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    Enphase Soon To Offer Bi-Directional Vehicle To Home Charging....Maybe

    I know this is an old thread, but the way this is being approached is to backfeed the house through the DC pins the CCS connector, which gives the home inverter bi-directional access to the car’s battery in the same manner that L3 charging stations have direct DC access to the battery for...
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    Question about building the Classic 400 Watt Solar Package

    The Renogy MPPT controller that you have is rated for a max input of 520W for a 12V system and a max input voltage of 100V. Each Renogy 100w panel has an open circuit voltage of around 21.5v, so no more than 4 in series to keep the voltage under 100v. Six panels would be considered to be...
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    Lion Energy UT1300 at Costco again

    I have a pair of these and I don't have a problem with the terminals, but I do use a small handheld mini-beam torque wrench to ensure that I don't over-torque them. If I were going to be making frequent connections and disconnections, I might opt to install long metric set screws to convert the...
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    Pure vs modified sine

    I tried my inexpensive, relatively low-tech refrigerator on my older 1500W Xantrex X-Power inverter and it ran, but the compressor was noticeably hotter to the touch than when running on the grid, so I only did it for a few days as a test. I'm not sure a 3-500W MSW inverter would even start the...
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    Rv setup - will inverter run the battery charger?

    You don't mention how large of a PV array you are planning for, but some of the most challenging things to plan/account for in mobile installations tend to be; absorption fridges running on electricity, any water heating and cooking appliances, and electric space heaters. Any of these generally...
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    Rv setup - will inverter run the battery charger?

    The situation you describe is true in an RV where you are choosing to power the circuits by connecting the shore power cord to the inverter, which is powered by the same batteries that the shore power charger is trying to charge. In my RV, The converter is on a circuit breaker, which I turn off...
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    Top Balance Screw Up, How Bad?

    Based on the pictures, it looks like they did get quite overcharged, but It's somewhat difficult to believe that 4 - 280ah cells in parallel (1120 ah) would have gone from 3.3V to 4.4V in one hour with a 10a charge current. Did you receive your cells fully charged?
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    Testing Internal Resistance 280Ah cells

    Is static impedance what you need to measure to match cells, or is it a more complex concept in the context of a battery? My hobby charger reports internal resistance, but not until it has been charging for a while, and in a series pack, the values move around a bit as the pack cycles...
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    EVE-280Ah in 15S/1P w/ Batrium WM5

    Actually what you propose seems really close to nominal for a replacement for a 48v flooded LA. 4 fully charged FLA batteries in series would sit at about 51.2v. Divide that by 15 and you get very close to 3.4v per cell, which is pretty close to fully charged for a LiFePO4 cell. You might have...
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    Eve 280ah resting Voltage

    As another data point, my 8 cells have been settling for about 36 hours after charging to 3.65. I left them paralleled for about 12 hours, then took off the bus bars. About 12 hours after removing the buss bars I wired up the Overkill Solar BMS, and now about 12 hours later they are sitting at...
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    Stripped the terminals, how to re-thread them safely

    After the 1st time I tried to get the screws included with my cells to work with a double bus-bar, I knew that I would end up stripping some, no matter how careful I was, so I shut my project down for a couple days and ordered the 25mm long set screws recommended in other threads. If I had...
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    battery ballooned

    Yes, I guess without some sense of the angle I took the picture from, it is not clear that these are sitting on a table :) . I was just trying to get a picture that included most of the stuff that I'm working with, but not much else. So far according to my AiLi meter, I've pulled about 40 ah...
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    battery ballooned

    For those of us that have played with electric RC hobbies, I think it helps to think of the big LiFePO4 cells as oversized hobby batteries rather that using lead acid batteries as a baseline reference point for charging, storage etc. I am working on top balancing 16 of these cells at the...
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    12 vs. 24v systems on motorhome

    My motorhome already has a 12V AGM battery system that charges from shore power or the alternator. I have added a shunt based battery monitor so that I can keep track of the state of charge with reasonable accuracy. All it needs to be self sufficient is to do the 12v loads analysis and add the...
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    Are Separate Plugs For Generator & Shore Power Essential or Optional?

    I think there are 2 different use cases for how you might wire it depending on whether your idea of a generator for your RV is a box on the ground that you plug your RV into, or if your RV has a generator built in that has the potential to be actively producing power at the same time that you...
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    why is this system so expensive?

    I looked at the MidNite website, and maybe I'm missing something, but I didn't see much that would be useful in adding solar to a travel trailer or a van conversion. It looks like MidNite is all about residential solar and I didn't see many pieces that looked like the building blocks of an...
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    why is this system so expensive?

