Such great information you shared with us. Thanks. My wife and I have 3 seasons on our 240ah DIY build and have never run out of power with 400w of solar on the roof and 100w loose panel that we can use to follow the sun. We live in WA state and travel only in the northern tier of states from March -November. We suffer through the clouds and rain and short days just like you experienced in Ireland and Scotland. The difference is we didn't have the hardware to track as carefully as you did, and we didn't live in the trailer every day for 400 days straight. The data you collected in this block of time is priceless. It precisely documents how a well thought out and built system actually responds to everyday use. You'll never see this from manufacturers, and is invaluable to us end users out here in the hinterlands. You document what we've experienced too. I think our results have been very similar to yours. You show that we can design and build great systems at reasonable prices that work perfectly and reliably. Excellent video. Thanks again.
I built a similar set up in a larger truck, 8kw battery/2kw solar system with what I learnt online from videos like this and no previous experience for less than half the price like said here. I have been using it every day for 2 years without issue, winter is a bit of a struggle but in summer I can game for 6 hours every night with a 500w pc system if I want. I will buy another 2kw of panels to deploy when I have a long term locations like I do now. Because I don't need grid power I can also park anywhere and pay zero rent, with the money saved in power and rent they have already paid for themselves and then some.
@Brett S If you can a afford it financially and in terms of the 250kg ish of weight then its never to much, two people who are using power at night in winter with no real sun for a week could use that power, also you increase the life of the batteries with a bigger system because you rarely run them down. Where I am there are lots of restrictions if you go over 4.5 tonne and I know from experience how hard it is to do a build when the truck already weighs 2.5+ tonne.
Dan, you truly optimized your vans usage, and- built to a reasonable spec as well. As you & Marlene are very knowledgeable about real life usage. I think a 'gross user' may not be as competent about controlling usage and discharge. (One man's opinion, Dan- I suggest others!) Love the build and super happy that it met & exceeded expectations!
Hey Dan. Yes please, if you could make a video on how home automation ideas can be used in a van would be hugely appreciated. All the best to all of you from London.
Hoh, I've JUST been thinking about getting some cells off Ali for my carcamping adventures and now you're here again~ Good timing, my man! Sounds like you've had a good time with your setup, so... yeah, guess I'll also go this route. Manufacturers like LiitoKala seem to also sell pre-builts for very cheap prices now.. 120Ah LiFePo4 with a 100A BMS for less than 300€. Not bad, gotta say. I'd also be pretty interested in some Paspberry Pi goodness, which is something I've thought about for future builds. I mean, they have a massive range of capabilities from monitoring security cameras to low-power entertainment and home office stuff. Lots of possible content right there! 😁
Great report. We are currently on ten 100 AH gelcells with the Victron BMV in our sailboat. We charge with two 225 watt solar panels in series on a Morningstar TS-MPPT-60 and an alternator with an ARS-4 regulator when the engine is running. We have only been off shore power for eight days. I am learning the usage of the various devices and the impact on the batteries. I am also trying to understand minimum voltage so as to best utilize the batteries. The Android devices, anchor light and gps use minimal current and the blender and coffee maker draw a lot of current but only for a short time (have to make my "bulletproof" coffee!). The five pot coffee maker uses 10 AH at 60 amps. I will optimize my panels later. I have three when I want to make roof for the third. We are headed to south Florida. Enjoy your travel.
I used a lot of your tips to build a smart 200ah lifepo4 battery linked to a 1500 watt pure sine wave inverter mostly for cooking outside on an induction hob (doubles as a spare battery too!), our main battery is a branded 200 ah lifepo4 with a little over a year’s use (25 cycles) and have to say in our climate (Isle of Man) winter months can be tricky, but with the solar and b to b, we are now strictly off grid - home or abroad. If you plan any future trip from Ireland to Scotland, consider the Isle of Man - wild camping is not a problem. 👍🇮🇲
Great update! I built mine out of Alibaba cells (310ah) shortly after yours but I have 800w + 230w accessory solar. Good to hear on the Raspberry Pi! I know I mentioned it during the last video using the Victron software on it. I have a good idea of where you are going on the Pi and automation (I’m thinking of jumping to a Cerbo GX and the Pi to automation) so looking forward to that video!
Excellent video with lots of info. I built a DIY battery as well (24v instead of 12v) for my van build and it's very reasuring that things can go well. I haven't installed mine yet but I should be able to do so soon. All my tests are looking good so far. I am very interested in the automation system you put in place.
kudos! I knew it that a 12 volt system is way enough along with the LIFEPO4 battery. More updates on this please. Times with power outages are getting abrupt here in the Philippines. Again, thank you Dan!
Dan, Raspberry Pi is far more complex than I am, so- I fear you will be going into deeper waters than I would venture, but- depending on what you are using it for- that may draw in over my head! I love your battery build (so well done!) and am building my own for my sailiboat. Thanks for the update.
I am way behind at making that smart van automation video but I assure you that you will not find it very difficult. In fact you can do almost everything without a raspberry pi. I am gonna work on that video soon.
No. Have not had to rebalance and I don't expect that I will have to for a long time. I do have a dedicated active balancer installed but I have no way of knowing if it has made a difference or not.
10 cycles down, 2990 to go. Definitely interested to see what you are doing with the raspberry pi. I've had one stuck in a whiskey bottle case for a while, bought it to make a backup camera, but only used it for wifi repeating. Happy New Year. Stasne Novy Rok, or Sretna nova godina.. ok that's not really similar.
Dan, many thanks for sharing this video. I joined/ started this solar energy journey late last year and I am enjoying it but I still have a lot to know and learn. Thanks to people like you sharing their experiences and TH-cam videos. Could I please ask how you have connected most of your devices if you are not using the inverter? For me, I only connect the lightings (LED lights) to the controller load and all the others devices like fridge, freezers and others had to be done through connection to the inverter. Is there an alternative way for me to connect other devices without using the AC outlet of the inverter in other to prolong the battery charge life? However, this would not be a problem in summer as there is constant sun shine. Thanks and God bless.
