My Solar Installs - Now with Solar Output Data

[RickS]

They can be had for less....some negotiations. I like the sizing and cabling to get 1200AH.

 

[Jaydrvr]

2 hours ago, Chad Heiser said:

I'll keep that in mind.  I am currently leaning toward Relion 300 amp hour batteries, but that could change in the next year or so.

I looked at the Relion you mentioned, but I'm puzzled..I understand a 100 AH lithium battery having a 100 amp continuous limitation rating, but why wouldn't a battery three times that size have at least a 300 amp continuous rating? 100 amps isn't enough to run the most basic appliances, much less several at the same time. That would be a deal breaker for me, personally. Jay

[Chad Heiser]

7 minutes ago, Jaydrvr said:

I looked at the Relion you mentioned, but I'm puzzled..I understand a 100 AH lithium battery having a 100 amp continuous limitation rating, but why wouldn't a battery three times that size have at least a 300 amp continuous rating? 100 amps isn't enough to run the most basic appliances, much less several at the same time. That would be a deal breaker for me, personally. Jay

That is if you only have one battery.  As you add additional batteries, you get an additional 100 amp hour draw per battery.  I am looking at potentially 4 of those batteries, allowing up to 400 amp draws from the 1200 amp bank.  That 400 amp potential draw should allow for running pretty much anything.

[Jaydrvr]

4 minutes ago, Chad Heiser said:

That is if you only have one battery.  As you add additional batteries, you get an additional 100 amp hour draw per battery.  I am looking at potentially 4 of those batteries, allowing up to 400 amp draws from the 1200 amp bank.  That 400 amp potential draw should allow for running pretty much anything.

I agree with everything you're saying - except the 4 (!!!!) batteries! One or two would be plenty for us. We don't boondock much, or plan to run heavy loads. 100-200 amps continuous rating for one or two batteries makes it a non-starter for us - and I suspect we're not the only ones. Jay

[Chad Heiser]

Just as an aside, the reasons I am currently leaning toward ReLion batteries are:

1.  The company is a well established player in the battery world and has been around for a "long" (in the Lithium world) time.

2.  They construct their batteries out of multiple individual small cylindrical cells rather than larger prismatic cells.  Basically, with many small cylindrical cells, a few cells in an individual battery can go bad and still allow the battery to function.  With a battery constructed from larger prismatic cells, if one cell goes bad the battery is no longer viable.

3.  ReLion owns the factory in China where their cells are produced.  This gives them control over the construction and quality of those cells.  This is a big deal in my opinion and they are the only OEM replacement lithium manufacturer I am aware of that can say this.

4.  They offer the most form factors and amp hour ratings for OEM drop in replacement lithium batteries.

5.  They offer a seven year warranty.  Not the best in the industry, but still very good.

6.  They have very good customer service.

[Jaydrvr]

1 minute ago, Chad Heiser said:

Just as an aside, the reasons I am currently leaning toward ReLion batteries are:

1.  The company is a well established player in the battery world and has been around for a "long" (in the Lithium world) time.

2.  They construct their batteries out of multiple individual small cylindrical cells rather than larger prismatic cells.  Basically, with many small cylindrical cells, a few cells in an individual battery can go bad and still allow the battery to function.  With a battery constructed from larger prismatic cells, if one cell goes bad the battery is no longer viable.

3.  ReLion owns the factory in China where their cells are produced.  This gives them control over the construction and quality of those cells.  This is a big deal in my opinion and they are the only OEM replacement lithium manufacturer I am aware of that can say this.

4.  They offer the most form factors and amp hour ratings for OEM drop in replacement lithium batteries.

5.  They offer a seven year warranty.  Not the best in the industry, but still very good.

6.  They have very good customer service.

Thank you for all that clarification. It really helps sort out the current crazy state of lithium. There's an insane amount of so called lithium products available from all over, with no idea what the source is, or what the actual quality is. Makes a lot of sense to go with a vertically integrated company of highly documented quality. I would love to do just that, if my needs and wallet were to align with the stars. Not having either, I'll be gambling on inexpensive cells along with a decent BMS for my needs. Plus, age has to be a factor - of the buyer, not the batteries.. I likely don't have that many more years I'll be using them. Jay

[Chad Heiser]

