Lithium/Alternator/Inverter Package from Xantrex

[avanti]

Originally Posted by booster

I would totally agree that -4*F as a limit is tough, and that is why it is also important for folks to hear about it.

+2 on that one. All the other limitations are simply minor and occasional inconveniences. This one is a show-stopper for me. Using our vehicle in that kind of weather is unusual enough that I could live with a bit of extra care when we do it. But the last thing I want from my RV is to constantly have to watch the weather from wherever we happen to be in the winter, in case there is a frigid snap. When I put our rig in its off-site, non-powered resting place, I turn off the main power, count on our modest solar setup for battery maintenance, and forget about it. There is no way the relatively modest additional benefits of lithium over our 440Ah AGM setup would be worth such a worry.

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by Phoebe3

Hear, hear! I was all wrapped around the axle thinking we needed the ever-so-expensive lithium and GU options, but the deep cell batteries we have are so cheap to buy and we may only run them down past 50% once or twice a year. It just wasn't worth worrying about and gave us a LOT more options regarding which RV we could purchase.

I DO miss being able to run the microwave to heat water for tea, though...

Hear, hear! My microwave is always at the ready to use as is my Keurig coffee maker, my induction cooktop, my Instant Pot, and every 120v outlet in the van for anything else I want to use. I guess I fell on deaf ears saying that I don't have my RV electrically half shut off most of the time like most RVs. 800ah of lithium ion batteries make it possible to do that without needing to run a generator, ever plug into shore power when traveling, and not constantly checking battery SOC. If I stop, for instance, at a Walmart overnight, I have everything at the ready. You can't get enough AGM batteries to travel as I do in a Class B without making major sacrifices in space or allowable loads to do with lithium ion provides.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by Davydd

Hear, hear! My microwave is always at the ready to use as is my Keurig coffee maker, my induction cooktop, my Instant Pot, and every 120v outlet in the van for anything else I want to use. I guess I fell on deaf ears saying that I don't have my RV electrically half shut off most of the time like most RVs. 800ah of lithium ion batteries make it possible to do that without needing to run a generator, ever plug into shore power when traveling, and not constantly checking battery SOC. If I stop, for instance, at a Walmart overnight, I have everything at the ready. You can't get enough AGM batteries to travel as I do in a Class B without making major sacrifices in space or allowable loads to do with lithium ion provides.

It's true. With my pathetic 440Ah of AGM, I had to reset the clock on my microwave several times on our last trip. It was awful.

Keurig and microwave were OK at Walmart, though.

[BBQ]

Originally Posted by Davydd

Hear, hear! My microwave is always at the ready to use as is my Keurig coffee maker, my induction cooktop, my Instant Pot, and every 120v outlet in the van for anything else I want to use. I guess I fell on deaf ears saying that I don't have my RV electrically half shut off most of the time like most RVs. 800ah of lithium ion batteries make it possible to do that without needing to run a generator, ever plug into shore power when traveling, and not constantly checking battery SOC. If I stop, for instance, at a Walmart overnight, I have everything at the ready. You can't get enough AGM batteries to travel as I do in a Class B without making major sacrifices in space or allowable loads to do with lithium ion provides.

You have brought a smile to my face.

We all love you, you know that.

Have a Merry Christmas, or Happy Holiday... whichever you prefer

[Phoebe3]

Originally Posted by Davydd

Hear, hear! My microwave is always at the ready to use as is my Keurig coffee maker, my induction cooktop, my Instant Pot, and every 120v outlet in the van for anything else I want to use. I guess I fell on deaf ears saying that I don't have my RV electrically half shut off most of the time like most RVs. 800ah of lithium ion batteries make it possible to do that without needing to run a generator, ever plug into shore power when traveling, and not constantly checking battery SOC. If I stop, for instance, at a Walmart overnight, I have everything at the ready. You can't get enough AGM batteries to travel as I do in a Class B without making major sacrifices in space or allowable loads to do with lithium ion provides.

True enough, but there are several places in this country where, for the difference in cost between your RV and mine, I could buy a HOUSE...

and use the microwave in it whenever I want.

[GeorgeRa]

Originally Posted by Davydd

……………………….I guess I fell on deaf ears saying that I don't have my RV electrically half shut off most of the time like most RVs. 800ah of lithium ion batteries ……………….

I don’t think folks don’t hear you, spending money is based on very individual priorities, for us the puny 230Ah battery bank is sufficient and I just can’t see us justifying to spend more, van is not a house for us, it is a camper. We use our camper in a very different way than you and I am not criticizing your travel lifestyle, it is just different than mine.

There is an old (1930) Russian technology of invention which since Soviet Union collapse penetrated a few corporation worldwide at different levels, it is call TRIZ (https://triz-journal.com/triz-what-is-triz/). The first step is to explicitly define the problem which needs to be solved, from my perspective large Li battery bank is solving a problem which we don’t have, so why should I spend money.

Originally Posted by avanti

It's true. With my pathetic 440Ah of AGM, I had to reset the clock on my microwave several times on our last trip. It was awful.
Keurig and microwave wer OK at Walmart, though.

Understand you pain, the answer is either large Li bank or a spring-loaded dial old fashion beast.

[booster]

We used to reset the microwave clock when going on shore power, but then discovered that if you don't ever set it, the clock doesn't show. Just the "0" for the no time set. As long as it isn't flashing that is fine with us as we have several DC or battery clocks running all the time. Maybe Dometic actually did something good for a change!

