Clarence the Safari Camperbus

[wildebus]

Just in case intruders don't scarper when they see the "Beware of the Cat" sign, I do put her on guard duty ...


Take No Prisoners! by David, on Flickr

 

[Deleted member 12539]

Wow.. first time I have read this..
I think you should write a book about your conversion.
I have read a few and your write up seems much better written with clear photos.

 

[jagmanx]

Electric only in Germany

On our travels in Germany we met a man with a van.
Not really a moho (no house items not even a toilet).
A big mercedes van with a full roof-rack full of big solar panels which he uses to supply 240v throughout.
Problem he has is that he only has 1 LB.
So he can only really use power in daylight hours.
It is really a work van rather than a moho but he uses it to travel to jobs and sleeps in it and cooks in the day !
A bit strange but like you no gas.
He does however recharge both an electric bike and motor bike. So a lot of daylight power but little at night. Not ideal but seems to suit him !

 

[jagmanx]

Like

The cat photo !

 

[Byronic]

On our travels in Germany we met a man with a van.
Not really a moho (no house items not even a toilet).
A big mercedes van with a full roof-rack full of big solar panels which he uses to supply 240v throughout.
Problem he has is that he only has 1 LB.
So he can only really use power in daylight hours.
It is really a work van rather than a moho but he uses it to travel to jobs and sleeps in it and cooks in the day !
A bit strange but like you no gas.
He does however recharge both an electric bike and motor bike. So a lot of daylight power but little at night. Not ideal but seems to suit him !

I got to know a Dutchman he possessed a mighty customised Clou Liner on a MAN chassis, the roof was smothered in solar
panels, a built in Onan 4kW diesel generator, and here's the clincher, Navy Submarine batteries as LBs, they weighed
hundreds of kilos his motorhome was definitely overloaded! Not to worry, he was loaded in more ways than one and had the back axle replaced/rebuilt regularly (MAN weak design feature apparently). His was the only arrangement I have come across that I would say was capable of providing domestic standards of electric energy via batteries for domestic washing machine, heating, hot water, fridge/freezer.
He certainly had to give the bloody generator long runs !

 

[955itriple]

Wow.. first time I have read this..
I think you should write a book about your conversion.
I have read a few and your write up seems much better written with clear photos.

Totally agree, I've commented before saying I love this van. Would you consider a YouTube video tour? There are loads on, big budget, low budget and everything in between. Your van and attention to detail, particularly your electric system and fridge solution are inspirational, bring it to the masses.

 

[wildebus]

Something that has been on the radar from before I actually bought the to-be-converted Minibus was Heating!

In my last conversion I installed an Eberspacher D2 Airtronic Diesel Heater and it was great but so it should have been as it cost over £600 (that is just the heater and parts, no installation costs as did this myself).
For Clarence, I wanted another Diesel Heater but with the cost of an Eber' D2 - which had risen to over £750 now for the kit only :scared: - I couldn't afford that so decided to risk the cheapo chinese Eberspacher clones at around £150. So a substantial saving on the cards there .

The plan was to install under the drivers seat, same as I did on the VW T5 with the Eberspacher. I checked Youtube for any tips on installing on a VW LT (aka Sprinter T1N) as can always find a handy timesaver on 'the tubes' but not in this case
Lots of "installing an Espar D2 on my Sprinter" videos but all for the later Sprinters (the 2nd Gen NCV3 model) and while the seat base looks very similar, the under-chassis under the seat was totally different. So on my own here (but as I tend to be old blue eyes ('I do it my way') anyway, suited me


So this is the space the Heater will be located in

Empty Seat Base by David, on Flickr
The electrics (fuses, relays, etc) are usually located under this seat but I had moved them to the other seat base a while back in readiness for fitting a heater here in the future.

