Interesting video. Seeing working systems in the real world, tackling problems in real time. Hoping all will work out and you'll have years of trouble free power. I've assembled a 24 volt system with two redodo 24 volt/100 amp hour batteries wired parallel with a MPP Solar, PIP2724 unit and two 300 watt panels. Trying to keep it simple, serviceable and expandable. I still have months of building left before we are ready to move in and we will "field test" everything while still on our property so that should give us a real idea how everything will perform on the road. Hope to see you out there one day. I'm not missing Washington but Skagit county will be our summer destination because of the kids and grandkids! Wishing you continued happy travels!!
Heck yeah! Just trying to share what we have to maintain as much as possible. That's a good setup there! Plenty of expandability as well. I hope everything goes well with your field test! Skagit County is a great destination to spend summers. Happy travels to you as well, thanks!!
I was waiting for it to short out on the case, but you did good with that. I got 4 licence plates for you will put in the mail 8/30, one is very special.
You put the whole battery packs in parallel, as in all three neg to neg and pos to pos. Then you apply a voltage that represents your highest desired individual battery voltage. like 13.6, you can go higher but want to avoid voltage runaway. You leave it like that for at least 24 hours. Then you will pop the tops off the batteries and bleed off the highest voltage cells, to match the other cells. Then you can repeat at a slightly higher voltage if desired. You just want to avoid any cell going over 3.65. There is almost no value in actually charging to 3.65 on a day to day basis, as the amount of additional storage energy you get above 13.6 at the pack level is small. You will always have some variance above 13.5 as that is approaching the steep portion of the voltage charge curve. You want to minimize that though obviously, thus why you bleed off the runaway cells at a high charge state. Anyway, your packs are just at different charge states, when you get new batteries of the same voltage you have to parallel them and then charge them all while paralleled and make sure all the cells are matched voltage wise. Once you do that they shouldn't drift much. But if you fail to do that, even if the voltage measures the same at a lower charge state, they may be in fact at widely different actual charge states, because the lifepo4 voltage curve is flat until you get above 90% total charge or thereabouts. So a battery that is charged 40% and a battery charged at 60% will show nearly identical voltage. Thus why you have to balance at the above 90% fully charged level, so the discrepancy will show in the voltages. Then once that is done, you reinstall them in series in your actual system. They should stay pretty close after that for years. Probably should do a yearly check though, and if you want to be a really good battery daddy, then do the above again yearly before they even have a chance to drift much. LOL, didn't set out to right a novel, but did.
Thanks!! If it's helpful, we had 12x 100W panels on our Entegra Esteem, I would absolutely suggest shooting for 200-250W panels if you can, MUCH easier along with more energy density! 🤘
I love lithium batteries. I have lithium ion and when I looked into moving to lifepo4 I looked for old cells like my lithium ion cells I use and the lifepo4 used calls where all out of balance and they scared me. I have never seen a old lithium ion bank out of balance and some of my batteries are almost 15 year old.
Not to be nitpicky, but you put one different number in one of the readings onscreen than what you actually said on the last battery (third number set said 3.357 as opposed to 3.457 onscreen). I don't know if that made a difference in your calculations, so wanted you to know. (And you thought I wasn't paying attention! LOL) I was looking at truck caps, and a cool one came up (Aero X fastback truck cap). If I were wanting just a tonneau type cover, I'd sure want that. But I'm looking at a larger one that I can camp in if off road and store tools in, so bummer. It might look cool on a Ram though.... Hope your day is sunny today...it is here!
Good catch! I measured again and wrote down the final number, not realizing that I put the wrong clip in 😂 I've never seen the fastback truck caps! I have a plan for somewhat of a DIY solar cap though... 🤔It is sunny, though really feels like fall is speeding towards us!!
@@CozyLivingMachine OOOH boy can't wait to see what you do with a solar cap!! I want a panel on top of the truck and cap one day too!! I've seen some truck cap builds where they put panels on top AND on the sides, or have a panel they can angle one way or the other. I want my eventual one to kind of look like just a rack is up there though, since they are STEALING solar panels nowadays (still can't believe it...ugh cruddy people). Will you have a separate battery system in the truck? (I want one because I want my SetPower freezer/fridge thing in there running for food for longer boondocks or even just truck offroad stays). Glad you are always doing something new and exciting for your videos too!!
batteries could have different brand bms and settings....yikes. In series like that then mean the worst battery or worst settings in bms determines your capacity. The fact they are all different voltages means there is not active balancer, another problem. build your own batteries.....get the cells for half the price and use a good bms with active balancing and set the system yourself...this is the only way to go...this video and your issues confirms that....sorry to hear though
Interesting video. Seeing working systems in the real world, tackling problems in real time. Hoping all will work out and you'll have years of trouble free power. I've assembled a 24 volt system with two redodo 24 volt/100 amp hour batteries wired parallel with a MPP Solar, PIP2724 unit and two 300 watt panels. Trying to keep it simple, serviceable and expandable. I still have months of building left before we are ready to move in and we will "field test" everything while still on our property so that should give us a real idea how everything will perform on the road.
