Advancing Alvar

[gerrym51]

David- i have a question.

you have autostart-or something similiar- in Alvar.

is the starting for low battery-or 20 percent or whatever-also matched to your inverter?.

in other words-if your air conditioner is running-does the inverter low battery shut off match the 20 percent autostart or would the inverter shut off before 20 peercent.

i'm wondering ?

[Davydd]

Gerry,

I don't need the inverter on except for 110VAC use. I actually now have my Autogen set to come on when the battery SOC hits 30%. If you let it go to 20% Advanced RV has it programmed to simply disconnect the battery bank and to get it back on you would have to plug into shore power or start the engine with your key and hold down a toggle switch for about 6 minutes (about 1% SOC add) to get the batteries back online. 6 minutes is an excruciating long time. I had it set to 25% and was testing and discovered while running the air conditioning and having as much electrical on as I could (testing and anxious to run battery down) that there was a built in time lag. In other words, SOC reached 25% but diagnostics did not kick in until 24% and then it went into a delayed routine for starting up that caused the batteries to deplete to 20% before the engine started. So I upped it to 30% and it worked fine. I did 30% because I have Autogen set not to come on between 10 PM and 7 AM so figure without air conditioning running if the batteries reached 30% in the middle of the night I would still have enough reserve to get through the night.

Now when the batteries hit 30% SOC Autogen kicks in and starts the engine on high idle to charge the batteries. The rate of charge at about 200A is higher than the depletion going on. I have the Autogen set to run 110 minutes which would put nearly 400ah back in the battery or probably 200ah with the air conditioner still running. I assume the engine would go off and in another couple hours it would again come back on when the batteries hit 30% SOC again. I haven't tested that extensively. I assume it would run as long as there was diesel fuel. This isn't ever going to happen with me so is somewhat theoretical.

If I am driving I am at 99% SOC within an hour and would be at that if I stopped for lunch or an recreational event. With our 800ah battery pack I could go 4-5 hours with air conditioning on before Autogen kicked on. Without air conditioning I can sit and camp anywhere from 3-5 days without moving or starting the engine. The wildcard then is how much cooking we do with the induction cooktop and microwave/convection oven. If we didn't use those, it would be easily 5 days. We could stretch that time as well if we just went back to our conservation practices we did in our previous Bs. But why? We have it and I don't recall ever sitting for even 3 days without moving. So far I leave the inverter on more for convenience than necessity. I only need it to cook, make coffee and adjust our articulated beds (which are 110VAC operated.) The inverter probably uses about 70ah in 24 hours being ready on standby. With the inverter always on, boondocking is transparent in electrical use same as shore power.

[gerrym51]

i guess i am not making myself clear. as i did on another post i will use low numbers that can't be confused with anything.

if your inverter senses low voltage at 7 and your autostart senses low voltage at 5 won't the air condtioner stop anyways. seems to me you would want autostart to start at an 8 in this example

[markopolo]

Davydd's system is likely more integrated than two standalone devices.

His system use State of Charge percentages - not only voltage.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by markopolo

Davydd's system is likely more integrated than two standalone devices.

His system use State of Charge percentages - not only voltage.

i actually am not questioning what they use-just if the autostart comes on before inverter decides low voltage and shuts down. Davydd is the only one we know with this system other than some advanced rv owners.

Murphys Law and the law of'unintended consequences' always seem to come up=lol

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by gerrym51

i actually am not questioning what they use-just if the autostart comes on before inverter decides low voltage and shuts down. Davydd is the only one we know with this system other than some advanced rv owners.

Murphys Law and the law of'unintended consequences' always seem to come up=lol

so Davydd-does autostart come on BEFORE the inverter goes into low voltage shutdown-no matter how it's decided

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by gerrym51

so Davydd-does autostart come on BEFORE the inverter goes into low voltage shutdown-no matter how it's decided

Yes. I could set my autostart to come on at anytime. In doing do some testing I had it coming on at 90% SOC just to time that diagnostic startup lag I mentioned. As I said, ARV has arbitrarily set the low voltage for shutdown at 20% SOC or whatever that voltage would be. The user sets the autostart to come on at a higher SOC of choosing. My understanding is lithium ion batteries don't behave like AGM batteries. They have a hockey stick like sudden drop off in charge at the end.