You're welcome. Glad to help you in your journey. To rely less on an inverter comes down to using the right appliances. Our fridge is designed to use 12v directly as are our fans, lights water pump, etc.. unfortunately there is no easy way to convert an AC motor to run it on DC without using an inverter.
Hi Dan. Your LiFePO4 videos have been great - thank you so much! We have gone lithium in our van now, but seem to have a small issue since making the switch - I wonder if you (or anyone!) can help? The lights sometimes go dim then bright again, like a slow flicker (we used to get flickers often when using water pump and heater, but this happens irrespective of what other appliances we're using). Any ideas what this might be? Could it be related to cell balancing?
Funny seeing this now running on my battery day 2, after using your guide to make a heated ultra compact battery box that fits in the foot well of my SUV rear seat, very little space lost.
That sounds like an awesome trip. There's actually a company these days that makes 12 volt 400 amp server rack battery for about $1,500 and I hear they're actually good quality build. They're definitely getting cheaper just got to watch out for the ones that lie about their specs. Also I believe this company is in the US not sure if that is where the battery is manufactured.
Great videos. It would be good information to do a complete discharge ( like the one in the third video) every year or two to see how the batteries behave over time (capacitive test )...
The costs on 300ah are such now , why build yr own . I watched his 1st build , now u can buy them for almost same $$. Will Powers has some tear down , testing of 300 ah battery .
Have you considered getting a DC to DC converter to power your laptop? You might have to make it yourself (to connect the right barrel plug for your laptop), but it eliminates the waste from your inverter at least for that item.
I would expect the webasto to use a lot more.. somewhere in the 30 ah per day range? I think the normal draw is 1 to 2 amp continuous and 10 amps during startups.
Depends on the climate. Start up draw only lasts a few minutes so what that uses is insignificant. Sure if you ran it full blast for 24 hours continuously, you might draw 30Ah. We would never do that. Maybe only if we were inside the arctic circle during winter with no sun. Running it on full blast overnight for 8 hours we might draw 10Ah. Even that makes the van way too hot even in winter. We would never run it continuously without setting a temperature. When it's thermostatically set, it only turns on when it needs to. The draw isn't continuous so in that case so 5Ah to run it thru a cold night is pretty accurate. But realistically we never run it for more than 1 or 2 hours at a time. Most days we don't use it at all. But again, depends on the climate and season.
I think your video triggered me to do a DIY LiFePo4 battery. I am planning on using an induction cook top and so I have twice the battery and have set it up as 24v. I have twice the solar and no option to charge any other way. I may inject power as if it is a solar input and have the charge controller sort it out. Oh and I am in Australia so we have plenty of sun. With 560 AH ( if it was 12v) we can put away the induction cooktop and pull out a portable gas burner to stretch out the power if we are having too many cloudy days in a row.
Thanks for sharing . I love the real world data. Are there any security systems uses power 24/7 ? Any ideas about going all electric without propane ? As needed hot water to sink , induction cook top and very, very short hot shower will require an additional battery and/or need more solar panels ? Your system is 350 watts or 400 watts panels + 200 watts portables and their efficiency rating ?
Thank you. Security system doesn't run off of the house battery. It runs off of the starting battery which is not connected to each other. Any sort of electric heat (water heater, space heater, cooktop) will require a lot more energy. It's doable but likely at least doubling my setup to make it sustainable without requiring electric hookups from time to time. I will make a video that runs thru these calculation so you know what to expect as you build. My roof mounted panels were sold as 175 watts each and I have 2. Although my experience is that they are capable of producing 200 watts each. So technically I have 350 watts but practically they work as well as 400 watts. Efficiency numbers don't really matter. It is already factored into the watt ratings of each panel. A more efficient panel will have the same watt rating but with smaller footprint.
As a solo road-tripper, my planned energy budget is something like this: Induction cooker (used for meals, coffee water boiling, water heating for bathing) -- 1200w, including inverter losses, for 30 minutes/day, about 50 amp-hours. Charging electronics, running LED lights, everything else -- about 10ah. I don't have a fridge yet. So to get 60ah/day, 200 watts of solar panels or a 40a DC/DC charger from the engine running 1.5 hours/day should take care of my usage. A 280ah battery will be good for 3+ days without any charge at all. I take road trips so the engine runs an average of over 3 hours/day so I'm not planning solar yet, but will add solar if I start boondocking for several days at a time. Note that I don't heat water for washing hands or dishes, and that I don't take a real shower. I can get really clean with 2-3 quarts (liters) of water brought up to 110° F (43° C), and many days I don't need to heat my bath water at all. In other words, I am switching my road-trip life to all-electric and the numbers suggest that I'll be fine.
hi have enjoyed watching a couple of your videos now, and in one of them you mentioned a difference in a battery build for vehicles ( i am guessing to handle vibration). Can you direct me to one of your videos that will cover this?
Hi Dan, Inspired by your videos I’ve build very similar battery with 200Ah cells from AliExpress. My van is still under construction but I’ve been running 12v fridge, some lights and Eberspacher heater for 14months no problem. I’m charging it with Victron DC/DC and Victron Smart Solar. When looking at charging history I’ve noticed voltage spikes up to 16.51V couple of days last month. Is it normal? Could you tell me what’s your max voltage registered by Victron Shunt please. Thanks
Thanks for reply. I’ve checked everything and can’t see anything wrong. Spike definitely comes from solar as van was stood for a while so no charge from DC/DC and MPPT as well as Shunt registered max voltage at 16.51V once in last 30days. I’ve got 2x175w in series on the roof connected to 100/30 SmartSolar. All settings are Victron default Lifepo4. Maybe I’ve got faulty solar charge controller if yours showing max to 14.46V over such a long period of time. Apart from one off 16.51V spike I’m seeing 14.8V - 14.9V more often.
