DC Power Overhaul

[kjohnson-MOC]

Looking to do an overhaul of the DC power components within our rig. Our High Country has the 200 solar package with inverter. While this has some decent bones to run the fridge, it lacks much else. We've already swapped out the battery for Lithium and now we're looking to add some additional/supplemental charing along with some additional monitoring capabilities. The goal is to supplement what we have and not necessarily rip and replace everything. We don't really boondock much, but we would like to be able to run the fridge when stopping for the night and have confidence it'll run through the night and we have adequate provisions to recharge it while driving down the road. Attached is a drawing of the proposed changes we're looking to make. Would love some input on anything that you folks might see as an issue or things I need to change.

 

[AZ Traveler]

Keith,

Setup looks good. The only thing I would add is a disconnect for your battery in the RV - maybe its there but not depicted. Otherwise you will likely have some parasite draw on the battery while in storage.

Not sure if your Chins battery is a bluetooth model, if it is you don't really need a battery monitor.

 

[kjohnson-MOC]

Unfortunately, the Chins battery doesn't have bluetooth. We had some issues with the lead acid battery, so I bought that battery in a hurry.

There's a little 250 amp circuit breaker depicted to the right of the Chins battery that will act as the master disconnect. Like this approach as it provides a mean to disconnect the load while also providing over current protection. Trying to minimize the amount of cables and devices.

 

[Daryles]

Looks like a good plan.

 

[Lee-C]

I concur - overall looks to be a good plan to me. I'll look again later on today after my coffee kicks in. LOL

 

[foldbak]

Nice schematic I'm going to say that with a 280 AH lithium you're covered. If it were me I'd 86 the LA battery. If I had to have another battery I'd install another lithium. Their so cheep now. I have 200 AH and 400 watts of solar. I dry camp all the time. I don't have a res fridge. If I did I'd install 400 AH and 800 watts of solar. Check out these batteries. I'm a year in and love the performance.
https://www.temgot.com/products/tem...for-solar-power-rv-ev-and-marine-applications

 

[kjohnson-MOC]

That LA battery in the diagram is actually my truck battery. I'll use that with the Renogy battery charger to charger the LI while driving down the road.

 

[Ram Montana High Country]

Nice schematic I'm going to say that with a 280 AH lithium you're covered. If it were me I'd 86 the LA battery. If I had to have another battery I'd install another lithium. Their so cheep now. I have 200 AH and 400 watts of solar. I dry camp all the time. I don't have a res fridge. If I did I'd install 400 AH and 800 watts of solar. Check out these batteries. I'm a year in and love the performance.
https://www.temgot.com/products/tem...for-solar-power-rv-ev-and-marine-applications

What do you do for low temperature charging?

 

[foldbak]

What do you do for low temperature charging?

I live on the west coast. Rarely below 20 degrees. We had a few nights at 25 degrees. I had a thermometer in the battery bay that never got below 38 degrees. If I'm going to travel in that kind of weather, I'll install these.


https://www.amazon.com/Facon-Holdin...eb0-af99-534b81a95239&pd_rd_i=B01MT9EUG9&th=1

 

[scottz]

A couple of things to consider.

If you have a Victron smart shunt (displays on your smart phone), the Victron battery monitor (also displays on your smart phone) is redundant. You could save a few bucks and go with a non-smart shunt and the battery monitor. You don't need both unless you just want them. I have the non-smart shunt with a BMV-712; so I have info on my phone and an interior display.

Your battery disconnect should be moved (or an additional one installed) to the output side of your battery so that when you turn it off, everything is off.

You don't mention how you are going to configure your solar panels or how much existing solar there is. The 100/30 can handle up to 100V from the panels. Use the panel open circuit voltage (usually about 25V for a nominal 12V panel) when figuring this. With a 100/30 four panels in series (100V open circuit voltage 48V nominal) would max out the controller. Running panels in series decreases the size of the wire required from the roof to your equipment; consider 10AWG.

The 100/30 has a max output of 30A; that is three panels or less. You might consider going with a little bigger MPPT controller in case you want to add panels in the future. There are a lot of choices, perhaps a 150/60.

Beware of buying Victron equipment off Amazon. Victron will not provide support; support only comes from your dealer. Take a look at Continuous Resources; they will provide planning advice and support after the sale; also good pricing.

 

[scottz]

I just looked, it does not appear the Victron makes a non-smart shunt anymore.

 

[kjohnson-MOC]

A couple of things to consider.