The Silverleaf monitor also reports the voltage readout but I believe the state of charge readouts in percentage just seem easier to understand and has more incremental numbers for accuracy. Though, as I earlier mentioned about blasting right through that 25%, it might not be all that accurate.

I guess I am not sure what you are asking. But then I have no idea what Roadtrek is proposing and how it works.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by Davydd

Yes. I could set my autostart to come on at anytime. In doing do some testing I had it coming on at 90% SOC just to time that diagnostic startup lag I mentioned. As I said, ARV has arbitrarily set the low voltage for shutdown at 20% SOC or whatever that voltage would be. The user sets the autostart to come on at a higher SOC of choosing. My understanding is lithium ion batteries don't behave like AGM batteries. They have a hockey stick like sudden drop off in charge at the end.

The Silverleaf monitor also reports the voltage readout but I believe the state of charge readouts in percentage just seem easier to understand and has more incremental numbers for accuracy. Though, as I earlier mentioned about blasting right through that 25%, it might not be all that accurate.

I guess I am not sure what you are asking. But then I have no idea what Roadtrek is proposing and how it works.

davyyd-inveter/chargers have their own low battery shut off built in. what i'm asking is if your autostart is set at a point that would start the engine before the inverter jusged the battery to low for it. since you can set it(autostart) anyway you want i guess it's a moot point. can you also set when the inverter considers battery low

[markopolo]

A lot of inverters have the shut down voltage set at 10.5 volts. For example, mine sounds an alarm at 11v and would shut down at 10.5v. I just glanced at a ZL Power manual and see the alarm would sound at 10.5v and would shut down at 10v.

It's my understanding that Davydd's setup has protection above that level that would kick in first. He could rely on autostart first, then overall system protection second (automatic battery disconnect), and my guess is the inverter shut down would be third in the line of protection.

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by markopolo

A lot of inverters have the shut down voltage set at 10.5 volts. For example, mine sounds an alarm at 11v and would shut down at 10.5v. I just glanced at a ZL Power manual and see the alarm would sound at 10.5v and would shut down at 10v.

It's my understanding that Davydd's setup has protection above that level that would kick in first. He could rely on autostart first, then overall system protection second (automatic battery disconnect), and my guess is the inverter shut down would be third in the line of protection.

Marko,

I think you have it right. On that third item about the inverter shutting down I am guessing is what Gerry is asking about? I haven't read up on the inverter enough to tell you how it works or is supposed to work. I have a 128 pages of exhaustive Outback Inverter/charger manual. Rather than read it, I just tested. I can turn the inverter/charger off and the engine autostarts. Since my batteries were fully charged I'd have to try it again with the battery drained a bit to see if it also charges. Maybe tomorrow now that my curiosity is tweaked.

If the batteries were disconnected then the engine would not autostart from the Silverleaf touchscreen panel or autostart on its own since those electronics would be down. I don't know if it would still autostart keyless from the key fobs.

[gerrym51]

my question that started this was simple-i thoutht.

if one has an inverter and an autostart type sytem.

say you leave your van and have the air conditioner running-for your pets.

say your inverter is set to shut off at 10 volts to protect battery charge.

as marko said Jim Hammill says voltrek will start engine at 11.2 volts,

so air conditioner should stay running.

i was just wondering if the inverter would shut down before the autostart worked.

then of course the air conditioner would be off even if autostart worked.

it apppears this is not a concern.

[Davydd]

Gerry,

I went to great lengths describing how my Advanced RV works. I have a totally different system than Roadtrek or your potential one. I don't know if you can assume Roadtrek will work the same. Have you asked Roadtrek or Jim Hammill? I doubt if anyone has a Roadtrek autostart yet.

