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I'm wondering about hooking up a PV panel directly to a water heating element. I'm 99.9% sure that this is a dumb idea and I've been told that it will often be inefficient, however I'd like to understand why that is. PV and Direct Heating Of Hot Water I've seen some folks talk about using...

I've got a friend whose van/trailer build I'm helping with. She wants to hook her battery bank up to a Sterling Power DC-to-DC charger thing (so it's powered off the van's alternator). However the catch is that in the winter, the trailer will be heated but not the van (unless she's driving it...

I'm gathering the stuff to put my battery bank together. I've got the 280 AH LiFePO4 cells sold through @Michael B Caro, and that includes enough tinned copper bussbars to almost cover all the connections if I double them up (I need to double them up so I get enough amperage). The right-angle...

The answer to this is probably quite simple but I thought I'd ask since I've never used a voltmeter before: When I use my voltmeter (multimeter, actually) to measure the charge on my battery's cells, the voltage basically climbs up and then drops down to zero, all in the space of maybe half a...

I'm giving my plans a final once-over and I noticed that there's a part I'm not so sure about. It's the wiring around the inverter/charger, and it confuses me because the inverter/charger both uses energy from the batteries and provides energy to the batteries, depending on the situation. SO...

This is yet another in Aaron's series "Probably Dumb Questions That I'll Ask Anyhow" So I've got a 280 AH 24 V battery. I'll give it a BMS soon. The BMS will be rated to 200 A of maximum current because that's honestly as much as or more than I could possibly imagine using and it's cheaper...

I'm trying to figure out how to attach my wires to my trailer. For reasons I won't go into I want to keep the wires sort of exposed (meaning that they'd be covered in split conduit, but the split conduit would run outside of the wall). So I'm looking for ways to attach said wire/split conduit...

I've been reading about battery buss bars, and I've seen mention of Ox Gard (Or NCP2? Is that similar?) and similar greases that sometimes have to be applied between contact points, particularly between cells in a battery. Is there a resource I should be reading to understand this better...

So I gather that there are specific torque recommendations for how to tighten bolts. I think most of those recommendations come from the inverter/battery charger manuals...and indeed my Samlex EVO seems to want between 10 and 60 inch pounds of force depending on the particular terminal. I've...

Hi Yall I've looked over a few threads on battery enclosures and I think I have a decent idea of how I want to make mine. But I do have a few questions that I'm hoping yall can weight in on. But first, the basic design: I'll be making an enclosure similar to this one on marinehowto.com...

Hi Yall, I just got my batteries and I'm now designing a battery enclosure. After reading some of the tread on LiFePO4 battery expansion and the need to compress the batteries, I've decided to go with something like the one on marinehowto and basically get some 1/2" 6061 aluminum plate and...

I'm about to get eight of the Xuba (or whatever the replacement supplier is) 280 AH cells from the group buy thread. Hooray for that, I'll save some money! I'm trying to pick a decent BMS (and maybe a balancer?) for this setup. This unnamed BMS from Electric Car Parts Company has been...

I finished reading through my EVO 2224 Invterter/Charger manual and I see that it has separate terminals for both shore power and generator power. I'm confused because I thought most RV's just had the one male outlet on the side of the RV that's used for charging the batteries. But this makes...

I'm reading over the Samlex EVO 2224 inverter/charger documentation. They say I should keep my battery cables together to limit inductance. Sounds good, but practically speaking there's also the positive buss bar and the negative buss bar (plus a shunt-based battery monitor and a shut off...

Hopefully this is a simple question: What size mounting bar do I need for the MRBF fuse I'm going to mount to my inverter's positive lead? The hardware: 1) Samlex EVO 2224 inverter/charger. Here's a picture of the back. I've circled the part that connects to battery negative (actually...

So I'm shopping around for a battery and two of the frontrunning options (LiFePO4 BigBattery bank using new--but presumably off-spec--cells, and some "mystery meat" LiFePO4 cells from alibaba) may wind up giving me a bank with mismatched cells. I know that Will Prowse suggests that people with...

I'm trying to choose my battery and after hearing some iffyish things about Bigbattery.com batteries I'm expanding my search a little. I see that the Electric Car Parts Company is selling a 200AH 24V LiFePO4 battery for a decent price ($1,900 plus shipping)--though it won't be available for...

