Hank the Tanks Dodgy battery and solar system

Pudsey Bear said:
I'd not go cheap per se, just a cheaper style of system with quality components, having said that, the Controller we had wasn't expensive but it was very good, I always bought the cheapest panels from ebay.de, and the cheapest 11ah batteries from Alpha and even when we did run a 240v 32" TV and a PVR etc it was always up to the job, plus charging all the gubbins we took.

This Lithium and associated stuff is all good of course but I bet most of us will never get near it's capacity, and if one does go kaput getting another might be fun when away, but a LA you can get anywhere, (I'm not sure what the real diff is between starter and leisure over the labels) Controllers and panels don't normally konk out do they.
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Thats fine if you are cobbling together something yourself. Might only cost a few hundred quid but I'm not. If I am paying a professional to fit panels, batteries and controllers a big chunk of the final bill is labour. That labour is not going to be much less for fitting an old school system so it seems sensible to me to spend that money getting state of the art. I washed my hands of 1996 when Hank the Tank 1 and I parted company. :D
 
wildebus said:
I lost track of what you have done! given you are looking at quotes for a Lithium Battery I didn't realise you had also bought a brand new Lead Acid?
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If you remember the general opinion was that the 110 battery on this new van was duff. I think you yourself reckoned it was maybe only at 30% capacity so it was charging quick but not lasting long. Forgive me if it was someone else. So the general opinion was to buy a cheap replacement and see if it was better to tide us over until we could get a better system fitted other than the lead Carbon system I nearly signed up for with VanBitz a couple of weeks ago. I think however there as possibly not much wrong with the other battery. This one is slightly better but not much. I bought a 120ah expedition from Alpha. It will do until such time as I get a proper system. In fact I am going to call Off Grid Solutions right now and discuss the recommendations you gave me the other day.
 
barryd said:
If you remember the general opinion was that the 110 battery on this new van was duff. I think you yourself reckoned it was maybe only at 30% capacity so it was charging quick but not lasting long. Forgive me if it was someone else. So the general opinion was to buy a cheap replacement and see if it was better to tide us over until we could get a better system fitted other than the lead Carbon system I nearly signed up for with VanBitz a couple of weeks ago. I think however there as possibly not much wrong with the other battery. This one is slightly better but not much. I bought a 120ah expedition from Alpha. It will do until such time as I get a proper system. In fact I am going to call Off Grid Solutions right now and discuss the recommendations you gave me the other day.
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It was me who suggested the battery was likely knackered from the description. But I think others concluded that as well :)
Problem with dealing with so many variables and unknowns is you don't know where you are coming from! I guess at least you can work on the basis that the battery is good.

PS. Using the sargent system to tell you the current draw may not be much use if any circuits have been added directly to the battery as that will bypass the sargent.
Turn off the Hab electrics via the control panel and see if anything is live still.
 
barryd said:
Thats fine if you are cobbling together something yourself. Might only cost a few hundred quid but I'm not. If I am paying a professional to fit panels, batteries and controllers a big chunk of the final bill is labour. That labour is not going to be much less for fitting an old school system so it seems sensible to me to spend that money getting state of the art. I washed my hands of 1996 when Hank the Tank 1 and I parted company.
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As said, little point in paying for lower quality kit to be installed if you are paying for fitting. For example, I wouldn't pay to get a Chinese Diesel Heater fitted professionally but would go for a Eberspacher or Webasto.
 
wildebus said:
It was me who suggested the battery was likely knackered from the description. But I think others concluded that as well :)
Problem with dealing with so many variables and unknowns is you don't know where you are coming from! I guess at least you can work on the basis that the battery is good.

PS. Using the sargent system to tell you the current draw may not be much use if any circuits have been added directly to the battery as that will bypass the sargent.
Turn off the Hab electrics via the control panel and see if anything is live still.
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It might still have been dodgy. We need an update from @yeoblade to see if his fish are happy or not as its powering his pond lights now. :ROFLMAO:

It was the logical thing to replace first. It is better (I think). Just not good enough. There isnt really anything else drawing power outside of the Sargent system I can think of other than the controller itself and possibly a tracker which I located behind the rear lounge garage door but I checked on that and they use less than the power of a digital dash clock apparently. Its a really expensive one (that no longer is active). Dont want to shut it all down right now but when I get it sorted ill ask them to check for any parasitic draws that are over and above what should be there.

The guy at Off Grid Solutions is going to call me later today so ill go over it all with him and see what they say.
 
wildebus said:
As said, little point in paying for lower quality kit to be installed if you are paying for fitting. For example, I wouldn't pay to get a Chinese Diesel Heater fitted professionally but would go for a Eberspacher or Webasto.
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Exactly.
 
barryd said:
Exactly.
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FWIW here's my take from what's already been covered:
The original battery would charge and discharge very quickly, that's a sign of a poor battery.
The reason why you're still struggling isn't to do with the new battery NOT being AGM or whatever, it's to do with the fact that you're charging isn't keeping up with your discharging, it doesn't matter what battery you have if you can't keep it charged.
You have less solar on hanky panky (I think?) so that's a reduction in charge capacity.
You're solar controller is a downgrade from MPPT to PWM., another downgrade.
You have this parasitic draw, another downgrade.
Add them all up and they become a significant downgrade.
Clean the panels will give you 5-10%
Swap the solar controller to MPPT will give you 15-20%
More solar is bound to improve things massively.
The 2 above is something you're going to have to do when you come to the lithium fit so they could be done sooner rather than later.
Disconnecting the battery overnight would save the draw. A faff but it would save a few more percent.
 
merl said:
FWIW here's my take from what's already been covered:
The original battery would charge and discharge very quickly, that's a sign of a poor battery.
The reason why you're still struggling isn't to do with the new battery NOT being AGM or whatever, it's to do with the fact that you're charging isn't keeping up with your discharging, it doesn't matter what battery you have if you can't keep it charged.
You have less solar on hanky panky (I think?) so that's a reduction in charge capacity.
You're solar controller is a downgrade from MPPT to PWM., another downgrade.
You have this parasitic draw, another downgrade.
Add them all up and they become a significant downgrade.
Clean the panels will give you 5-10%
Swap the solar controller to MPPT will give you 15-20%
More solar is bound to improve things massively.
The 2 above is something you're going to have to do when you come to the lithium fit so they could be done sooner rather than later.
Disconnecting the battery overnight would save the draw. A faff but it would save a few more percent.
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Yes a lot of that makes sense but I did see a significant improvement in old Hank with the change to a 120 agm from a 120 lead acid with exactly the same usage and I'm comparing before the battery it replaced went duff.

I've resigned myself for the rest of this tour to just off grid when we can and hookup when we have to. It's no Biggie and in some respects it will help me sell the lithium set up to Michelle. She's an accountant or used to be. She will soon work out the maths. £7 off grid a night £22-30 hooked up. 😁
 
merl said:
I'm sure if you tried you could find something more expensive than that Baz 😘
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Trust me! That's more than enough. Michelle hates spending money on camping. Even more than me. Some say I should be thankful having a wife that hates spending money. 😁 I'm surprised she hasn't had a melt down this year.
 
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