[JohnnyFry]

Actually, I never realized that my convection-microwave actually had a clock.

[Oliver2017]

Originally Posted by booster

I would totally agree that -4*F as a limit is tough, and that is why it is also important for folks to hear about it.

Makes me wonder how does the RV dealers located in colder climates protect all their campers with the lithium batteries during the winter months?

[booster]

Originally Posted by Oliver2017

Makes me wonder how does the RV dealers located in colder climates protect all their campers with the lithium batteries during the winter months?

If they take care of them like they do the other types of batteries, they won't do anything. Lots of new units have batteries that are already in need of replacement because of dealer negligence. Ours were on our new Roadtrek in 2008 and neither the dealer, Roadtrek, or Exide would replace them, so we had to.

[avanti]

I actually once took our microwave apart thinking I could mod it to have the electronics run on 12VDC (I did this successfully with an Apple TV). Sadly, the dirty tricks that you have to play to build a $59 microwave profitably made it impossible.

[Saldar]

Originally Posted by GeorgeRa

There is an old (1930) Russian technology of invention which since Soviet Union collapse penetrated a few corporation worldwide at different levels, it is call TRIZ

GeorgeRa, It is worth carefully reading this forum to uncover the diverse and interesting subjects you interject!

[booster]

Originally Posted by Saldar

GeorgeRa, It is worth carefully reading this forum to uncover the diverse and interesting subjects you interject!

It would make an interesting topic in it's own thread of problem solving information. True creative problem solving is severely under utilized by the hordes of consultants that jump on the latest trendy style of improvement program.

[GeorgeRa]

Originally Posted by booster

It would make an interesting topic in it's own thread of problem solving information. True creative problem solving is severely under utilized by the hordes of consultants that jump on the latest trendy style of improvement program.

TRIZ is much different than drawing and connecting balloons on a chalkboard or seeking what has changed. Genrich Altshuller, Russian engineer/scientist working as a patent clerk developed the theory that if a problem is dissected deep into its core than at that level it was very likely already solved but in a different domain. TRIZ is a process to find out how these core problems were solved in other domains and to digest if these solutions can be applied.

Examples; what is common between breaking granite blocks by wetting, splitting silicon wafers by freezing, or braking nut shells in volume without breaking nuts – induce pressure from inside. Place nuts in a large pressure vessel, slowly build up to a very high pressure followed by rapid opening; each nut becomes a little bomblet.

TRIZ folks were consulted for developing a very accurate temperature sensor so cancer cells could be heated to their death before healthy cells would die. A potential solution wasn’t a sensor but a physical phenomenon; some materials exhibit phase change from ferromagnetic to paramagnetic at constant Curie temperature. Heating cancer cells via induction on injected ferromagnetic particles with the correct Curie temperature the heating terminates by itself precisely controlling cancer cells temperature. I heard this in the early 2000 and don’t know where it went.

To OP, sorry for this diversion.

[booster]

I also appologize to the OP, and as said a separate discussion might be in order.

[angelmroman]

It's all good, Booster. I found the comments very interesting. Please continue

[nebulight]

Originally Posted by nebulight

Sorta, yea. I have lithium in a DIY camper van and I've wired up a relay to disconnect my charging sources when it hits 35 F (made a post about it here: http://www.classbforum.com/forums/f2...ries-7202.html ). I have a secondary relay on my thermostat where I can wire up 12v heating pads. I have 400ah in 4 groups so I'm think I could buy 4 25W heating pads and have them turn on at 0 F. Where I live I think they would never turn on, but for around $20 from amazon, it sounds like it's worth it to prevent damage.

Originally Posted by nebulight

Guys, guys, guys....simple solution to this problem. Don't live anywhere where it gets that cold. Problem solved.

Well I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong:



I ordered those heating pads from amazon but they aren't here yet so....

[BBQ]

Originally Posted by nebulight

Sorta, yea. I have lithium in a DIY camper van and I've wired up a relay to disconnect my charging sources when it hits 35 F

(made a post about it here: http://www.classbforum.com/forums/f2...ries-7202.html ). I have a secondary relay on my thermostat where I can wire up 12v heating pads. I have 400ah in 4 groups so I'm think I could buy 4 25W heating pads and have them turn on at 0 F. Where I live I think they would never turn on, but for around $20 from amazon, it sounds like it's worth it to prevent damage.

>disconnect my charging sources when it hits 35 F


Shouldn't your BMS do that for you automatically?

[nebulight]

Originally Posted by BBQ

>disconnect my charging sources when it hits 35 F


Shouldn't your BMS do that for you automatically?

I wish. My BMS (miniBMS v3) is pretty old and wasn't really designed for off grid applications. It has the safety features with a balance function and that's about it. It was designed for electric cars that either charge or discharge, not both at the same time so it has no provisions for disconnecting one or the other; it disconnects both. With the batteries out, I've purchased a very small bank of lifepo4 cells (8ah) to test a new BMS that will have a lot more features. This way if I screw up the cells, it was only $30 worth of batteries I'll make a separate post about that if/when that happens.

[kite_rider]

Originally Posted by nebulight

With the batteries out, I've purchased a very small bank of lifepo4 cells (8ah) to test a new BMS that will have a lot more features. This way if I screw up the cells, it was only $30 worth of batteries I'll make a separate post about that if/when that happens.

What are some of the new BMS features?

So you took out your batteries (and disassembled the bus bars too it seems) to test the BMS or because it was cold outside? Even though I *love* Lithium batteries, storing them in well below freezing temps is a must for me.