In-Depth RV Lithium Install & Wiring Film - Mike Mas

[IdleUp]

Thanks for all the reply's - Since all the comments were on everything but the true intended use of a high idle feature, I figured I would state some facts on the real reason manufacturers incorporate high-idle features on diesels.

Also, idling a diesel at truck stops to keep the AC or heat going is all together a different use of the high-idle function because the engine is all ready at designed temperature. Anyhow, this is a way off the scope of this thread to discuss proper warm up techniques of diesels.

Best Regards - Mike

[avanti]

Isn't it wonderful that we live in an age in which "facts" are whatever Some Guy on the Internet says they are?

[booster]

Originally Posted by avanti

Isn't it wonderful that we live in an age in which "facts" are whatever Some Guy on the Internet says they are?

But only if they are triple checked, though

[IdleUp]

Thanks for the replies - Guys I pride my writings with factual information derived from actual experience and surrounding myself with key people in the field. I would never speculate a fact, nor depend on Google as other writers do.

Mike

[avanti]

Originally Posted by IdleUp

Thanks for the replies - Guys I pride my writings with factual information derived from actual experience and surrounding myself with key people in the field. I would never speculate a fact, nor depend on Google as other writers do.

Mike

I hope that other people who come to this thread via Google don't rely on it either.

[IdleUp]

Originally Posted by avanti

I hope that other people who come to this thread via Google don't rely on it either.

It's a proven fact that Google is always behind actual technology. This is why I study and surround myself with the experts in major corporations around the world to gain important information for my articles and videos, so others like yourself can benefit from my “real world” experiences.

Sooner or later you're going to have to accept the fact other users know as much or even more than you. Regretfully, hanging around a van forum 24/7 does not provide the needed expertise to keep up to speed on what is happening in the real world of electronics.


Best Regards - Mike

[booster]

Originally Posted by IdleUp

It's a proven fact that Google is always behind actual technology. This is why I study and surround myself with the experts in major corporations around the world to gain important information for my articles and videos, so others like yourself can benefit from my “real world” experiences.

Sooner or later you're going to have to accept the fact other users know as much or even more than you. Regretfully, hanging around a van forum 24/7 does not provide the needed expertise to keep up to speed on what is happening in the real world of electronics.


Best Regards - Mike

All I can say is that this is a 100% triple checked, overactive ego, sef serving, dissertation.


Truly smart, experienced, innovative, people don't have to tell anyone they are--everyone can tell very easily.


I also hope the folks visiting here don't believe all this spewing and puffing.

[GeorgeRa]

Originally Posted by IdleUp

It's a proven fact that Google is always behind actual technology. This is why I study and surround myself with the experts in major corporations around the world to gain important information for my articles and videos, so others like yourself can benefit from my “real world” experiences.

Sooner or later you're going to have to accept the fact other users know as much or even more than you. Regretfully, hanging around a van forum 24/7 does not provide the needed expertise to keep up to speed on what is happening in the real world of electronics.


Best Regards - Mike

Mike, have you seen this painting, Narsissus by Caravagio. I have seen it recently on a different forum. Good to know history.

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by booster

The alternator and battery folks have just jumped on to an existing feature to solve a new problem.

Bingo! Booster, you hit the nail on the head. You need not install high-idle in a Sprinter RV unless you have the second alternator to charge house batteries. Then you get much greater charging output doing so to take advantage. That reduces the idle time as well to charge batteries. It is that simple. Of course if you don't idle, the engine is better off, but MB does offer it with caveats. They have even built in some safeguards such as not idling over 5 times or 10 hours total without key starting and supposedly then driving at highway speeds. They offer it, they don't like it, they say don't do it, but it doesn't void your warranty to 100,000 miles.

The other thing is high idle is misunderstood and idleup's harping on his vast experience (?) perhaps is lacking. I think Roadtrek had a bit to do with it with grandiose statements with their Voltstart. High idle for most is just an emergency safeguard not anymore than having a spare tire and jack. Most all learn their battery systems to not need high idleling or autostart. In over 5 years, 84,000 miles of traveling and more than 500 days on the road I have a grand total of 17.22 hours of high idleling on my van and most of that was demoing, butt starting, and testing. I can't remember any instance where I actually needed it. I think some ARVers I have observed use it as a safety blanket or convenience because it is available. I'd rather drive down the highway for a few minutes to get another 6-pack of beer.