This is under the vehicle from around centre line towards outer side
Underchassis under Seat by David, on Flickr
Looks fairly roomy but in fact not the case. The Bar with the cable clipped to it goes left to right and is around the upper third of the floor under the base. And the part at the end (where the cable curls round to carry on to) is actually a massive front to rear chassis support that is right in the middle of the seat base, so a major area inside the base is no use for the heater mounting.

Transferring the dimensions of obstructions from below to the base area, the options are very limited and this is what I decided on (rubber gasket shows the heater inlet/exhaust pipe positioning)

Best Location for Heater by David, on Flickr
Essentially the white sheet just below the rubber gasket and to the right of the gasket are no-go areas for fitting. And to the left of the gasket there is a drop for cable routing which would make sealing a hole very tricky.

A couple of holes drilled out

Holes Drilled by David, on Flickr


Close! by David, on Flickr
You can see the exhaust shield below. This was dropped and moved out the way at the start (the photo showing the space underneath was actually taken with the camera in between the shield and the floor as the exhaust runs directly under where the heater is going!)


The Heater comes with a mounting plate

Mounting Plate with Butel Tape by David, on Flickr
I specifically chose a kit with a plate (not all kits have them) as I think it is much better to make all the connections and secure them and then drop the lot in place as a oner rather then try and secure individual bits from underneath.
I added the tape as a sealing method. Much cleaner then using something like sikaflex in this situation.

And dropped into position

Underchassis view by David, on Flickr
(The black around the hole cutout is a heavy dosage of Hammerite to protect the cut metal)

Drilled out another hole for the heater outlet at the back of the seat base

Heater Outlet at back of Seat Base by David, on Flickr

And a birds-eye view of the heater all installed

Heater setup and wired up by David, on Flickr
I had previously run a 2.5mm cable in readiness for a heater so just routed this to the base and used a base bolt as the ground. (these heaters have a bit of a reputation for undersized cables leading to high voltage drops, so by chopping off most of the supplied power cable it will help eliminate that)

And the seat base cover refitted

VW Hardboard Seatbase Cover by David, on Flickr

I only have one of these (need one per seat really to protect the electrics under the other seat) and it has gone pretty droopy, so I made up a replacement in plywood

Replacement Ply Seat Base Cover by David, on Flickr
I routed out some ventilation slots (unfortuatly the guide slipped on the first slot ), positioned in a place that would work better for the heater inlet and then sprayed black to blend in like the original

Ply Seat Base Cover Painted by David, on Flickr

And put in place

Ply Seat Base Cover in Place by David, on Flickr

These Heaters come with a controller of course, but it is pot-luck to which one you actually get with the kit! My kit was shown with a fairly basic rotary controller, but I actually got an electronic LED unit

Heater Controller by David, on Flickr
(due to the LED refresh, the digits don't show up properly in a photo)
Initial stumbling block as no instructions and buttons in Chinese, but now I have sussed it out, this controller is actually pretty good. It has a temp sensor in so you can set a target for the heater to go to; It also has a clock and you can set 2 timers for it to go and and off (it is just a 24 hour clock, no days, so you cannot set different profiles for say weekdays and weekends).
Overall ... nice unit. I have not yet worked out where to fit it (it has a holder it clips into so can be fixed to a wall say, and then unclipped and moved elsewhere. how useful that is I am not sure yet!)


OK, that concludes the Inside setup.

Now looking outside, I built a "Fuel Station" on a ply board (with protection underneath) which has a fuel tank, filter and pump all together.

Fuel Station on Carrier by David, on Flickr
I will be running the heater on Kerosene for a number of reasons;
1) These heaters have been reported to run significantly cleaner and better on Kerosene compared to Road Diesel
2) I don't have to drop the fuel tank to fit a standpipe (this would be made sigificantly harder on my specific van as well due to the way the step was installed)
3) Kerosene is a lot cheaper than Road Diesel (50p ish vs £1.30ish per litre)

I am fitting this to the redundant spare wheel carrier, so is very easy to drop for refuelling and maintenance, and otherwise is just raised into position and is virtually invisible

Fuel Station Raised by David, on Flickr.