[markopolo]

The Outback inverter might even be programmable. I haven't read up on them.

Anyone relying on autostart or volttrek type setups for climate control for pets would need to test the system in a variety of conditions before relying on it. Some sort of app monitoring and reporting to a smart phone would allow them to monitor the RV conditions.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by Davydd

Gerry,

I went to great lengths describing how my Advanced RV works. I have a totally different system than Roadtrek or your potential one. I don't know if you can assume Roadtrek will work the same. Have you asked Roadtrek or Jim Hammill? I doubt if anyone has a Roadtrek autostart yet.

Davydd-you did certainly do that. i did not understand it.

unless you actually know if autostart works before the inverter shut off comes into play all the other stuff means nothing to me

[booster]

I don't know how any of it is set up, but it would seem to be totally useless to have the inverter low voltage cutout set higher than the autostart voltage.

You might get a cycle or two of the inverter coming back on as the the batteries recovered with the load off, but then it would just sit there off. It would still be above the cutoff voltage for the inverter, so it would be considerably above the cutin voltage for the autostart.

Anybody with pets in the van would almost certainly get overheated animals that way.

I can't imagine anyone making a system that way.

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by gerrym51

Davydd-you did certainly do that. i did not understand it.

unless you actually know if autostart works before the inverter shut off comes into play all the other stuff means nothing to me

I need to go to electric school.

Let me try again. I think of everything as percent of SOC and not voltage cutoff. Advanced RV described it much the same way to me. ARV said when the SOC reaches 20% the batteries disconnect so that they cannot be discharged further. I assume that means about 11.6 volts? Whether there is a programmed battery disconnect or whether the Outback Inverter is doing that I don't really know. I do know the 20% SOC is arbitrarily programmed by ARV as evidently Roadtrek is stating 10%. If that were to happen (battery disconnect), the inverter does not read that there are batteries. Thus the air conditioning would not work nor would anything else electrically in the coach side.

If that happens, then to restore my power I have to either plug into shore power or start my engine to charge the batteries. To do so the procedure is to manually hold down the battery disconnect toggle switch to the on position long enough to charge the batteries 1% for power to come back on. Holding that switch can take as much as 6 minutes for 1% which I said was a tedious thing to do. So to prevent that from ever happening ARV built in so you can program autostart to come on at any percent SOC. As I said I currently have that set at 30%. Some use 40%. In my effort to understand what happens I was testing at 90% SOC to have the engine to autostart. So, yes the autostart comes on before the inverter can shut off, if in fact it is the inverter doing so, because it is programmed to do so. This is what I have been testing and as I mentioned in an earlier post I discovered I needed more of a cushion of 25% I had set to prevent the batteries reaching 20% SOC before the autostart kicked in.

Once the engine starts it is delivering about 200 amps to the batteries which is way more than the air conditioning is pulling. It will run for a programmed 110 minutes (changeable by me if desired.) As I mentioned the air conditioning will continue to operate and operate maybe a couple hours after the engine shuts off since the batteries will build charge while the air conditioning is on. I assume once the batteries get back down to 30% it would be rinse and repeat until the diesel tank is depleted. To me this is all theory because it is never going to happen to me. If I stop for lunch I have an easy 4-5 hours of battery capacity to run the air conditioning.

With Roadtrek they say 10%. You are asking if when 10% is reached will the autostart come on before the inverter shuts down? Do they have an arbitrary higher percentage you can set to have autostart to come on like ARV does? That is a question for Roadtrek.

[gerrym51]

Davydd-thank you

[Davydd]

Part One

There has been a lot of talk about storage in a Class B in various forums. I decided maybe I should put together in one spot how I arrived at what I desired in storage for Alvar. Besides the articulated beds I designed I also had some specific storage desires in the back I wanted to achieve with the design.

