New to RVs and Hopeful Warp Core RoadTrekkers

[WingedRyno]

Originally Posted by GeorgeRa

Congratulation and have fun. Is your Alde diesel or LPG power?

Diesel.

And thanks to a small cold snap with last night down to about 50F - I was able to test out the Alde. And it worked fine. Nice feeling to have a warm floor on bare feet!

[GeorgeRa]

Diesel for Alde must be new as their literature doesn’t list one. Perhaps, just like Truma partnered with Eberspacher for diesel burner technology, Alde partnered with someone as well. There are only a few companies making diesel heaters for automotvie application, Eberspacher (Espar in NA) and Webasto from Germany, Planar from Russia and one or more Chinese copies. I believe that Espar penetrated NA market well.

Diesel burners need more maintenance than LPG ones, Eberspacher / Espar or Webasto recommend very specific maintenance. A generic maintenance is to clean combustion chamber and other components by running the heater on high fueled by kerosene. Diesel heaters are complex and for diagonostics their thrmostats usuaaly include system fail code readers, I hope Alde has one as well.

Enjoy your van.

[Boxster1971]

Originally Posted by WingedRyno

Diesel.

And thanks to a small cold snap with last night down to about 50F - I was able to test out the Alde. And it worked fine. Nice feeling to have a warm floor on bare feet!

You have got to love Minnesota cold snaps in the middle of August.
I'm heading there in a couple of weeks and looking forward to escaping the heat here in Maryland.

[booster]

Originally Posted by Boxster1971

You have got to love Minnesota cold snaps in the middle of August.
I'm heading there in a couple of weeks and looking forward to escaping the heat here in Maryland.

Yep, we had no more than 57* yesterday, 70's for the next few coming, but it is August so we will have some 90s and high dew points waiting for you along with the 5# mosquitoes . What part of Mn are heading for?

[Boxster1971]

Originally Posted by booster

Yep, we had no more than 57* yesterday, 70's for the next few coming, but it is August so we will have some 90s and high dew points waiting for you along with the 5# mosquitoes . What part of Mn are heading for?

First stop will be Austin, then on to Stillwater. Ultimately Brooklyn Park and a flight to Iceland. After Iceland and Greenland heading to Michigan Upper Peninsula - our summer trip this year.

I was born and raised in Saint Cloud. Left the state to join the Navy after college and haven't lived there since. But we do get back every year, usually in summer, since we have a lot of family there. I have made the trip with my Sprinter van in the middle of February. That was a good test of starting at -17degF.

[cruising7388]

Originally Posted by booster

I do still think it is highly unlikely. Of course anything can and does happen sometimes. I think it is also just as likely, or more, there was something else that was wrong, either wiring or how set that contributed, but we will never here about that if it was.

Programming would not be a factor in the first failure since that one never lit off at all. It may have been a factor in the second one but I doubt it since the display was active and indicated both the correct battery voltage and the desired target voltage which should have activated the field winding terminal which apparently was unresponsive.

Except for some far reaching locations, most of these coaches are driven to the dealer which would provide the opportunity for a sufficiently trained driver to to verify that everything is up to snuff. That doesn't seem to be the case. Our coach on delivery had a non-functional dash AC which required a trip to Chevy to determine that there was a crack in one of the tubes. That was fixed but it was then determined that there was a defective dash AC control which was replaced and restored correct operation. Bottom line is that this coach was driven 700+ miles to the dealer and it's difficult to believe that for that distance that the driver wouldn't have noticed the inert dash AC, but it was never reported to the dealer on delivery.

WingedRyno's situation is somewhat different. If those batteries were fully charged on departure from the factory, with a humongous 1600ah battery bank, there might not have been any obvious symptoms of lack of GU alternator support during the drive to the dealer.

[booster]

I don't think that the first Balmar can be assumed to not have been on at all, as something could have taken it out before it was looked at. There is no way Nations could have programmed it if it wouldn't light up even. The second could have been bad, programmed wrong, or there could have been two separate problems in the van. Nobody will really never know, and that doesn't really matter, I think, it is just the extremely high odds against having two bad ones, that were known to at least partially function while at Nations would be very unusual.