If you have a Victron smart shunt (displays on your smart phone), the Victron battery monitor (also displays on your smart phone) is redundant. You could save a few bucks and go with a non-smart shunt and the battery monitor. You don't need both unless you just want them. I have the non-smart shunt with a BMV-712; so I have info on my phone and an interior display.

Your battery disconnect should be moved (or an additional one installed) to the output side of your battery so that when you turn it off, everything is off.

You don't mention how you are going to configure your solar panels or how much existing solar there is. The 100/30 can handle up to 100V from the panels. Use the panel open circuit voltage (usually about 25V for a nominal 12V panel) when figuring this. With a 100/30 four panels in series (100V open circuit voltage 48V nominal) would max out the controller. Running panels in series decreases the size of the wire required from the roof to your equipment; consider 10AWG.

The 100/30 has a max output of 30A; that is three panels or less. You might consider going with a little bigger MPPT controller in case you want to add panels in the future. There are a lot of choices, perhaps a 150/60.

Beware of buying Victron equipment off Amazon. Victron will not provide support; support only comes from your dealer. Take a look at Continuous Resources; they will provide planning advice and support after the sale; also good pricing.

Haven't fully decided on how the solar panels are going to be configured (series or parallel). I'm struggling to figure out if the existing solar panel is 12V or 24V. How do I know what panel will to order that will work with the existing panel? When putting them in series do you just connect one panel to the next? My initial thought was just to install a splitter on the connecter on the roof and run them in parallel.

 

[foldbak]

You're roof ports are pre-wired in parallel so unless you're prepared to rewire and add an additional port keep it parallel. As far as what panel to order, here's a simple answer.
If your power demands are below 3000W, choose a 12V system. If your power demands are between 2000W to 5000W, a 24V system might be suitable (based on other considerations) If your power demands are over 4000W, then a 48V system might be most appropriate.



https://battlebornbatteries.com/product/200w-12v-monocrystalline-solar-panel/


Most of your answers can be found here. https://battlebornbatteries.com/rv-solar-panels-guide/

 

[Greg10yes]

we updated ours as well. The residential fridge will run for days and the solar will make up for any fridge usage. I have even run the AC in the bedroom for numerous hours and still had battery left. Upgrading to the Victron inverter I also have everything in the camper runs off the batteries. We have 2 - 460AH Epoch batteries and have a raspberry PI running Victron software controlling everything.

 

[kjohnson-MOC]

I was starting to order parts for this and was trying to figure out what solar panel to order. We have the Solarflex 200 today, which only has one panel. I went and visited my rig in storage today and hooked up to the Solar Controller to check the voltage. When I connected it showed the solar voltage to be 42.06. Would I be correct to assume that's a 24V panel? Below is the URL to the Keystone website with the wiring diagram for the Solarflex 200 which shows a VOC of 40.12. The FS-200W on the futuresolutions website shows a VOC of 43.89. http://images.ext.keystonerv.com/servicemanuals/Vendor%20Manuals/Solar/SolarFlex/SF200/Wiring%20Diagram%20-%20SolarFlex%20200.pdf

 

[kjohnson-MOC]

we updated ours as well. The residential fridge will run for days and the solar will make up for any fridge usage. I have even run the AC in the bedroom for numerous hours and still had battery left. Upgrading to the Victron inverter I also have everything in the camper runs off the batteries. We have 2 - 460AH Epoch batteries and have a raspberry PI running Victron software controlling everything.

The nerd in me can't resist... Tell me more about the Raspberry PI? I'm in cyber and play with that toy, but never thought of using it for this application.

 

[Greg10yes]

I have a PI 4, with the raspberry PI display, I downloaded the software from Victron and it does everything that a Cerbo GX does. Between the PI, display, cables etc I have maybe $200 invested and it also has Node Red which I am going to use for some other “housekeeping” things planned. The only potential gotcha is the difference in port count so I bought a converter that takes up to 4 cables from VE Direct and converts it to USB for the PI. Isolated 4 port USB to TTL UART FTDI – DuPPa

You can see from the attached picture is looks exactly like a Cerbo GX. A couple of really good YouTube channels to watch on this is Off Grid Garage out of Australia and Toby”s real life skills, he plays with all the updates to the OS since Victron is getting to release a major update and UI.

 

[kjohnson-MOC]

Took me a while, but I was finally able to track down the model number info on the existing panel. Is this a 24V panel? Based upon this I'm looking to add this panel in parallel with it.

https://richsolar.com/collections/rv-solar-panels/products/200-watt-24-volt-solar-panel

 

[scottz]

Looks like a 24V panel to me.