Switch to LIFePO4?

Looks good. Not familiar with Victron equipment maybe it needs a few cycles to learn? I didn't use that feature with Magnum remote, my bms/ cpu has a 7" display to view the system.

Just funnin wit'cha :) Looks good


The price per foot is a stunner but SILICONE wire from eBAY can be bent a tight 90 degrees. And the claimed AWG is accurate.

Just as a quick update, all the batteries are installed and wired up properly. Took the opportunity to re-do a bit of the wire management to clean it up. Followed recommendations to use 8/2 for the 120V, glad I did even if it was a bit of a bear around corners. Still need to secure the wiring into the Samlex and add a few terminal caps.
Still fiddling with the settings on the Samlex for charging - yesterday the batteries showed as being down to 57% charge on the Victron battery monitor, but were still at around 90% according to the BMS panels on each battery. I get the sense that I won't be getting accurate readings from the Victron, not sure what to fiddle with. I recalibrated the Victron at 100% SOC, we'll see.
The Samlex will pump 80A as set to charge, it's set up as a 2-stage charge as per their recommendation, but it looks like the charger is still not fully charging the batteries. Will go and bump up the Absorbtion Voltage to 14.2 (initial setting was 14) and see. I did a test by running the microwave off a single battery (I know I shouldn't but could not resist the test and only ran it for a few seconds), dropped from 13.3 to 13.2 then back up - pretty impressive off a single 100A battery.
Net result is much better load handling, 270 lbs less weight and a much lighter pocket book, but I think it will be worth it in the long run.

RCMAN46 wrote:

RickLIght wrote:
The single most efficient way to convert power to heat is an electric heater.

I take exception to this. Heat pumps will convert more electric energy to heat than an electric heater by a factor of 3-5 times.

You may be confusing heating a space with creating heat from electricity.

Electric heaters convert 100% of their power draw into heat. In fact most electrical appliances convert all their draw into heat. Some get other stuff done along the way, like moving other heat around. IE heat pumps and refrigerators.

Can you set the charger to stay at 12.4v if that keeps the Li under 80% loaded with fridge etc?

The fridge will cycle 300w on and off or 30a DC. Don't know what that would do for loaded vs unloaded voltage. Might pull voltage down to 12.3 when on 12.4 when off?

the only reason I would not just keep everything hooked up is because the battery mfg explicitly said that keeping the batteries at 50-80% charge for extended periods of inactivity (i.e. in the driveway in-between trips - can be up to a month) was best for the long-term health of the batteries. Given the investment I'm prone to try and extend that as long as I can ;)
This gets more complicated as I go, but that's the way I like it!

Hi,

But a different battery bank voltage is the only reason I can thing of to not connect the battery to the RV.

Funny--when in storage the ONLY thing I leave connected is the solar.

LOL it is a great thing that for every scenario there are several workable solutions!

I suggest you install the new jars--and go on a holiday!

That's what I'm best at, overthinking!
So if I understand you correctly, the simplest course of action for me when 'in the driveway' is to keep everything on (except solar). Samlex drawing on batteries to power RV parasitic loads (including fridge control board while operating at 120V). When the battery voltage hits 12.2V, the charger kicks in on low threshold and charges back up to 100%, then rinse & repeat... ?
When cold weather kicks in, everything will be disconnected anyways.

PT, I didn't have any intention of changing the battery bank voltage, not sure how that came up?

You guys are over thinking it. During the summer no reason to turn it off even if plugged in with lfp.

Good luck.

AFAIK, PT has those two high amp switches for recharging one bank at a time. Normally, you would not have any disconnect switch between inverter and battery bank with those high amp fat wires. You might have a high amp fuse in a holder that would be easy to take out of its holder, not sure how those things work.

To isolate the Li bank from the I/C draw even on standby, you would have to shut off the I/C. I don't know, but assume there is an on/off button for that.

For the battery meter to show 80%, that would need it to be resting at some voltage where that is 80%. If the battery is under load and shows that voltage, it could be at a way higher SOC.

So to run the fridge and other loads off the battery to keep the battery under 80% but over 50%, how are you going to measure the SOC?

I think you have to get the battery down to 80% and isolate it from all loads. Now the meter on the battery is right, and you have to get your 12v somewhere else.