Advancing Alvar

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by BobB

Like Davyyd, I was in the design field. One always has fundamental discussions with a client - from the start - about program, schedule and budget. The clients who said "don't worry about the budget" are the scariest; we always gave them an estimate, whether they wanted it or not.

Yep, and you had to meet that budget and estimate or you would be redesigning and redrawing on your own nickel.

[classbbud]

I realize now it was a mistake to post my experience. I was just very frustrated.

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by Applegater

David, picking up JAKE at ARV in mid- December therefore really interested in your cold weather observations since we will be parking JAKE outside when we get home. Especially interested in how the glycol heater works plugged into shore power. For other recent posters our experience with ARV has been great.

I know from experience you can stay quite comfortable boondocking with the diesel-fired Rixen Espar heat. I'll soon know if you can just plugged in. Of course, plugged in, there is the additional option of one of those 1500w ceramic cube heaters I used in my previous Bs. We are going to Mike Wendland's winter challenge rally at Tahquamenon Falls, Michigan UP in January. Shore power will be available.

BTW, ARV has gone to Thinsulate insulation now instead of the blue denim I have. I haven't checked R values so don't know if it is greater or not. It is about a 2" thick material with a scrim like backing.

I almost forgot we have an insulated cover for the MaxxAir fan. I put that on. Things get put away and forgotten inside the van. We also have an insulated reflective blanket insulation for the windshield and two side cab windows. I should check that out as well. We haven't used it yet.

[BobB]

Originally Posted by classbbud

I realize now it was a mistake to post my experience. I was just very frustrated.

I don't think it was a mistake. Many of us have been frustrated with vehicles, systems and dealers and we all understand. And I (IMHO) think it helps to share those frustrations - sometimes someone on this forum can help you with your problem.

So you now have an "RV design" that reflects all your needs, wants and desires (the program), probably a timeline (the schedule) from ARV to build it and deliver it, and a price (the budget). You're choking on the budget.

The program - Size of battery bank, number of solar panels, cabinetry, interior finishes, complexity of systems, number of windows, etc - is what is driving the price.

The only way you really can get the budget down is to look at the program, and work with ARV to get the $ down. Tell them your budget and ask them if how to get the $ down. Obviously you may have to give up some things. Without know what the design was, it is difficult to assess where the money is. This is often called "value engineering" in design parlance. Agree with ARV on a schedule for this exercise.

The trade-offs might not be acceptable to you, even though that might get the $ down. That's your call.

[obgraham]

I agree with BobB. Not a mistake at all! Some of us here are at least curious about what the cost is to get the no-compromise rig of your dreams.
For the majority, no doubt that price is too over-the-top, but it helps us to understand the pricing of a more mass-market builder, such as RT.

[BobB]

Classbbud,

One other thing. When you look at your program, ask ARV what can be installed later, i.e. phasing. For instance, you might not be able to afford all the batteries and all the solar panels right now, but maybe ARV can install the basic system and future wiring and you can have ARV install add'l batteries and/or panels at a later date, when your budget allows.

Just a thought. Still, if you were thinking 200k and they said think 300k, that's a pretty large gap. Many of us will be interested in how it all turns out. Good luck.

[mikes47]

Classbbud-If you've asked for a whopping battery pack, that's one area to scale back easily. There's a lot of investment in those and, as David has said here and elsewhere - 800 Ah is really more than adequate. I have An ARV (Imagine) with 600 Ah and find that meets our needs quite well. I also use Imagine as my daily driver in South East Michigan and it winters very well.

[Applegater]

Probably shouldn't comment on your experience with ARV but it doesn't match up even remotely close to ours. We flew to ARV, spent two long days determining our rough needs and design(after lot of research on their website and forum comments from ARV customers) left after two days with basic design and a itemized estimate. Resolved items over phone went back to ARV two months later, fined tuned design and got a final offer that was less than 5% greater than the preliminary estimate.

[BobB]

Originally Posted by mikes47

Classbbud-If you've asked for a whopping battery pack, that's one area to scale back easily. There's a lot of investment in those and, as David has said here and elsewhere - 800 Ah is really more than adequate. I have An ARV (Imagine) with 600 Ah and find that meets our needs quite well. I also use Imagine as my daily driver in South East Michigan and it winters very well.

What he said.

As you will read often here "different strokes for different folks". Ask yourself "What do you need?" which is usually different from "what do you want ?"

Do an "energy audit", a fancy way of saying "how will you use energy" in your RV. We have done ours, and if we get a new RV, it will probably be a 400Ah bank (and AGM would be fine - Lithium is icing on the cake) PLUS some solar panels. Start with one panel and expand as needed (you can do that on a Travato, for instance). Keep $ down, spend it on travel.

The difference in cost between a basic 400Ah system and an 800+Ah lithium system + several solar panels + the system to make it all work (ARV seems to be very good at this) is quite a bit of money.

Cabinetry + finishes + hardware can also jack up the price.

[BobB]

Originally Posted by Applegater

..........left after two days with basic design and a itemized estimate.

Something must have gone wrong in Classbbud's process with ARV.

[Davydd]

We pretty much wrapped up everything we wanted in one long day the day after the 2014 Advanced Fest. I had carefully done my research in advance. The only thing I changed after that was to increase the battery bank from 600ah to 800ah. Also, as chronicled earlier in this thread, I spent a lot of time on the development of those articulating beds and doing my own clarification drawings for them and some other plan changes.

[Exechobo]

Davyyd, just a quick coupla things-
Thanks for your continual input and insights.

