Ski RV's, who's sleeping in parking lots?

[Pinned]

Charge controller, so you are saying you will have solar, which requires a solar charge controller? Victron seems to be the brand of choice for solar charge controllers. The specific model depends on what solar panel(s) you are installing (I have 175 watt panel and my solar charge controller is SmartSolar MPPT 75/15). Victron also makes popular battery monitors (smart shunt is the current popular one; screen less, you just view it on your phone using blue tooth app) and dc to dc chargers. For my uses, I could probably just get rid of the whole alternator thing and charge the battery exclusively with solar. But depends on how and where you use it.

Lithium isn't budget and if you go that route, you pretty much have to have either solar and/or dc to dc. It's not good for Lithium to charge from alternator without a dc to dc in the mix. I think some people do it, but dc to dc seems to come with most lithium upgrades. If you really want to nerd out and save some money people build their own lithium batteries using cheap Chinese cells.

For budget, stick to AGM or even better, two 6 volt golf cart lead acid batteries in series to get 12 volt (that's what my friend who just built his own trailer went with). Advantage of AGM is doesn't need to be vented (or most don't think it needs to be vented; it's can off gas hydrogen), can be mounted in any direction, even upside down, no liquid sloshing around to spill out or need to maintain. Disadvantage is cost and AGM can't take as much abuse as lead acid.

I checked out those Victrons, but was looking at the Redarc ones as well (without solar). If I am going to do just alternator charging it seems like the DC to DC chargers aren't too expensive - and it looks like they double as an isolator if I am seeing things correctly.

A Renogy battery that'll fit my needs seems to be about $250-300 for AGM. Though a golf cart setup would be about the same price for double the amp hours - need to investigate a clean install of those under the hood. Either way it seems to put me into this whole thing around $450 with the inverter and DC Charge controller for a setup that'll easily get me 2 days of comfortable camping / charging.

Thanks for the suggestion all around - I'll keep this updated as I get things together. Still have 8 weeks before my topper shows up.

[Huskier]

I was definitely looking at a bigger inverter, though you're right it's unlikely I'll draw that much power.


Thanks for that detail - it looks like there is a very sharp jump in cost going from lead acid or AGM to a LiPO battery. So maybe the charge controller is a better idea - is there a brand or model that's a good balance of cost / performance?

I do have a NOCO Genius battery tender / charger so I guess I could always just use that if I wanted to just charge the battery up at home.

LiPO is 100% worth it, for reasons I'm sure have been discussed (ability to draw down close to zero as opposed to 50% with AGM which effectively doubles your useable WH).

I do the noco thing when my DC/DC is acting up. Can confirm it works, but is a giant pain in the ass disconnecting/removing/charging/re-connecting.

[WizardOfRoz]

Heyo everyone! The lady and I picked up a rather old (but renovated) TC to use for ski season / camping and festivals at the beginning of the summer. Unfortunately the fridge died on us this past week. Having the 3-Way power was quite nice and after looking at new ones that are 3-Way (or any RV fridge for that matter) they're quite pricy. Does anyone have suggestions for replacements? The unit does have solar, and 1 12V AGM battery and a MPPT Solar charge controller. I'll see if I can get the exact specs of the solar panel later. If I gotta buck up and pay, that's alright just curious on your suggestions. Thanks in advance.

[apex dave]

Heyo everyone! The lady and I picked up a rather old (but renovated) TC to use for ski season / camping and festivals at the beginning of the summer. Unfortunately the fridge died on us this past week. Having the 3-Way power was quite nice and after looking at new ones that are 3-Way (or any RV fridge for that matter) they're quite pricy. Does anyone have suggestions for replacements? The unit does have solar, and 1 12V AGM battery and a MPPT Solar charge controller. I'll see if I can get the exact specs of the solar panel later. If I gotta buck up and pay, that's alright just curious on your suggestions. Thanks in advance.

Does it work on any of the three functions?

[snowaddict91]

Heyo everyone! The lady and I picked up a rather old (but renovated) TC to use for ski season / camping and festivals at the beginning of the summer. Unfortunately the fridge died on us this past week. Having the 3-Way power was quite nice and after looking at new ones that are 3-Way (or any RV fridge for that matter) they're quite pricy. Does anyone have suggestions for replacements? The unit does have solar, and 1 12V AGM battery and a MPPT Solar charge controller. I'll see if I can get the exact specs of the solar panel later. If I gotta buck up and pay, that's alright just curious on your suggestions. Thanks in advance.

3-way fridges are very inefficient on 12v power. I'd consider replacing with a 2-way or possibly a 12v compressor fridge (much more battery efficient).

[WizardOfRoz]

From what I've been able to gather the ammonia cooling unit is dead / out of liquid. It draws power and the freezer section gets slightly cool to the touch, even when left running for 24hrs+ it doesn't get cold.

