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Unibody cars can't use weight distribution/anti-sway hitches. The lack of a frame means they can't withstand the forces. What went wrong is that our squaredrop doesn't have a rear galley in it (came that way from the factory). That means there's a lot of weight missing from behind the axle and...

Close. Some of the loads are in the van as well. Right now, we have the battery in the camper and feed the loads in the van (mostly the fridge but also charging for some of our gear) via an umbilical from the camper. The problem comes when we get several cloudy days in a row and need to charge...

OK, that one is only 1-star but it did lead me to finding others with better reviews. I only need 2 pins, so I can go down a size and it looks like some of them have water-tight screw on blanking plugs when not in use. That just moved to the top of the list. I'd have to think through if there's...

I would love to avoid drilling a hole but I'm sure it's probably impossible to avoid. I'm in a rust belt state but the van is already 9 years old so it's likely to rust out before too long anyway and one more hole won't make that happen faster. I did wonder about running the cables through the...

Do you have a link to what you mean with "bulkhead connector" The gland box is what I'm trying to avoid. Since it requires cables through it permanently to remain water tight, that means I'd be stuck with cables dangling on the outside of the van even when it's in daily driver mode, right?

As I said in the first post, the panel gaps on this van are too tight to allow this. The cables won't fit.

I have a van that's a daily driver but also our tow vehicle when we go on long trips with our squaredrop camper. Right now, the whole power system and solar array for it are mounted in/on the camper. I have a cable inlet in the side of the camper that allows me to bring the solar panel cables...

No, he means I asked here, Cruiser's Forum, and on Reddit.

I asked you guys because I figured it'd take me a while to get a reply from Victron since it's after business hours. To my surprised, they replied while I was eating dinner! It turns out there's a few Victron products that get packaged in plain white boxes rather than the normal blue/orange...

I ordered a bunch of Victron parts from Amazon and the first of it showed up today. The SmartShunt and GX Touch 50 showed up in generic white cardboard boxes, no branding at all with less internal organization than I expected. I've never seen Victron stuff in anything other than Victron-blue...

Note that there are a few settings that still can't be configured through Victron Connect app so you won't see them in the demo mode. If you want to put multiple inverters into parallel, split phase, or 3-phase systems, you're still going to have to connect the old VE.configure Windows-only...

My MultiPlus does. You can set minimum and maximum absorb times. Any time you suck out enough juice to kick it back into Bulk stage, it'll follow that with an Absorb stage. I have mine connected to the grid via a timer that lets the MultiPlus charge the batteries from the grid a few hours a day...

For the moment, I am still hopeful for a positive resolution. In general, it seems like these days you lose all hope of a resolution if you mention whom you're struggling with.

OK, so that's where I'm stuck then. The US retailer I bought from refuses to pay to generate a FedEx label to ship these back, the boxes they came in weren't labeled as being anything special anyway, weren't in bags, and no other carrier will accept them from me. Fantastic.

I need to ship 4 208Ah cells back to the US vendor since they want to exchange them to resolve a problem I'm having. However, LFP cells are HAZMAT, right? How can I, as just a normal end user with no HAZMAT cert, ship the cells back? I figure at least some of you have had to do this before and...

Correct, listed as Grad A Matched 280Ah cells and I'm struggling to get them to be useful.

OK, after extensive testing, I am back. First, the fact that I never saw the current drop to zero was because I had too much resistance in the connection between the power supply and the cells. With a direct wired/bolted connection, things behave as I'd expect. Here's where I'm at now: I...

It drops to 900-ish mA and then never drops any lower. There's nothing else happening to wait for.

Less than an amp. Usually, it slows significantly above 3.4V/cell and then drops like someone flipped a switch once the cell voltage hits the power supply voltage.

When this all started, I did not have a capacity tester. I have no idea where the bank started at. I top balanced the pack and put it in service on vacation, which is how I first discovered I had a problem. I just finished the last per-cell discharge/capacity test tonight. It'll take me about 3...

I am struggling with my first ever DIY-from-cells battery. It's a 4S LiFePO4 bank using 280Ah cells from SolarSupplyHouse. After being top balanced according to the protocol suggested on this forum, the cells won't stay even close to balanced for more than a few days of light usage. I use this...

Well, I'm plugging along.... Spent all of yesterday and all of today with the charger outputting about 4.5A. Oddly, when I disconnect it to leave for errands, when I get back home and reconnect it it'll jump up to about 9A for a little while before sagging back down to 4.5A. Cell voltage has...

I just purchased 4 280Ah LiFePO4 cells. I'm trying to top balance them by the method favored by this forum. I have a Volteq HY3030EX power supply that I'm using to charge/balance the batteries. A year or two ago, I lent the power supply to someone who ignored my warnings about what not to do...

I'll be adding a new SCC. One of the Victron SmartSolar MPPTs since that's what I already have. They come in enough different versions that it's hard to imagine there wouldn't be one that'd work for nearly any panel. The guy in Ashville with the REC panels doesn't show a picture of the spec...

Yeah that's close enough to get to. So the Hyundais are 66 cents per Watt after tax and these used RECs are 40 cents per Watt. Would you pay a 26c/W premium for NOS vs Used?

Just realized that these aren't listed on the Columbus CL, they're part of the "Few results locally, here's some other nearby" stuff. https://limaohio.craigslist.org/mat/d/massillon-hyundai-solar-panels-300-watt/7357893486.html

Where do you see $100 250W panels? They aren't coming up in my CL searching.

These are from Craigslist. My local CL is the one for Columbus, Ohio.

There's a place near me liquidating new-old-stock Hyundai HiD-S300RG(BK) panels at $183 plus tax. Since I can just go pick them up without any freight cost, that make their cost per watt better than the SanTan used panels Will did a video on. If I get them, I'd be using them to add an additional...

I ordered last night, got a tracking number this morning, and UPS says delivery on Wednesday.

Alibaba typically requires more knowledge of how to import something into the US via freight, right? I've always decided not to buy from Alibaba just because it's not as simple as just click and wait a few months. I'm not sure if that's really a correct impression though.

I'd like to make a 280Ah 12V-nominal battery for my camper based off Will's video about the Lishen cells but with an Overkill BMS instead of the Daly. However, I see some chatter on here about a particular Lishen buy taking half a year for delivery. If I use the link that Will put in the video...