Chad Heiser

I also recently started using ferrules. As a matter of fact I just got a shipment of 6 awg ferrules from ferrulesdirect.com today. They help make it easier to get the stranded wire into the connections and should also make a better connection in the inverter.

Nothing wrong with that. I do it for all my dual inverter installations, but it is more because I need to split the four wire (L1, L2, N, G) feed into a six wire (L1, N, G and L2, N,G) feed and back. I use small (70 amp) load centers with 50 amp double pole breakers to make the split and then re-combine back to four wire. One box/breaker goes on the AC input side of the inverters and the other goes on the AC output side of the inverters. For your installation you would just need one on the input side to do what you want.

There have been some failures with the Multiplus II push in AC connections posted on line. Every one I have seen can be explained by improper installation by the DIY installer. Follow the instructions and install the connections properly and you will have no issues.

Assuming your trailer is not hard wired to an electrical source, your AC in on the inverter is protected by the pedestal you plug the trailer into (and it’s breaker) and (since you said transfer switch) by the circuit breaker built into the generator (if you have an onboard generator). There is no need to add an additional breaker. There is no need for an AC shutoff switch either. If you want to add one it won’t hurt, but there is no need for one. I have seen some people add a bypass switch so the inverter can be cut out of the system in case it fails. Personally for the very unlikely event of a complete inverter failure, I would simply remove the AC in and AC out wiring from the inverter and wire nut those lines together temporarily until the inverter was repaired.

Yeah! Finally! Glad you got it sorted out. I still need to get up there and see the truck in person.

The West Coast Rally is in June (as posted above). It is held at Ambassador RV Resort in Caldwell. Unfortunately the host park is full. You can still attend the rally if you are willing to stay at another location. If you want to attend and find another place to stay (either hotel or other RV park), then go to the rally website and complete the rally registration form. If you have specific questions, let me know. I am the rally coordinator.

Your Victron MPPT charge controller needs a minimum of a 5 volt difference between the solar array voltage and the battery voltage before it will begin charging. If your solar panel voltage is only 15 volts and the battery voltage is 13.12 volts, the controller won’t do anything. There isn’t a big enough differential between the solar panel voltage and the battery voltage to make the solar controller start charging. What are the ratings of your solar panels and how are they wired to the solar controller (parallel, series, or series/parallel)? If you provide the complete solar panel ratings (not just wattage) I can make recommendations about them. The complete ratings are: Wattage, Voc, Isc, Vmp, and Imp. Each panel should have a sticker on it that lists these ratings.

Good to hear yours is working so well for you.

Victron’s solar controllers are all capable of working with multiple battery voltages (12, 24, 36 and 48 volt). As the battery bank voltage goes up, so does the wattage capacity of the solar controller. My battery bank is 12 volt. The largest solar wattage capacity of a Victron controller on a 12 volt battery bank is 1450 watts. The MPPT 150/100 and MPPT 250/100 are both rated for 1450 watts of solar on a 12 volt battery bank. I have 2190 watts of solar currently on a 150/100 controller. This is obviously over-paneled, but I didn’t think I would get up to 1450 watts of production out of my flat mounted panels in winter time conditions. In winter conditions with flat mounted panels, I expect about 50%-60% of the wattage rating of the panels. I was actually making slightly over 60%, which is what was maxing out my controller. I intend to add some more solar in the future and divide the panels up between two 150/100 solar controllers. I will probably do that sooner than later now that I see I am making more power than I expected under the current winter conditions. The two large inverters with just the basics on (residential fridge along with minimum draws to keep the entertainment center connected but not powered on, the microwave clock, the bedroom clock, etc) draw about 10 amps of DC power continuous from the batteries. That number goes up when we actually actively use 120 volt stuff. The small inverter just keeps the fridge and the bedroom clock going and it runs just at just about 3 amps of DC power continuous. That is a 7 amp (generally) savings. That can add up over 24 hrs. We probably had the big inverters of for about 12 hrs a day (8 hrs while sleeping and a few more hours each day when we weren’t in the trailer to use any 120 volt stuff). That is almost an 85 amp power savings each day. The heater I was talking about was the built in forced air propane heater in the trailer.