Moving to the Combustion area, you need Combustion Inlet and Exhaust.

Inlet & Exhaust Pipes by David, on Flickr
The Inlet Pipe is the black one, and the Exhaust is the silver one.
These had to routed to avoid the vehicle exhaust (as did the fuel pipe and power of course) but wasn't too bad a job to do.

The Inlet Pipe comes with an Air Filter, which is a nice feature and not something you get on an Eberspacher.

Inlet Muffler by David, on Flickr
Neither do you get an Silencer by default (on either product). It may seem odd fitting a silencer on an inlet pipe but these are surprisingly effective. Check out this video I made showing the difference with and without (listen from around 15 seconds in)
[video=youtube_share;YcFty37nJ4M]https://youtu.be/YcFty37nJ4M?t=15s[/video]

This is the Exhaust Muffler, supported with some home-made P-Clips

Exhaust Muffler by David, on Flickr
Both of these Mufflers were bought separately in advance for this installation.


I have not checked the fuel useage yet, but in terms of Electrical Power, the heater draws around 11A in the first few minutes of use (mostly heating the Glow Pin I imagine) and then once running, draws just a few watts for the fan and pump.

Comparing this unit to the Eberspacher, it is to a degree 'you get what you pay for'. I installed another one of these heaters a couple of weeks ago into a VW T5 (not mine) and lessons learned from that install meant I bought replacement Jubilee Clips to repalce the poor quality ones supplied and some more rubber hose to use for joining pipework together. Also bought a length of Eberspacher exhaust as the supplied exhaust would not fit the silencers when cut.
I also tested this heater before installation and had to do some repairs as it would not run as delivered due to poor assembly. The casing is also very flexible which means the fan can easily rub (found this on both this heater and the one installed a fortnight ago). The Eberspacher casing from memory was much more solid.
So build and kit quality the Eber' wins, but have to bear in mind even after replacing and supplementing parts it is still a saving in excess of £500.

What these Heaters have over the Eberspacher is installation however! The Eberspacher install instructions are very cryptic; the wiring looms are all bare wires and the installer must fit the connectors and plugs. These Heaters are all pre-wired with plugs and electrically are totally plug and play. On the downside it might make cable routing harder, but a simple snip and resolder to route a cable if need be is fairly easy in the overall scheme of a heater install.

Early days yet, but I would buy another one of these heaters again - But I would also benchtest it before installing into a camper or motorhome.

 

[wildebus]

Totally agree, I've commented before saying I love this van. Would you consider a YouTube video tour? There are loads on, big budget, low budget and everything in between. Your van and attention to detail, particularly your electric system and fridge solution are inspirational, bring it to the masses.

I might do a video tour but will have to get the OH to do the narration with her wee Scottish lilt

 

[wildebus]

In the post above I talked above my Heater Installation and said

.... Early days yet, but I would buy another one of these heaters again - But I would also benchtest it before installing into a camper or motorhome.

Here is one of the photos from the above post:
Heater setup and wired up by David, on Flickr

And here is a photo I took today:
IMG_20180915_161741 by David, on Flickr

Spot the Difference :idea-007:



Well, when I said "... I would buy another one of these heaters again - But I would also benchtest it before installing into a camper or motorhome",
I did do just that!

The heater I fitted first ran for a short time the first time I went away and then would not start up again. Spent ages troubleshooting it and could not get it working, replacing some parts. In the end, I decided to buy another unit (and found one a fair bit cheaper).
And as per the comment above, I ran it on the bench for many hours to check it on the day it arrived, then installed in the van this morning and again ran it for hours.

I still think they are a good value proposition and once bedded in should be a reasonable long-term option, but this time I am making sure I give it a damn good test before the first month of purchase is up. (why a month? that is the timescale the eBay Concierge system works best on and if there is an issue, I can decide to return the heater and eBay will deal with the seller and pay for any return postage if the seller does not).

