240v/inverter/12v/bangbus/solar/generator

[Sucker]

Within the next few weeks I should be able to finish of some work and get stuck into building my house/bus.

Does anyone have any good links I can research for the electrical fit out side of things?

I would like to be able to stay somewhere for upto a week without needing a outside power supply. What's the latest with solar? Heaps of places are selling both panels and sheets of panels that roll up when not in use, anybody use them or reccomend them?

The idea is to rock up to a place, set up and not have to start the bus to charge the batteries. I am thinking a generator is the only way to go because I can't really rely on the sun on cloudy/shaded days or at night.

The main thing using power will be a fridge, the rest will just making sure phones and torches are charged. We won't be using computers all night or have music pumpin that will drain power.

Also 240v, when we are staying at powered sites how do I plug the bus in without making the whole thing extremely dangerous to go near. general sparky work or a more specialized field?

Will have some more q's as the pop into my head, cheers.

[pH@tTm@N]

Electrically fridges uses a fair amount a power, usually better off going for the 3 in 1 fridge, can run off 12v, 240v and gas. a gas bottle will run the fridge for a week easy.
I have been thinking similar sort of things, and I think for solar you could make a fold out system off the roof of the van - doubling as double insulation. I wouldnt go for the generator as you have the van itself as long as you run a seperate isolator battery system.

yeah I think you need generic household sparky to do the 240v stuff.

[GAZ914]

I would like to be able to stay somewhere for upto a week without needing a outside power supply.
The idea is to rock up to a place, set up and not have to start the bus to charge the batteries. I am thinking a generator is the only way to go because I can't really rely on the sun on cloudy/shaded days or at night.

The main thing using power will be a fridge, the rest will just making sure phones and torches are charged. We won't be using computers all night or have music pumpin that will drain power.

The place people mostly go wrong here is they fit a battery and a 5 watt solar panel (because the panels are $$).
The fridge runs for 5 days and battery is flat - solar panel + driving the bus for 4 hours doesn't get anywhere near charging the battery and so the whole thing turns to shit.

This site seems OK for a basic battery understanding http://www.batterystuff.com/kb/artic...ry-basics.html
.This seems a decent intro to the 'system' needed http://www.windsun.com/Photovolaic_S...RV_Systems.htm

Fundamentally, the generator is by far the cheapest.

cheers
Gaz

[JohnMcSandyVag]

I'm a big fan of this Redarc battery management system: http://redarc.com.au/products-and-se...agement-system

Sounds like it will do all you need it to do.

Currently our setup is very basic. Redarc smartstart solenoid, a 110AH flooded wet cell under the hood and a 130AH AGM in the trey of the hilux. I run a 3 way selector switch in the trey which lets me run off Batt A, B or both. This happily powers our 80L Waeco and fluros for 3-5days depending on a few things.

My folks just bought a van and i'm in the middle of drawing them up a power system using the above mentioned BMS. It really is the ducks nuts, it would want to be for the price tag. I'm a firm believer that you need solar panels AND a generator if you plan on being in one place for any great length of time. One thing to consider with roof mounted panels is damage from hail and shade. You don't want to be moving the van around to follow the sun. I like standalone solar panels for this reason so they can be moved around your camp site to chase the sun.

[Sucker]

Thanks for the info.

I'm about a week away from starting the build. Solar just doesnt seem worth it cost wise.

[JohnMcSandyVag]

Agreed. Problem is there are a shitload of places around the country that you're not allowed to use Gennies. EG national parks. Most of the places we like to visit are national parks so it will definitely figure into our plans somewhere along the line. If you don't want solar just need to make sure that your battery bank is big enough I guess.

I should have a look around to see if there are any tried and true yumcha units being used successfully.

[josh_tsv]

The RedArc BMS's are awesome, use them on a few vehicle at work.

[Kyle]

Definitely go the redarc bms!

Also to further aid battery economy use led lighting.

I can prob pinch some stuff from work for you for this, cabling and connectors mostly, no bms unfortunately.

[TurboRA28]

We run completely off solar, batteries and gas in our motorhome now caravan..

The fridge is gas as just too much power requirements otherwise.. Everything else is 12v with a 600w inverter for the stuff that isn't 12v.