If you have a remote for your Magnum Inverter/Charger, you can set up any custom charge profile you would like. Get the specifications for charging from your battery manufacturer and those settings can be programmed into the Magnum Charger through the remote display. I don't have specific experience with Chins batteries, but as others have stated voltage is not a good indication of state of charge for lithium batteries. Their resting voltage will stay pretty constant from full charge down to almost depleted. The voltage will sag under heavy load (but not quite as much as lead acid/AGM does). It will then return to a fairly constant voltage when the heavy load is removed. Light loads cause very little voltage sag in lithium batteries.

I thought I would come back and follow up with my experiences with the system so far. I am extremely happy with it. It is meeting all my expectations and allowing us to live like we are plugged in whether we have hook ups or not. We just spent three weeks in Quartzsite and really gave the system a good test. We were staying in the LTVA south of town (with a group of other HDT'ers) so we had no hook ups for the stay. We payed attention to our power usage, but we basically lived like we normally would. The only conservation we did was to turn off the dual 5k inverters when we weren't in the trailer or when we went to sleep and didn't need to have them running. When the big inverters were shut off, the small (1.2K) inverter took over and kept the refrigerator running. It also powered an outlet in our bedroom for our clock, WIFI router and for charging wireless devices. We watched TV, my wife worked remotely for a few days each week. We ran the heater every night, the residential fridge was on 24/7, we ran the dishwasher and even ran the washer and 240 volt dryer. With us living our lives as we pleased, we never had to run the generator once in the entire three week stay. We had several days of cloudy weather during our stay and one day of severe winds that had a lot of dust in the air (which affected solar production similar to cloud cover). The system got back to 100% state of charge almost everyday. The only days we didn't get back to 100%, we were still back into the 90% range. These were the cloudy days. The only unexpected outcome was that the system actually maxed out the MPPT 150/100 solar charge controller several times throughout our stay. I knew this controller was over-paneled with the six 365 watt panels I was running through it, but I didn't think I would actually max it out in winter sun conditions. I knew it would definitely max out in summer sun conditions, but didn't think I would get there in winter. I had plans to add a second solar controller to the system (and divide the panels between the two controllers) before our big trip in June. Knowing that I am already maxing the controller out, I will move those plans up a bit.

I decided to give the Insty-Connect a shot. I met the owner of the company at the big tent show in Quartzsite last week. I talked to him quite a bit. Based on your reports here and other research I did, along with my conversations with Nick (the owner), I decided to pull the trigger. I bought the new 5G set up along with the optional directional antenna. Two other members of our HDT group in Quartzsite also bought identical systems at the same time. We got a pretty good deal between the show discount and a group purchase discount. I haven't set my system up yet because the sim card I intend to use in it is the wrong size and needs to be cut down. (I have a sim card cutter in my Amazon in box but am waiting to purchase it until I get home early next week.) I did set up one of the other units our group bought and was impressed with the system and the data speed gains achieved with just the Omni directional Angel Wing antenna. The owner of that unit left out group temporarily to go to another location outside Phoenix to meet up with some family and friends. When he arrived at his new location, he had no cell signal at all on his cell phone. He couldn't make a call or anything. The Omni directional antenna wasn't doing much either. He decided to give the directional "Binocular" antenna a shot. He set it up on a 16' pole and went from no cell signal on his phone to 81 mbps download and 39.1 mbps upload. He still couldn't make a phone call with his phone, but was able to make WIFI calls with his new data connection. Needless to say, he was very happy with that. He was the only one in his group with any internet or calling capability. I'm looking forward to getting mine set up in my rig when I get home. I don't expect miracles from it, but I am impressed with what I have seen from it so far. I am also very impressed with the owner of the company. I invited him and his son's out to our HDT group area in La Posa South LTVA. They came out to check the trucks out and hung out for a while. He was very willing to give pointers and installation tips to those of us who bought his system. He even came back the next night to assist the third member of our group who bought one of the systems and was having an installation issue. That issue turned out to be a user error, but Nick was gracious about coming out to help diagnose the issue and get it corrected.

