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My buddy did this. Converted his pontoon boat to electric power, and put solar panels on the roof. He has an off-grid cabin in the Northern Wilds of Ontario, and didn't want to mess with hauling gasoline in to the camp. He has a Tesla Model 3, that he charges off the cabin when its there, too...

There is a Starter interlock switch in Automatic Transmissions to keep you from grinding the starter gears to smithereens while in gear, it only allows voltage from the starter position on the key to flow if the transmission is in "Neutral" or "Park"... perhaps that could be the "gatekeeper"...

Along with the gas fireplace in an air conditioned house. "to take the chill off"

Over panelling is OK. One caveat; make sure that your Voc doesn't exceed the max voltage of the controller.... Overpanelling is like plugging a phone charger into an outlet after removing a hairdryer. The potential for more wattage is there, but the phone charger only pulls what it needs. (as...

What voltage are you trying to achieve for the entire battery bank? It looks like 24v right now...

Most of the time the vent is for the Carbon Monoxide and other poisonous gasses. Which when the appliance is efficient and in good working order, aren't being produced in any significant amounts. This means that in a large volume of air, there aren't any issues. (houses, garages and such) In a...

Just to clarify; You would like to continue to use the Flooded Lead Acid House battery for most of the time and use the LiPo4 bank when it is exhausted? If that is the case, you are asking how to tie the two banks together to achieve this goal, as well as charge the LiPo4 bank when not in use...

I have one... It just measures the voltage between the 'Sampler' Wire and the connection the shunt is bridging... You will need to enter the number of Amp/Hours your battery bank is, AND reset it when you feel that Batts are 'full'... Once you have done those two things, it will count the...

Hydrogen requires almost a stoichiometric ratio of fuel and air, unlike methane, propane or octane vapours, which will burn at multiples of 'ideal'. This was indicated to me by an experiment using a Pringles can. The bottom and top were removed, and a pin-hole was punched in the plastic 'lid'...

Yup. That is the reason that the starter motor on an ICE car has big thick cables running to it, while the radio does not. (and why in an EV the motive battery is running at hundreds of volts instead of 12, and they have to 'make' 12v to power the radio and windshield wipers)

You would need the house batts to be wired in parallel to keep 24v, if that is what the starter batts provide. Wire your inverters to the house batts. You would then wire the positive posts of the starting batts to the positive posts of your house batts, with an isolator switch along the run...

It says that you should input the minimum 0% voltage to reset the counter. this is optional and will turn counting off when reached. It is set at a default level of 0v... It isn't required for operation, just an automatic reset of zero % charge.

I am running the same system (stock Grand Design 'Solar Package')... I have 2 GC-2s in series. Things I noticed last year, when it was all new. 1) that 12v fridge NEEDS over 200Ah of lead acid batts or 100Ah of lithium. With a group 24 batt, my BIL barely gets an overnight before running that...

The generator is 12v? (ie; a vehicle alternator?). If it is a household current generator, it shouldn't go anywhere near this switch. That switch is a 3 terminal switch. There is a Common terminal and terminals 1 and 2. f1 and f2 are just feedback posts for voltage regulators, either internal...

I agree... The two voltage regulators (A/C compressor 'throttle' and the Inverter) are doing a 'Push-me/Pull-you' dance, neither is fast enough (or slow enough) to allow the other to settle in... I've seen an inverter generator set to 'Eco' mode chase a variable rate compressor fridge that...

Again, I = PV... There will be a maximum amount of power drawn by the load. Be it a battery charger, inverter, or hairdryer. The load is your constraint. a 3000w inverter will only pull 3000w (plus overhead), likewise a 50a battery charger is only going to pull enough to provide 50a at battery...

It really isn't the amperage, it's how the Lithiums draw their amps. They start drawing very quickly and maintain that draw until they approach fully charged. While this could be within spec of the alternator, they draw high amperage for longer than the alternator can handle, causing it to...

