New House Battery HELP

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by SMB_Beancounter

Would I literally just run the 12V side of the invertor straight to the battery? will this be an issue with having the intellpower which is the convertor/charger also hooked up the battery terminals? If the van is running which means the convertor/charger is on and I where to turn on the Invertor, what would happen?

Yes you wire the inverter to the house battery with big fat battery cables....and yes the converter/charger is also wired to the house battery. That's exactly how my setup is wired.

If your Intellepower converter/charger is wired to shore power then it's not on when driving, only when plugged in to shore power.

In my case if I want 110VAC when plugged in to shore power I need to turn on my inverter. There are some minor electrical losses doing this and my 110VAC stuff is limited to the output of the inverter, in my case 1000W. In this case plugging into shore power just keeps charging the battery since when the inverter is on it is making 110VAC whether pulled into shore power or not.

The typical way people install inverters in these rigs is an inverter/converter with an integral transfer switch. In this case you would remove the intellepower and wire the new inverter/converter to the battery on the 12V side and to shore power on the 110v side.

When you plug into shore power the integral transfer switch will power your 110V AC stuff, and it will also charge the house battery, just like the Intellpower does now. When not on shore power turning on the inverter will power all the 110V stuff.

If you want to keep your generator you now have 3 AC sources (generator, inverter, and shore power) so some thought needs to go into all three of these play well together.

I'm not aware of any 3-way transfer switches but I'm sure there is a solution for this.

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by SMB_Beancounter

Based on all the paperwork I have with the van I do have an isolator mounted under the hood, not sure which model it is, i would have to check. What would this improve by upgrading this?

If you have an isolator (not separator) they suffer from a .7 volt diode drop when charging the house batteries resulting in never getting your house batteries fully charged.

Battery separators don't use diodes so they don't have this issue.

The Surepower 1314 and 1315 are mechanical relay type contactors and they work pretty well but you burn heat in the relay coil wasting power when they are energized.

The 1314 only connects the battery banks when the engine is running and the voltage under the hood is higher than the voltage of the house battery....ie from the alternator back to the house battery.

The 1315 works in both directions, so if you connect solar to the house batteries when the sun is shining it will connect and the starting battery will get charged as well.

The Blue Sea ACRs are a better solution IMO than the Surepowers. The Blue Sea 7610 is about the same $$ as the Surepower units and is 100% solid state. The larger and more feature packed 7620 versions have a few more bells and whistles (like 500 amp current rating to instantly start the van if the starting battery is dead) and cost more $$.

There is a sticky in this forum discussing the +/- of these units:


https://www.sportsmobileforum.com/fo...ches-7991.html

[Scalf77]

Replacing a invert/charger for the inteli power is not a straight forward change, as in it is not a drop in replacement (especially size wise). Any power wires would need to be changed to support the inverter/charger.

A 100 AH battery really is to small to run a decent size inverter.


You would most likely have a diode isolated separator. The go to replacement is the 762X ACR. To do this or any other ACR you will need to the alt to battery back to factory (or factory like).

I would really just stick another deep cycle wet cell battery in, until you remove the generator and can put in a bigger battery. You could do that and the electrical mods now knowing that is in the future. (minimizing inverter use).

-greg

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by Scalf77

A 100 AH battery really is to small to run a decent size inverter.

-greg

Good point.....the AC current draw of my 700W microwave is 1000W. With the microwave running my pair of 145AH AGMs would have a voltage sag down to 12.2V when they were fresh. When they got old the voltage would sag to around 11.9V.

Smaller AH batteries can't support lots of current draw without sagging voltage. Many inverters have low voltage cut-offs in the high 11V range.


My newer 280AH LiFePo4 battery doesn't break a sweat running the microwave.

[SMB_Beancounter]

Yeah I understand the single 100AH battery is to small to power the microwave or the AC, had no intentions of that. Really would just like to get the power outlets around the van working to charge small items. Like I said previously, we have never used the generator, microwave or the AC.

I really want to keep this simple, so maybe I will just get a AGM battery with the charge wizard and call it a day. I am going to do some thinking this weekend and see whats best.

Thanks all for the help and info!

[SMB_Beancounter]

one more question as I am thinking about this, I understand that the convertor/charger is taking the shore power/generator power and turning it into 12V to charge the battery. BUT what is the charge controller for when the van is running? Is it that battery isolator? that is sending the 12V left over from the alternator to the AUX battery?