Hello Dan, if I may be so free, Good to hear that the battery pack does what it's supposed to do. I have a question, I was wondering how you disconnect the starter battery from the battery pack, do you have a standard charging relay in between a (victron or something like that), I would like to know that so I can make my design for a battery update gr Henk
That's pretty standard for this style of compressor fridge actually. It draws 50 watts (4 amps) while it's running and it runs on the average 15 minutes every hour. That is about 1 Ah every hour. If you were in warmer climate it could run for longer each hour. This is pretty typical for this fridge in the 2 years since we've owned it. We travel full time so ambient temp varies depending on where we go. This is an average number overall.
How can I contact you in regards to helping build our system that can run the ac appliances such as the fridge, microwave oven and the mini split air conditioning for our 7X16 travel trailer. Thank you in advance. Dino
Hi,why do u use the inverter for the laptop ? Use the 12v,have you not got a poweroak etc ? the solar should really be 50% more watts than the battery,I put 2x 150 amp batteries because if 1 fails then I can still have some power.
Not every laptop have reliable 12v charging options. And depending on what you are doing, 12v charging sometimes can't keep up with the power drain. In my case, video editing uses power faster than 12v charger can keep up. My rule of thumb is that solar should be at least 3 times as many watts as the average battery consumption in amps. The key is to know your average battery consumption, not total capacity. I recommend battery total capacity to be at least another 3 times as many amps as your average consumption. However, total battery capacity can be as big as you want. There's no reason to limit to only 50% of solar watts if you have the space and money to have a bigger reserve. If you watch the power audit portion of this video, you will see that I follow that rule. My high end of energy consumption is 90 Ah while my roof mounted solar is an array of 400 watts. That's actually more than 4x watts to amps. My total battery capacity is 280 Ah which is about 3x my daily consumption. That allows me to go 3 days without charging. Having more just means you can last more days without sun. Again the important thing is knowing your average daily consumption. 2x is ok but not enough for a peace of mind. I have a 500wh poweroak and I've reviewed it on this channel but that is not relevant to the topic of this video. This is about testing the diy LifePO4 pack from my build series.
Yes if watch the original build videos I did install a cell monitor that tells me voltage of each one. You can also use a BMS that has that feature built in. My cells are very well balanced still. I assume the optional active cell balance I installed helps a little.
@@freelyroaming that's great, thanks. Mine have been drifting out of balance now and then. I believe it's the internal resistance not perfectly matched as the capacity on each cell is the same.
Glad to hear you small solar and LifePO4 setup is working nicely for you. I put together a very similar setup at our hunting cabin. I do have one question for you. How is the little Battery Capacity Meter working out for you. The guys at the cabin want an easy to read display that tells them the general capacity of the battery. Of course having the smart shunt and pulling up the victron ap on the cell phone will give us that but they are not interested in downloading an ap etc. Our old AGM system had a capacity display that was very easy to discern. That meter will not work for the newer LifePO4 batteries because the voltage curve is so flat. The old meter calculated the % of charge by battery voltage. I have looked into that little capacity meter you installed, examined the connections and viewed a couple TH-cam videos on the device. I have concluded that this unit must be using battery voltage as well in some manner to figure out the capacity display. How could this possibly be accurate given the flat voltage curve of LifePO4? I almost feel like it would read somewhere 80-90% SOC for a long period of time and then, BAM, display 10-20% as the battery voltage curve goes into the discharge "knee" and quickly approach 0% as it gets to 2.5v per cell. So, what has been your experience since you've got both the smart shunt and the little cheap battery capacity meter? Is it work installing?
I would recommend the victron bmv-712 shunt. It has the same capability as the smartshunt but adds an external display. The cell monitor only measure voltage so it's not a reliable way to check battery capacity.
I found that cycles happen because you reach a certain draw on the batteries, it has nothing to do with 100% charge. My cycle usually happens when I go down to below 65 or so percent.
That's not my experience. On several cloudy overcast days the battery hovered between 50 to 70% for several days. If the algorithm doesn't require a certain amount of recharge then it would have registered multiple erroneous cycles. It didtn do that. Perhaps not a recharge of 100% but certainly an increase SOC of a certain amount. How your shunt is configured also seems to affect the way cycles are counted. So your setup can certainly be different from mine.
@@freelyroaming I’m no expert and I’m using Victron shunt and charge controllers and inverter. I found unless I go below 65% or so, no cycle appears. This is if you’re going to 100% or not. I’m using eight Battle Born Batteries at 24 V for a backup house system. 7.5 kw PV. 🖖
@@benjones8977 yes I agree. going below a pre-set SOC is part of the algorithm. But not the only part. I do not trigger a cycle at 65% even with a full charge afterwards. So I think your charging profiles and networking parameters are certainly different than mine.
@@freelyroaming My only real worry is the life of the battery, as I’m trying to keep them going for as long as possible. So the few were the cycles the longer the life! 😜
@@benjones8977 I'm right there with you. With that said, I take the victron data with a grain of salt. Even though I only show 10 cycles, I still try my best to keep the SOC higher at the low end and low at the top end to extend the life of these expensive batteries.
That usage level is extraordinarily low, most people may not be similar . I wouldn’t be. I’d get 2-3 batteries and marginally more panels. You may be using propane though too.
The amount of energy consumed is not the point of this video. It's about the performance of the diy battery pack over time. Scale up or down as you need to but the battery performance is what is being illustrated here. Now, if you want to know more of what I think of people's power consumption in general, read on. Otherwise, feel free to ignore the rest of this response. We have plenty of full time traveling friends who use less than we do. A lot of people these days build their electrical systems based on a ton of AC inverter use because they do not build it with efficiency in mind and they want the conveniences as if they are living in an apartment. Most of these people don't have much experience living offgrid and mobile or only does it for short trips. That's not us. It's not extraordinarily low for people who know how to build efficient off grid electrical systems and living with it. A camper system should be build with the mindset of 12VDC first, inverter AC second. People should also first find ways to conserve instead of just keep adding more and more capacity. In turn, add capacity when that's the only option. This way you avoid constantly having to deal with runaway power consumption over time. We do not use electricity to intentionally heat anything. It's too wasteful and the energy density just isn't there. The same goes for water consumption if you are not accustomed to living this way. You will never be able to carry enough water. Propane is only used for cooking and diesel for ambient air heating. If you are just a single person or a couple you can probably get away with loading your camper full of batteries and solar panels. Not if you are a family of 5 like us traveling internationally in it full time. Induction stoves have an extraordinarily high electricity demand as do electric water heaters. Plus induction cooking has limits. For example, stovetop ovens like the Omnia do not work with them. Sure it would be nice to avoid fossil fuels altogether but until my van runs on electrons, I don't think it's a must to cook with it. I assume you are not a subscriber and haven't seen my other videos. We've been living full time off grid in campers for 14 years across 37 countries and 4 continents. We know what we need and what works for us.