When I really started getting into installing Victron products, I migrated from the Class T fuse for the batteries/inverter and individual resettable breakers for each branch circuit to the Lynx distributor. It usually simplifies the wiring overall and gives a single place to look for fusing if something stops working. It was also often cheaper in the long run. I do still add additional circuit protection for the solar with a Midnite solar baby box and some MNEPV breakers though.

Anyone paying $900 dollar for a Battle Born battery hasn’t checked pricing in a while. Even buying them direct from BB their retail price is now $799. If you know where to shop you can get them a bit cheaper than that. They are still on the upper end of the Lithium battery price scale, but they are nowhere near the highest priced ones on the market. They do have one of the best warranties in the business and their technical support is second to no other I have found and you don’t have to be a dealer or retailer to get that support. In my opinion they are a great option, but they are by no means the only option. There are many out their and some are better than others. As to the OP’s question about adding batteries at a later time, that is not nearly as big of an issue with lithium as it is with other chemistry batteries. Usually if you do it within a year, you will be fine. I would be careful mixing different brands though. You need to pay attention to charge parameters and other settings. Some manufacturers parameters vary quite a bit and using one manufacturers settings on another’s batteries could result in under or over charging possibly.

No matter how you wire in the fuse (before or after the switch), you will be using a wrench on a hot connection during the installation. You have to connect the wire to the battery positive terminal at some point and that is always hot. It isn’t always under load though. You can remove the load from the system by turning the switch off. With the fuse before the switch, all components are protected, including the switch.

Ok so you meant by adding a hard drive to the unit. I thought maybe there was something I wasn’t aware of and was missing out on. I haven’t added external hard drives to any of my Wally’s so they are just regular single tuner boxes (even with the Trav’ler antenna).

Looks good. A couple of minor things. 1. I would put the class T fuse right after the battery terminal, before the house battery disconnect. 2. The BMV 712 monitor does not work with a Smart Shunt. It works with a standard Shunt and comes packaged together with the proper Shunt. With a Cerbo GX and GX display, I would use the stand-alone SmartShunt rather than the BMV-712 with display and Shunt. The BMV-712 display is totally redundant with a GX device and display. 3. The VE Bus cable from the Cerbo to the MP2 is an RJ45, not an RJ12. 4. I would consider adding a VE Bus Smart Dongle to the MP2. This will give access the the MP2 via the VictronConnect App through Bluetooth. It is necessary with the GX device, but I like the VictronConnect app interface to turn the inverter on and off and to set the AC Current Limit better through the App than with the GX device.

I have three Wally’s running on a Trav’ler antenna in my RV. None of them magically became a two tuner receiver. Can you explain how this magic happens? Are you talking about adding a hard drive to the Wally and being able to watch a recorded show while it records something else?

Thank you for the offer. That is very kind. Several others here have also made similar offers. I pulled the fuel pump in mine today with the hopes of temporarily swapping it with one from another RZR Turbo S here. Unfortunately there are slight differences in the fuel pumps between our two model years and it wouldn't work. I did find the fuel filter/sock that is supposed to be attached to the bottom of the fuel pump was missing when I pulled the pump. I drained the tank of fuel and fished around for the missing filter/sock and found it. I don't know how it became detached, but I have a pretty good idea of what clogged my injectors that resulted in the recent service to my RZR. Bits and pieces of the filter/sock were missing and for sure ended up in my fuel lines clogging my injectors on our last trip. I really wish my dealer had thought to look at the fuel pump to determine a cause for how my injectors got clogged. Anyway, on the hunt tomorrow for a new fuel pump to get things back up and running and hoping I don't have any new particles of filter in my lines to clog the new injectors in the 10 or so miles I have driven since they were replaced.

Yes we still get some buffering on some of the streaming apps. Wilson’s website has some good videos on the installation of their systems. In one of them they describe an app to use to aim their antenna. It basically brings up a compass scream and points in the direction of the tower your phone is connected to. I don’t have my phone on me right now to get the name of the app. The lower the DBA number the better. Going from -120 to -91 like I did is a significant improvement in signal. I couldn’t tell the items I received were renewed. They looked brand new. They still have a 1 year warranty and they have a return guarantee as well. If I hadn’t seen any gains in my circumstance, I would have returned the whole setup. I tested the equipment by plugging everything in and temporarily mounting the antenna on a ladder on my front porch. I then moved the booster around in my house to find the best location to install it that maximized the signal in the largest area.