BTW, ref. the original heater - I am in conversation with the seller and while I have no resolution yet, they are being helpful with suggestions and will have to see what happens in terms of refunds and replacements. I reused just about everything from the old heater with the new one (which also eliminates all those parts as an issue) so there is some value in parting it out if need be and I will probably disassemble the entire heater so see if a decoke will sort (waiting to see what the seller proposes before doing that though!)

 

[wildebus]

Doing some bits and pieces in Clarence....

Undersealing
The underneath of my 2003 VW LT is remarkably good. And I want to keep it like that of course, so I will be liberally spraying with some Tetraseal once I have clean the chassis. The recommended way is a steam clean but not got anyone close to me who offers that service. So I tried the DIY options on the wheel wells ...
Home Steam Cleaner: I have a little Polti steam cleaner I bought to use for upholstery. This provided to get things clean but was insanely slow, plus so much steam it was really hard to see anything. So forget that
Compressed Air Pressure Cleaner: I have an Autosmart Vortex which is brilliant at cleaning stuff. Upholstery comes up great, hard plastics such as van steps, flooring (either carpet or vinyl) as well. Basically you can use this where you can't use a pressure washer. This worked ok but again quite slow; plus the compressor was working hard to keep the pressure up.
Water Pressure Washer: 3rd option tried was the Karcher K4 Full Control Pressure Washer. This replaced a failed K5 and got it on an Amazon "Deal of the Day" around a year ago. £100 off usual price so pretty good value.
Of the 3 methods, the Pressure Washer was by far the best, but have to wait for all the water to drain away before any undersealing, which is the downside.
But just a few hours later, the arches were all bone-dry ready for spraying.

Wheel Well after Pressure Washer by David, on Flickr
(actually will be using Tetraseal Shultz on the arches as that is very tough so good for stone chipping. the rest of the underchassis will be clear underseal so the chassis can still be checked - not looking to hide rust but provide long-term protection).
Once I get a chance to spray the stuff, will post some pics (way to windy today).


Leisure Battery Charging via Alternator
A variety of options available here. I had been planning to fit a Digital Alternator Regulator (made by Sargent) but not got round to that. This would charge the Leisure Battery via a basic Relay.
I have a 110Amp VSR (Voltage Sensing Relay) installed but, like all VSRs and Switch Relays, they never really deliver on their promises. When I have monitored these in the past, they put a high current in for a matter of minutes and then the current falls right back. For the price, they are ok but not an optimum solution (and don't really do what they say on the tin). On my LT I would get around 250W coming in from the VSR (so around 20A or so).
So I installed a Redarc 40A Battery-to-Battery Charger instead

Redarc BCDB1240 by David, on Flickr

And a couple of Screenshots -
No B2B charging:

LT - Power Draw by David, on Flickr

And with the 40A B2B Charger Running:

LT - B2B Charger On by David, on Flickr

Difference between the two is 39.2A from a 40A Charger, which is pretty good I think. And I took the charging screenshot when the engine was just idling, so pretty happy with this result.
(I decided to install the B2B as I needed one for a clients Camper Electric fitout, and the price was good enough to make me decide to get one for myself (I've installed these before - a 25A model - and was very impressed with the build quality))

 

[wildebus]

Have you compared the Redarc, Sterling and Ring b2b chargers against one another? The Redarc looks like a viable alternative to the Sterling.

I like the redarc as it is very compact, very rugged and made of metal so will dissapate heat well.

 

[wildebus]

What are the connections on the Redarc? The manual seems to imply there are captive cables you have to use butt joints to connect to, but that seems a bit odd. Then again, choosing battery profiles by connecting a wire to various voltags seems a bit odd, but would work and be cheap.
Does it not have an alternator temperature sensor or battery temperature sensor connection? No mention of one in the docs.
From the pictures, it looks to me as if they have cut corners on things like terminals, fuses and sensor connections, but not cut corners on the essentials.
But I wish there was more info in the docs!

Pre-wired loom with bare ends. They do sell a wiring loom if you want one.