And while you don't mention actually doing so, it is in advisable to let a modern vehicle (not the house system) go dark. Personal experience- on a Mercedes, I let the battery go dead while traveling (it took only a few weeks due to continual draw from onboard computer systems). I learned that when the system goes dark for an extended time, a security protocol is activated, requiring, in my case, a very expensive transport to a dealer, and about $800 for a new chip. I'm not sure if this applies to your model/year, but I now make sure anything I own newer than 2005 gets a maintainer charger when I leave it.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by Exechobo

I now make sure anything I own newer than 2005 gets a maintainer charger when I leave it.

Assuming you have a Sprinter, if you disconnect the ground connector up by the accelerator pedal, your battery will last many months without issue.

This is a Mercedes-approved method for long-term storage.

[Davydd]

If I disconnect the house battery then, yes, I would also have to disconnect the chassis battery and Avanti described that procedure. There is a battery lead under the dash to remove. If I leave the house battery on shore power then they will in turn Trik-L Charge the chassis battery.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by Davydd

If I leave the house battery on shore power then they will in turn Trik-L Charge the chassis battery.

Or, solar, of course--assuming you are parking somewhere with decent light. By my way of thinking, this is the most useful reason to have at least a little solar. Any contribution to operating power is welcome but minor on most rigs.

Trik-L-Charge is definitely a good idea.

[Davydd]

Our solar goes directly to the house battery. So, any charge from it would be via the Trik-L Charger.

Alvar is kind of in a wooded bowl when parked at home. It is a good 22 ft. lower than the road 200 feet away. So I never see a sunrise or sunset. Already in November sunrise is 7:26 AM and sunset is 4:37 PM. That's about 9 hours of daylight with an extremely low sun angle. We probably have less than 7 hours of actual viewable sun right now. Solar contribution is insignificant.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by Davydd

Solar contribution is insignificant.

Certainly insignificant as a source of usable power (that is part of my point). But, perhaps not so as a balance to parasitic loads on a parked vehicle. (I realize that you have access to shore power--I am speaking in general). Even under poor conditions, daytime power from a solar setup is rarely zero. It would be interesting to know how much current a Trik-L-Start needs to balance a parked Sprinter. I suspect not much.

[Davydd]

I suppose if you dedicated solar just for the chassis battery it would make sense, but that is not the case with my setup. When on the road it is obviously not an issue at all. It is just winter storage that it becomes an issue of possibly using solar for the chassis battery and only if parked outside.

If I ever parked for three or more days I might appreciate solar. That just isn't my style. The only time I have parked that long were at B rallies and socials and by sheer numbers of different Bs the only places they have been held were at shore power campgrounds.

[Davydd]

There has been a lot of discussion about state of charge (SOC) and what is best for lithium ion batteries. There is a common belief that SOC is best hovering around 60%. I am not sure how valid that is as most of what I have research has been anecdotal.

So, going over what I have learned to date about my system. I have an 800ah lithium ion battery bank. ARV has arbitrarily said that when you reach 20% SOC you battery bank will simply disconnect and the only way to get it back online is to restart with a charging load be it from shore power or via a running engine. That means I only have 640ah of actual energy at my disposal. This is an extremely conservative approach because Roadtrek runs down to 10% SOC before their Voltstart recharges. I have programmed what ARV calls Autogen to come on at 30% SOC. What this really means is 30% of 640ah which translates to 44% SOC of the whole 800ah. Confusing? It was to me initially. That is very conservative, but I have yet to get down that low to have my Autogen come on other than my deliberate testing.

So, the other end. The full charge situation. Mine were set up to charge up to 100% and then seemingly settle on a 99% SOC. I typically have about a 6 amp per hour average discharge when sitting unattended from some stuff always one. So, when plugged into shore power it was an almost constant replenishment to keep it steady at 99%. ARV is changing this. Now, when on shore power, the batteries will charge up to a full SOC and then the charger will shut down until the batteries drop back to 90% SOC. The charger will then recharge to full. So, when on shore power in a downtime storage situation the charging is not constant. Roughly, the charging should come on about every 12 hours and charge for a couple of hours. I just got a software change for this and will be observing for a while.

Of course you can disconnect the batteries all together and your van will go cold and powerless and the batteries will easily go through a winter season that way, but as I mentioned, I am in and out of Alvar all the time. I like the idea of turning on the lights or putzing around inside or even turn on the heat, so would like to keep my power on. Plus, the battery heater pads will always keep the batteries above freezing that way.

[booster]

The whole idea of how to define the state of charge is pretty interesting, and arbitrary, I think. You have to define the zero and 100 percent points, and that is up to interpretation depending on how you define it. Then you put a safety factor on each end over the zero point and under the full point by what ever percent you chose. So pretty clear to that point.

Then you get to define how you make the meter read. Is 0% start of charge really zero charge or with safety factor? If 100% really full or with a safety factor on it? How that is done would determine how your meter reads SOC. It could be zero to 100% or it could be (picking random factors) 20% to 90%. I wouldn't count on Roadtrek's 10% to line up with anybody else or Smart Battery's run to zero percent really being zero for anyone else. None of it really matters, if you know how they did it, like davydd does.

It is very interesting that ARV is starting to cycle the batteries on charge. We have to assume it is to address the "don't leave them full and on charge" problem that has been discussed a whole bunch here. It is also the profile the Magnum has been recommending for lithium, basically their CC/CV program with a shut off and rebulk when the voltage drops. What it isn't is the Progressive Dynamics constant full voltage on full batteries setup on their charger, which is probably worth noting.

Good information.