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by SMB_Beancounter

one more question as I am thinking about this, I understand that the convertor/charger is taking the shore power/generator power and turning it into 12V to charge the battery. BUT what is the charge controller for when the van is running? Is it that battery isolator? that is sending the 12V left over from the alternator to the AUX battery?

Yes..exactly.

The AGM and charge wizard is a reasonable plan......I would also consider losing the isolator and replacing with a Blue Sea ACR. Your battery will thank you.

The 7610 is affordable, bi-directional if you want to add solar, and doesn't have the .7V voltage drop issue of an isolator. It's rated for 120A. The 762X versions add manual connection of the battery banks either on the device or via a remote switch on the dash and is rated for 500A.

If sometime in the future you move to a LiFePo4 house battery, none of the above isolators or separators will work safely/properly with it, you need to use a DC-DC converter.

[1der]

hmmmm.... charging small loads ?? What are you wanting to charge?
Anything charged via cig plug or USB - just add more outlets of that type around the cabin to make it more convenient. Laptop and small AC charging - add a 300w plug in/or hardwire inverter. This is easy to do and builds upon what you have rather than replacing anything major. I would still switch out the isolator / seporator as suggested.

Do you want/would you like to use the microwave when you are off grid? That will require a 2000w inverter as mentioned. With the 100 ah battery you can run the engine - a high idle setting helps - while running the mwave and you should be good, but you have to run the engine since the voltage drop will be too much on battery alone. You are quickly into large battery cables and tie into the generator input on the selector switch to do this.

But, to me, all that is not worth the effort to just be able to run the engine to run the microwave. It would lead to path boywonder and SCalf77 are laying out for a more integrated AC system and a larger battery bank.

I was in the "no Lithium battery due to cold temps" camp for a longtime, as well. We switched to a 400Ah Li bank last summer and our three month IKON ski trip this season changed my viewpoint.

Lithium is doable but is $$$$ (and patience) to get right. It worked great, and with proper design, components, installation, and knowledge/awareness it is certainly a very viable path in the cold weather. I am not discounting the other extreme - heat/hot weather. That needs to be taken into consideration as well.

But all of this is in light of YOUR use profile and demands put on the electrical system. You might address the genset problem. Has someone diagnosed that the voltage regulator is really the problem?

[KTMRIDER]

Originally Posted by SMB_Beancounter

Yeah I understand the single 100AH battery is to small to power the microwave or the AC, had no intentions of that. Really would just like to get the power outlets around the van working to charge small items. Like I said previously, we have never used the generator, microwave or the AC.

I really want to keep this simple, so maybe I will just get a AGM battery with the charge wizard and call it a day. I am going to do some thinking this weekend and see whats best.

Thanks all for the help and info!

I would say you first have to decide what you really need. If it is just simple without messing with anything then just put in an AGM. If you want 110 power while not on shore power I would scrap the converter and get an inverter/charger combo. Solar is also a great addition to keep the batteries charged and healthy.

The generator is a whole other topic to think about. I probably have the same one as you and unless you run them on a regular basis they seem to have issues. I have mine out at the moment diagnosing it because the previous owner didn’t use it. I like the idea of having the generator for emergencies, so for me it’s worth getting it running again. I agree it is way louder than I would like. If you need a link to a good diagnostic paper PM me and I can get it to you. Your issue could be as simple as low oil.

I had the same setup as you for the most part, plus solar and a 200 amp hour AGM. I upgraded and went with a Magnum 2000 inverter/charger and used Scalf77/Greg’s schematic to add Blue Sea ACR/switches. The Magnum will assist the generator when starting the Starcool AC if you have the settings right. The shore power is fed through the Magnum and then the transfer switch figures out wether to use shore or generator power in simple terms.

My system is very flexible and allows me to isolate various ways thanks to Greg. I would like lithium but not ready to spend the money since my current setup works just fine for my needs at the moment.
Eric

[SMB_Beancounter]

Thanks everyone for the help and feedback. I am about 90% certain the generator is the voltage regulator, I have eliminated most of the easy issues/fixes, and the price of the regulator isn't really worth it for my uses. I would rather invest in solar and upgraded battery banks.

I do think solar is in the near future, and I am also thinking I will add an extra battery in a battery box under one of my benches. I am thinking ill add another 100AH AGM battery for a total of 2. I am leaning towards going with a 2000W invertor and adding that to the current convertor/charger, I will unwire the generator from the transfer switch, and make the upgrade to the Blue Sea ACR. For solar I am thinking of going with a brief case style panel that I can fold out when needed.