Redarc BCDC 40A by David, on Flickr
3 x 10mm cables for Starter Battery, Leisure Battery and Ground. You wouldn't fit butt joints, but fit ring terminals - cables are the perfect length for the required fuse protection (and makes sure as much as possible that standard requirement is not ignored)
3 x thin wires (1mm? 0.5mm?) for source select, battery type and remote LED.
Takes literally minutes to install - very quick and simple. the battery type select is simple - open circuit, ground or +12V for 3 different voltages - how easy is that! (people don't change their battery types very often, so is it necessary to have a menu?). It is probably more reliable then a little rotary switch as well.
It doesn't have a temp sensor, but has a recommendation on how you should connect the switch for different temps to adapt.
The source select is a little bit more awkward if you want to have both input types available - if you connect the wire to +12V it assumes Alternator input and switches on once voltage hits 13.4V (think it is 13.4V? maybe a little more or less). If blue is open circuit, it assumes the input is from Solar and switches to the MPPT profile (this needs you to either buy their relay kit or make your own - I make my own as it is easy to do. However, for my own install, using it as a straight B2B as have my Victron MPPT for solar)
I decided to upgrade to the B2B as now the nights are getting shorter and sun is lower, getting less solar of course and I can go less days using the batteries. So a much higher performing charge when driving will make a great difference - a little over 30 minutes driving will put back into the batteries what 24 hours running my fridge takes out.

So yup, I would agree that they have focussed on the essentials and made all the terminals and fuses external which makes the unit much more compact - and you are going to fit external fuses anyway (I don't know about yourself, but I much prefer external fuses to deal with rather than device ones)

 

[Dowel]

)
I decided to upgrade to the B2B as now the nights are getting shorter and sun is lower, getting less solar of course and I can go less days using the batteries. So a much higher performing charge when driving will make a great difference - a little over 30 minutes driving will put back into the batteries what 24 hours running my fridge takes out. )

Thanks for these interesting posts, does your VW LT predate the intelligent alternator?

Do you have an OEM standard alternator or a high output alternator?

I have a 2012 Trafic EU5 without AFAIK an intelligent alternator.

 

[wildebus]

Thanks for these interesting posts, does your VW LT predate the intelligent alternator?

Do you have an OEM standard alternator or a high output alternator?

I have a 2012 Trafic EU5 without AFAIK an intelligent alternator.

It is a 2003 vehicle so will just have a standard (dumb) alternator I am sure.
As a ex-minibus with a wheelchair lift, I would have kind off expected it to have an auxiliary battery, space heater and updated alternator BUT .... it just had the one starter battery, no heater and started life as a panel van, so I would be pretty sure again the alternator is the standard fitment.

I wouldn't know about your vehicle - it is sort of on the cusp of when things changed in a lot of vehicles. Is there anything "unusual" hanging off the battery +ve terminal? That is often a giveaway. If you are looking at any split charge systems to install, it would be worth checking about the alternator first just to check your options.

In terms of the Redarc B2B, the one I fitted is for a vehicle with a standard (dumb) alternator. They make an "LV" version for vehicles with intelligent alternators as well to maximise the charging from those. (They look identical and have the same wiring connections, but are just a little more work to install).

 

[wildebus]

The Sterling uses two 30A blade fuses wired in parallel, which I thought was a bit cheapskate, but it has proved reliable. But you need fuses at the battery end to protect the cable, so I fitted proper 60A fuses in line: one of which failed. I think it was vibration, and the replacement has never given any problems.

Are they the standard size ones or the Maxi Blade fuses? sounds like the standard if paired up 2 x 30A - which does seem a bit cheapskate for that kind of application - and if one failed for any reason, the second is bound to fail due to overload I would imagine (what rating B2B is it?). I use these holders and strip fuses - Heavy Duty Strip Midi Fuse Holder. Never had any problems with them.

 

[wildebus]

They're the standard ones, and yes, the idea is that if one goes, the other does as well. They haven't blown, and never should.

