The pump is powered by electricity… So…
I have a lengthy electrical background. An unfinished electrical apprenticeship, time in quality working with electrical measurement equipment and components. I build my own computers, geek about computer components, and dabble with my LiPo powered RC car for fun. I am also a fan of generally having access to electricity, just to do the most basic things…
When we got our RV, we were thrilled it came with solar panels. Not just a few, it came with TEN solar panels, two smart charge controllers, and FOUR 200 amp hour batteries.
Now at the time, I didn’t really understand what these meant beyond the amp hours (Ah). I remembered specific sections in classes I took while pursuing a chemistry degree regarding batteries, storage, and specific measurement types. It was a long time ago. Solar panels, something about heating a liquid within a doped semi-conductor material? Anyways…
I believe that there is a threshold where you do something so much you can shut your brain off and do it. But I also believe that the best mechanics, technicians, lawyers, financial advisors, or ANY service work, will do their research on a case by case basis. That is to say, if I am installing something as simple as a fridge, I will be checking the manual to check for setup instructions I might have forgotten, or even to verify dimensions for where it is going.
So on to the issue. We drove the rig to lake Shasta, and enjoyed the energy of the wonderful California sun. We powered our fridge while we drove to keep our food good. When we arrived we were alarmed when we set up our internet and found the batteries drained before the sun even went down! I did some napkin math for wattage on our major devices and discovered on a full charge of solar batteries we have… 3.5 days of power! And so began my research to find the cause.
It’s a pretty simple setup. The solar panels are connected to the roof of the RV. Cables run down to the smart controllers (we have Epever brand a 60A and a 30A). The smart controllers connect to the batteries. The batteries connect to the inverter. The inverter connects to the input terminal where we plug in our RV.
The panels themselves plug in and get to work. They are collecting energy if the sun is present, the cables just need to be installed to direct it. The smart controller is pretty smart, but needs settings to be configured. Parameters that tell it if the temperature is not optimal, if the voltage increases or decreased too quickly, how much voltage to charge to, battery types and sizes, and much, much more. They have two phase charge cycles. These phases essentially hold a constant current to start to quickly fill the battery with energy, and then holds constant voltage to ensure the “pressure” is high enough to top off the battery and hold it.
I read the manual for the controllers and verified the parameters and that the controllers were inputting and outputting proper voltage and current. Seeing 15V+ for a solar output is normal, and the controller outputs a reasonable 13V or so for lead acid batteries to charge.
A lot of research to verify that worked, and the obvious answer quickly became the reality. We would watch 800 Ah of power fill up in essentially 40 minutes, according to our measuring devices. As soon as we lost sun, power disappeared within the hour. Batteries dropped down as low as 10V. Toast.
So I look into battery replacements. It didn’t take much reading in forums and reviews to ask: why does anybody even use lead acid?? In addition to temperature requirements, they shouldn’t be used to less than 50% capacity, kept topped off constantly, only last 3-5 years, weigh an insane amount, and from what I’ve seen don’t even really save you a worthwhile amount of money.
Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) batteries are a million times better. Easier to transport, more energy available, they last up to (and in many cases more than) ten years. I was thrilled to learn that our smart controllers had configurability for LiFePO4 batteries. I was even more thrilled to find a decent black Friday deal for a four pack of 200 Ah batteries. I vetted the brand, found a couple of anecdotal stories related to customer service, but found a mostly satisfied customer base.
A couple of weeks later, we arrived at our destination where we delivered the batteries to. I had drove 9 hours in two days and at about 3 PM I ripped out my old batteries and began the process.
All of the battery cables are black. The cables being used to set the batteries in parallel were colored correctly… Yay. But every other cable, input, output, whatever. Black. Unwilling to spend the time and effort to rerun cabling across the entire body, I meticulously traced cables and verified what they did. Small hints left behind helped pave the way when I discovered some duct tape wrapped around labeled with fading characters “neg”.
The sun went down and I finished the next morning. Happy to see the solar panels providing energy, I plugged in my 40A smart charger and allowed it to fully top off the four batteries. About 15 hours later, we finally had full power.
Funnily enough, I discovered the previous owner had a 75A smart charger stored underneath our bed. It’s for lead acid, but from what I’ve read it can provide enough charge to get it most of the way there, but can’t quite top them off, since they only go to 13.6V (LiFePO4 needs 14.5 or so for voltage charge). This, with my solar panels and smart charger designed for the batteries, will ensure we have enough power to last until well beyond the apocalypse, assuming it is not one involving the sun disappearing.
So now I am happily writing this from my sun powered computer, finally taking a deep breath from the series of issues.
Remember, anything can be done by you. This was a great success story where very very little went wrong. The batteries were slightly too big and I had to cut the handles off to fit it in the compartment (I verified the sizes matched the previous and didn’t realize the previous owner did the same thing). The cables were all black. When these issues arise, I always start with “how the hell am I going to solve this?” Resources exist. Intelligent people exist. Ask for help. Look for answers. Be tenacious. Break things.
Stick around to learn about more of my self induced mishaps. I have mentioned the Smart car before, but it will be another post similar to this one. One mistake after the next, I have learned that life is more about remedying what goes wrong than it is executing what should go right.
Sorry, no pictures of this one! After driving for several days, finishing up this fix, and getting settled at our new spot it has been exhausting. But it has been extremely rewarding, and I can already tell that I will be excited to write about and tell everyone about this adventure. Before then, we will have another blog post coming soon for the most recent one.
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