Hank the Tanks Dodgy battery and solar system

Just get four 6v batteries and wire them in pairs in series, then each pair in parallel, sorted :D :D

Better too I think.
 
Nabsim said:
don't suppose I should mention lifepo4 but I will.

Only cos I think Barry is just winding us up now :)
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Don't worry. Those three hundred pages of advice have not been wasted. :LOL: I probably will go that way at some point but I decided that for now and especially as we will be "touring" more this summer I just dont need it. So a couple of hundred quid (probably less) to fit another battery might be all we need for now.

Secretly Phil employs me to generate page turnover and traffic to the website. :ROFLMAO:
 
As has been said by many over and over again I think, if on EHU leave it alone if it does what you need, you only need lashings of power if wild camping or with no EHU, save yer dosh lad.
 
Pudsey Bear said:
As has been said by many over and over again I think, if on EHU leave it alone if it does what you need, you only need lashings of power if wild camping or with no EHU, save yer dosh lad.
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But we are mainly off grid in summer. I think it would cope this year as it is as we will be moving around more but it struggled at times last year in dull weather but not by much. My theory of simply doubling the capacity to 240ah is that it if there are two or three dull days it will last until the sun comes out again whereas with one battery within 24 hours it was starting to get low enough to cause concern.
 
barryd said:
But we are mainly off grid in summer. I think it would cope this year as it is as we will be moving around more but it struggled at times last year in dull weather but not by much. My theory of simply doubling the capacity to 240ah is that it if there are two or three dull days it will last until the sun comes out again whereas with one battery within 24 hours it was starting to get low enough to cause concern.
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Yes it's a good idea, and I expect you can afford it Barry, my view is from an overall cost perspective and having no way to earn more reddies, you seem to still be going to Lithium soon so £100 ish wasted that would go towards the Lithium, I'd so just go there now and take the advice on how to make sure it is looked after as I reckon you (and me) will need it.
 
Pudsey Bear said:
Yes it's a good idea, and I expect you can afford it Barry, my view is from an overall cost perspective and having no way to earn more reddies, you seem to still be going to Lithium soon so £100 ish wasted that would go towards the Lithium, I'd so just go there now and take the advice on how to make sure it is looked after as I reckon you (and me) will need it.
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If it works for us Kev I see no reason to rush into Lithium. The more I looked into it and how complicated it was it just put me off to be honest and as a few said, I perhaps as a light user dont need it right now. Best part of £3k for us and probably a week down south to get it done. Lithium is not without its problems either from what I have read up on over the winter.
 
Well if it works then it works, the problem is not knowing which way to jump, I understand a bit of it but I also feel there is an element of the emperor's new clothes too.
 
Pudsey Bear said:
Well if it works then it works, the problem is not knowing which way to jump, I understand a bit of it but I also feel there is an element of the emperor's new clothes too.
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Agreed .....

I'm sure I've posted before BUT I thought long and hard about going lithium ...
I'd already fitted compatable B2B/solar controller and 400w of solar ...
BUT in the end (and bearing in mind this is around start of Covid) just couldn't justify the extra cost of lithium over AGMs ...

And to be honest barring the weight saving ...
Our 3 x 100ah agm batteries have worked fine for us ...
The only time it's been anything close to an issue was last Novembers trip up to Dumfries and Galloway ...
Where we had the eberspacher running for the full 2 weeks
And the second week it was dull and we stopped in one place for the duration ...
Other than that we have always had power to spare EVEN running the inverter/240v fridge and 12v compressor cool box in freezer mode ...

Still keep looking at lithium though ;-)
 
For us I think lithium would be a waste ,2 leds at night, and maybe the led tube thing over the cooker, a bit of phone and tablet charging which we mainly do on the road, not run out yet.
 
The main issue last year was the two places we spent weeks at without moving the van. We still managed a month at Salcombe off grid on one battery and one panel so we really can't be far off. As you will remember though it drove me nuts.

That's not going to happen this year. There will be a couple of spots in the south of France where we might stop a couple of weeks but I can't see that being an issue in mid summer even with one battery. 😀
 
Pudsey Bear said:
I'd be inclined to add solar before going, this will max out what you can pull in, another battery will more than likely need more solar anyway and you can add a battery if you need it anywhere.
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Nah. That means getting someone else involved which is always a PIA plus its not immediately obvious what size additional panels would fit on that roof. The issue last year I dont think was with the panel, when there was sun it charged the single battery to full in a couple of hours. Ill use it this year with one panel and two batteries and find out if its enough or not that way.
 
mistericeman said:
Agreed .....

I'm sure I've posted before BUT I thought long and hard about going lithium ...
I'd already fitted compatable B2B/solar controller and 400w of solar ...
BUT in the end (and bearing in mind this is around start of Covid) just couldn't justify the extra cost of lithium over AGMs ...

And to be honest barring the weight saving ...
Our 3 x 100ah agm batteries have worked fine for us ...
The only time it's been anything close to an issue was last Novembers trip up to Dumfries and Galloway ...
Where we had the eberspacher running for the full 2 weeks
And the second week it was dull and we stopped in one place for the duration ...
Other than that we have always had power to spare EVEN running the inverter/240v fridge and 12v compressor cool box in freezer mode ...

Still keep looking at lithium though ;-)
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The ability to add a proper columbmetric battery monitor (the ones with a shunt) is another massive advantage with lithium. It's rarely talked about when considering the lithium pros and cons but there's no comparison to the crappy 'finger in the air' voltage measurement method used with lead acid and is genuine game changer as those with lithium will testify.
 
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