It's a 50A allegedly, though 45A is the best I've ever seen it deliver. However, putting in 45A at 14.5V it is probably taking in about 50A at 13v-odd.

The holders I use are identical to the ones in your link, but originally I was using the fuses with a small square of "chocolate" in the middle. One of them snapped (didn't blow, just fell apart), so I switched to the fuel injector fuses you show in your link. Cheaper and they've not given any problems at all.

The ones you had were the 'Midi' fuses. The metal strip ones don't look as sexy but you can see much more easily if ok or not.
Interesting point about the amperage. I've not checked if the rated current is generally output or input (it should really be output I think). I might put my clamp meter on the incoming and output cables out of interest.

 

[wildebus]

Undersealing
...... just a few hours later, the arches were all bone-dry ready for spraying.

Wheel Well after Pressure Washer by David, on Flickr
(actually will be using Tetraseal Shultz on the arches as that is very tough so good for stone chipping. the rest of the underchassis will be clear underseal so the chassis can still be checked - not looking to hide rust but provide long-term protection).
Once I get a chance to spray the stuff, will post some pics (way to windy today).

And the Wheel Well done

Been 'Shutzed' by David, on Flickr

Got all 4 wheel wells out the way and happy with that.

As the gun and cans were handy, I decided to use the Shutz on the area where the spare wheel used to be and where I will be fitting my grey tank.

Underchassis Rear by David, on Flickr

The remainder will probably have to wait as the gun I bought is not that great Came with a tube to put into cavities and awkward places but seems to create too much back pressure that causes the sealant to shoot out the little air nozzle in the screwcap and go EVERYWHERE! Pretty pants really.
Maybe the Tetraseal Wax/Oil product will be better with it (and can be thinned as well if need be whereas the Shutz is very thick), so might try an experiment with it to see, but without a tube will be nigh on impossible to apply. (I drove onto the levelling ramps to raise the rear end to spray that rear part which made it pretty easy).

 

[wildebus]

This might be a bit longwinded and boring, but I think it is important for anyone who has or is thinking of installing multiple Leisure Batteries.


Many folk don't seem to think it matters when you have multiple batteries in your Motorhome or Campervan how they are connected up, just as long as basically they are +ve to +ve and -ve to -ve.

Now HOW matters quite a great deal in fact actually! This is a good site that explains it and saves me typing about it ... Charging Batteries in Parallel | How to Charge Batteries in Parallel -

My leisure batteries have been connected in what the site above call "Perfectly Balanced" i.e.

And this is what that type of cabling looks like in actuality

"Perfectly Balanced" Battery Bank by David, on Flickr
(the bank tap-off feeds are not added yet, but I connected +ve to top left and -ve to bottom right - this means each battery has one long lead and one short lead to the tap-off feed point)


Now my batteries have been configured like this for a year now, so I thought it would be interesting to see how 'perfectly balanced' they still are! So I carried out a little test ...

This morning at 10:30 the Battery Bank was 13.26V with the chargers in float mode.
I turned off my Mains Charger, turned off the Solar Controller and flicked the Master Battery Switch off. So the only draw was the Victron BMV, Victron Battery Sense and the Raspberry Pi - so in total very little load. And left for a while.

At 12:30 I checked the Battery Bank with my Fluke DMM and it was settled at 13.03V.
I disconnected the -ve from all the batteries (this also disconnected the 3 devices above) and left them to settle independently

At 13:30, I checked each battery in turn.
Battery #1: 13.08V
Battery #2: 13.07V
Battery #3: 13.06V
Battery #4: 13.16V
That would give an average of 13.09V - When I reconnected the -ve cables again and checked the voltage of the bank as a whole, it was 13.09V - so just as it should be (this confirms the variances to be true)

As can be seen from the above, I do have variances in my batteries despite being 'perfectly balanced', but in reality nothing is perfect of course, and we can just strive to get as close as feasible.
What do the variances mean? Well, the batteries are in a range of 0.1% below to 0.5% above the average voltage. That deviation from the average is very acceptable and I would say well within manufacturing, installation and operating tolerances.