[cruising7388]

Originally Posted by booster

I don't think that the first Balmar can be assumed to not have been on at all, as something could have taken it out before it was looked at. There is no way Nations could have programmed it if it wouldn't light up even. The second could have been bad, programmed wrong, or there could have been two separate problems in the van. Nobody will really never know, and that doesn't really matter, I think, it is just the extremely high odds against having two bad ones, that were known to at least partially function while at Nations would be very unusual.

OK, as a raw statistic, I agree with your assessment of the odds. That said, however, the OEM testing protocol is not clear. If Nations programs every Balmar that comes in the door, since the first regulator couldn't even be programmed, it would have been discarded. But if Balmar programs them to Nation's specifications perhaps they aren't subjected to further testing at Nations. One thing to note is that Nations indicated with respect to the second regulator they were shipping, that they were testing it. How was this test different from their normal Q&A?

[booster]

AFAIK, Nations is still doing the programming of the units, but it could have changed. My guess would be that they normally don't really "test" them as in running them on a test bench with an alternator and battery, but they would see if the power up and program when the do the programming. The second one probably went on the test bench. The programming issue is what makes the first one very suspect as having been damaged by something in the van or at Roadtrek. As I said, we will never know, and it mostly interesting, but nothing much more unless they could have learned something in the past that could have prevented WingedRyno from having so much trouble.

[booster]

Originally Posted by cruising7388

Our coach on delivery had a non-functional dash AC which required a trip to Chevy to determine that there was a crack in one of the tubes. That was fixed but it was then determined that there was a defective dash AC control which was replaced and restored correct operation.

It is interesting about the AC issue. If it was one of the tubes on the passenger side of the engine, it could have been cracked putting in the engine generator. On the Chevies, there is very little room in that area to stuff in the hardware and alternator, and it does vary a bit by years. Our 07 was worse than another member's 09 chassis with and extra valve there for heater shutoff and a different wiring harness position. You literally have to bend the accumulator tank out of the way.

[wincrasher]

The more I read this thread, the more relief I feel in dodging a bullet.

[Bud]

Originally Posted by wincrasher

The more I read this thread, the more relief I feel in dodging a bullet.

You would know wincrasher, since you had pulled the trigger.

Bud

[BBQ]

Originally Posted by wincrasher

The more I read this thread, the more relief I feel in dodging a bullet.

Not every bright-eyed fanboy agrees with you.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by wincrasher

The more I read this thread, the more relief I feel in dodging a bullet.

Sometimes yes sometimes no. many have them with everything and they work fine. a few do not.

[cruising7388]

Originally Posted by gerrym51

Sometimes yes sometimes no. many have them with everything and they work fine. a few do not.

It's distantly analogous to the conundrum that faces the press when they are chided for gruesome inflammatory journalism. The somber fact is that they would all go broke trying to sell newspapers reporting that nothing bad happened today.

The fact of life is that those folks that experience problems are understandably vocal about expressing their dissatisfaction Those that experience few or no problems and are happy as clams in the sand are less likely to express that sentiment.

[booster]

At the risk of being a nay-sayer, I would contend that a lithium battery system that costs tens of thousands of dollars and loses 2% of its capacity PER HOUR when just sitting there is not exactly working "fine". Getting by usable, maybe, but you really need to have an extra 200ah module compared to a system without that much parasitic to have near the same real capacity in use, and that costs $. That is how much capacity wet cells, which lose much more than AGMs, lose in a MONTH of sitting.

[WingedRyno]

I've been very happy with the lithium so far. Yesterday I boondocked from 1pm until 6am the next morning using just one of the eight EcoTreks and when I pulled chocks in the morning, it still had more than half of its capacity. And I wasn't even being all that energy conserving.

And when the sun was up, I was running purely off solar without the battery taking a hit.

The air conditioner, however, is an issue. I'll be blogging about it soon in more detail, but today it ran for 1.5 hours while I was driving, low 70s outside and mostly overcast and it reduced the temp inside the coach by only one degree. As soon as I turned the AC off, within minutes, it was back up to the original temp (which is an insulation issue, not the A/C). Fifteen minutes later it was 83F in the coach despite being low 70s outside and mostly overcast.

Pulled into a KOA with shore power and ran it on max tilt and it couldn't even get the coach colder than it was outside. Still overcast.

Either the A/C does not work or the A/C is a total waste of roof space that would be better replaced with an additional solar panel and a better fan system to circulate air.

