I’ve got a lot going on in the back of the truck, and I need to make sure I can power all of this stuff. And that’s where my solar and my dual batteries come into play. I have a lot of cameras, laptops, and other things that need 12 volt electricity, and they need to be charged while I’m on the road. So this entire setup is important. I mean, the total count of cameras I have in my truck is around 14. 14 and two laptops. So there’s a lot of charging going on.

Plus, I also have three drones that need to be charged all the time. So I depend on my 12 volt system big time, not to mention the fact that I use it to do mobile editing as well while I’m on the road. As long as I can pull an internet signal, I can upload a video from the back of my truck, usually. And for years, I had run 210 watt output Merlin solar panels on top of my truck, because they had the best output that I could find. And I ran both of those through a Redark BC DC 1250, the 50 amp output unit.

It’s a good setup. I’ve run it for a long time. I recently had one die after two years, but think about the conditions. You see what I’m saying? The truck is constantly always in motion. And my, my, the point of my entire trip is always to find the toughest trails or the most unexplored areas, which are always way off grid. And I really need to be able to depend on my gear. So losing a Redark, it happens. The thing put in its time. I got another one through it in and all was well.

Now, typically when I pull over for the night, I charge things up. My fridge and freezer has been running for 12 months straight, hasn’t turned off once. I run my laptops. I use my laptop at nighttime. I charge my e-bike up, which is a large voltage goblin. That thing eats a lot of power to charge up that e-bike, but I keep track of everything with the two voltometers I have in the truck, one blue sea, and then a NASA one on the other side, which is kind of crazy. But recently OK, four wheel drive supplied me with a brand new Alucab generation three R tent, which was incredibly cool of them.

And I simply handed off my old Alucab to one of the guys that worked at Ozark Oland Outfitters because he needed one. So it worked out really well. And that’s also where I installed the new Alucab. So that also worked out really well. So traditionally, when I find a place to camp for the night, it’s usually in an area that has shade. You don’t want to be woken up in an Alucab tent first thing in the morning with the sun beating down on you. So you’ve got to find shade. And when you find shade, you have to figure out something else for your solar.

You’re giving up one or the other. You want to park in the sun so you can get a full charge. Have at it, but you’re going to burn. You want to park in the shade, then you’ve got to do something like this. And I’ve been doing this for years. And that would be setting up my 200 watt solar blanket from Off Grid Trek. I’ve been using this thing for years because you park in the shade, the Merlins didn’t draw anything. If you put your hand in front of them, the shadow from your hand would shut down their output.

And that works on every solar panel I’ve ever run into. And I’ve tested all of them over the years. And if you’ve seen the videos, you know that I’m not exaggerating in any way whatsoever at all. Now I would take the Off Grid Solar Blanket, lay it out on the hood of my truck, because even though it was in the shade, it still produced electricity. Unlike the Merlin solar panels, which were top of the line. I’d take the solar blanket and then I would plug it into this Anderson connector that I had on the side of my truck.

I found this thing someplace in Australia and it worked out really well. But fortunately, the new Alucab doesn’t require that because Alucab already did the wiring for the solar. So there’s already two Anderson connectors built right into the Alucab Gen 3R, which is phenomenal. The only issue with the new Alucab was the Merlin solar panels. One of the reasons I really like them is the back of them are entirely adhesive. So you don’t have to screw them down or clip them down. They’re completely adhesive, meaning you can’t get them off.

But knowing Rene from Off Grid Trek, I’ve known Rene since 2019. He’s a really good guy. He’s not, I’m not sponsored by him. I’m just a dyed in the world believer in his products. Like I said, if there was no sun, the Off Grid Trek 200 watt solar blanket would draw electricity from the sky when the Merlins wouldn’t. So I hit up Rene and asked him what he had and he said, well, we have just developed on our own under my direction, a generation six solar panel and a 220 watt will fit on top of the Alucab and it will replace and blow away both of the Merlin solar panels.

And it’s 48 volt output, 48 volt output, which is amazing. The only problem is 48 volt output was more than the Redarc 1250 BC DC could handle. So if I was going to use his solar panel, I was going to have to install his Off Grid Trek MPPT solar controller to make it all work. And after thinking about it, that’s what I did. Now, a couple of points real quick. I didn’t want to install a solar controller because that was just another point of failure, another thing that could possibly go wrong. But weighing out the benefits, my two Merlin 110 watt solar panels were wired together.

So they were actually putting out 24 volts, which I thought was amazing. But them on their own could never have charged both of the battle-borne 100 amp hour batteries, lithium batteries on their own, totally. They never did it not once. And with Renee’s setup using just one solar panel and the MPPT, it charged up my batteries for the first time ever where the solar controller actually shut off because the batteries were full. I’ve owned those batteries for two years and I’ve never seen that. A second thing is a buddy of mine had sun power solar panels in his shop and he had a small one and he said, why don’t you put this up there? Because two of the off-grid track panels wouldn’t fit on top of the I.U.

cab. They were just too big. And when I saw the other sun power, I realized Renee’s are made in Canada. All the others are made in China. So that’s another huge benefit because it’s just better quality control. You know what I’m saying? I never thought I’d switch from Merlin solar panels, but I’m gone over to these off-grid track panels, two of them for the top of the new I.U. cab. And the output on these is astonishing. And these put out 48 volts, 48 volts to the lithium ion batteries. So you can’t beat that.