Why charge a laptop via an inverter with the accompanying loss. A laptop is 19v, all you do is going from 12v to 230v back to 19v. I used to have a step-up charger making 19v out of 12v for charging the laptop.
Most laptops chargers today have a third wire in the charging cable that is used for communications. Without the proper data stream the computer will not charge. Just pumping 19vdc in there is not going to work any more like it did in the old days. Also most 12v outlets can not support high power charge (10A or higher) that is often needed for processor intensive work like video editing. It will continue to drain the battery even while the charger is connected. The 12v wiring is also usually not rated for current higher than that and will lose a lot of efficiency in the form of heat from high resistance which negates any benefit from trying to avoid conversion loss. Unless you are using an efficient ARM-based machine like a MacBook M1 processor but that's not what I have. Yet 😁 I've been working remotely on my laptop in my camper for over a decade and have tried a lot of different charging options. I've even bought several laptops specifically because they have USB-C charging options and they still just don't work that well. What you can do instead is just invest in a separate smaller high efficiency pure sine inverter and use it as a dedicated unit for your computer so you don't have to run a large one. Otherwise it's not worth the hassle of trying to eek out a couple of amp hours each day with direct DC charging unless the laptop is designed for it.
Interesting - I have a similar set up but no fridge but 2 ebikes - and my BMS is blue tooth - even with just 280watts solar its enough I seldom use my DC to DC engine charger
You are oversimplifying a topic that is not true for every, or even most, situations. Look at the voltage discharge curve of your cells chemistry and just keep it where the voltage is flat is all you need to do. It's about 97% SOC at the top end and roughly 10% SOC at the bottom. There is no real longevity benefit by charging to 80% versus charging up 95%. 80% is a arbitrary safe number someone made up. Most likely someone who doesn't even use a lithium pack daily. Sure, you CAN follow that rule if it makes you feel better. But practically is has no additional benefits. But it actually can have a potential downside. If you only charge to 80% every time, there is more chance of individual cell voltage drift as you will never be able to occasionally top balance. Plus, you can't reliably know where 80% is at because you can not reliably detect it with only cell voltage when they are all in the flat voltage curve range. A shunt will only tell you overall pack capacity and not of each cell. You can end up with unbalanced cells that go undetected for a long time and potentially damage individual cells. Not likely for new cells but if someone is using recycled or grade B cells then it's highly possible. Charge and discharge rate matter much more to longevity than actually storage capacity. You're just regurgitating what you've heard from people who don't know what they are talking about. Lifepo4 cells like these will degrade to 80% capacity at around 4000+ cycles at 1C rate while charge all the way up to 100% each time. Lastly, if you know how cell degradation happens, it is cause by expansion and contraction delaminating the internals. You can safely charge to 100% without expanding the cell if you know what you are doing. There is no reason for me to baby it to try to get more life out of my pack. With my current usage scenario, this pack will last decades. Much longer than I need it to. I chose to utilize the extra capacity instead of trying to unnecessarily extend the pack's lifespan that will never give me any practical benefits. It is pointless. This pack will be retired in favor of newer technology far before it ever becomes noticeable degraded. I've convered topics like this and more on this channel. You just ended up here from the TH-cam algorithm and probably have idea who's video you're commenting on. You should go watch my other videos if you are interested in learning more. Or not. Doesn't matter to me. But it would be good if you didn't go around propagating generic advice without understanding that causes confusion. Comments like yours are why I started this channel in the first place. It appears I need to make a video specific to this topic for people like you.
Such great information you shared with us. Thanks. My wife and I have 3 seasons on our 240ah DIY build and have never run out of power with 400w of solar on the roof and 100w loose panel that we can use to follow the sun. We live in WA state and travel only in the northern tier of states from March -November. We suffer through the clouds and rain and short days just like you experienced in Ireland and Scotland. The difference is we didn't have the hardware to track as carefully as you did, and we didn't live in the trailer every day for 400 days straight. The data you collected in this block of time is priceless. It precisely documents how a well thought out and built system actually responds to everyday use. You'll never see this from manufacturers, and is invaluable to us end users out here in the hinterlands. You document what we've experienced too. I think our results have been very similar to yours. You show that we can design and build great systems at reasonable prices that work perfectly and reliably. Excellent video. Thanks again.
Yes yes yes I'd love to hear about your home automation system Dan! Great to meet you guys at the Overland show - thanks for the great video!
Bonjour , merci pour ce retour détaillé, précis et clair ! Bien à vous
I built a similar set up in a larger truck, 8kw battery/2kw solar system with what I learnt online from videos like this and no previous experience for less than half the price like said here. I have been using it every day for 2 years without issue, winter is a bit of a struggle but in summer I can game for 6 hours every night with a 500w pc system if I want. I will buy another 2kw of panels to deploy when I have a long term locations like I do now. Because I don't need grid power I can also park anywhere and pay zero rent, with the money saved in power and rent they have already paid for themselves and then some.
@Brett S If you can a afford it financially and in terms of the 250kg ish of weight then its never to much, two people who are using power at night in winter with no real sun for a week could use that power, also you increase the life of the batteries with a bigger system because you rarely run them down. Where I am there are lots of restrictions if you go over 4.5 tonne and I know from experience how hard it is to do a build when the truck already weighs 2.5+ tonne.
Dan, you truly optimized your vans usage, and- built to a reasonable spec as well. As you & Marlene are very knowledgeable about real life usage. I think a 'gross user' may not be as competent about controlling usage and discharge. (One man's opinion, Dan- I suggest others!) Love the build and super happy that it met & exceeded expectations!