Hope to see you out there one day. I'm not missing Washington but Skagit county will be our summer destination because of the kids and grandkids!
Wishing you continued happy travels!!
Heck yeah! Just trying to share what we have to maintain as much as possible. That's a good setup there! Plenty of expandability as well. I hope everything goes well with your field test! Skagit County is a great destination to spend summers. Happy travels to you as well, thanks!!
I was waiting for it to short out on the case, but you did good with that. I got 4 licence plates for you will put in the mail 8/30, one is very special.
Yep, I'm very glad I didn't have any issues with that! And thank you so much, you're awesome!!
You put the whole battery packs in parallel, as in all three neg to neg and pos to pos. Then you apply a voltage that represents your highest desired individual battery voltage. like 13.6, you can go higher but want to avoid voltage runaway. You leave it like that for at least 24 hours. Then you will pop the tops off the batteries and bleed off the highest voltage cells, to match the other cells. Then you can repeat at a slightly higher voltage if desired. You just want to avoid any cell going over 3.65. There is almost no value in actually charging to 3.65 on a day to day basis, as the amount of additional storage energy you get above 13.6 at the pack level is small.
You will always have some variance above 13.5 as that is approaching the steep portion of the voltage charge curve. You want to minimize that though obviously, thus why you bleed off the runaway cells at a high charge state.
Anyway, your packs are just at different charge states, when you get new batteries of the same voltage you have to parallel them and then charge them all while paralleled and make sure all the cells are matched voltage wise. Once you do that they shouldn't drift much. But if you fail to do that, even if the voltage measures the same at a lower charge state, they may be in fact at widely different actual charge states, because the lifepo4 voltage curve is flat until you get above 90% total charge or thereabouts. So a battery that is charged 40% and a battery charged at 60% will show nearly identical voltage. Thus why you have to balance at the above 90% fully charged level, so the discrepancy will show in the voltages.
Then once that is done, you reinstall them in series in your actual system. They should stay pretty close after that for years. Probably should do a yearly check though, and if you want to be a really good battery daddy, then do the above again yearly before they even have a chance to drift much.
LOL, didn't set out to right a novel, but did.
Impressive solar set up. I would like to do that on our future integra class C full time motorhome
Thanks!! If it's helpful, we had 12x 100W panels on our Entegra Esteem, I would absolutely suggest shooting for 200-250W panels if you can, MUCH easier along with more energy density! 🤘
I love lithium batteries. I have lithium ion and when I looked into moving to lifepo4 I looked for old cells like my lithium ion cells I use and the lifepo4 used calls where all out of balance and they scared me. I have never seen a old lithium ion bank out of balance and some of my batteries are almost 15 year old.
THAT look like a pain in the ass... best of luck.
Hi Guys ! 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Hello 👋😎
you probably could buy the internal battery and replace those insides, but since this is warranty, I would argue to get new ones from them.
Absolutely. Updating coming up!
Not to be nitpicky, but you put one different number in one of the readings onscreen than what you actually said on the last battery (third number set said 3.357 as opposed to 3.457 onscreen). I don't know if that made a difference in your calculations, so wanted you to know. (And you thought I wasn't paying attention! LOL)
I was looking at truck caps, and a cool one came up (Aero X fastback truck cap). If I were wanting just a tonneau type cover, I'd sure want that. But I'm looking at a larger one that I can camp in if off road and store tools in, so bummer. It might look cool on a Ram though....
Hope your day is sunny today...it is here!
Good catch! I measured again and wrote down the final number, not realizing that I put the wrong clip in 😂 I've never seen the fastback truck caps! I have a plan for somewhat of a DIY solar cap though... 🤔It is sunny, though really feels like fall is speeding towards us!!
@@CozyLivingMachine OOOH boy can't wait to see what you do with a solar cap!! I want a panel on top of the truck and cap one day too!! I've seen some truck cap builds where they put panels on top AND on the sides, or have a panel they can angle one way or the other. I want my eventual one to kind of look like just a rack is up there though, since they are STEALING solar panels nowadays (still can't believe it...ugh cruddy people). Will you have a separate battery system in the truck? (I want one because I want my SetPower freezer/fridge thing in there running for food for longer boondocks or even just truck offroad stays). Glad you are always doing something new and exciting for your videos too!!
batteries could have different brand bms and settings....yikes. In series like that then mean the worst battery or worst settings in bms determines your capacity. The fact they are all different voltages means there is not active balancer, another problem.
build your own batteries.....get the cells for half the price and use a good bms with active balancing and set the system yourself...this is the only way to go...this video and your issues confirms that....sorry to hear though