2 minutes ago, Jaydrvr said:

Thank you for all that clarification. It really helps sort out the current crazy state of lithium. There's an insane amount of so called lithium products available from all over, with no idea what the source is, or what the actual quality is. Makes a lot of sense to go with a vertically integrated company of highly documented quality. I would love to do just that, if my needs and wallet were to align with the stars. Not having either, I'll be gambling on inexpensive cells along with a decent BMS for my needs. Plus, age has to be a factor - of the buyer, not the batteries.. I likely don't have that many more years I'll be using them. Jay

I know what you mean.  I am still young (relatively) and hope to have  many more years of use out of my rig(s).  I'm still under 50 (for a few more months) and my goal is to spend at least as long in retirement travel as I spent working 😉.  Usage also make s a big difference.  Once I retire and can get out of vacation mode travel, my battery usage will change considerable.  We will transition to longer trips and more boondocking in retirement.  Lithium definitely benefits that type of travel, not to mention the weight savings so I can carry other stuff.  It will be nice to reduce the weight of my current bank (700+ lbs) and get more available energy capacity at the same time.

[Tahoe Shark]

9 hours ago, RickS said:

I have been doing a little research on what we will be doing in our new RV and probably 2 x 600ah 8D Lithium batteries seems reasonable with a complete victron system and 2K solar setup.

9 hours ago, RickS said:

 

Rick care to share what the new RV is going to be?

[BlueLghtning]

9 hours ago, Al F said:

OUCH!  $10,900 (including the BMS)  for 600AH.   That comes out to about $1800 for each 100AH of power.  

Yeah, that's really high. 

[RickS]

On 2/1/2021 at 7:33 PM, Tahoe Shark said:

Rick care to share what the new RV is going to be?

Hi Tim

It will be a New Horizon Toy Hauler.

 

[Tahoe Shark]

Awesome, good for you. Just talked to Chad and looks like maybe a Razor upgrade👍. I hope things work out and we can see you guys again soon.

[Danandfreda]

Have you started the build yet?

[RickS]

12 hours ago, Tahoe Shark said:

Awesome, good for you. Just talked to Chad and looks like maybe a Razor upgrade👍. I hope things work out and we can see you guys again soon.

Hi Tim,
I can't wait to visit my all American friends again. Yeah, talked to my Polaris dealer yesterday and will be a bit before I can get a RZR Pro Ultimate but he will get me one.

10 hours ago, Danandfreda said:

Have you started the build yet?

Just started the planning stage and got a bunch of paper work from Cole to go over. Hoping to time it right so we can get it in the fall and head south for the winter. Need to be allowed across the border to get the rig.

[GlennWest]

On 2/2/2021 at 1:49 AM, BlueLghtning said:

Yeah, that's really high. 

Have any of you checked out the SOK lithium battery. I have not found any bad reviews on them

[Chad Heiser]

I know this is an old thread (since I started it back in March of 2017), but I just did some updates to my system so I thought I would post them here.  I originally put six 235 watt Canadian Solar panels on my rig for a total of 1410 watts.  Back in 2017, that was a pretty large array for an RV.  It served us well, but there were times I didn’t get the production I needed to keep up with our usage.  I know we can be heavy electrical users at times, but I’m not much of a conservationist in my RV 😎.  By the way those “gently used” Canadian Solar panels are available at a good price (including mounting brackets) if anyone is interested.

Now that I am retired from my first career and have some “free” time (as well as a goodly supply of extra solar panels), I decided to upgrade the array.  I went from six 235 watt panels to six 365 watt panels for a new total of 2190 watts available (still not as big as some, but getting up there in today’s RV solar world).  The new panels are from REC.  They are very nice panels and I have installed a number of them on other rigs with good success.  I finally decided it was time to give them a try on my rig.  

They are a big panel though and need a decent amount of roof space.  They are just about 80” x 40” in size.  They are definitely taller than I am 😄, which can make it fun getting them on and then moving them around anRV roof.  Six of these panels are the most I have been able to fit on an RV roof to date when accounting for all the other stuff up there.  There are ways to get more up there, but it would require some structure to get them above the air conditioners and of course the rig needs to be of a sufficient size to fit them.  