So this confirms that cabling up in a balanced way is the way to go and my own batteries are in a good state (and in terms of charge cycles, I have 'used up' 4 of the permitted 600 cycles at 50% DOD so should carry on performing for a good while longer)


And no, I don't have values for a battery bank that is not configured correctly as 1) I cannot afford to have a set of batteries badly configured just to show what is already known as 2) this has already been shown by other parties to be a bad idea.

 

[wildebus]

WARNING - ANORAKS REQUIRED!

Thought I would share some interesting (if you are a bit of a geek like me) stuff that I came across when I made the last improvements in Clarence.

Preamble
I have a Victron IP22 12/20 (3) Mains Charger - similar to this one - Victron Energy Blue Smart IP22 Charger 12/30(1) 230V - BPC123042002: Amazon.co.uk: Car & Motorbike - but with 3 outputs. One goes to the Starter Battery; One goes to the Leisure Battery; the 3rd one is spare and not connected. It has a maximum output of 20 Amps, shared between the 3 outputs and how much goes to each one depends on the requirements of the battery on each output.
I went for a 3 output unit as I originally intended to use a standard Switching Relay controlled by the Alternator D+ signal as a Split-Charge system, so this multi-output mains charger would allow me to charge both Starter and Leisure Batteries at the same time when parked up.

I have a permanent load in the Camper - that being a Domestic 240V AC Fridge. This load, together with the Network Router, WiFi Booster and MiFi Dongle uses around 6% of the Leisure Battery Bank Power per day. Currently with the sun being lower, together with the place I park the van being in partial shade means the solar is not regenerating all the used power.

So when the Battery was down to around 80% SOC (State of Charge), I decided to plug into EHU and get the mains charger working and get the Battery Bank up again. Obviously this is something I have done numerous times before but this was the first time since I installed a new Battery-to-Battery Charger to replace the VSR I had previously been using, and when I found some apparently strange goings on.

Turned the charger on at 15 minutes to midnight and I'm apparently getting over 30A from my 20A Battery Charger!

RED_LB-Current by David, on Flickr

Now this is at midnight, so not getting anything from the Solar of course, so how come? A 20A charger on a 12V system should max out at around 250Watts of power coming in, but I am getting around 440Watts
RED_SysBatteryPower by David, on Flickr

The clue to how I am getting 30 Amps from a 20A Charger is actually at the Starter Battery!
My Starter Battery is pretty well fully charged, so the multi-output Mains Charger will raise the voltage to charge but provide little charge current as most will go to the semi-depleted Leisure Battery Bank.
This is what the Starter Battery looks like in the same timescale.

RED_SB-Voltage by David, on Flickr
The fully charged Starter Battery intially goes up but then instantly drops and then keeps going down for 45 minutes or so, down to 11.75V!
What has happened is the initial voltage boost turned on the B2B Charger, which then started using battery power to put charge into the Leisure Battery Bank - this is where the extra power over and above the 20A/250W the Victron Charger is providing.


Now B2B chargers typically turn on at one voltage (typically 13.2V or so) and turns off at another voltage (typically around 12.7V). So how come the B2B charger is pulling power at 12V and below

Well, the particular B2B Charger I installed has an alogorithm that means it turns off momentarily every 100 seconds and checks the input voltage - and it is the voltage at THAT time that is checked for being above 12.7V. With the Mains Charger on, as soon as the B2B charger is off (and so load removed from the Starter Battery), the voltage jumps instantly back up - and the B2B thinks "Input Voltage is fine, let's keep running" and starts again before checking in another 100 seconds.

