then I never lose any data at all.

There are other ways to do this, including the replacement of the solar controller itself with a bluetooth model, but that was a bit more expensive and complex than I wanted to go right now. This is an extremely simple installation, just requiring a connection to the positive and negative terminals. In the following photo I'm showing how I connected it for a CTEK configuration, and with a small change, you can monitor your chassis battery instead. 

Update 2020

I've since moved it to an easier place to access (doesn't require removing the seat) - - it's now attached to one of the house batteries under the vehicle. I attached it to the leads of the house battery on the passenger side, very easy to access and service, if required. I should probably shield it with some waterproof tape, but it's been fine just like this over the past 12 months.

Thanks to master mechanic Tony Loeza of San Carlos, California for alerting me to this device and for some installation advice!