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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...

I sized my coach wiring to handle well over 100A. But if you are talking about the car's wiring, yes, that's a concern. I had been contemplating what some people in the car stereo business call "The Big 3 Upgrade", which is: 1) bigger cable from the vehicle battery negative to the chassis, 2)...

I agree. I do have the optional high-output alternator though. But I'd run the 2nd one only when driving or somehow induce a fast-idle (say 1200 or 1500 rpm). Because I travel only in Spring and Fall, there is usually plenty of sunlight and I have a good amount of solar panels. But one time...

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...

I have a Renogy 40A B2B charger and it's working well. I also have a heavy-duty alternator (220A if I remember) and thus could run a higher capacity B2B charger. I'm planning on a 4th 100Ah LiFePO4 battery and thus I wouldn't mind a more powerful B2B charger to charge the soon-to-be bigger...

In this video, I saw that a power converter was able to limit the current it draws from shore power to a value you can set. I think that could be useful in a setting where you want to use someone's home outlet for power but don't want to trip their house breaker. The key thing is that it...

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

What a funny/tragic picture! (I can only assume it didn't end well.) Do you know the backstory?

I should have mentioned this but I only need small amounts. It's a van and so 50- and 100-ft rolls are not just expensive but wasteful when I need like 20 feet. That's why I look at places that sell it by the foot, like Home Depot. I've had good luck with the bigger sized cables at auto and...

The AWG 2 welding cable came from automotive stores and a discount store like Harbor Freight. It was finely stranded and flexible. The Home Depot "stranded" AWG 8 was tough to use. It was like a few strands of solid AWG 16... Super stiff.

Why is that? I was eyeing some AWG 12 zip cord, sold as speaker wire. It was nice and finely stranded. Not that it would make a difference but the jacket was clear plastic (and thus I could see that the strands were fine).

I'm in a mobile environment and accepted wisdom is that I need to use stranded and not solid cables due to vibration. Sounds reasonable. I've been able to locate 18, 16, and 14 gauge wiring with fine strands. I use them for lower power stuff like LED puck lights. For some slightly higher...

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.

Looks attractive. Source? Specs?

Awesome! Thanks for verifying my math. I will test my real-world situation with a heat gun and some big current draws when I get a chance (currently rebuilding my van). It's good to know that the flat bus bars could transfer more than a wire/cable of a similar amount of copper. Some...

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...

A small bag of lugs isn't too expensive. So I likely won't go as far as using them for lugs. I find drilling holes to be a pain. That's why I'm not really recommending people do this. I had to drill 6 or 7 holes for the bolts in the bus bar; and then again for the other one...

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.

It helps if you have the right equipment. I've seen people use hydraulic presses. Since I don't have one of those, I used a sledgehammer and an anvil. The side that was laying on the anvil is nearly perfectly flat. For sure copper bar would be better but I couldn't resist making 2 bars for...

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...

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...

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. 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...

Yep! Superkey and Sidekick! A staple on my computers back in the day. They were launched in the autoexec.bat because I was rocking a QuadRAM memory card(*) with LIM EMS 4.0 and thus had memory to spare! (*) might have been a clone card, purchased bare and populated with RAM chips sourced...

Snag it! <Alec Guinness voice> "Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time." :) That dates back to the earliest days of computing! (Windows / GUI interface computing)

I bought a converter/charger from WFCO, specifically meant for LiFePO4. It seems like a new product and I went with a company with a name known for RV electrics. Hopefully, they did their research before releasing it. To cut to the chase, it charges at 14.6V; which I find slightly...

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...

A nice looking unit. Will it handle accidents and abuse? I'm wondering what happens if you set it to say 12V and then attach a load that will draw more than it's stated max of 10A. Will it limit the current? Or will it try fry out? I have a cheap unit by DROK. 0-24V and 20A max. But when...

So @smoothJoey mentioned a website that lets you make logical diagrams of things: https://app.diagrams.net/ I like it a lot. But it got me wondering if there was something like that for documenting or even brainstorming solar energy systems. A random picture I got off the 'net showing...

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

Just curious if this is in use by any of you. They are less expensive than others I've seen. I'm also wondering if anyone feels there's "too much" much information on the screen. Like what is "Ext resistance" and "Intr resistance"? Presumably "external resistance" and "internal...

What is a "topo"? It looks like a computer language. I'm curious if it helps with a re-design I'm going through.

Just search your favorite selling site for "Battery Monitor" and this should show up. For your convenience, here's a link for the 100A shunt version. I have no experience with this vendor; I just found one with the same image...

I'm thinking of getting this monitor because (maybe...) I can tell all the critical parameters at a glance. However, various (and often unreliable) Amazon customer reviews of the monitor suggest that it can't tell you if the current passing through the shunt is that of discharging or charging...

How well did this work out?