I have 380w of panels on the roof of my trailer going into a 25a MPPT charger. I'm using two GC-2s (235aH) in series for 12v. I have a 12v compressor fridge that pulls 10a when it runs, and has a duty cycle of about 30% (more if it's hot, and I'm grabbing more beer out of it), and a MaxxAir fan...

The only constant measurement between the panels and the car is going to be Watts. Everything else is just units that are used to calculate Watts. In electricity, the first calculation they teach is; Volts x Amps = Watts. Battery storage is measured in Amp-Hours (the old way) or Watt-Hours (the...

100Amp Hours is the size of the 'Bucket' of energy the battery can carry... (100 amps for 1 hour or 1 amp for 100hrs, and the range in between) Amps x Volts = Watts, So Watts / Volts = Amps... (watts are constant, they are the actual measurement of 'Work' being done)... You would need an...

wasn't "I am Termite Man" an R.E.M. song? Having said that, I would be concerned that you have another queen and her colony hiding elsewhere in the detritus. Are the numbers of workers diminishing?

Translated into a plumbing analogy. (how my Electrical Engineering prof explained it) Volts are pressure, Amps are volume. Too much pressure on a valve or pipe, and they will fail. (burst) You can have all the volume you want, but without pressure, the water won't move. (like a lake) You can...

The fans are much more substantial than a vent cover. They will actually close themselves when the wind or rain becomes too strong. Theyre bolted down with 16 1.5inch screws. Plenty are sold to camper trailer owners in Florida where they do travel at 70-80mph... (the benefits of cheap gas, I...

My Carbon Monoxide and Propane detectors go off when voltage drops too low. There are no alarms on the solar system... I've added an extra panel, which ends up being too many watts for the SCC to use, by about 60 watts. your 100aH lithium with 300ish Watts of solar will keep ahead of the...

I bet the inverter overhead (the power the inverter uses to do its 'thing') is as much as the CPAP itself... Does the CPAP have a separate power supply, like a laptop? If so, what is the DC output of that supply? (there are 12v power supplies that will power laptops, and such, directly off 12v)...

A decent battery monitor is a great help... They don't need to be very fancy, just big enough for the highest amperage you're gonna draw out of the bank... ($100, or so) It will show you amperage in and out, and maybe there's something your charger isn't telling you...

I assume your house batteries are running 24v also. Are you looking for something to isolate the starting batts when the engine shuts down, and tie everything together when the engine is running? In its simplest form an isolator switch with an appropriate amperage rating would do it. (assuming...

I worry about the AC equipment. Those electric fields change at 60Hz around here and can induce currents in nearby objects. DC electrical storage is just a chemical reaction, and happens naturally in the environment. (usually leading to corrosion) Any offgassing from the chemistry of...

Those are my thoughts, too... you increase the voltage to limit line loss when you're running cable. If you had short, thick cables from the alternator/batteries to the inverter, a 12vdc system would work. And those alternators are available all over the place... Heck, even 24v alternators are...

All types of Lead Acid batteries will vent hydrogen when charging... (Flooded, Gell, or AGM. all use the same chemistry) Hydrogen is a flammable gas, like methane or propane. Like methane, and unlike propane, it is lighter than air. So, if the batteries are in a basement, that flammable gas...

It seems that there is a cable running from the battery negative terminal to the Renogy Box. I am running the same AiLi shunt. It is imperative that all negative loads pass through the shunt. As mentioned earlier, only the shunt should be connected to the battery, and the negative loads need to...

I agree... As long as you don't push too many volts into the SCC, it'll be fine... It's kinda like plugging a phone charger into a 120v socket at home, and then replacing that charger with a hair dryer. One uses more power, but as long as you don't exceed the rated voltage, they just pull as...

I played along for a bit with the ordering process. I was shopping for a 12v 100ah battery for $142. I "ordered" 4 of them. Shipping was $1600. So, it weren't no deal. I'll be ordering LiTime through amazon before here...

