Hank the Tanks Dodgy battery and solar system

[Nabsim]

You guys should have yourselves a "power meet" - or a big "pow wow"

Talk round the fire about the pros and cons of batteries, solar and all your fancy gadgets to your hearts content for hours on end (or 'til the cows come home ).

Me, I just want something simple and neat I can "plug in and go" and not worry about some bespoke rats' nest of cables and controllers that will confuse the hell out of me if something goes wrong...

Thought they already did Marie, aren’t they called Motorhomer Meets?

I'll have some breathing space to get my head round it all now anyway at least rather than blundering ahead while away. It's more tech than nuts and bolts so I should be all over it really with my background and I will be eventually. I just can't do any of the physical work myself. Understanding exactly whats required though will help me find someone who can. There must be a solar lithium guru up north surely.

There is, I messaged you last week ya daft sod lol

 

[witzend]

Time for You to think about the new van Barry leave something for its new owners to fix on this one

 

[Nabsim]

Time for You to think about changing that van Barry all these yrs it won't last forever

Must admit, I hadn’t realised what a worrier Barry was before he got this van

 

[barryd]

Not a worrier just hate flying by the seat of my pants and not understanding everything. It all happened so fast so its a bit of a learning curve. The entire past month or so since it all happened very quickly has though been pretty stressful.

Met up with Julian (Yeoblade) just now and he had a look at whats needed. All the gear and battery is ordered and should be with him tomorrow so we will get it fitted Monday morning.

 

[witzend]

Must admit, I hadn’t realised what a worrier Barry was before he got this van

This is the old van surely can't be all this to do to the new one ?

 

[mariesnowgoose]

This is the old van surely can't be all this to do to the new one ?

Hmm. I thought this thread was about his new van?? But I'm never 100% sure about most things these days!!

 

[barryd]

Hmm. I thought this thread was about his new van?? But I'm never 100% sure about most things these days!!

Take no notice of that nutter! Of course its the new van! Everything in the old van could be fixed with bailer twine, rubber tape and bic biro tops and thats a fact!!!

 

[alcam]

What you want doing is a biggish job and requires mucking about with the wiring on a factory-built motorhome. Yuk!

It can be a messy, very time consuming job, and if I were in David's shoes I would say no too!

Even just fitting a new leisure battery in our old autosleeper, which should have been a quick, straightforward "slot out/slot in" job turned out to be more complicated that you would ever think.

Which is why , for some of us , a decent portable power thingy , will be perfect

 

[1 Cup]

Get down pub all weekend and on Monday your have two of everything. Lol

 

[1 Cup]

Its just a temporary thing for this trip. Ill have a little 12v socket right under my seat at the back where I sit above the battery. I just thought it might give me a better idea if the battery is in decline than relying on the three lights on the solar controller or the swift levels lights above the door. Generally in the old van I hit the button on the (wonderful) MPPT controller each evening before bed and it showed me where we were in voltage. The old system this time of year even with a crap day it would hardly ever drop below 12.5.

No you'll know when it's bad the lights won't work. Why collect data from stuff your scrapping. Pull a ring and relax only 5 hours till sun up.

 

[barryd]

So @yeoblade Julian up this morning with a box of goodies I ordered including the new battery from Alpha and we (well he) got cracking on that. First issue we had which Julian warned me off is the bloody battery clamp bolts in the battery box would not come out. The ends underneath the van just turn. I think they get corroded over time. By lifting the clamp up (Stretching it) we manged to wiggle it out but we had to fit the new one under the spare slot for the second battery. At some point if I get an upgrade those bolts on the first slot are going to have be removed / chopped off.

Julian tested the input from the panel and it is charging although we couldnt get an accurate reading. Somewhere between 1 and 3 amps. Then he went over all the Sargent control panel stuff with me so I learned some useful stuff there.

However one thing we found out and this is the same on Julians similar Swift van is there is a draw of around 0.6-0.7 amps with nothing on. Not sure what this is. Could it be just the current required for the Sargent system, control panel above the door? Possibly. Maybe the old van had some kind of miniscule draw as well. Dunno. My new voltage meter will hopefully tell me last thing at night and first thing in the morning if its dropping much overnight but realistically this time of year there should be no problem at all.

Going back off grid tomorrow over Salcombe way so we will see how we get on.

Massive thanks to Julian for helping us out with all this. So very kind.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

Not a worrier just hate flying by the seat of my pants and not understanding everything. It all happened so fast so its a bit of a learning curve. The entire past month or so since it all happened very quickly has though been pretty stressful.

Met up with Julian (Yeoblade) just now and he had a look at whats needed. All the gear and battery is ordered and should be with him tomorrow so we will get it fitted Monday morning.

Poor man, is he ÍNSANE? he bloody will be soon.

 

[barryd]

Poor man, is he ÍNSANE? he bloody will be soon.

I think he might be now.

 

[1 Cup]

So you had crusty battery terminals and a parasitic draw. And solar panel output making 50%.

Now you know. Vans a gooden.

 

[barryd]

So you had crusty battery terminals and a parasitic draw. And solar panel output making 50%.

Now you know. Vans a gooden.

No idea. Back off grid now so will see how it pans out next few days.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

What's going on with the gas situation Barry?

 

[barryd]

What's going on with the gas situation Barry?

Filled up today and it took just over 9 litres but that was really only 10 days use as we were on hookup the last six days so maybe I can eek out two weeks out of it with no heating on. About what I thought really. Still got a nearly full calor. If the solar and battery lasted I'll swap to that when needed.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

Looks like it's working, much better if you can leave the Calor as backup and fill up as and when, plenty of apps.

 

[barryd]

Looks like it's working, much better if you can leave the Calor as backup and fill up as and when, plenty of apps.

Yeah of course but as I said if your in a field miles from an LPG station for a month your stuffed. All you can do is wait until there is about two litres left then switch to Calor. If that runs out before you leave, switch back to Gaslow and hopefully you will have enough until you can get a calor exchange either that day or the next.

 

[barryd]

So last night I plugged in the little voltage tester around 11:15pm after an evening of TV and laptop usage which included the humongous dish on the roof getting it's knickers in a twist finding Vauxhall Astra for about 15 minutes.

Reading was 12.5v

I would have expected our old van to be 12.6 when fully charged after not much use but not bad. What I wanted to know though was if the apparent parasitic draw Julian and I found on the Sargent system was going to drag it down overnight. The dish and sat controller are also left up and switched on. At 7am it's still reading 12.5v so that's promising.

By 8:15 it had risen to 12.6v so already charging.

Jury is well and truly out for now but will see how it goes. I've had a quote from Off-grid Solutions in Wantage so I'll post that shortly.