Roadtrek Ecotrek and Voltstart

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by wincrasher

In the real world, I think the only people with real worries would be folks wanting to run air conditioning and hammer their battery packs day in and day out. I think that is an expensive and fool-hardy exercise. But that's me I guess.

That I don't do. I don't live in the south where those concerns get expressed frequently, and if I did live in the south, I can guarantee you a Class B van would not be my choice of recreation if it meant being cooped up inside with a loud air conditioner on. I'd then opt for condo rental and cruise ship recreation.

[booster]

Originally Posted by gerrym51

Booster-don't standard agm's start to lose charge the longer they sit without being trickle charged?

yep, all AGMs will have some self discharge. Much less that wet cells, more than lithium. Lifeline, for instance says to recharge when they hit 12.5 volts or 90 days maximum. I have been trying to get an answer out of several of the AGM manufacturers as to if it is better to have them perpetually on float while stored, or to let them self discharge a bit and then do a short recharge to totally full. The answers have been very "squishy", if you will.

For me, it just seems a waste to keep the charger powered up all winter, in the warm garage, to put .1 amp into the batteries. I would prefer to plug it in for a couple of hours once a month.

[avanti]

IMO, an optimally-designed Li system would have a "storage" mode which would use shore power to maintain a 40% SOC and also keep the battery above freezing. That way DavyDD could hop in at any time and his engine alternator would get him up to full charge in no time.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by booster

yep, all AGMs will have some self discharge. Much less that wet cells, more than lithium. Lifeline, for instance says to recharge when they hit 12.5 volts or 90 days maximum. I have been trying to get an answer out of several of the AGM manufacturers as to if it is better to have them perpetually on float while stored, or to let them self discharge a bit and then do a short recharge to totally full. The answers have been very "squishy", if you will.

For me, it just seems a waste to keep the charger powered up all winter, in the warm garage, to put .1 amp into the batteries. I would prefer to plug it in for a couple of hours once a month.

since i store mine out in the open-once a week i look at the solar controller-the light for full battery is blinking and assuming it is correct it is keeping my tppl agm full. i have not had any snow yet though.

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by avanti

IMO, an optimally-designed Li system would have a "storage" mode which would use shore power to maintain a 40% SOC and also keep the battery above freezing. That way DavyDD could hop in at any time and his engine alternator would get him up to full charge in no time.

I imagine Advanced RV could program something like that. I see it as a touch screen selection on the Silverleaf of PSOC or FSOC. They already have the battery heating factor worked out. I will ask them about it. But it just may not be necessary in a practical deal if Wincrasher is right about batteries or the difference in performance is negligible. It might just be a feel good button in the long run.

If I had the warm garage Booster has I would be in heaven. I would just need a TV, a beer refrigerator and a recliner next to the workbench to have my own man cave. Wait! That's already in the van.

[gregmchugh]

There are now multiple reports that Roadtrek is, at least in some cases, installing an add-on AGM battery in vans that were supposed to be pure lithium. My personal speculation has been that it is to resolve issues with triggering Voltstart but it could also be for another issue they have found.

[booster]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

There are now multiple reports that Roadtrek is, at least in some cases, installing an add-on AGM battery in vans that were supposed to be pure lithium. My personal speculation has been that it is to resolve issues with triggering Voltstart but it could also be for another issue they have found.

It may also be for the rest of the charging sources, also. Most of the shore chargers and solar controllers need battery reference to start a charge cycle, or they just lock down. The PD chargers seem to be the exception to this, as they are also power supplies, and indicated by Mark's results in the Charger settings thread. I assume all the electronics also need power to run, so they would need a source if the batteries are off due to being low.

When all of the original problems with the lithium setups was happening, there were a couple of discussions as to if it could be a battery reference problem, and how Roadtrek was handling the restart if the batteries were too dead to provide that reference.

If this is truly the case, which we don't know yet, it would be a huge miss in the original design and testing.

[wincrasher]

Wow. And whiney armchair engineers may have figured this out. Imagine what a real engineering team could do....

[gregmchugh]

Originally Posted by booster

It may also be for the rest of the charging sources, also. Most of the shore chargers and solar controllers need battery reference to start a charge cycle, or they just lock down. The PD chargers seem to be the exception to this, as they are also power supplies, and indicated by Mark's results in the Charger settings thread. I assume all the electronics also need power to run, so they would need a source if the batteries are off due to being low.