You may have noticed after around 00:30 there is a sawtooth pattern. This will be due to the Starter Battery having dropped so far the Mains Charger no longer instantly brings the voltage level right up, so the B2B actually started to turn off and on again, and as the Battery started getting charged up and by 4AM the voltage was high enough and the Mains Charger was putting in enough current on this output to exceed what the B2B was wanting and the pattern went back a normal looking line

RED_SB-Voltage-Ext by David, on Flickr


Now if I didn't have a charger on the Starter Battery, the B2B wouldn't have turned on, but I do and I think it is useful to be able to charge the Starter Battery from Mains (as well as Solar) - But I would have preferred the B2B to not have pulled power from the Starter Battery like it did.
Plus ... With the Solar, the VSR would turn on when the MPPT Controller was active and outputing enough power and so put charge into the Starter Battery as well - but you don't get this kind of feature with a Battery-to-Battery Charger (many have built-in MPPT Controllers which may do so, but the controllers are usually quite limited in power).
So decided to make another tweak to my electrics to allow my to chose to use either the VSR or the B2B Charger with a single switch (sounds simple enough but actually needs some extra electrical components, not just a switch )

This is the Conceptual Wiring Diagram for my Charging Systems

Clarence - Battery Charging by David, on Flickr

Right in the middle you see the Redarc BCDC1240 B2B Controller centre-right and the 140A VSR to the centre-left.
The change I made following the charging pattern seen in the graphs above was to add the 5-pin relay between the two.
And this is how this works ....
A Relay requires a ground to be able to operate. And I am running the ground connection via a switch. So when the switch is open, the VSR relay will be able to operate - so I am able to control the VSR via that switch.
The 5-pin relay also uses the same ground wire to turn on and off as well. But what I am doing there is using the 87a output rather than the 87 output. The difference is that when the Relay is ON, pin 30 is connected to pin 87 - this is the 'normal' or typical way to use a relay. On the 5-pin relay, when the Relay is off, then pin 30 is actually connected to pin 87a and then flips to pin 87 when on. So when you look at the diagram, you can see when the relay is off, power is coming into pin 30 and onto pin 87a, onto which is connected the Source Select wire. With the Redarc BCDC1240, the B2B is only ready to work when the Source Select wire has a potential. So when the ground signal is open (i.e. switch open), the relay is off so B2B is ready, but when the Switch is closed, relay is on and pin 87a is no longer connected (as pin 87 is instead)

It is again more typical to control devices with a +ve signal rather than a ground, but for some devices such as a VSR or a normal switched relay using a D+ signal to activate, using a +ve is not possible.

So this is working well and should achieve what I want to do in terms of best performance charging when driving (using the B2B) and when parked up (using the VSR). It would also be possible to use the D+ line to automatically switch between the two different devices, again using a 5-pin Relay, but I wanted to have a manual control to chose. (if anyone wants to see the wiring for a D+ control for a VSR & B2B selection, just let me know).

To add the control switch, I simply adapted my 2-gang CBE Unit on the side of the kitchen to become a 3-gang CBE outlet set and added the simple ON/OFF switch

Added Charger Switch by David, on Flickr

I know this update will be of limited interest, but hopefully may be useful just to show how it is possible to tweak and adapt devices to suit your own needs and requirements

 

[wildebus]

So added a little gizmo today to my Victron Management System ....

Stratux Vk-162 Remote Mount USB GPS

Plugged into the USB Hub, restarted the Raspberry Pi running Victron Venus GX software and the GPS location was automatically picked up :dance:

The purpose? Well, I can set up a Geofence based on location and get the Victron VRM portal to send me an email if the vehicle goes outside the fence I created, so it becomes a tracking system :ninja:
If you had a vehicle you were renting, you could set up a fence that would alert you if the vehicle left a specific Country for example (you may have prohibited that in the rental T&Cs ).
In the same scenario, you could set an alert to tell you if the vehicle exceed a certain speed :drive:

The VRM will also tell you the weather basics (temp, cloud, etc) for the location, so it becomes a basic forecast system first thing in the morning.

Essential Add-on? Nah; Useful? I think so; Worth the money? well, £15 to add on these features I think it is