Hey Dan. Yes please, if you could make a video on how home automation ideas can be used in a van would be hugely appreciated. All the best to all of you from London.
Dan - great video. Also very interested to hear how you use a Raspberry Pi to automate functions in your van!
Hoh, I've JUST been thinking about getting some cells off Ali for my carcamping adventures and now you're here again~ Good timing, my man! Sounds like you've had a good time with your setup, so... yeah, guess I'll also go this route. Manufacturers like LiitoKala seem to also sell pre-builts for very cheap prices now.. 120Ah LiFePo4 with a 100A BMS for less than 300€. Not bad, gotta say.
I'd also be pretty interested in some Paspberry Pi goodness, which is something I've thought about for future builds. I mean, they have a massive range of capabilities from monitoring security cameras to low-power entertainment and home office stuff. Lots of possible content right there! 😁
Great report.
We are currently on ten 100 AH gelcells with the Victron BMV in our sailboat. We charge with two 225 watt solar panels in series on a Morningstar TS-MPPT-60 and an alternator with an ARS-4 regulator when the engine is running. We have only been off shore power for eight days.
I am learning the usage of the various devices and the impact on the batteries. I am also trying to understand minimum voltage so as to best utilize the batteries.
The Android devices, anchor light and gps use minimal current and the blender and coffee maker draw a lot of current but only for a short time (have to make my "bulletproof" coffee!). The five pot coffee maker uses 10 AH at 60 amps.
I will optimize my panels later. I have three when I want to make roof for the third.
We are headed to south Florida. Enjoy your travel.
I'd like to hear how you implemented some home automation electronics in your campervan. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for update. I'd be interested to know what home automation you've installed, look forward to the video.
Merci pour votre retour sur cette batterie.
I used a lot of your tips to build a smart 200ah lifepo4 battery linked to a 1500 watt pure sine wave inverter mostly for cooking outside on an induction hob (doubles as a spare battery too!), our main battery is a branded 200 ah lifepo4 with a little over a year’s use (25 cycles) and have to say in our climate (Isle of Man) winter months can be tricky, but with the solar and b to b, we are now strictly off grid - home or abroad.
If you plan any future trip from Ireland to Scotland, consider the Isle of Man - wild camping is not a problem. 👍🇮🇲
Great update! I built mine out of Alibaba cells (310ah) shortly after yours but I have 800w + 230w accessory solar.
Good to hear on the Raspberry Pi! I know I mentioned it during the last video using the Victron software on it.
I have a good idea of where you are going on the Pi and automation (I’m thinking of jumping to a Cerbo GX and the Pi to automation) so looking forward to that video!
Excellent video with lots of info. I built a DIY battery as well (24v instead of 12v) for my van build and it's very reasuring that things can go well. I haven't installed mine yet but I should be able to do so soon. All my tests are looking good so far. I am very interested in the automation system you put in place.
Excellent . Glad to see you back
Great video again.
The raspberry pi 4 is an excellent device - media player , etc I look forward to your future videos
kudos! I knew it that a 12 volt system is way enough along with the LIFEPO4 battery. More updates on this please. Times with power outages are getting abrupt here in the Philippines. Again, thank you Dan!
Nice video, good information. Greetings from sunny Jamaica.
Great info, thanks for sharing update!
BTW, we left Bishop, Ca, back home in NM
Dan, Raspberry Pi is far more complex than I am, so- I fear you will be going into deeper waters than I would venture, but- depending on what you are using it for- that may draw in over my head! I love your battery build (so well done!) and am building my own for my sailiboat. Thanks for the update.
I am way behind at making that smart van automation video but I assure you that you will not find it very difficult. In fact you can do almost everything without a raspberry pi. I am gonna work on that video soon.
I just found your channel today. I’d be highly interested in your home automation experience, as I want to include that in my future build. Thanks!
good info! I'd like to hear what you did with the raspberry pi.
Super nice input. I do have Victron 2 x 160Ah Lithium but i find the DIY version to be a fairly good competitor.
Good batteries!
Thank you for the summary. Have you had to re-balance the cells during this time? Do you feel like you need to?
No. Have not had to rebalance and I don't expect that I will have to for a long time. I do have a dedicated active balancer installed but I have no way of knowing if it has made a difference or not.
10 cycles down, 2990 to go. Definitely interested to see what you are doing with the raspberry pi. I've had one stuck in a whiskey bottle case for a while, bought it to make a backup camera, but only used it for wifi repeating. Happy New Year. Stasne Novy Rok, or Sretna nova godina.. ok that's not really similar.
Very curious about your automation, you've converted me to dump my old heavy AGM go lithium diy thanks
From Australia
Dan, many thanks for sharing this video. I joined/ started this solar energy journey late last year and I am enjoying it but I still have a lot to know and learn. Thanks to people like you sharing their experiences and TH-cam videos.
Could I please ask how you have connected most of your devices if you are not using the inverter? For me, I only connect the lightings (LED lights) to the controller load and all the others devices like fridge, freezers and others had to be done through connection to the inverter. Is there an alternative way for me to connect other devices without using the AC outlet of the inverter in other to prolong the battery charge life? However, this would not be a problem in summer as there is constant sun shine.
Thanks and God bless.
You're welcome. Glad to help you in your journey. To rely less on an inverter comes down to using the right appliances. Our fridge is designed to use 12v directly as are our fans, lights water pump, etc.. unfortunately there is no easy way to convert an AC motor to run it on DC without using an inverter.
Would love to find out more about the raspberry pi home automation projects
I would love to learn about your automation devices and set up.
Please do the home automation stuff. Really interested in what you are doing and the devices you are using.
Great report man! Thanks!
Hi Dan. Your LiFePO4 videos have been great - thank you so much! We have gone lithium in our van now, but seem to have a small issue since making the switch - I wonder if you (or anyone!) can help? The lights sometimes go dim then bright again, like a slow flicker (we used to get flickers often when using water pump and heater, but this happens irrespective of what other appliances we're using). Any ideas what this might be? Could it be related to cell balancing?