[booster]

Originally Posted by IdleUp

It's a proven fact that Google is always behind actual technology. This is why I study and surround myself with the experts in major corporations around the world to gain important information for my articles and videos, so others like yourself can benefit from my “real world” experiences.

Sooner or later you're going to have to accept the fact other users know as much or even more than you. Regretfully, hanging around a van forum 24/7 does not provide the needed expertise to keep up to speed on what is happening in the real world of electronics.


Best Regards - Mike

Call me backwards and foolish, but given the choice between access to technical papers from huge numbers of major universities, research facilities, independent researchers, and others, covering all sides of a topic, through a search engine vs taking as gospel the claims from a single, self proclaimed genius, 100% always correct, triple checked, "internet expert" who won't give tech data, test data, or references to their "best in the world" contacts, I will chose the search engine every time.



Keeping up with the speed of change has nothing to do with need to verify and clarify what we are told with good old hard, verifiable facts and data, and we have seen none of that.


Wait, I will rescind the "none of that". We did finally learn that an air conditioning test that seemed hugely exaggerated was run after sunset, no sun load, temps dropping, at high inside temps, so no wonder he got better run time than other tests that are run under normal daytime conditions and temp that the claims got compared to. Does not instill any confidence any other claims would be more accurate without complete supporting data, IMO.

[Bud]

Originally Posted by booster

Call me backwards and foolish, but given the choice between access to technical papers from huge numbers of major universities, research facilities, independent researchers, and others, covering all sides of a topic, through a search engine vs taking as gospel the claims from a single, self proclaimed genius, 100% always correct, triple checked, "internet expert" who won't give tech data, test data, or references to their "best in the world" contacts, I will chose the search engine every time.



Keeping up with the speed of change has nothing to do with need to verify and clarify what we are told with good old hard, verifiable facts and data, and we have seen none of that.


Wait, I will rescind the "none of that". We did finally learn that an air conditioning test that seemed hugely exaggerated was run after sunset, no sun load, temps dropping, at high inside temps, so no wonder he got better run time than other tests that are run under normal daytime conditions and temp that the claims got compared to. Does not instill any confidence any other claims would be more accurate without complete supporting data, IMO.

Not sure whether there is any opinion with that post booster, you may be mistaken.

Bud

[Bruceper]

Originally Posted by Mike

Blah

Fact - 100% of people who breathe air will die.
Fact - 100% of people who drink water will die.
Fact - 100% of people who suffer from pedantic know-it-alls end up quitting forums.

Please research the term PLONK.

[RossWilliams]

"We have 800ah of lithium batteries so as not to have to worry or think about the inverter."

What do the lithium batteries give you that agm's can't?

You make the case that there are other reasons someone might want/need a large battery capacity. But it seems like I could support your usage almost as well with my 800ah of AGM's. That isn't an argument against using lithium, which has some other advantages, but I think there is a lot of truth in this:

RV air conditioning and lithium batteries are one of the same. No one really needs an 800 ah pack in any class of RV to run a Micro, lights or a TV. The whole merit for these larger 800-1000 ah systems, is primarily to run the roof air conditioner.

The high sustained draw form AC and the peukert effect will kill you with AGM's. Lithiums' peukert effect is minimal and it handles high draws as easily as lighter ones. Of course, I guess with a propane generator and enough fuel you can run ac all day regardless of your battery choice. Which seems to be the point here.

[markopolo]

Originally Posted by RossWilliams

....................
The high sustained draw form AC and the peukert effect will kill you with AGM's. .................

That seems exaggerated if referring to the 8 AGM bank in your Etrek. Each 68lb battery would only need to contribute 12.5A to support a 100A DC load (8x12.5=100) for example.

Spec sheet for a 6V 8AGC2-DEKA shows:
Capacity at 100hr rating 220Ah
Capacity at 20hr rating 190Ah
Reserve Capacity @ 25 amp discharge rate: 409 mins
From that you can calculate the Peukert amp-hours: (approximately 240ah) and Peukert's Exponent.

