Roof size?

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SnowDrifter

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Could someone measure the size of their stock roof rack for me? I need rail-to-rail width, and travel distance on the cross members.

I'd measure it myself.. But I removed them from the car and the rack is currently 300 miles away from where I sit



End goal, if anyone should have info, is to mount some solar panels on there
 

RST Dana

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Could someone measure the size of their stock roof rack for me? I need rail-to-rail width, and travel distance on the cross members.

I'd measure it myself.. But I removed them from the car and the rack is currently 300 miles away from where I sit



End goal, if anyone should have info, is to mount some solar panels on there
You are making your ride electric? Now that’s cool. Tesla will be calling.
 

adriver

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You are making your ride electric? Now that’s cool. Tesla will be calling.
Theres no way in, even if it were hell, would you ever be able to collect enough solar power to run this heavy beast. The only thing that would be reasonable is for a trickle charger to keep the battery from getting low or if you wanted to keep small electronics charged for days but didn't want to run the vehicle if you were camping or working out in the field.
 
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SnowDrifter

SnowDrifter

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Running a dash cam 24/7 and car's parked for 1-2 weeks at a time, no accessible power outlet for a battery charger

I looked into a small generator. But that's an unreasonable amount of maintenance.

Battery bank would be unruly and not healthy for the alternator

Hydrogen fuel cells are prohibitively expensive

Can't find a propane fuel cell small enough

Which leaves solar as my final option
 

adriver

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Running a dash cam 24/7 and car's parked for 1-2 weeks at a time, no accessible power outlet for a battery charger

I looked into a small generator. But that's an unreasonable amount of maintenance.

Battery bank would be unruly and not healthy for the alternator

Hydrogen fuel cells are prohibitively expensive

Can't find a propane fuel cell small enough

Which leaves solar as my final option

So if something does happen you might literally have to scroll through 300+ hours worth of footage to find it? Not sure if this is at a airport parking lot, or a high traffic area, but is wiring a motion sensor to trigger the recording a possibility (not sure if that's just as much of a power drain as a camera)? Your solar panels at the most are going to get.... what 8-10 hours a day in perfect conditions if we have 12-13 hours between sunrise and sunset?

The last dash cam I looked at uses 2W at 5V (=.4A) Not sure how many you plan on using, but you can get a small 5w at 12v (also .4a) charger that will sit on your dash that's smaller than a loaf of bread for about $20. You can get a cheap 15-20W at 12v for $50-$100.

If it gets cloudy for three days even one camera that's a 28.8 amp drain on your battery. I'm thinking you might either need to find a way so they aren't running all the time (and we know you don't want to search through all of that), or you're going to have to use up most of that roof and go overboard to plan for bad weather days... I'm curious how this will go.


And I'm guessing if it snows on these within the first couple of days, they would be worthless.
 
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Fless

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Could someone measure the size of their stock roof rack for me? I need rail-to-rail width, and travel distance on the cross members.

Stock rack pictured below. Travel distance is 52-3/8" measuring the groove. Side-to-side: inside edge of groove is a scad over 46-1/2" and s-t-s outside edge of groove is about 1" wider, maybe 47-5/8" (shadows in tape measure pic make it look narrower and the tape hook was on the inside groove for the measurement). YMMV.

Hope that helps.

EDIT: travel distance was measured as the length of the groove. If you need to know the front-to-back distance between the crossmembers when they're fully apart, or some other measurement, let me know. The crossmembers on mine have locking slots centered apart at about 2-7/8" inside the groove.


Rack Style_resized.jpg Rack Width_resized.jpg
 
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