Sorry I've been away from this thread for so long!
We made the install, and have spent the past year happily exploiting our newfound freedom to roam about the country.
Sort of - we've actually been working and taking some random trips as time allows... :smiley_drive:
I need to get some instrumentation on the battery to validate it hasn't lost too much life, but it seems to be holding strong and serving its purpose.
A quick recap of our setup and use case:
Valence U1-12RT LiFeMgPo4 battery in 12 volt 40 amp hour
Blue Sea ACR rated at 500 amp with manual latch override
Loads on the LiPo - fridge (Dometic CF80), ham radio, a few lights, 110V 750W inverter (for the coffee maker).
When we overland, we typically spend 8-10 hours per day driving, so have no current need for a solar power source.
The batteries are connected by the ACR almost 100% of the time. That means both batteries are sharing the house loads, the regular truck loads, and the starter load most of the time. The only time it disconnects is when the fridge has been running for about 24 hours without the engine turned on to charge. Then the ACR isolates the batteries and the fridge runs off just the LiPo until the LiPo reaches its critical low voltage and disconnects itself from loads - we can typically get about a day and a half of fridge time without driving, which is about a day longer than we need.
The internal BMS of the Valence battery doesn't need any programming or attention from us at all. It disconnects at low voltage, and reconnects as soon as it sees a charge. It doesn't need any button pressing or 'waking up' to take the charge.
In the past year we've gone on about 8-10 trips longer than three days, and of those, 3 have been five days or more, and one was 13 days on the trail. On the trips, we have never had the battery disconnect itself due to low voltage, and have had the ACR isolate the batteries twice due to me overloading the fridge with warm beer after a night of drinking all the cold ones.
Long story short:
The system works as planned for our purpose and we currently have no reason to change it.
It's nice and light.
We made the install, and have spent the past year happily exploiting our newfound freedom to roam about the country.
Sort of - we've actually been working and taking some random trips as time allows... :smiley_drive:
I need to get some instrumentation on the battery to validate it hasn't lost too much life, but it seems to be holding strong and serving its purpose.
A quick recap of our setup and use case:
Valence U1-12RT LiFeMgPo4 battery in 12 volt 40 amp hour
Blue Sea ACR rated at 500 amp with manual latch override
Loads on the LiPo - fridge (Dometic CF80), ham radio, a few lights, 110V 750W inverter (for the coffee maker).
When we overland, we typically spend 8-10 hours per day driving, so have no current need for a solar power source.
The batteries are connected by the ACR almost 100% of the time. That means both batteries are sharing the house loads, the regular truck loads, and the starter load most of the time. The only time it disconnects is when the fridge has been running for about 24 hours without the engine turned on to charge. Then the ACR isolates the batteries and the fridge runs off just the LiPo until the LiPo reaches its critical low voltage and disconnects itself from loads - we can typically get about a day and a half of fridge time without driving, which is about a day longer than we need.
The internal BMS of the Valence battery doesn't need any programming or attention from us at all. It disconnects at low voltage, and reconnects as soon as it sees a charge. It doesn't need any button pressing or 'waking up' to take the charge.
In the past year we've gone on about 8-10 trips longer than three days, and of those, 3 have been five days or more, and one was 13 days on the trail. On the trips, we have never had the battery disconnect itself due to low voltage, and have had the ACR isolate the batteries twice due to me overloading the fridge with warm beer after a night of drinking all the cold ones.
Long story short:
The system works as planned for our purpose and we currently have no reason to change it.
It's nice and light.