    This kit is marketed as a solar upgrade kit for an RV or Vanlife van. GoPower is the big "name brand" in RV solar and is working deals with most of the major RV manufacturers to get "solar prep" packages, design to be used with their components, pre-wired into new RVs. That is probably about...
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    Number of Batteries for Jayco

    The vast majority of travel trailers sold are not configured with boondocking in mind. When you talk about the trailer being an hour north, you go there on the weekends, and you have another building which has no power, it sounds like you are boondocking :) The 12V system in most trailers is...
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    Wiring inverter from charger wires?

    That seems like a decent chart to use as a starting point, but as MrSandals mentioned, you need to use all of the information as a package. Wire size is just as important as fuse size. The fuse is there to keep the wire from going into thermal runaway and starting a fire. Notice on that chart...
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    Wiring inverter from charger wires?

    Unless the wiring run to your battery is extremely short, or you're only going to run a few hundred watts on the inverter at a time, I think you're going to run into trouble with the 6 awg wire. The wire is not only being asked to support the load from the inverter, but the load of all of the...
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    Solar Air Conditioner

    With the popularity of RV boondocking, I have a lot of interest and I think there is a decent sized market for effective DC high efficiency mini-split AC units for solar powered mobile applications. I think the OP's idea is more applicable to the mass automotive market, but I'm not sure how big...
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    What kind of solar charge controller

    Yes, that is the most basic math :-). Even at 640W, you would probably be below 25a because the battery voltage is somewhat higher than 24 and the panels would only produce full output under theoretical perfect conditions. The specs I saw on the Samlex 2224 was for up to 70a charging, I don’t...
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    What kind of solar charge controller

    Are you talking about setting the samlex to limit charging to 25a or the mppt controller? Many mppt controllers don’t allow you to set a current limit, but at 540W, you should be under 25a at max output anyway. I’m not sure if the samlex charging current can be set that low.
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    Lithium Charging w/alternator

    I'm not doubting that the phenomonon that they are describing exists, and that their products effectively manage the situation, but their test seems to be biased in that they used a relatively small pulley on the motor, and a relatively large pulley in the alternator resulting in alternator...
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    Looking for complete 12v Lithium/Solar/Generator/Shore Power/Alternator upgrade to my camper

    Based on the info you've given, I think you are getting way ahead of yourself. You can tell that your current setup is coming up short, but you have no way of knowing what part of the equation is out of line. When you say "per the meter", exactly what type of meter are you using? If it's just...
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    What kind of solar charge controller

    You could probably get by with a 20a MPPT controller and still get full production on warm and overcast days, but the cold sunny days you will lose some output. A 30a SCC will give you more certainty of getting the most from the panels. With those panels, I'd probably look for a SCC with at...
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    Powering a Mint Split unit in an RV by solar and lithium batteries

    I’m not sure how you’d go about fitting that u-shaped unit into a vehicle. The inside and outside parts cannot be separated. It’s designed to be placed in a large open window and then have the window closed into the channel in the center. I think the smallest capacity LG inverter unit would...
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    Phase 1 of my RV Solar/Battery upgrade

    Prior to mounting the 2 panels I have, I decided to map out the roof of my RV to a Max panel configuration, to ensure that My initial panel placement does not impact my expansion plans This is what my roof would look like with 14 panels on it: The front vent and the living room skylight...
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    DC solar AC unit

    On HotShots complete systems page they list the DC air conditioner as a $1995 item in the parts list
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    Powering a Mint Split unit in an RV by solar and lithium batteries

    I think Will's solar shed is one of the reference points that piques people's interest. I have watched his videos on the Air Conditioner portion, but have not researched all of the details. The climate is definitely extreme enough! For it to be a good parallel to a vehicle mounted system, the...
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    Powering a Mint Split unit in an RV by solar and lithium batteries

    I think there are a lot of us tracking on the feasibility of solar and/or wind based off-grid climate control. That video of the mini-split system running 24/7 off grid got my attention too. It seems to me that with current commonly available devices, this CAN be done, but is not yet as...
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    200 watt system recommendations for camper

    I picked up the 200W system that HQST has on sale that includes a 20A MPPT controller. It seems to be a nice kit, that comes with everything needed except the wires to connect the SCC to the battery. It supports 3 different LA battery types, has a basic profile for Lithium and has a User mode...
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    EV low current charge from solar

    I dont know of a way to do it without a battery, but with a battery, you could build a cart that housed the battery, the solar charge controller, an inverter, and a low power (probably L1) EVSE) I'd suggest that you could park the cart connected tothe solar panel during the day to charge the...
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    Phase 1 of my RV Solar/Battery upgrade

    I think the idea is that the fuse should be as close to the battery as possible. The terminal block is as close as I could get. :) i think the thought is tat every inch of wire between the battery and the fuse is unprotected and represents risk.
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    Phase 1 of my RV Solar/Battery upgrade

    The switch between the 250A fuse on the terminal block and the inverter is intended to allow me to cut power to the inverter. The 250A fuse is to overload protect the inverter feed.
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