Led bulbs can be sensitive to voltage differences. If it really bothers you, you can run all your 12v devices thru a voltage regulator.
Funny seeing this now running on my battery day 2, after using your guide to make a heated ultra compact battery box that fits in the foot well of my SUV rear seat, very little space lost.
Glad to hear that!
HI, very interested in a video on installed electrical automation.
Very nice. Can wait for manufacturers’ builds to get that cheap
Excellent summary
Yes pls, do a video on home automation
That sounds like an awesome trip.
There's actually a company these days that makes 12 volt 400 amp server rack battery for about $1,500 and I hear they're actually good quality build.
They're definitely getting cheaper just got to watch out for the ones that lie about their specs.
Also I believe this company is in the US not sure if that is where the battery is manufactured.
Great videos. It would be good information to do a complete discharge ( like the one in the third video) every year or two to see how the batteries behave over time (capacitive test )...
Great video. Cell and cell balancer links are not working
300ah 200a LiFePo4 now $.26 per wh. $971.04 US shipped on Amazon. I load tested at both .06C and .36C got 320ah and 310ah discharged to 12v SOC
The costs on 300ah are such now , why build yr own . I watched his 1st build , now u can buy them for almost same $$. Will Powers has some tear down , testing of 300 ah battery .
Now THIS is some real world info!
Have you considered getting a DC to DC converter to power your laptop? You might have to make it yourself (to connect the right barrel plug for your laptop), but it eliminates the waste from your inverter at least for that item.
Most modern laptops including mine require a data wire for charging to work. By just supplying the proper DC voltage is not enough.
I'm definitely interested in an automation video
Yes please review!
I'd be interested to hear your subjective comparison of your experience with lead-acid before and LiFePO4 now.
I would expect the webasto to use a lot more.. somewhere in the 30 ah per day range?
I think the normal draw is 1 to 2 amp continuous and 10 amps during startups.
Depends on the climate. Start up draw only lasts a few minutes so what that uses is insignificant. Sure if you ran it full blast for 24 hours continuously, you might draw 30Ah. We would never do that. Maybe only if we were inside the arctic circle during winter with no sun. Running it on full blast overnight for 8 hours we might draw 10Ah. Even that makes the van way too hot even in winter. We would never run it continuously without setting a temperature. When it's thermostatically set, it only turns on when it needs to. The draw isn't continuous so in that case so 5Ah to run it thru a cold night is pretty accurate. But realistically we never run it for more than 1 or 2 hours at a time. Most days we don't use it at all. But again, depends on the climate and season.
Great video keep them coming 😀 👌
I think your video triggered me to do a DIY LiFePo4 battery. I am planning on using an induction cook top and so I have twice the battery and have set it up as 24v. I have twice the solar and no option to charge any other way. I may inject power as if it is a solar input and have the charge controller sort it out. Oh and I am in Australia so we have plenty of sun. With 560 AH ( if it was 12v) we can put away the induction cooktop and pull out a portable gas burner to stretch out the power if we are having too many cloudy days in a row.
Thanks for sharing . I love the real world data. Are there any security systems uses power 24/7 ? Any ideas about going all electric without propane ? As needed hot water to sink , induction cook top and very, very short hot shower will require an additional battery and/or need more solar panels ? Your system is 350 watts or 400 watts panels + 200 watts portables and their efficiency rating ?
Thank you. Security system doesn't run off of the house battery. It runs off of the starting battery which is not connected to each other. Any sort of electric heat (water heater, space heater, cooktop) will require a lot more energy. It's doable but likely at least doubling my setup to make it sustainable without requiring electric hookups from time to time. I will make a video that runs thru these calculation so you know what to expect as you build. My roof mounted panels were sold as 175 watts each and I have 2. Although my experience is that they are capable of producing 200 watts each. So technically I have 350 watts but practically they work as well as 400 watts. Efficiency numbers don't really matter. It is already factored into the watt ratings of each panel. A more efficient panel will have the same watt rating but with smaller footprint.
As a solo road-tripper, my planned energy budget is something like this: Induction cooker (used for meals, coffee water boiling, water heating for bathing) -- 1200w, including inverter losses, for 30 minutes/day, about 50 amp-hours. Charging electronics, running LED lights, everything else -- about 10ah. I don't have a fridge yet. So to get 60ah/day, 200 watts of solar panels or a 40a DC/DC charger from the engine running 1.5 hours/day should take care of my usage. A 280ah battery will be good for 3+ days without any charge at all. I take road trips so the engine runs an average of over 3 hours/day so I'm not planning solar yet, but will add solar if I start boondocking for several days at a time. Note that I don't heat water for washing hands or dishes, and that I don't take a real shower. I can get really clean with 2-3 quarts (liters) of water brought up to 110° F (43° C), and many days I don't need to heat my bath water at all. In other words, I am switching my road-trip life to all-electric and the numbers suggest that I'll be fine.
hi have enjoyed watching a couple of your videos now, and in one of them you mentioned a difference in a battery build for vehicles ( i am guessing to handle vibration). Can you direct me to one of your videos that will cover this?
Can you do a capacity test? I have a feeling it’s still 280ah
I will do another test at some point. Maybe after 2 years of use. I agree that the capacity is likely unchanged based on my type of use.
Hi Dan,
Inspired by your videos I’ve build very similar battery with 200Ah cells from AliExpress.
My van is still under construction but I’ve been running 12v fridge, some lights and Eberspacher heater for 14months no problem.
I’m charging it with Victron DC/DC and Victron Smart Solar.
When looking at charging history I’ve noticed voltage spikes up to 16.51V couple of days last month.
Is it normal? Could you tell me what’s your max voltage registered by Victron Shunt please.
Thanks
Congrats! The voltage spike is certainly not normal. Perhaps there is a short somewhere? 14.46v is what my shunt has ever measured as a max.
Thanks for reply. I’ve checked everything and can’t see anything wrong. Spike definitely comes from solar as van was stood for a while so no charge from DC/DC and MPPT as well as Shunt registered max voltage at 16.51V once in last 30days.