As for the 12v compressor fridge, should I just look into adding an extra battery / solar panel? The ability for it to run off propane is pretty nice for when we're parked for a couple days.

[DanoT]

Heyo everyone! The lady and I picked up a rather old (but renovated) TC to use for ski season / camping and festivals at the beginning of the summer. Unfortunately the fridge died on us this past week. Having the 3-Way power was quite nice and after looking at new ones that are 3-Way (or any RV fridge for that matter) they're quite pricy. Does anyone have suggestions for replacements? The unit does have solar, and 1 12V AGM battery and a MPPT Solar charge controller. I'll see if I can get the exact specs of the solar panel later. If I gotta buck up and pay, that's alright just curious on your suggestions. Thanks in advance.

This might be overload:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ija2LmLVZHA

[Danno]

Selling my camper trailer, let me know if interested ASAP: https://boulder.craigslist.org/rvs/d...373523848.html

[~mikey b]

not interested

[Pinned]

LiPO is 100% worth it, for reasons I'm sure have been discussed (ability to draw down close to zero as opposed to 50% with AGM which effectively doubles your useable WH).

I do the noco thing when my DC/DC is acting up. Can confirm it works, but is a giant pain in the ass disconnecting/removing/charging/re-connecting.

From the looks of it, for $300 I can get one of the following:

• High quality 200Ah AGM battery (~100Ah usable)
• Golf cart battery setup with 450Ah (~225Ah usable)
• This lithium battery pack at 200Ah

I'm a little uncertain about the last one, but it seems those particular cells are popular with camper people. Any collective thoughts on the last option? That does provide me a bit more and it is likely to be easier to deal with than an AGM or SLA - could mount it in the bed.

[Danno]

not interested

Are you sure? Not even teensy weensy interest?

[wolfelot]

That’s a nice rig Danno. I’d be all over it if it worked for my situation.

[altasnob]

From the looks of it, for $300 I can get one of the following:

• High quality 200Ah AGM battery (~100Ah usable)
• Golf cart battery setup with 450Ah (~225Ah usable)
• This lithium battery pack at 200Ah

I'm a little uncertain about the last one, but it seems those particular cells are popular with camper people. Any collective thoughts on the last option? That does provide me a bit more and it is likely to be easier to deal with than an AGM or SLA - could mount it in the bed.

Sounds like for your uses and how you plan on charging you think you need 100Ah usable battery? The lithium you linked is only 50. And it doesn't include a Battery Monitor System (BMS) that keeps you from doing stupid things to your battery. $650 for a 100Ah with a built in BMS from that company. If you want to be able to charge when the battery is cold, you'll need one with a heater (Battle Born makes these).

Since you are going with a DC to DC I do think lithium makes sense if you have the coin (in the not too distant future we will all have lithium). You would easily be able to add solar down the road for $300 or so (either roof mounted or portable panel).

For those wanted true dirt bag setup, go with AGM/two golf cart connected straight to your starter battery (no dc to dc) with an isolator. That setup is can be had for sub $400 for the entire thing (including cables, wires, fuses, ect).

[Pinned]

Sounds like for your uses and how you plan on charging you think you need 100Ah usable battery? The lithium you linked is only 50. And it doesn't include a Battery Monitor System (BMS) that keeps you from doing stupid things to your battery. $650 for a 100Ah with a built in BMS from that company. If you want to be able to charge when the battery is cold, you'll need one with a heater (Battle Born makes these).

Since you are going with a DC to DC I do think lithium makes sense if you have the coin (in the not too distant future we will all have lithium). You would easily be able to add solar down the road for $300 or so (either roof mounted or portable panel).

For those wanted true dirt bag setup, go with AGM/two golf cart connected straight to your starter battery (no dc to dc) with an isolator. That setup is can be had for sub $400 for the entire thing (including cables, wires, fuses, ect).

I don't think I need 100Ah, I think 50Ah usable would actually be plenty. Having some overrun seems like it'd be beneficial, mainly for AGM in the sense of discharging it less.

That lithium pack is, confusingly, 4x 50Ah batteries wired together into a single 200Ah pack. They're 3v single cells so 4 are required to get it to 12v. There are some simple BMS circuits that look liked they'd do what I need for around $30 - so that's not too bad. Hadn't considered the heating pad aspect of it - I need to do a bit more research on that. I think it's more likely that I'd be discharging while the battery is cold and only charging after the bed of the truck (where I'd put the Lithium) is already warm.

Appreciate all the advice and info all around, going to have to research a bit more before I set anything up. Have a couple of months before the truck shell arrives anyways. The biggest factor will be how cleanly I can install a battery under the hood, and if I can't then the Lithium seems like the bet.

