OneHalf

On 11/9/2018 at 3:44 PM, dc92974 said:

Reporting back...

I ordered and setup the Victron. While I was waiting I took my batteries  to a place I could plug them in and let them charge for the week (I pulled my rv charger and used that). It took about 1.5 days before the charger dropped to the trickle maintenance mode. So, I'm pretty sure my initial testing didn't start with fully charged batteries.

The voltages are about the same but the Victron is showing that my batteries have stayed in the 90% level all week. We haven't had any sun for solar this week but I did run my generator a few times while I was making dinner in the evening.

I seem to pull about 0-4w most of the time which seems reasonable. It's awesome to be able to turn something on/off and immediately see the impact it has.

I don't see anywhere where the Victron shows the input when I'm charging. On my solar panel I can see I managed about 30ah for the week but I don't see anything on the Victron, am I just missing it? It would be nice to get a better picture of how my charging is affecting the battery charge. There is a summary screen that looks like it should show input but it seems to low.

It would be nice to have the ability to scroll through historic numbers (and to see numbers when I'm not connected). I can live without that though, for now I have a battery voltage monitor that shows history. So that combined with the Victron and Renogy solar controller gives a decent picture of what's going on.

 

We have victron controls and battleborn batteries. We have an app that will show how much charge our batteries absorbed through solar for the day and it has a history as well. I believe it "reads" the solar charge controller. We absorbed 9.64kWh through solar today. almost 6 the last 2 days, 7kwh the day before, etc. I can see the last 30 days. We haven't been using as much power as we did 30 days ago so the batteries didn't get as low. obviously we can't absorb power if the batteries are topped off.

We also have an app for the inverter so we can see how much power is being inverted (to AC). This doesn't account for our DC lights (4W each). Currently drawing 205W. We have 3 fans running and so that means the fridge is probably running as well at this moment. It's a standard residential fridge. And the clock on the stove is on. Oh. And my phone is charging and probably my ear buds.

225Ah at 12v isn't very many watts.  That's only 2700Whtotal. Plus, you likely should only drain your batteries to about 50% which means you have a "usable" 1350Wh before you start damaging the battery. We have battleborn lithium batteries and they come a BMS and can actually be run down to "zero" without damaging them. We have 1000Ah at 12v. Ok. That's a lie. We have it configured into a 24v system so we actually have 500Ah @24v. But it all equals 12,000 Wh. 

We can read everything from the app - state of charge %, power being inverted, and how much solar we are taking in at any moment (plus the history totals for 30 days). 

On 8/19/2021 at 10:58 AM, Marianne45 said:

Has anyone made the decision to establish an LLC in Montana to register their vehicle?  Our understanding is that there would be no sales tax or Class A or B Non CDL requirement. Thanks in advance.

I swear I just saw a thing about not doing this as you could be charged with tax fraud/evasion.

I have a question. Maybe a few. Please be patient.

Ours is a converted school bus registered in VT. We did this because at the time we registered we were not converted and VT allows this type of registration. Since we have not been to VT since, it's not inspected. It also does not have a passenger seat. I drive our vehicle behind or in front when we travel. The question of whether we needed another class of license was very confusing until I read the first post of this thread. Obviously we do. The bus, I believe, has a GVWR of 32000lbs - so class B (we will never tow anything over 10k). We cannot drive the bus for the test.

Can we rent something with a GVWR over 26000lbs WITHOUT already having the license?

Anyone know how quickly appointments are being set in Paris or Garland? (I know, right)

But here's "the big one." When DH was trying to set an appointment for the knowledge test there was a question about our residence. We lived in TX for 6 years but are now "full time RVers." We have our escapees address in Livingston. It's the only address we have. It's on our driver's licenses and my husband will probably register to vote there. (I don't vote). We have maintained the storage unit we had previously in the town we used to live in because it's too dang hard to move it. We are actively searching for a place to buy to land for the winter months (in or around Livingston or anywhere in TX really but that's our focus area).So the question comes up that you have to "attest" that your address is a residential building of some sort (home, apt, etc). I don't know all the options as I didn't see the screen. This is what stopped my husband. As far as I know the Livingston address is our CURRENT LEGAL ADDRESS. We have no other to give to anyone. What do we do? If we "borrow" a friend's residential address for the form will the test center expect our DL to have that address on it and will they put the friend's address on the new license?

I hope my last question is clear and I appreciate any responses.