Do you have any idea if this will affect Mobley's?

I just installed the Wilson WeBoost Complete Home System you linked above at my home in Northern California. Here is a long explanation of the reasoning behind the purchase and our results. We always had good AT&T service at our home and when the AT&T Mobley came out, I purchased a couple of them to take advantage of that service. I use one in the RV and run my house on the other one. All of our data is cellular based and has been since I made the switch to the Mobley when they first became available years ago. We stream a lot at home and have good success with it with the Mobley. Some services are much better than others. We get no buffering with Netflix, but do get buffering with other apps like HBO Max. I believe it has more to do with how the apps handle the data than our service capabilities for streaming data. I had no complaints with our service at all until a few months ago. My wife has been working from home since COVID started and the last several months she noticed a serious decline in our AT&T service. I also retired and started spending more time at home around the same time and I too noticed a significant drop in our service. The degradation wasn't just in data. We started experiencing dropped calls and the inability to even make a call at times. I started calling AT&T about the issues and after a month or so of going back and forth with them, they basically told me I should change providers because they couldn't solve my problem and couldn't find any issues with their service in our area. I have no intention of leaving AT&T because I do not want to give up the Mobley's and their inexpensive unlimited plans. I did some investigating and learned AT&T added a brand new cell tower on the hill above our house. It is approximately 1000 yards from our back door, but it is also approximately 1000 feet above our back door. We used to be serviced by an AT&T tower across the valley from our front door. AT&T wouldn't admit this to me, but I believe when they built the new tower above us, they either turned down the old tower across the valley or aimed it differently. Our signal issues basically started when the new tower went on line. Because of the positioning of the new tower on a hill directly above us, the signal from that tower broadcasts over our property and never gets down to us. If I clime to the top of the hill and look at the tower with my phone, I have 5 bars of excellent service from that tower. If I go back down to the house, I have 1 to 2 bars of marginal service from the old tower across the valley. My phone can't even see a signal from the new tower at the house. As a last resort and after a lot of research, I bought the Weboost. I set it up at the house and pointed the directional antenna at the old tower across the valley. Visually/anecdotally, my phone bars instantly went from 1 or 2 to consistently 5 in the house with the booster on. We have iPhones so there is no way to get the actual dbm signal strength readings from them (that I am aware of). Qualitatively, the dbm level on my Mobley went from -120 to -91. That was a significant gain in signal quality/strength. My download and upload speeds on the Mobley also better than doubled. Neither my wife nor I have dropped a call or been unable to place a call since I installed the booster. Our internet usage has been improved and my wife's zoom calls and meetings work flawlessly again. We are extremely happy with the Weboost signal booster for our situation. I bought the booster direct from WilsonAmplifiers.com. I purchased the renewed kit, which was $200 cheaper than the standard kit. The only significant difference was the renewed kit came with a one year warranty instead of a two year warranty. In our circumstance, it has been everything I hoped it would be and I am very happy with it.

We have been having a great time so far. I have been working a lot harder than I planned. Tried to go out and have fun in the RZR today and the ride got cut short. Didn't make it more than a couple miles from camp and the check engine light came on with an engine code. Lost power and had to limp back to camp. I am not very happy about it as the RZR just came out of the shop for a similar issue. Less than 10 miles on it since it was supposedly "repaired". Based on several calls and conversations with service centers and dealers, I may be out of luck as parts for the perceived problem are on back order everywhere.

These are nothing more than a battery and inverter in a fancy box. You still need a way to recharge the battery. That may be plugging the “box” into th3 grid or attaching a solar panel with a charge controller. Some of the fancier ones have a built in charge controller, so all you need to do is connect a panel. If you really want portable power like this, you can make a very functional one on your own for much cheaper. If portability isn’t as big of a concern and you just want power for or in your RV while off grid, you are better off putting the money into a system in your RV (IMHO).

The Bluetooth range of Victron's equipment is very dependent on the installation. Location and surrounding equipment/obstructions can greatly affect the range. This is so with any Bluetooth device and it is something to be aware of when installing your equipment. My experience so far has been pretty good, but some installations are better than others as far as affecting range.