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Thanks, @svetz I really appreciate you doing the math! (I'm getting different results though; see below) Firstly, I didn't know that there were different types of 1/2-inch copper pipe. I just walked into the big orange store and bought one of the precut lengths they had in the bin. Without...

Just a note that my hammered-flat 1/2-inch Type L (standard home plumbing pipe) is only 1-inch wide. But that's compressed from round. If you were to "split it apart" then yes, it'd be about 2 inches. I got mine quite flat with a sledgehammer and anvil. No issues making good contact with...

It's a small fridge for an RV about the size of a cooler. Consumes about 4A at 12V for a few minutes several times an hour. Maybe 25Ah every 24 hours. So even a 60Ah battery should be good for up to 2 days if no charging at all. A 100Ah battery would be completely fine (because that's all...

Unless you add enough batteries that the original set of 3 cables is too short to be equal length to that required to connect the new batteries. :sick::)

Thanks for pointing this out, Loseby! I don't know what to make of it. It's almost too good to be true! If you do get it, please report back your results. If you wire up 4 in series, consider hooking them up for optimal balancing...

Wow! Thanks for letting me know about diagrams.net!

Thank you, @Ampster. Your suggestion led me to a couple of products I want to investigate.

I see numerous coulomb meters, most using shunts. Some using hall-effect. Which is better? I'm primarily interested in accuracy but if there are other factors, let me know. On the surface, I like the hall-effect ones because I don't have to worry about 2 extra connections and finding a...

Yes, I plan to install a number of Coulomb counters at a few places (each battery, the consolidated battery bank). Partly because I'm geeky. Partly because I want to know. (I have a thread about Coulomb meters today.) One worry I have is that I'll draw greater than the capacity of the...

Part-time RV situation. I'm contemplating a big DIY battery using some of the great experiences people have kindly shared. A single 280Ah battery will be more than what I need. A single big battery would "all your eggs in one basket" though. So I'm thinking that maybe I should have a small...

Mine's a budget build, but the bolded part is still very true. Thanks.

This is EXACTLY the real-world experience and test results I was looking for! Thanks a million @OTRwSolar ! It looks like you are also saying your Renogy 40A DC-DC charger has a 1/2 output mode (20A). I thought this was a feature only on the 60A units. Maybe I have an older version that...

The screenshot program listed, Flameshot, seems to be Linux only. For screenshooting on Windows, I've been happily using the Greenshot (free) since Windows 7. My kids tell me that Windows 10 now has a built-in screenshot function but I'm too old to change...

Are you talking about the Renogy 20A DC-DC chargers or the Banggood ones the OP talked about? If you could, please expand on why you don't like them.

It's a van commonly used for couriers, etc. The stock alternator is 180A I think and the one I have is the optional 220A factory upgrade for commercial vehicles such as ambulances and shuttle buses.

Actually, my experience with Renogy as been very good. Maybe the complaints are a sign of their success or rapid growth making them add new people who then need to get up to speed. But they helped me a fair bit when I was designing my system 2 years ago. I'd like to go Sterling or Victron...

I don't overdo things either. I'm a mobile situation and the max I was running was 100A with no problem. Now that I am of the belief that I can use 200+ A, I might use up 125 to 150A with confidence.

I know (now) that if you have 4 batteries then an intuitive way of paralleling them together is NOT optimal: But a reconfiguring the wiring gives perfectly balanced charging: Balancing information is courtesy of: https://www.iotaengineering.com/pplib/balancedcharging.pdf Question: Is...

Thanks, Steve. Very nice! I guess in my situation, I'd add another BMS and battery pack combo using the same length of cable.

RV situation. Can someone recommend a configuration for a small solar system that can keep my van's starter battery charged up all the time? I've got a good solar system for the RV interior but I'd like to keep it separate from my vehicle's electrical. I know that in pinch I can jump-start...

It's for an RV used for travel, i.e., at most a few months out of the year. So I'm not super fussed about it. I have power meters on each battery and I see they are behaving well. Certainly well enough for me to not worry about it. Re: adding another battery. I just need extra capacity. I...

Thank you. Yours in an inexpensive solution. And would work when I'm actively using my van. I have a 600W inverter in the coach area, on all the time, running off the LFP bank. I had been thinking of simply running a little battery maintainer off of that. But as I said, I was hoping to keep...

RV situation and a bit of a gadget guy. I currently have a single 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 battery and want to add 1, maybe 2 more, in parallel. With Coulomb-counting volt/amp meters being fairly cheap these days, I'm considering putting one on every battery. I'm thinking it's nice to know...

Oh I SEE! Alibaba must have figured that, coming from a Canadian IP address, I wanted the price in CAD. The page didn't explicitly say CAD unlike your page where it says US$. And further, because I didn't login (I don't have a login), it set shipping address to US and so I figured I was being...

You triggered in me a knowing chuckle! :LOL: Emphasis mine.

Thanks! It looks like the meter has a current limiting function. Is that what the left set of controls do? That is, can you set it to 5A and the power supply will limit the current to 5A? I'm curious what happens if the load starts drawing more than what you've set it to.

I am interested in the answers too if @Rugged_B can comment without compromising his position. I'd like to add the question: how prevalent are fake cells (if prevalent at all)? For example, I will never buy SD memory cards from anyone except authorized dealers (must be "shipped from" AND...

Inspired by one of Will's videos, I hammered flat some 1/2-inch copper pipe (the standard hard stuff at a home building supply store (not the curly soft stuff)) to use as bus bars. How much current will this crude bus bar be able to handle? So far, I have been careful to keep my loads to...

I have a single brand-name 100Ah LiFePO4 drop-in replacement battery. It's actually serving me well but I am careful with my usage, both in how much capacity I use in a day (say 40 or 50 Ah) before charging as well as with max current draw (less than 100A). I'm looking to increase both...

I like this approach. It will cost me more in cabling (more length; thicker cable) but I don't need to worry. Especially since my system is 12V. What calculator do you use? I use Blue Sea's Circuit Wizard.