When all of the original problems with the lithium setups was happening, there were a couple of discussions as to if it could be a battery reference problem, and how Roadtrek was handling the restart if the batteries were too dead to provide that reference.

If this is truly the case, which we don't know yet, it would be a huge miss in the original design and testing.

I agree that the AGM battery in the system could be a quick fix for a number of issues they have encountered with a pure Ecotrek system.

The three chargers that seem to be getting installed are known, the Balmar on the auxiliary alternator, a Power Star Inverter/charger for shore power charging, and a Tracer solar charge controller. The configuration of these would be interesting, the solar has only a couple battery type settings and unless they got a custom version of the inverter those configuration options are known and they may be getting some custom setup on the Balmar.

[gerrym51]

Here is the most obvious- the main issue with the original meltdowns was that there was no power to the control panels to turn things back on.

even if you started the engine -since the lithium batteries were turned off no charging power accepted.

an agm battery eliminates this because it does not get turned off.

so it performs 2 functions.

an AGM battery that voltstart can actually read voltage to initiate.

a source of power to the control panels so restarts can actually be done if lithium batteries go into shutdown-whatever the reason.

[gregmchugh]

For the restart on non Voltstart systems I suspect the new reset button for each Ecotrek module might solve the problem. Of course, if it was designed differently, I would think it could be done without resorting to a manual intervention.

[avanti]

Maybe they could add a magneto generator like those in old-time telephones. That way they could have a crank start.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

For the restart on non Voltstart systems I suspect the new reset button for each Ecotrek module might solve the problem. Of course, if it was designed differently, I would think it could be done without resorting to a manual intervention.

still needs power

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by avanti

Maybe they could add a magneto generator like those in old-time telephones. That way they could have a crank start.

I actually suggested a cord from the 12 volt outlet that comes with a van-in the dash-I have 2 in the zion-dash and rear corner that only work if van turned on-that seemed easiest to me

[gregmchugh]

Originally Posted by gerrym51

still needs power

It has power from the internal lithium cells which are not dead and have enough power to run the controller and switch the relay to bring the module back on line.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

It has power from the internal lithium cells which are not dead and have enough power to run the controller and switch the relay to bring the module back on line.

Greg-you are totally wrong on this issue. when the lithium batterys are disconnected they are disconnected -BOTH WAYS-. thats the problem. no power to the control panels to re-connect. because of being disconnected-not necessarily because batteries have no power.

[gregmchugh]

And you know I am wrong because of what info you have seen?

They may have done a poor design but there is no reason it doesn't have the capability to do what I said. What control panel is there besides two manual switches that have no need for any external power? I suggest that the on/off and reset switches connect to the internal Ecotrek controller in some way and there is plenty of power available from the lithium cells to react to these switches.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

And you know I am wrong because of what info you have seen?

They may have done a poor design but there is no reason it doesn't have the capability to do what I said. What control panel is there besides two manual switches that have no need for any external power? I suggest that the on/off and reset switches connect to the internal Ecotrek controller in some way and there is plenty of power available from the lithium cells to react to these switches.

i agree they should-but they don't. dave and bobby had to attach jump starters to pwer up control panels and turn on switches.

why is this-i don't know-but that was the issue

[gregmchugh]

I guess we will see if they fix them so they can work in a reasonable fashion, they seem to have made at least one fix to the controller board already and software can be modified. Without Voltstart there is really no good reason to have the add-on AGM battery, just shows how weak their design is to add an AGM to the base system.

With Voltstart it also shows a weak design if they need an AGM in the system but maybe that just shows how much they really understood how the system would work.

Both are things I would expect for a company like Roadtrek getting into an unfamiliar technology development activity. More indications of a very inadequate staged prototype development and testing process by a newbie when they try something new and try to get to market too quickly.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

I guess we will see if they fix them so they can work in a reasonable fashion, they seem to have made at least one fix to the controller board already and software can be modified. Without Voltstart there is really no good reason to have the add-on AGM battery, just shows how weak their design is to add an AGM to the base system.

With Voltstart it also shows a weak design if they need an AGM in the system but maybe that just shows how much they really understood how the system would work.

Both are things I would expect for a company like Roadtrek getting into an unfamiliar technology development activity. More indications of a very inadequate staged prototype development and testing process by a newbie when they try something new and try to get to market too quickly.

you need the AGM battery to power the control panel in case of an ecotrek shutdown that isolates the ecotrek batteries. I am not an engineer but it is what it is.

seems like a 'Rube Goldberg' contraption to me but as long as it works-aok