What are the specs of your charge controller? You can possibly over voltage the controller, or waste panels by over paneling... (30 amps at 12v is 360w. Any additional wattage is wasted) So, if you have amperage limitations on the Charge Controller, you'll need an additional controller. Either...

What about running the system like a telephone office? Charge the batteries from solar and the grid, and run everything off the inverters... (you would just need to keep the grid from charging the batteries when the solar is working)

My uncle had a natural gas well on his farm. It wasn't profitable to be commercial, and they were just flaring the gas off... He purchased a generator, and set the carburetor to run on NatGas (quite a thing in 1970-something)... He ran all his 120v appliances off the Genny, and kept the 240v...

I would be pulling power off #2 and #5 (or #1 and #6), but 3 and 4 will get less of a workout either way...

As mentioned, 30a of shore power is 3600W of power... A power audit is the fancy term to describe figuring out what you want to run, and how much power it needs.. Things to think about; - do you want/need to run the A/C? (thats a biggie) - what about a microwave or toaster? without those loads...

Just a grid powered battery charger, sized to keep things afloat... You want solar to do most of the work, with utility power to pick up any slack during many days of foul weather, correct? Your new utility powered battery charger would just be set at a slightly lower voltage than your solar...

It's kinda like the difference between a hairdryer and your phone charger. Too much voltage will fry them both, but as long as the outlet is providing the correct (safe) voltage, you can plug them both into the same outlet. The phone charger will only pull the amperage needed to charge the...

I am in Southern Ontario, along the North shore of Lake Erie.

It seems to me that as long as the voltage doesn't exceed the Max Voc you can't hurt the charge controller. It's like the difference between a cell-phone charger and a hairdryer at home; both require 120VAC, but one needs more wattage/amps. The 120VAC is the deciding factor, as long as that...

The fridge wants 12v at 15amps. A USB gives 5v. so you would need to splice in a cigar lighter plug, and use a 12v cigar lighter socket. It takes an honest 10amps when it runs, and will run about 1/4 of the time. Mine is powered by two 200W panels, charging two GC2's at 235aH, and that setup...

I found the manual for the controller.... Page 15 talks about 'Protection' To Wit: "The Solar Charge Controller will limit input power to 300W or 600W depending on model. A PV array with higher maximum power than the MPPT's rated power will be limited to the rated power of the device." so...

A small DC-DC (like a 20amp one) charger can keep the Starting Batts topped off using the House Batts for power... As mentioned earlier, it doesn't take much to float a FLA batt

how big is your wallet? ? In order to get enough storage to completely charge the car, you need over 18,000 Watt-Hours (the car battery is 18kWh is size) At 12volts, that equates to 1500 Amp Hours. You have 200Ah currently. So you'd need 1300 more, so 7 would do it, if wired in parallel...

if i understand you correctly; If I have 500w worth of panels wired in series into my 25A-MPPT controller (assuming input voltage isn't exceeded), my controller won't blow up? Is it similar to me plugging my 15w phone charger into an outlet at home, and then replacing it with a 1500w...

According to the Ram UpFitter's guide, it is either a 180amp Denso or a 220amp Denso... which will either provide 110amps or 150amps at 2500 pulley RPM, (approx 800 engine rpm, or idle speed) That has plenty of overhead to supply chassis loads and a 50a parasitic draw to charge the house...

What if the MultiPlus was plugged in, in-between? Utility fuse panel-- Furnace power outlet--Multiplus--MTP outlet--furnace... If you want to bypass the MultiPlus, you just unplug the furnace and plug it directly into the utility power outlet. In normal operations, the MultiPlus would work...

The Tankless water heaters need serious energy. They're adding 120deg to flowing water at 10-15GPM... (50C at 50LPM)... Water is a great heat sink, so BTUs/Watts are significant... Which is why most tankless use Propane/Nat.Gas for heat... As mentioned, a 60Gal tank that can absorb heat at a...

Lizards can make good companions. Any predator, even insectivore ones, need to have reasoning skills, and memory to outsmart their prey. Do we know what flavour of lizard she is? (Pictures please, or she doesn't exist) My nephew consorts with a Bearded Dragon (which resembles a Tuatara, IMO) and...

