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We ditched our propane fridge 5 years ago for a 12v marine fridge. We went from being propane limited to being black tank limited with only a modest decrease in our solar overhead. Even at 46 degrees latitude we we can still go a full month without shore power, gen, or alternator.

Any closer than the length of a screwdriver or wrench is too close (in an ideal world).

Those threads always amaze me. Not pointing at the OP, but some people wait patiently for 3 months for cells to arrive then try to charge them up in 3 hours.

I’m new to this forum but have been running Dacian’s SBMS in my RV for 3 + years. I wanted this at one point but the system is so solid I only check the SOC every couple days when we’re on the road and never think about it otherwise. I have a thermocouple on one of my battery cells. It...

We found our scapegoat! Now the only remaining question is whether you weigh the same as a duck.

On a side note, I work with some brilliant people. One friend suggested building a mining rig back when BTC broke $1.00. We decided that for an optimal ROI on our budget, we should target a miner pulling about 8kw. We were going to run it at my house and agreed to split the power bill for this...

EG4’s issue with their server batteries is that they aren’t using any of the advantages that come with the server form factor. It’s basically just stackable batteries that fit in a commonly sized box which takes up a fair amount of floor space. What they should have done is build in blind mate...

Getting back on track, here is a nice twitter thread from a few days ago.

Lithium batteries are hard on alternators so try not to use them at idle when there isn’t as much air available to cool them. My preference is to use a dedicated alternator in a dual alternator setup when charging large battery banks so that burning up an alternator doesn’t leave you stranded...

That’s $37 CAD or ~$28 USD. There are still shipping costs but the Canuck Buck is in the toilet right now.

This is incorrect. ‘Electricity’ travels through copper. DC experiences no skin effect at all and at 50-60 Hz the skin effect is 8-10 mm. Far deeper than the radius of any solid core wires or bars we use on the A/C side of our solar systems. The skin effect is quite significant at really...

I used the old 30% credit for my RV since the IRS considers it a legal residence when we are in it.

For those doing a new builds I highly recommend using breakout boards like these for the ribbon cables:

I hope the OP isn’t too embarrassed to come back. I ruined two TVs once because I miss wired my Apple TV when I did a DC conversion on it.

The battery to battery charger will boost the input voltage so you don’t have to follow the 3% rule. You just need enough copper to not get hot. This reference will tell you what’s safe (not what’s efficient): http://www.ee.nmt.edu/~wedeward/EE382/SP02/current_capacity.pdf I’m using a 4awg...

Consider using a 480v inverter with transformers at your point of use to drop it back down to 120v. Your complexity (and costs) will go up significantly but it’s probably cheaper than running cable that costs $30/ft.

I have seen professional installers use double sided tape. Scares me a bit honestly. But I don’t think you need to hit the studs with a 1/2” ply decking. There isn’t much lift on those panels. I’ve not worked on a roof like yours but because everything on an RV roof eventually leaks a...

I think you’re trying to measure the voltages at the pos and neg terminals on each cell which is giving your board fits because of the various floating potentials. Instead measure the voltages at each cell’s positive terminal referenced to ground and subtract the voltages from the previous to...

This thread has taken on a religious fervor which is why I avoided joining this site. Dacian’s argument is based on economics for his use case. And he starts with the tenet that panels are now so cheep (under $0.65/watt) that maximum efficiency is no longer a primary design driver and that 60...

Grounding your panels is a good practice. If you have 6 panels in series for a working voltage of 150v (just for round numbers) then if you size your wires for a 3% loss, your panels will be at 4.5 volts. That won’t really lead to a shock hazard but could cause stray current to go where it...

Old thread but the correct answer is to do a pull test:

When I see 8,000 5 star reviews for a niche product and 75 for the competing product, I assume they’re mostly fake. It doesn’t have to be a Chinese vendor, I always weight the negative reviews more heavily. It’s unfortunate we have to do this.

I use a progressive dynamics converter to charge my batteries. My BMS doesn’t know whether the juice is coming from solar, shore power, an alternator, or a generator http://www.bestconverter.com/Progressive-Dynamics-Inteli-Power-Lithium_c_221.html

I think net-metering has outlived it’s intended purpose of spurring on the industry. Solar has many economical use cases and no longer needs net-metering to achieve economies of scale and market penetration.

in practical terms, I think we’re just recommending grounding negative busbars, negative combiner box junctions, and panel frames.

This is a great example, you don’t want to pair panels from the top row with panels from the bottom row.

Our absorption fridge consumed 4 gallons of propane in 5 days of driving. I’m not sure if it was wind from the vent pipe swirling around and decreasing the efficiency or if it was the driving motion that shook up all the plumbing but unless sitting still, our fridge used an unacceptable amount...

They’re using 24v and 48v secondary alternators. ADV rarely gives away their model or branding info of their suppliers but I believe one of the Balmar alternators is shown in the video below.

You’re still feeding the loads directly from your panels and the ‘kill switch’ is acting as a battery isolation switch but isn’t killing your loads. Install a dual throw switch with one leg cutting off the battery and the other leg killing your loads.

The the Wi-Fi on iOS is cumbersome to the point of being useless. You have to save the HTML file on your device and use a third party browser to open it. It’s been 3 years since I’ve tried it so I don’t recall the details. Someone, was working on an iOS app, perhaps johntaves?. There is...