[mattig]

Regarding fridges, make sure you're level. It's an even crazier issue than I ever imagined. If I back into my driveway literally 2 inches less than normal, that makes the difference between zero refrigeration and ice cold. I was sure the thing was dead before figuring that out.

[DanoT]

Regarding fridges, make sure you're level. It's an even crazier issue than I ever imagined. If I back into my driveway literally 2 inches less than normal, that makes the difference between zero refrigeration and ice cold. I was sure the thing was dead before figuring that out.

With modern less than 10 y.o. propane fridges, if the RV is level enough to sleep in, its level enough for the fridge. 12v compressor fridges don't need to be level.

[Huskier]

From the looks of it, for $300 I can get one of the following:

• High quality 200Ah AGM battery (~100Ah usable)
• Golf cart battery setup with 450Ah (~225Ah usable)
• This lithium battery pack at 200Ah

I'm a little uncertain about the last one, but it seems those particular cells are popular with camper people. Any collective thoughts on the last option? That does provide me a bit more and it is likely to be easier to deal with than an AGM or SLA - could mount it in the bed.

For that price range I guess I would go AGM if you can do a ventilated install. You really want an integrated BMS to avoid headache/heartache re overcharge/over discharge. Costco was doing Lion LiFePO for $700/100 AH for a while, which is admittedly way more expensive.

[Pinned]

For that price range I guess I would go AGM if you can do a ventilated install. You really want an integrated BMS to avoid headache/heartache re overcharge/over discharge. Costco was doing Lion LiFePO for $700/100 AH for a while, which is admittedly way more expensive.

After a bit more research it looks like you can build a 100Ah battery with BMS for around $150. The DIY community online seems to think that ~$1/Ah is about the right price to pay for a decent LiFePo package (cells only). The integrated BMS is a pretty simple circuit, and you can buy them for $30-50 to wire into your battery pack. Seems like these RV / camper communities have a few vendors they like for the battery cells and have had good experience with.

Heating seems like it'll be unnecessary for what I'm doing - I can take the efficiency hit on the initial startup before the diesel heater brings the truck bed up to temp. Cells look like they'll work OK for the temps I expect to be in, and I won't be charging while the batteries are cold.

Obviously I don't want to buy the cheapest batteries and have them show up dead or quickly get run down - so I'm trying to learn a bit more about what to look out for here. Most of the expensive LiFePo batteries seem to be a package of A grade cells versus a package of B grade cells (where the 25Ah size cell has a capacity of 20Ah actual, or similar "defects"). In that situation I think a B grade would be OK for what I am doing. Obviously there is always more to it than meets the eye - I'm willing to do the assembly and such to save a little bit, plus it's fun. We'll see where this goes.

[mattig]

With modern less than 10 y.o. propane fridges, if the RV is level enough to sleep in, its level enough for the fridge. 12v compressor fridges don't need to be level.

2018 dometic 3-way. Here's the limit between on and off.

[altasnob]

Pinned, a BMS should have a temperature gauge so the battery starts charging the moment it is warm enough , and stops charging the moment it gets too cold. They also have BMS with built in battery monitors, so possible to kill two birds with one stone. Can you wrap the battery in foam/neoprene to help keep it warm? Put it in a battery box with closed cell foam installation? They also make combined dc to dc charger/solar charge controller. In the future, all this crap will be in a single component.

[DanoT]

For that price range I guess I would go AGM if you can do a ventilated install. You really want an integrated BMS to avoid headache/heartache re overcharge/over discharge. Costco was doing Lion LiFePO for $700/100 AH for a while, which is admittedly way more expensive.

AGM batteries do not off gas when being charged and do NOT require a vented install.

[Huskier]

AGM batteries do not off gas when being charged and do NOT require a vented install.

Wrong. Overcharging or charging at a rate higher than spec will produce H2 at a rate higher than the mat can deal with. It's not a scenario you would hopefully ever encounter, but nevertheless something that should be accounted for.

https://rvnerds.com/2017/11/01/elect...-need-venting/

[altasnob]

That was my understanding. But my AGM is not vented and I am assuming the risk that enough H2 can accumulate to create a fire hazard from a spark. My shell pop up camper (all terrain camper) came with a non-vented AGM so lots of manufacturers are not venting them, even though it is not 100% risk free (don't think they are vented from FWC). I wonder if that violates some kind of RV code? The manufacturer was otherwise code compliant (it came with a hard wired LP/CO monitor).

[m2711c]

Dihydrogen without the oxygen?

[kelvin1]

I've got a battery question for you. Can I simply use a 3-way isolator to switch all the van's power over to a deep cycle battery when I'm camped?

It would be rad to use the built-in fans, lights, and radio without having to duplicate all the wiring/components. I'd isolate the starter battery so it doesn't drain down. Not sure if running off a house battery would fuck up the van's ECU or other technical components I don't know anything about. But hey, 12 volts is 12 volts right?