There are lots of things that run on DC, but have elaborate transformers to convert A/C into the DC they like... The laptop i'm using is one of them, It has a power supply that turns 115Vac into 5Vdc... Which happens to be the voltage USB chargers provide... A little bit of cutting and...

The voltage parameter is to reset the Ah meter to zero. It isn't required to count the Coulombs in or out... the link to the PDF manual is further up the thread. Step 3 talks about setting the reset voltage. there's a note underneath it stating that it is optional.

It's the same thing as when you unplug a hairdryer from a wall outlet. The electrical grid has a lower draw on it... The potential to produce solar generated electricity remains, but the amount decreases... I left mine active all winter... It kept the batts topped up...

whoops! that was a bit of a misfire... but thanks for the response!

I'm just spit-balling here. But, what if you just used the grid to charge your Batt-Bank when solar was weak? Kinda like turning the whole house into a giant U.P.S. My understanding is; You've got grid power currently, and you're looking to avoid relying on it as much as possible. (If not 100%)...

ok, so lets imagine I have an existing panel that gives ~19v and ~9a in full sun with a 15a Series Fuse...I have found inexpensive 400w panels that push 40v and 10amps... these will physically fit on the roof of my camper... My Furrion 25A MPPT can accept 70v... My math says; 19v+40v in series...

What about storing the energy as heat? ie; Heat water with sunshine, either photovoltaic or just a black panel warming the water. and when the sun goes down, run a little hydronic heating system of photovoltaic battery storage. Those little circ pumps don't take much wattage, and if the water...

As a fellow Canadian (You're buying Motomaster stuff), I bought one of these on Amazon.ca (Find the one with enough amp capacity to handle your biggest load)... It isn't as fancy as some, but it will let you know how much 'room' you have left in the batts...

I've got mine tied neg to grd... Only because it's in a vehicle. If you actually have an easy place to ground the fridge to earth, like a metal drain pipe, that'd be better.

I suppose the first question to ask is; Have you delicately disassembled one to see if 50Shades premonition about proprietary plugs and all that are true, and if there is a work-around? If you can splice into the batts, minding that you must have identical voltage, you should be able to just...

The system was OEM and included in base price, Panel and Charger, along with a 12v Fridge... (everything is marked up 250% for secondary market) Panels; OEM 165w Voc 23.12v Isc 9.49a New-Exciting Panel; (Hanwha Q-Cell) 415w Voc 48.59v Isc 10.59

Check out one of these... ($100 on Amazon) https://gpelectric.com/products/30-amp-transfer-switch/ it will automatically switch between the inverter and shore power (or a generator if it's using the camper's shore power cord) when it is using the inverter, it will cut power to one circuit...

Copper Naphthenate is used to make Pressure Treated Lumber. They lumber people either use a vacuum to 'suck' the liquid into the wood, or pressure (as the name implies) to push the liquid. It could be a little headache-y in the enclosed space of the cabin, as it is in a solution of light oils...

Why would Imp double? there is less wattage being produced. The other panels can only provide their rated Voltage and Amperage (=Wattage), so the overall capability of the array will drop. The MPPT will be in the same situation as it would be in a 7 panel array if panel #8 is shaded (assuming an...

Take a snoop down an RV rabbit Hole... Ventilation could be helped with some Fantastic Fans or MaxxAir fans... These run on 12vDC, and move quite a bit of air. (some with thermostats, and rain sensors) In addition, a 2-in-1 charger/inverter may be a cheaper way to get started. (buy a solar...

I have an existing OEM setup on my Camper. It consists of a single 165w panel (Voc=23v, Vmp=18.72v, SCC=9.49a, Imp=8.82a. 15a fuse) wired to a 25a MPPT SCC (Pmax= 300w, Voc- 70v) I would like to throw another panel on the roof to bump up recovery times. There is a 12v fridge running constantly...