Peukert amp-hours (the capacity of the battery when discharged at 1 amp) is explained here: SmartGauge Electronics - Brief detals about Peukert's Equation

This calculator assigns a Peukert Exponent of 1.1 using the same Deka specs. - https://planetcalc.com/2268/ and that appears to be typical for AGM batteries.

Enter the 1.1 Peukert's Exponent on the Peukert calculator here - http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/calcs/peukert3.xls - and use either the 20hr or the 100hr rating of the battery.

Results show 185Ah available per battery at a 12.5A draw. 185 x 4 = 740Ah compared to the 190 x 4 = 760Ah expected from the advertised 20hr rate.

12.5A per 68lb battery is not a high rate of discharge.

[avanti]

I can (and routinely do) run my A/C for up to two hours on my 440Ah AGM battery.

[RossWilliams]

That seems exaggerated if referring to the 8 AGM bank in your Etrek.

Yes it is. 800 AH will get you slightly less than 4 hours of AC at 80 DOC if your batteries only have a peukert rate of 1.1. and your AC and inverter take 1700 watts combined. And if you only have 400AH, you would only get about 1:45 minutes.

That is assuming it ran continuously. In reality, the actual amount of time would depend on the size of your RV, the difference in temperature and wind and sun etc.

But Running your batteries down to 80% DOC on a consistent basis may not kill them, but it will certainly shorten their lives and even four hours doesn't get you through the night. And that assumes you have no other significant draws.

That is not just theoretical. I bought my Etrek used, but as I recall there are lots of complaints on this forum that they didn't live up to their marketing hype. People did in fact go to sleep with the AC on and wake up to a warm coach and dead batteries. That likely damaged their batteries and, if done consistently, would kill them quite quickly.

For purposes of this discussion, that isn't really relevant. The fact is that AGM's will provide for almost any other use with no problems. Lithiiums are really only needed when you start to make relative heavy use of AC.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by RossWilliams

Yes it is. 800 AH will get you slightly less than 4 hours of AC at 80 DOC if your batteries only have a peukert rate of 1.1. and your AC and inverter take 1700 watts combined. That is assuming it ran continuously. In reality, the actual amount of time would depend on the difference in temperature and wind and sun etc.

Running your batteries down to 80% DOC on a consistent basis may not kill them, but it will certainly shorten their lives and four hours doesn't get you through the night. And that assumes you have no other significant draws.

Just to be clear:
When I run my A/C for two hours on my 440Ah AGMs, it takes my DOC to 50%. This is with a Outback VFX2812 2800 watt inverter and a Dometic 11K BTU roof-mount A/C.

This is a simple empirical fact.

[booster]

I think Ross must be talking about 80% DOD, not DOC, as he would be looking at an 80% of capacity discharge to get max AC run time.


Our AC pulls 80-90 amps in our Roadtrek 190 with the compressor running, and will go up a bit as battery state of charge drops.


I think it would run two hours on our 440ah AGM bank without issue, if we started full, but I haven't personally tested it because we never intend to run AC on batteries.

[RossWilliams]

One other thing to consider. Unless you have an electric oven, hot water dispenser and stovetop like my Etrek, AC is really the only heavy draw where lithiums have an advantage. The peukert effect actually means that you will have more capacity with AGM's if you are making light draws. So, for instance, an 800 ah agm with a peukert constant of 1.15 will give you 101.84 minutes at 8 amps to 80% depth of charge while the lithium 800ah will give you 80 minutes at 8 amps. So, absent the heavy draw of an AC, the AGM's actually provide more capacity at the same AH rating assuming both are drawn down to 80%.

Again, the primary use of large lithium battery banks in an RV is for air conditioning. They also have some advantages for smaller coaches with weight restrictions, but you don't normally really need a huge battery bank of any kind if you aren't using AC.

[booster]

Lithium running AC is one of the main advantages behind lithium, but the fast charge rates and particularly the ability to cycle them at partial states of charge would be an even bigger advantage for many users.


Of course now we are starting to hear about memory issues it not full cycled and that high charge rates will shorten life, so those issues may not be as good as once, and mostly still, claimed.