Around 160ah of deep cycle batteries and 120w of solar.. Never ran flat and that is running a laptop, tablet, 2x phones, water pumps, LED lighting, radio.

[TurboRA28]

When driving the alternator does some charging also we have a smart battery charger if we are in a powered site (not often) to top the batteries up but i've used that twice in 6 months when the sun didn't shine for a week.

[GHZ28]

On the generator side, buy about a 2000W Honda, you can run them and hardly hear them a few metres away. Fridge will draw about 150-250W when running but has a much higher start up current peak.
For the couple of grand they cost they are a great saver when weather is not good or you are stopped for an extended time, much quieter and cheaper than starting the vehicle too. A good thing about the Hondas is if you have mates travelling with you and they have the same generator you can couple them with a synchronising cable and effectively have a 4kW generator that is easy to carry.

Others have adequately covered the inverter/battery/battery management side of things.

[da9jeff]

The bus should give you the room to have a fair battery of batteries then just a good monitoring/alarm/control relay system and a small gen set to charge up if all turns to shit. Maybe 1 small solar panel to top up the start battery (which i would keep isolated from the aux circuits) That would give you effectively 3 layers of protection - isolated start battery with solar, multi aux batteries with a good BMS to allow starting, and a genny to charge everything if you run flat or stay camped for ages.

[Kyle]

I will get you a pair of these too if you have room for them Cary: http://cfnewsads.thomasnet.com/image...450/450962.jpg
Edit! Swap for painted black tank and firings

[Sucker]

I was reading in a old 4wd mag today about lp04 batteries or some shit, expensive but very good apparently.

Also I was going to separate the starting batteries from the house ones. The bus was sitting for about 3 weeks and started first go the other day, surprised me a bit. Big camping/RV show this weekend, gunna see if I can grap a bargain or 2.

[Kyle]

Those cat ones will give you enough power to run without mains or charging for a few days easy I would think. Serious offer is serious.

[Sucker]

No time to look at stuff until the weekend. What are the specs on those "suckers"?

[Kyle]

1500CCA
Reseve Capacity: 465 minutes (which closely works out to be 248A/H)

Fucking powerful they will be!

[craigae86]

One thing to keep in mind on the 240v side of things, is all switches in recreational vehicles need to be double pole, as opposed to residential stuff that is only requires single pole. I believe your circuit breakers also have to be double pole.

[GAZ914]

I will get you a pair of these too if you have room for them Cary: http://cfnewsads.thomasnet.com/image...450/450962.jpg

250 Ah x 2 is plenty of battery
Just remember that at 10 amps, they would take 60+ hours to charge from flat!!

[Sucker]

Update-

Looking at getting a 120w solar panel, 1000w inverter and 2 200ah deep cycle batteries. Plan on running a bar fridge, some led lights and chargers for laptops, phones and iPads etc.

Anyone see any issues with the above set up?

[pH@tTm@N]

check the inverters effeciency. at below their max they are sometime only 70% effecient, so then you only get maybe 100w out of solar at best, so enough so get a few batteries charged, but bar fridge might run them flat over time (fairly long time). maybe 3 power bar fridge so you can run it on gas every now and then?

or plan on getting some more solar cells if needed.

might be worth a seperate DC circuit for lights, and use car chargers for phones etc that way you can have inverter off, probably use 20w just in standby

[Potsy]

Do you want some 65Ah AGM batteries ?
I have some cheapies if interested.

[myliberty]

Update-

Looking at getting a 120w solar panel, 1000w inverter and 2 200ah deep cycle batteries. Plan on running a bar fridge, some led lights and chargers for laptops, phones and iPads etc.

Anyone see any issues with the above set up?

That will work. Not sure why you'd bother with a solar panel, I'd just buy a better inverter - specifically an inverter charger that switches loads automatically.

Solar is only worth it IMO if you put 600-800w of panels in and make them work to run the fridge during the day.

[Sucker]

We aim to stay for up to a week in the same place unassisted, at an unpowered site.

[pH@tTm@N]

might be cheaper to get a little generator to top up the batteries during the day unless you go rip some more panels off houses

[Tripper]

Gain access to a mobile phone site, and take the batteries heavy fuckers and should last ages