No way this thing would be livable in Florida during the summer. Not a chance.

One thing I find interesting is the different readings from the two solar charge controllers. Sometimes they both have a slow flash showing the battery bank is fully charged. Sometimes, however, one shows the batteries are fully charged and the other does not. Makes me wonder if one solar charger is charging some of the batteries, and the other is charging others instead of both charging all.

But the solar charger is a good way to see if the batteries are full in addition with the 13.6 voltage reading.

I'm very happy with this RoadTrek so far, except for the air conditioning.

[cruising7388]

Originally Posted by booster

At the risk of being a nay-sayer, I would contend that a lithium battery system that costs tens of thousands of dollars and loses 2% of its capacity PER HOUR when just sitting there is not exactly working "fine". Getting by usable, maybe, but you really need to have an extra 200ah module compared to a system without that much parasitic to have near the same real capacity in use, and that costs $. That is how much capacity wet cells, which lose much more than AGMs, lose in a MONTH of sitting.

Your math is spot on but I think you're leveling your volley at the wrong target. The losses involved here are not from a battery with chemistry that invites excessive local discharge. Lithium bstteries seem to have local discharge rates equal to or lower than AGMs. The culprit is the BMS that uses power totally disproportionate to to what should be necessary to fulfill it's mission. The sensors that simply monitor temperature, voltage, power delivery and charge rates involve circuitry operating a signal levels. The remaining viable suspect are the BMS power relays that control the load and charging ports. Redesigned to use bi-stable relays, I don't think the "parasitic" loss would be any higher than it is on the Silverleaf system.

Now whether these lithium batteries provide the return on investment compared to a slug of AGMs that admittedly may have a shorter service life than lithiums, well, that's a different kettle of fish. The RT 6 year non-prorated warranty alleviates some concern with this yet to be determined equation. The incidence of the number and the depth of discharge of these batteries will largely depend on how they are used. Paradoxically,for RT, the larger the battery bank they install, the less likely there will be battery failures within the warranty period but the more likely there will be failures from overworked inverters and altternators.

[markopolo]

Originally Posted by WingedRyno

................ it still had more than half of its capacity..................

How do you know remaining capacity?

Originally Posted by WingedRyno

................ Makes me wonder if one solar charger is charging some of the batteries, and the other is charging others instead of both charging all..................

Ask & find out the answer. It would be good to know.

Sounds like you're having fun.

Maybe someone here will comment on the air conditioner performance in a RT Sprinter to give you an idea if it should work better than what you've experienced.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by WingedRyno

I've been very happy with the lithium so far. Yesterday I boondocked from 1pm until 6am the next morning using just one of the eight EcoTreks and when I pulled chocks in the morning, it still had more than half of its capacity. And I wasn't even being all that energy conserving.

And when the sun was up, I was running purely off solar without the battery taking a hit.

The air conditioner, however, is an issue. I'll be blogging about it soon in more detail, but today it ran for 1.5 hours while I was driving, low 70s outside and mostly overcast and it reduced the temp inside the coach by only one degree. As soon as I turned the AC off, within minutes, it was back up to the original temp (which is an insulation issue, not the A/C). Fifteen minutes later it was 83F in the coach despite being low 70s outside and mostly overcast.

Pulled into a KOA with shore power and ran it on max tilt and it couldn't even get the coach colder than it was outside. Still overcast.

Either the A/C does not work or the A/C is a total waste of roof space that would be better replaced with an additional solar panel and a better fan system to circulate air.

No way this thing would be livable in Florida during the summer. Not a chance.

One thing I find interesting is the different readings from the two solar charge controllers. Sometimes they both have a slow flash showing the battery bank is fully charged. Sometimes, however, one shows the batteries are fully charged and the other does not. Makes me wonder if one solar charger is charging some of the batteries, and the other is charging others instead of both charging all.

But the solar charger is a good way to see if the batteries are full in addition with the 13.6 voltage reading.

I'm very happy with this RoadTrek so far, except for the air conditioning.

Are you sure you have the air conditioner running and not just the fan thats in the air conditioner?.. you need to set the Fan on AU and then set the air conditioner on. Have you practiced sliding the vents on the air conditioner? there are 3. one at each end and the one that lets full blast straight down in the middle. also a fan on the floor helps with spreading the air around