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Pop Up Camper power plan & questions

Homeless

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Joined
Jan 13, 2021
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28
Location
Lexington Ky
I am starting a project with my pop up camper that I would like to run by someone smarter than me :)

I have two Battle Born batteries (BB10012 - Battle Born 12V 100Ah) and connect them in parallel into my 3000W pure sine wave inverter. I will also have the batteries connected to a PD9180LV - 80 Amp Li-Ion Converter Charger. I was told by BB that this converter charger would be large enough for the two Battle Born. My goal is to have power when I am not at a camp site with electricity so I can run my 8K BTU window AC unit if needed.

I now have decided to add two more (SOK 100Ah 12V LiFePO4 Deep Cycle Batteries) to the BB (total of 4-100amp batteries) and need to know if the 80 amp converter charger is still enough to charge these batteries or if I need to go bigger with the charger.

Currently, my pop up has a 30 amp plug in for shore power and runs all the AC within the pop up with its built in inverter. The system I am installing will be 100% separate from the built in shore power including interior wall plugs and such. I will have two completely separate systems so If I camp without electricity, I can have 120V by using the batteries.

I will initially keep the batteries charged with a separate 30Amp shore power / house power plug when available or with my 3500 Watt generator plugged directly into the battery system. I know it all sounds redundant but I like doing things like this and the generator run time will be minimal to keep them topped off.

Any thoughts and / or recommendations are appreciated
 
You will have 400ah@12.8 volts nominal = 5120 watt hours.
5120 watt hours * .9 depth of discharge = 4608 usable watt hours.
My 9000 btu window shaker uses ~750 watts when the compressor is running.
750 ac watts / .85 conversion factor = 882.352941176 dc watts
4608 watt hours / 882.352941176 dc watts = 5.2224 hours

If you use your power for air conditioning alone you will get ~5.2224 hours runtime.
Lets say the compressor only runs 75% of the time then you get ~6.9632 hours of air con.

How does this math corelate with your expectations?
Sounds about what I was thinking as well. I will get the watt hours to compare with your larger unit, probably negligible difference tho.

What should I look at first if I want to go longer? I can add two more batteries but I don't think the charger will handle 6 batteries but I do have two of the above mentioned chargers although I am only using one. Not sure if there is a way to use them both to increase the charge capability

Thank you for the above data, that really helps me BTW I am using 2.0 all copper stranded wire and brass lugs.
 
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You might be able to use both of the converters in parallel.
Check PD's website to see if that is supported.
The problem with those units is the charge voltage is quite high and it is very likely that you will have one or maybe even all of the batteries disconnect on cell over-voltage.
If you had checked in before you bought stuff I would have coached you to get a quality inverter/charger.
An inverter/charger is an inverter, charger and automatic transfer switch all in one package.
Even the low end ones allow configurable charge profiles and configurable low voltage disconnect.

Thanks, I have had these units for a couple years and acquired them one or two at a time and now have what I have described.
Can you suggest what I should use if I was doing this project from scratch? If it is not too expensive, I maybe could liquidate the lesser pieces and replace them with what would work best

worst case scenario, I would put this in my enclosed work trailer which is originally what I was working toward before I got the pop up
 
I would love to start over but it appears I will have to live with what I have because of cost. I don't have a problem replacing an item or two but right now is not a good time to spend a couple grand

What would suggest utilizing what I have? I do have two more batteries I could use but that would probably cause me to upgrade most of my devices. I have not delt with 24V so I don't know if that is an option or if it would be of benefit
 
I have not delt with 24V so I don't know if that is an option or if it would be of benefit
Sounds like you are too deep into inverters and chargers to switch to 24V.

Start with 4 BB batteries with an eye on adding the other 2. A single PD charger can charge 6 especially if plugged in for a day here and there.

Keep an eye out for big cheap solar panels that fit your roof. Pretty easy to add if you allow for it with bus bar spaces while putting your batteries in.
 
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