I’ve got 2x175w in series on the roof connected to 100/30 SmartSolar. All settings are Victron default Lifepo4.
Maybe I’ve got faulty solar charge controller if yours showing max to 14.46V over such a long period of time.
Apart from one off 16.51V spike I’m seeing 14.8V - 14.9V more often.
I would think it's solar related as well. 14.8v is still higher than you should have.
Hello Dan, if I may be so free, Good to hear that the battery pack does what it's supposed to do.
I have a question, I was wondering how you disconnect the starter battery from the battery pack, do you have a standard charging relay in between a (victron or something like that), I would like to know that so I can make my design for a battery update
gr Henk
I use a DC to DC charger. It uses a piggy back jumper fuse that's only activated when the key is in the on position.
That's a low power draw for a fridge that size. What temperature do you have it set at and what is the typical ambient temperature?
That's pretty standard for this style of compressor fridge actually. It draws 50 watts (4 amps) while it's running and it runs on the average 15 minutes every hour. That is about 1 Ah every hour. If you were in warmer climate it could run for longer each hour. This is pretty typical for this fridge in the 2 years since we've owned it. We travel full time so ambient temp varies depending on where we go. This is an average number overall.
Great video, thanks!
Very interesting. Thanks a lot. Good job.
ofcourse we like to know why you use your Rasberry
Hi Dan How do you deal with the different voltage when you need shore power in Europe? thanks.
I use a 24v DC power supply to charge thru a Victron MPPT solar charge controller. They are compatible with 110v and 220v AC sources.
How can I contact you in regards to helping build our system that can run the ac appliances such as the fridge, microwave oven and the mini split air conditioning for our 7X16 travel trailer. Thank you in advance. Dino
Look for the link to the personal session form in the description and we can go from there.
what are you using for hot water need?
Hi,why do u use the inverter for the laptop ?
Use the 12v,have you not got a poweroak etc ? the solar should really be 50% more watts than the battery,I put 2x 150 amp batteries because if 1 fails then I can still have some power.
Not every laptop have reliable 12v charging options. And depending on what you are doing, 12v charging sometimes can't keep up with the power drain. In my case, video editing uses power faster than 12v charger can keep up. My rule of thumb is that solar should be at least 3 times as many watts as the average battery consumption in amps. The key is to know your average battery consumption, not total capacity. I recommend battery total capacity to be at least another 3 times as many amps as your average consumption. However, total battery capacity can be as big as you want. There's no reason to limit to only 50% of solar watts if you have the space and money to have a bigger reserve. If you watch the power audit portion of this video, you will see that I follow that rule. My high end of energy consumption is 90 Ah while my roof mounted solar is an array of 400 watts. That's actually more than 4x watts to amps. My total battery capacity is 280 Ah which is about 3x my daily consumption. That allows me to go 3 days without charging. Having more just means you can last more days without sun. Again the important thing is knowing your average daily consumption. 2x is ok but not enough for a peace of mind. I have a 500wh poweroak and I've reviewed it on this channel but that is not relevant to the topic of this video. This is about testing the diy LifePO4 pack from my build series.
Hi, have you had any issues with the cells drifting to an unbalanced state? Can you monitor individual cell voltage? Thanks
Yes if watch the original build videos I did install a cell monitor that tells me voltage of each one. You can also use a BMS that has that feature built in. My cells are very well balanced still. I assume the optional active cell balance I installed helps a little.
@@freelyroaming that's great, thanks. Mine have been drifting out of balance now and then. I believe it's the internal resistance not perfectly matched as the capacity on each cell is the same.
Glad to hear you small solar and LifePO4 setup is working nicely for you. I put together a very similar setup at our hunting cabin. I do have one question for you. How is the little Battery Capacity Meter working out for you.
The guys at the cabin want an easy to read display that tells them the general capacity of the battery. Of course having the smart shunt and pulling up the victron ap on the cell phone will give us that but they are not interested in downloading an ap etc. Our old AGM system had a capacity display that was very easy to discern. That meter will not work for the newer LifePO4 batteries because the voltage curve is so flat. The old meter calculated the % of charge by battery voltage.
I have looked into that little capacity meter you installed, examined the connections and viewed a couple TH-cam videos on the device. I have concluded that this unit must be using battery voltage as well in some manner to figure out the capacity display. How could this possibly be accurate given the flat voltage curve of LifePO4? I almost feel like it would read somewhere 80-90% SOC for a long period of time and then, BAM, display 10-20% as the battery voltage curve goes into the discharge "knee" and quickly approach 0% as it gets to 2.5v per cell.
So, what has been your experience since you've got both the smart shunt and the little cheap battery capacity meter? Is it work installing?
I would recommend the victron bmv-712 shunt. It has the same capability as the smartshunt but adds an external display. The cell monitor only measure voltage so it's not a reliable way to check battery capacity.
I found that cycles happen because you reach a certain draw on the batteries, it has nothing to do with 100% charge. My cycle usually happens when I go down to below 65 or so percent.
That's not my experience. On several cloudy overcast days the battery hovered between 50 to 70% for several days. If the algorithm doesn't require a certain amount of recharge then it would have registered multiple erroneous cycles. It didtn do that. Perhaps not a recharge of 100% but certainly an increase SOC of a certain amount. How your shunt is configured also seems to affect the way cycles are counted. So your setup can certainly be different from mine.
@@freelyroaming
I’m no expert and I’m using Victron shunt and charge controllers and inverter. I found unless I go below 65% or so, no cycle appears. This is if you’re going to 100% or not.
I’m using eight Battle Born Batteries at 24 V for a backup house system. 7.5 kw PV. 🖖
@@benjones8977 yes I agree. going below a pre-set SOC is part of the algorithm. But not the only part. I do not trigger a cycle at 65% even with a full charge afterwards. So I think your charging profiles and networking parameters are certainly different than mine.
