CHARGING HOUSE BATTERIES

part time nomad

part time nomad

Adventurer
Oh, I see you have the Vario 614d is it 4 x 4 ? Thats good to know that 200w solar keeps up with the fridge, I have the Webaso cr 165 it has a separate fridge / freezer and will use 600ah over 24 hours, there is a smart device that connects to these fridges and it reduces the power useage by not cutting the compressor in to just check the tempature, saving power consumption.

I did get a second hand Honda 1kva generator £120 for back up, but on the whole I find them unsociable things.

My trucks coming on well now most of the interior furniture is done now but I still to start on the bathroom.

Did you go to the AO 15 at stratford?
 
S

surfer4life

Observer
No its not the 4x4 unfortunately.

Thats 600W over 24 hours not 600AH, if it was you'd be screwed lol. I can't remember how to work out AH from W but i'll give it a go, it may be wrong! 600W over 24hour - 600W / 24 hours = 25W an hour / voltage (24v) = around 1 A/H so 24 A/H a day.

it is generally considered that you only have around 50% of your batteries available A/H rating before voltage gets too low, i have 4 x 110 AH so 440 A/H available, but only around 50% of that i can use, so 220 A/H, i should in theory be able to run the fridge for nearly 10 days with no external charge before its starts not to work.

So as long as the solar puts in 24A/h a day it will run the fridge fine. In winter i have seen in cloud and rain 1-2 A/h for say 5 hours, so wouldn't keep up with it, but if your moving around a bit and have a decent split charger, then that should do the job.
 
Z

zracer

Banned
loonwheeler said:
Just my own personal opinion but I would vote for #4 option with an ACR between the house and truck battery system. Get a smart voltage regulator and good battery monitor that can watch both banks and you have a pretty decent system.

Just my 2C.
Click to expand...

+1 on this idea, if its easy to turn on/off the truck to recharge. Maybe rig a remote start on/off for the engine if not.

As a full time nomad software developer working out of a Chevy Volt in the forests, I use a USB Radio Shack multi-meter connected to a group 27 deep cycle battery with a custom program that reads the voltage and speaks once it hits 12.2 volts saying its time to recharge.
I connect the group 27 to the Chevy Volt starter battery (12V) and power on the car which boots it up w/no engine running. The "alternator" is a reducer that takes energy from the 360V traction battery to charge/maintain the 12V engine starter battery. The custom app (for Windows desktop) knows when bulk/absorbing charging is done and float charging starts. At that point it speaks "Now float charging at x volts." At that point the group 27 is disconnected and the car is powered off.

Once the traction battery gets low from charging the group 27 repeatedly, the car can be booted and switched to Mountain mode for the purpose of charging the traction battery to 50% full using the gas engine.

Doing it this way solved the problem where I was killing the battery running the inverter off the starter battery and the car wouldn't boot. A hard lesson to learn cold batteries don't last nearly as long.
 
Last edited:
part time nomad

part time nomad

Adventurer
Sorry for the delay here, the charge controller is identical to the Steca pr range, but it has a different name on it.
I chose this one because of its ease of use, along with a decent display screen, and the fact that it does 12 or 24 volt.

its not the best looking thing to have on display, so I am putting it in a cupboard!!

I would like to have a MPPT controller as you can get an extra 20% out of your panels, but the screen on the one I looked at was really difficult to use, so for now I will stick with the one I have.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
185,796
Messages
2,878,276
Members
225,352
Latest member
ritabooke

Members online

Total: 552 (members: 49, guests: 503)
Top