And look at this. There’s nothing to peel. There’s no solar cells to tear. Anything to that effect. Now I use off-grid Trek solar blankets as well as their mini solar panels for charging like iPads and such. If you’ve got light like that right there, just like that, no direct sunlight, they still put out an almost full charge. That’s astonishing. The guy that owns the company used to design these literally for the military. And I know everybody says that. He’s not actually lying. If you need solar off-grid tracks, got you covered. Now I’m going to show you some videos that I made.

Well, I was out filming with Rory from TrailMater YouTube channel. I was out in the desert for 10 hours with him recording and my truck sat in the middle of his parking lot, not running all day and all night in the blazing Moab heat. It was 90 something degrees. And my refrigerator and freezer were running because I carry ice cream. So my refrigerator, my national lunar is set at minus two degrees. That thing was running the entire time. And this is what happened when I got back to my truck. I have been off at Hell’s Revenge with Rory for the last seven hours.

My truck is sitting here and I have 13.92 volts. I don’t know if that’s sitting here in the baking sun all day long with the refrigerator on minus six degrees. So I got to tell you these solar panels are the shit because my Maryland’s never would have done this. That’s an astonishing voltage in my opinion. So I just hit the button. It’s 24 volts. The MPPT is drawing right now at that solar panel. And as you can see, there’s no sun here. I’m underneath the canopy of redwoods. And this thing is still putting out 24 volts, which is 12 volts more than my solar panels could possibly do in the sun.

And these are only putting out. This one’s only putting out half voltage. That’s insanity. Insanity. Well worth the cost of admission. So there you go. I had gotten this solar panel set up from Rene because he’s a friend of mine. You know what I mean? I use off-grid truck all the time. I always had good results with it, but I didn’t want to have an MPPT. And I did that and then realized that it came along with an app also that is incredibly helpful. You can set it for whatever type of batteries that you have and it keeps you apprised of how full your battery is, how much power you’re drawing, how much actual juice is coming out of this thing.

And the numbers are legit. The numbers are legit. I actually got this thing to clock out at 210 watts of output voltage. And I’ve got too much footage. I can’t find it, but these things are insane. I couldn’t believe it. You know, like this is really worth the cost because it actually charged my batteries. My two Merlins never did that. The first time that this occurred, when the MPP, when the solar controller turned off, I can see it in my rear view mirror. When I only had one green light, when it’s charging, you have two green lights.

When I only had one green light, I was on the horn with Rene right away because I thought there was an issue. And he said, dude, send me a screenshot of your app. I sent it to him and he said, your batteries are full. It doesn’t have to charge. It shuts itself down, which I thought was phenomenal. I didn’t even know it could do that. So I was pretty stoked. So to wrap things up, basically, if you want the best last rugged thin film solar that you’ll ever need, ever, that is the most efficient on the market, this is it.

But you won’t. Solar, I put every type of solar on my truck and every time I really needed my solar to work, I would unplug and break out my off-grid track solar blanket. Well, now I don’t, I’m going to be the equivalent of the blanket on top of the truck. Even under the canopy of a redwood forest, this thing was putting out 24 volts, which is phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. And I love red arc, but they don’t even make anything that can handle this kind of output right now. That’s how serious these are.

These are next level. These are next generation for real. These are Sunpower Maxion thin film solar cells with a true 24.5 efficiency rating. Nothing else comes close to that at all. I mean, you’re looking at 19 as their efficiency rating, and it’s secretly only putting out 12. These things actually put out what they’re supposed to put out. And apparently they’re going to be using Gen 6 Sunpower thin film solar cells that nobody else is offering as of yet. You need less to do more. And as you’ve seen, comparing our 210 watt versus the Merlin 240 watt, you take up less space and you get more power, which doesn’t even make sense.

You’d think that two panels would make up more power, but they don’t. And because Rene used to have developed these for the military, these panels that you can buy from off-grid track, you can run them over, you can shoot through them and they will still work. He just doesn’t recommend it. They’re lightweight and Solar Stratos, the name of this, is a plane that can reach the stratosphere and it is powered by the same solar cells that we offer, that Rene offers. No other brand or type of solar can achieve this. They produce more power than a larger sized solar panel being we use Sunpower Gen 6 Maxion thin film solar cells, and they can withstand harder temperatures that convention solar and they can also withstand hail.

You don’t have to worry about them ruining your gas mileage because they’re so big and they’re sticking off the top of your tent. These things mount right to the tent. I use 3M double-sided tape and it worked like a champ. So there, as they say, is that. I’m going to leave links below for this. This is an amazing product. A lot of my subscribers over the years have bought off-grid Trek. It isn’t the cheapest, but it is the best. So you got to buy once, cry once. Solar is something you’re going to depend on when all else fails and you don’t want your solar to fail.

Period. I’m not sponsored. I’m not paid to say this. I’m saying this because it’s accurate and I’ve proven it to myself. My Merlins, for as much as I paid for them, they don’t even come close, not even by half, and that’s a statement. So there it is. At any rate, if you’d enjoyed this video, make sure you hit that like, share, and subscribe. Hit the little notification bell and click on All Videos or YouTube will not notify you. They’re actually charging people to promote their own channels now, which is just beautiful. Back in the old days, you were promoted because it was YouTube.

Now you have to pay them to promote your video and I ain’t doing that. So there it is. I’m out. [tr:trw].

See more of JailBreak Overlander on their Public Channel and the MPN JailBreak Overlander channel.