Originally I was hoping for a 17” high clearance under the beds. Circumstances and bed mechanism availability eventually cut that clearance to 15”. That was a bit of compromise but I can live with it as other bed solutions could barely give you 11 or 12 inch clearance.

Here is the space. What you see from left to right under the bed headboard is the enclosure for the inverter/charger. There is 22” of depth in front of that enclosure to the back doors. In the middle is an opening with black plastic strips where a cat litter box can sit with its opening facing the van interior. The depth at that face to the back doors is 48”. On the right side the opening goes past the wheel well with a total depth of 70”. We carried 5 fishing rods and reels on top of kayaks in that space last week. The left to right dimension between the inverter/charger enclosure and the right side wall is 52.5”. I can’t get a 4’ x 8’ plywood board in there but I can a 4’ x 4’. I can lay a lot of long 2 x boards on the floor poking through the opening for the cat litter box.

Above is a shelf that is 15” deep x 12” high x 55” wide.



The above shelf in relative terms is huge. I’ve stored two kayak paddles, a camera tripod, a monopod, two pairs of walking poles, campfire utensils and golf clubs all at one time. I joke about the golf clubs. I do have a golf club with an adjustable head up there. I actually played a round of golf with it (once.) We stick our life preservers up there when we carry the kayaks. We also keep front cab insulated quilt window covers up there that we rarely use. We could put fishing poles and rods there as well. All in all, I doubt we could fill it with the long stuff.

Last week we did a weekend trip to a northern Minnesota lake. We took our two Advanced Elements inflatable kayaks with us on that trip. We left the cat at home. The bags for the kayaks are 30” x 17” x 10” optimistically. In actuality they bulge out a bit more. Those two kayaks filled our hitch mounted LetsGoAero 20 cubic foot cargo carrier we no longer use that we bought when we had our 2005 Pleasure-way Plateau. We could get the kayaks under our sofa in our 2011 Great West Van Legend but little else. We couldn’t with the Pleasure-way. Here is the storage space with the two kayaks and a 26” x 18” x 12” high Rubbermaid ActionPacker container containing mostly outside camp cooking stuff. The milk crate box in front of the inverter/charger pretty much has a permanent spot.



As you can see there is space left over and room enough to put cooler or another storage box and a charcoal grill.



Finally, in front of that we can store bulky chairs as there is an 8.5” space between the headboard and back doors.

[Davydd]

Part Two

Other variations to make room for the cat litter box is to put two ActionPackers on the right side. We can also carry a 28” x 9” x 9” Eddie Bauer screen house bag as shown next to the inverter/charger enclosure. The screen house measures 12 ft. x 14 ft. when put up.



Needless to say again we can fill the remaining space with a PizzaQue gas pizza oven instead of a grill and the chairs of course.



Other variations include carrying zero gravity lounge chairs instead of director chairs. We could still carry those director chairs on top of the ActionPacker containers. On our first trip we carried an XTend telescoping ladder and we also carry a couple of aluminum tables.



One more thing. We have “basement” storage. We have three below the floor storage bins. Two side bins measuring 12" x 10.5" x 11” H and one center bin measuring 30" x 12" x 14” D. That’s about 5 cubic feet total. I have been keeping plumbing supplies in the left bin including a slinky hose but have decided the macerator works fine and if I need one in an emergency I can always buy one on the road. The right bin carries our lego like leveling blocks. We rarely use them. The middle bin is packed with tools, air compressor, electrical cords, water hose and stuff I may never use.



All in all I think it is about three times the space we had in our Pleasure-way and about twice the space we had in our Great West Van, maybe more. I have a 24” high space under the center console mattress between our two beds that I haven’t figured out how to optimize yet. That’s it. It is mostly for outside stuff use that doesn’t get in the way inside our living space and I think we have a lot of it.

[obgraham]

Well done there, Davydd. Obviously you learned a lot from 2 prior rigs. I sure wish my space back there in the CS was more functional.