Firetodd
New Member
My family are avid campers who spend 50-60 days per summer at a lake. Our land at the lake has no facilities and so we “boondock” for 4-6 days at a time and generally have used portable generators. Our power needs are small as we rarely if ever have used air conditioning. We can swim or boat to cool down and entertainment can be found in front of a campfire!
I am getting a new 5th wheel camper and want to go solar to limit or even eliminate the need to fire up portable generators (the lake has rules against generators after 10pm too). The 5th wheel RV will come with a 50 watt solar panel on the roof, connected to a solar port, and run down to a cheap charge controller in the battery compartment. I plan on discarding the 50 watt panel and charge controller and putting in my own system. My hope is that the wires from the solar port are 10-12 gauge at the minimum. The RV has a 50 amp power cord….
So I have looked at a million systems and watched every video on youtube and am struggling to decide on exactly what to do. I had pretty much decided on going with a Growatt SPF3000 24V all in one, with two 24V-A123 LifePO4 batteries from bigbattery.com with 240ah of storage, and (6) 310 watt panels from santansolar.com wired in 3s2p. As the storage compartment and electrical systems are not remotely near each other, I was planning on placing the batteries and Growatt unit in the compartment and wire the AC output of the Growatt to a new boxed 50 amp outlet in the compartment. Then when I arrived at the lake, I will take the shore power cord from the RV and plug it into the outlet. I understand it would be under powered, but I really only need it to power some tvs, charge phones, and charge the separate house batteries. As I don’t use A/C, that system should allow me to eliminate the need to fire up a generator for the most part and to flip on a TV at night. But that system with shipping would be about $5000 with wiring, Victron Bluetooth shunt, and materials.
Then I went down the rabbit hole of building my own batteries. I had watched Will Prowse and others build their own LifePO4 batteries by ordering cells and a BMS and decided that I could do that! So I looked at 280 AH cells and thought that I should buy 16 cells and matching BMS unit and depending on pricing and time of shipping from Alibaba, I could cut my battery prices down $600 and increase storage to 280ah! But I worried that I’d get grade B cells or make a mistake and burn down the whole thing, plus I would need to spend money on power supplies and materials to balance and charge the units and build enclosures. So I may be back to looking at the Big Battery premade units, although I ‘m not sold on the Anderson connectors…
And then I saw the MPP LV6548. It can provide more than twice the power of the Growatt unit and provide power from solar panels even without any batteries connected! If I were to wire the two 24V-A123 LifePO4 batteries from bigbattery.com in series for 48V, I would have 120 ah of storage. The larger MPP LV6548 would also allow me to wire my panels in a 6s configuration as well. Having more power available would be nice for two reasons. One, not having the noise of a generator is nice, but even if I do this system, my in-laws will still need to fire one up to power their camper to watch tv at night in their camper. Having more power will allow me to run an extension cord to them as well. The Second reason the MPP LV 6548 appeals to me is that because the charge controller in it allows up to 250V input, I can run the solar panels in series and lower the amperage on those unknown solar wires routed down from the roof. Total price for this system is $5600.
Here are the panels: https://store.santansolar.com/product/csun-310w/
Here is the MPP LV6548 all in one: https://watts247.com/product/2-x-lv...kw-250v-mppt-bms-ul1741-listed-built-in-wifi/
Here are the batteries: https://bigbattery.com/products/24v-a123-8s5p-lifepo4-battery-box-3/
RV outlet: https://www.amazon.com/GE-Unmetered-Circuit-Protected-Receptacles/dp/B00FI6TKK2/ref=sr_1_36
My RV: https://www.rvwholesalers.com/desig...fth+wheel&brand=heritage+glen&floorplan=378fl
What do you think?
I am getting a new 5th wheel camper and want to go solar to limit or even eliminate the need to fire up portable generators (the lake has rules against generators after 10pm too). The 5th wheel RV will come with a 50 watt solar panel on the roof, connected to a solar port, and run down to a cheap charge controller in the battery compartment. I plan on discarding the 50 watt panel and charge controller and putting in my own system. My hope is that the wires from the solar port are 10-12 gauge at the minimum. The RV has a 50 amp power cord….
So I have looked at a million systems and watched every video on youtube and am struggling to decide on exactly what to do. I had pretty much decided on going with a Growatt SPF3000 24V all in one, with two 24V-A123 LifePO4 batteries from bigbattery.com with 240ah of storage, and (6) 310 watt panels from santansolar.com wired in 3s2p. As the storage compartment and electrical systems are not remotely near each other, I was planning on placing the batteries and Growatt unit in the compartment and wire the AC output of the Growatt to a new boxed 50 amp outlet in the compartment. Then when I arrived at the lake, I will take the shore power cord from the RV and plug it into the outlet. I understand it would be under powered, but I really only need it to power some tvs, charge phones, and charge the separate house batteries. As I don’t use A/C, that system should allow me to eliminate the need to fire up a generator for the most part and to flip on a TV at night. But that system with shipping would be about $5000 with wiring, Victron Bluetooth shunt, and materials.
Then I went down the rabbit hole of building my own batteries. I had watched Will Prowse and others build their own LifePO4 batteries by ordering cells and a BMS and decided that I could do that! So I looked at 280 AH cells and thought that I should buy 16 cells and matching BMS unit and depending on pricing and time of shipping from Alibaba, I could cut my battery prices down $600 and increase storage to 280ah! But I worried that I’d get grade B cells or make a mistake and burn down the whole thing, plus I would need to spend money on power supplies and materials to balance and charge the units and build enclosures. So I may be back to looking at the Big Battery premade units, although I ‘m not sold on the Anderson connectors…
And then I saw the MPP LV6548. It can provide more than twice the power of the Growatt unit and provide power from solar panels even without any batteries connected! If I were to wire the two 24V-A123 LifePO4 batteries from bigbattery.com in series for 48V, I would have 120 ah of storage. The larger MPP LV6548 would also allow me to wire my panels in a 6s configuration as well. Having more power available would be nice for two reasons. One, not having the noise of a generator is nice, but even if I do this system, my in-laws will still need to fire one up to power their camper to watch tv at night in their camper. Having more power will allow me to run an extension cord to them as well. The Second reason the MPP LV 6548 appeals to me is that because the charge controller in it allows up to 250V input, I can run the solar panels in series and lower the amperage on those unknown solar wires routed down from the roof. Total price for this system is $5600.
Here are the panels: https://store.santansolar.com/product/csun-310w/
Here is the MPP LV6548 all in one: https://watts247.com/product/2-x-lv...kw-250v-mppt-bms-ul1741-listed-built-in-wifi/
Here are the batteries: https://bigbattery.com/products/24v-a123-8s5p-lifepo4-battery-box-3/
RV outlet: https://www.amazon.com/GE-Unmetered-Circuit-Protected-Receptacles/dp/B00FI6TKK2/ref=sr_1_36
My RV: https://www.rvwholesalers.com/desig...fth+wheel&brand=heritage+glen&floorplan=378fl
What do you think?