Consumer Education

[mikes47]

Just published: An Introduction to Lithium Batteries. Seems like a lot of button pushing to me.

https://youtu.be/I_1vAMrvqnA

[booster]

Sounds and looks like typical Roadtrek, "we are great" propaganda. Laced with lots of distortions and pix of air conditioners on batteries. Also had to take a shot at other manufacturers in the cold charging section--charge at -40 degrees F??

The fact that folks are still trying to sort out the "perfect" (grossly overpromised spec) etreks on several threads here, and the horrible rollout of Ecotrek, should tell folks to be very careful.

[wincrasher]

But don't sue us if it isn't right or we have to change things to make it all work!

Oh yeah, save money by giving us $25k for all this revolutionary tech!

[gregmchugh]

What on earth will the "armchair engineers" do with all the time on their hands if Roadtrek gets all the bugs worked out and heaven forbid has no issues to dissect?

[wincrasher]

If that were to happen, then you could expect the Roadtrek vs ARV battles to begin. I'll be too busy running my Unicorn farm to participate.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by booster

Sounds and looks like typical Roadtrek, "we are great" propaganda.

Yeah, but the "scribbling marker" motif is oh so cute. Oh, wait... It's not 2005 any more? Never mind.

[gregmchugh]

The video does seem to confirm the possibility that there may be only one Ecotrek module that is 200 ah at 12v with all the larger systems built up from multiples of the 200 ah box. Latest photos of delivered vans show a switchplate for each battery as shown in the video.

[booster]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

What on earth will the "armchair engineers" do with all the time on their hands if Roadtrek gets all the bugs worked out and heaven forbid has no issues to dissect?

We might actually have to find something "useful" to do

[booster]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

The video does seem to confirm the possibility that there may be only one Ecotrek module that is 200 ah at 12v with all the larger systems built up from multiples of the 200 ah box. Latest photos of delivered vans show a switchplate for each battery as shown in the video.

It would certainly make sense to do it that way, although the multiple, manual switching deal is kind of puzzling. Perhaps that is a new Roadtrek battery monitor system, when you are out of switches to turn on, you are out of power.

[gregmchugh]

The switch panel for each battery does seem unwieldy, be interesting to see if the 1600 ah has 8 switch plates or some other configuration with 8 switches. I can see some possible scenarios where you could reset a module that has shutdown to bring it back online. Seems to beg for a networked set of modules with a display interface to monitor and control the system.

[gsm]

Maybe you use one module while the others are being charged. This avoids the issue of discharging a module while it is charging.

[gregmchugh]

Originally Posted by gsm

Maybe you use one module while the others are being charged. This avoids the issue of discharging a module while it is charging.

Interesting idea but how would that be implemented?

My guess I is that there is only one power connection to the module used for both charging and discharging and there is either no charger active and you see battery voltage powering the loads or there is charging voltage on the line and the battery management system in the module uses the charge voltage/current as needed to charge the cells. The battery management system also does low voltage cutoff, prevents overcharging, balances the cells, controls the heating pads, etc. I suspect they may also have the internal charger handle charge voltage and allow a range of charge voltage into the module which might be how they handle the mixed AGM/lithium system with the overall charger set up for AGM and the internal charger handling the lithium charge voltage. Just my WAG on potential operation, as usual, I could have my head where the sun don't shine