I see Will Prowse linked some BigBattery battery banks from his website...and damn if the price doesn't beat the ebay mysterymeat price for LiFePO4 batteries, even were I to DIY the whole thing myself. What do people think? Worth taking a chance on? Specifically, I'm looking at their 24 V...

As I've probably said many times by now, I'm about to install the electronics on a cargo trailer conversion. I'm looking into what tools I need to get. And surprisingly, it seems like I *might* not need a soldering iron. But I can't quite tell. Some explanation: Since I'm on the road, don't...

Weirdly, the internet has failed me. I can't seem to find anyone selling a la carte thick green cables for grounding my inverter/charger. I'm told the thickness needs to equal the other DC cables going into the inverter/charger, so that means I'd need 1 AWG cable...and I do not see that...

As I design my system I've realized that my negative bussbar will have more connections than it has posts. The situation: I was going to use a Maxibus buss bar with six posts. The connections it needs to make: 1) Ground Wire (From Victron Multiplus) 2) DC Negative (From Victron Multiplus)...

Hi Yall It's come to my attention that I should have a surge protector for the electrical system for my cargo trailer conversion. However there seem to be a dizzying array of these things, and because at least some of them seem to work by sending excess voltage to ground, I'm not 100% clear...

Hi Yall It's come to my attention that I should have a surge protector for the electrical system for my cargo trailer conversion. However there seem to be a dizzying array of these things, and because at least some of them seem to work by sending excess voltage to ground, I'm not 100% clear...

If I get an inverter/charger like the Victron Multiplus, then I gather I'll need to wire my own shore power connection. I have some questions about how this is done, but first, the setup: This is for a cargo trailer conversion which might at some point park in an RV parking lot but which will...

Here's the latest iteration of my system. As you'll see from the big purple circles, I have some questions about the battery charger: 1) Are those leads even connecting to vaguely the right place? Should they be connecting to the bussbar instead? And if so, do they need to go before/after...

I'm reading Victron's "Wiring Unlimited" before I put my system together. It's a great document, but I have come across one bit that I don't understand and I'm hoping yall can help me. It's the bit about grounding. I think I understand grounding, actually, but the bit in Wiring Unlimited...

Please excuse what is probably a really basic question, but is there any problem with using both shore power and solar power to charge a battery bank at the same time? Provided, of course, that the total charging current doesn't exceed the battery bank's recommended charging rate. For...

I'm getting ready to wire up my own trailer (it has no electrical in place so this will be from scratch, not attaching to an existing system). One thing I've been told is that I should have fuses between my positive bus bars and the fuse boxes ("boxes" plural because I'll have a 12 V and a 24...

I saw a youtube video recently where the guy suggested that a battery bank should have what I think is a disconnector or a breaker placed on I think the negative pole of the battery bank. In other words, there should be a switch I can throw to cut the current to the whole thing so that I can...

I have a very basic question on battery cycle life that somehow I can't seem to find an answer for. The data sheet for deep cycle flooded lead acid batteries from Crown says that the battery will give me 1200 50% DOD cycles. Does this mean that it will give me 1200 cycles that go from 100%...

I'm buying what is essentially a fancy cargo trailer that I will convert into something that I live in. Obviously (since I'm on this forum!) this will involve wiring it up myself electrically. However a friend of mine from Canada warned me that when she did this she had to have a an...

Hi Yall So I'm about to buy the major components for my trailer's electrical system and I was hoping yall could look over it and make sure I'm not missing something important, or misunderstanding something. Note that in spite of the name of this forum, I actually won't be adding solar in right...

Hi yall, sorry for the really basic question. So I gather that a Victron Multiplus works as both an inverter and a charger for LifPO4 batteries. But what I can't figure out is whether it works as a battery management system as well. It seems like it doesn't, but I want to be sure. Which...

After reading this article about Lithium battery fires, I came away with the impression that LiFePO4 batteries should be encased in some sort of fire-resistant enclosure. Honestly I'm kind of fuzzy on this, they had a picture of some kind of bag. I gather there's also the issue of protecting...

Hi Yall Encouraged by some excellent help with my last question, I've decided to look into not only wiring up my own system, but putting together my own LiFePO4 battery by getting cells from Ebay (rather than getting something from, say, Battleborn). I see what look like some pretty great...