@@freelyroaming
My only real worry is the life of the battery, as I’m trying to keep them going for as long as possible. So the few were the cycles the longer the life! 😜
@@benjones8977 I'm right there with you. With that said, I take the victron data with a grain of salt. Even though I only show 10 cycles, I still try my best to keep the SOC higher at the low end and low at the top end to extend the life of these expensive batteries.
Raspberry pi good idea
That usage level is extraordinarily low, most people may not be similar . I wouldn’t be. I’d get 2-3 batteries and marginally more panels. You may be using propane though too.
The amount of energy consumed is not the point of this video. It's about the performance of the diy battery pack over time. Scale up or down as you need to but the battery performance is what is being illustrated here.
Now, if you want to know more of what I think of people's power consumption in general, read on. Otherwise, feel free to ignore the rest of this response.
We have plenty of full time traveling friends who use less than we do. A lot of people these days build their electrical systems based on a ton of AC inverter use because they do not build it with efficiency in mind and they want the conveniences as if they are living in an apartment. Most of these people don't have much experience living offgrid and mobile or only does it for short trips. That's not us. It's not extraordinarily low for people who know how to build efficient off grid electrical systems and living with it. A camper system should be build with the mindset of 12VDC first, inverter AC second. People should also first find ways to conserve instead of just keep adding more and more capacity. In turn, add capacity when that's the only option. This way you avoid constantly having to deal with runaway power consumption over time. We do not use electricity to intentionally heat anything. It's too wasteful and the energy density just isn't there. The same goes for water consumption if you are not accustomed to living this way. You will never be able to carry enough water. Propane is only used for cooking and diesel for ambient air heating.
If you are just a single person or a couple you can probably get away with loading your camper full of batteries and solar panels. Not if you are a family of 5 like us traveling internationally in it full time. Induction stoves have an extraordinarily high electricity demand as do electric water heaters. Plus induction cooking has limits. For example, stovetop ovens like the Omnia do not work with them. Sure it would be nice to avoid fossil fuels altogether but until my van runs on electrons, I don't think it's a must to cook with it. I assume you are not a subscriber and haven't seen my other videos. We've been living full time off grid in campers for 14 years across 37 countries and 4 continents. We know what we need and what works for us.
Why charge a laptop via an inverter with the accompanying loss. A laptop is 19v, all you do is going from 12v to 230v back to 19v. I used to have a step-up charger making 19v out of 12v for charging the laptop.
Most laptops chargers today have a third wire in the charging cable that is used for communications. Without the proper data stream the computer will not charge. Just pumping 19vdc in there is not going to work any more like it did in the old days. Also most 12v outlets can not support high power charge (10A or higher) that is often needed for processor intensive work like video editing. It will continue to drain the battery even while the charger is connected. The 12v wiring is also usually not rated for current higher than that and will lose a lot of efficiency in the form of heat from high resistance which negates any benefit from trying to avoid conversion loss. Unless you are using an efficient ARM-based machine like a MacBook M1 processor but that's not what I have. Yet 😁 I've been working remotely on my laptop in my camper for over a decade and have tried a lot of different charging options. I've even bought several laptops specifically because they have USB-C charging options and they still just don't work that well. What you can do instead is just invest in a separate smaller high efficiency pure sine inverter and use it as a dedicated unit for your computer so you don't have to run a large one. Otherwise it's not worth the hassle of trying to eek out a couple of amp hours each day with direct DC charging unless the laptop is designed for it.
Interesting - I have a similar set up but no fridge but 2 ebikes - and my BMS is blue tooth - even with just 280watts solar its enough I seldom use my DC to DC engine charger
That's great. How much solar is considered enough really depends on the location and the local weather patterns.
@@freelyroaming Yes - Thats why I fitted a DC to DC as back up but to be honest its never needed
Yes 👍🔋☀️ ⚡🔌💡
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Please send me an email to discuss! hello@freelyroaming.com
Never charge a lithium battery to over 80% if you want ot maximise it's life.
Your video suggests that you're oblivious to this.
You are oversimplifying a topic that is not true for every, or even most, situations. Look at the voltage discharge curve of your cells chemistry and just keep it where the voltage is flat is all you need to do. It's about 97% SOC at the top end and roughly 10% SOC at the bottom. There is no real longevity benefit by charging to 80% versus charging up 95%. 80% is a arbitrary safe number someone made up. Most likely someone who doesn't even use a lithium pack daily. Sure, you CAN follow that rule if it makes you feel better. But practically is has no additional benefits. But it actually can have a potential downside. If you only charge to 80% every time, there is more chance of individual cell voltage drift as you will never be able to occasionally top balance. Plus, you can't reliably know where 80% is at because you can not reliably detect it with only cell voltage when they are all in the flat voltage curve range. A shunt will only tell you overall pack capacity and not of each cell. You can end up with unbalanced cells that go undetected for a long time and potentially damage individual cells. Not likely for new cells but if someone is using recycled or grade B cells then it's highly possible. Charge and discharge rate matter much more to longevity than actually storage capacity. You're just regurgitating what you've heard from people who don't know what they are talking about. Lifepo4 cells like these will degrade to 80% capacity at around 4000+ cycles at 1C rate while charge all the way up to 100% each time. Lastly, if you know how cell degradation happens, it is cause by expansion and contraction delaminating the internals. You can safely charge to 100% without expanding the cell if you know what you are doing. There is no reason for me to baby it to try to get more life out of my pack. With my current usage scenario, this pack will last decades. Much longer than I need it to. I chose to utilize the extra capacity instead of trying to unnecessarily extend the pack's lifespan that will never give me any practical benefits. It is pointless. This pack will be retired in favor of newer technology far before it ever becomes noticeable degraded. I've convered topics like this and more on this channel. You just ended up here from the TH-cam algorithm and probably have idea who's video you're commenting on. You should go watch my other videos if you are interested in learning more. Or not. Doesn't matter to me. But it would be good if you didn't go around propagating generic advice without understanding that causes confusion. Comments like yours are why I started this channel in the first place. It appears I need to make a video specific to this topic for people like you.
hi hello I want to cooperate with you to promote the products of my platform
Great! Can you send me an email with details?