Four of the panels went on easy in place of four of the old panels with no modifications.  Luckily the roof layout of my 42’ DRV is pretty decent.  The last two did take some extra work.  I had to move and remount my OTA antenna and my Dish Trav’ler antenna to make room for them.  This wasn’t difficult, it was just a little time consuming and also left a lot of extra holes in the roof to be patched.  I also had a bit of a fight with FedEx over some mounts I ordered.  The package arrived at the sorting facility two hours from my house on Tuesday afternoon.  As of Friday evening they still had not made it to my house.  FedEx keeps claiming they are still in transit, but they can’t give me a delivery date.  They also hung up on me “accidentally” three times Friday morning when I called to find out where my package was.  Luckily I had a decent supply of the mounts on hand already, but I was short a set for the last panel.  I also had some other mounts on hand I usually use for flat roofs (they aren’t adjustable to allow compensation for curved roofs) that I broke down and made work to get everything mounted for an upcoming trip on Monday.

I installed them in a series pair (2S3P) configuration.  There are two panels in series and three of those series pairs wired in parallel.  I am “over paneling” the wattage of my Magnum PT 100 solar controller a bit in theory, but the configuration still falls within specifications on voltage and amperage.  Since these panels are flat mounted with no tilt option, “over paneling” can help maximize the solar controller output.  The panels will rarely be in ideal position relative to the sun, so they will rarely produce to their rated capacity.  It can also help boost production at fringe times of the day, like early morning or late afternoon when there is less sun to harvest.

We are heading out on Monday to the coast to do a week of dry camping so I will be giving them a workout very soon.  I will report back on their performance when I have some data.  I will also post a few pictures in the morning when I have a little time.

The next step is to change out my older AGM batteries for lithium.  That will get rid of some unwanted weight in the trailer (my current four AGM batteries weigh in at almost 700 pounds) and give me more usable battery storage capacity.   I plan to do that before we head to Quartzsite in January.  I even mentioned that to my DW today and she didn’t yell at me about spending the money (although she didn’t say yes right away either).  That is at least progress from the last time I mentioned it and I got an immediate hard NO😉.

[lappir]

Looking forward to the photos.  Here is the view of my 42 foot with only three plumbing vents protruding. How many of those big panels would fit up there ?

Rod

[GlennWest]

I don't see an ac up there so basicing on that 10 panels. Actually some of the newest half cell panels as high as 440 watts will. Even leave a walkway in the middle. Do a search on youtube for "Beginning from this morning". It's a bus conversion and he ran panels crossways down his roof and a second set underneath that he runs out with a ram. Pretty neat. He built it and goes in detail with the build. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by GlennWest

[dennisvr]

Good morning Chad.  I may be interested in buying your used panels.  You can DM me what you want for them.  I live just south of Jackson CA.  I just bought a different toy hauler and will be leaving the 1000 watts of solar on the toy hauler I'm selling, they were used when I installed them so not worth removing.

.

[oldjohnt]

Sure this is late on an old thread and I may have already stated it, but FWIW based on a lot of personal experience and as solar output depends on your 1) location and 2) angle and 3) intensity of the sun WELL DUH FWIW as a basic guideline when designing a flat roof solar panel mounting system I use these figures which may be less may be more:

For every 100 Watts of flat roof solar panels I figure around 5 CHARGING AMPS into a 12 Volt battery bank (decent sun and angle)

For every 100 Watts of flat roof solar panels I figure around 30 Amp Hours of ENERGY capture on a decent day of sun.

Sure you may get more you may get less as Location and Angle to and Intensity of sun varies and is hard to predict 

 So Glenn how many Amp Hours per 100 Watts of Solar might you capture on some given day ??? 30 per 100, 50 per  100

 

An ever curious John T

[GlennWest]

Good question. I do know this new generation of half cell panels are putting out some impressive numbers. Enough that I intend to use them.

[Chad Heiser]

4 hours ago, lappir said:

Looking forward to the photos.  Here is the view of my 42 foot with only three plumbing vents protruding. How many of those big panels would fit up there ?

Rod

With a roof like that I could get upwards of 12 of these panels up there (of course I'd need some specific measurements to confirm that).  How tall is your trailer?  That would also potentially affect things as you don't want to be too tall either.

[Chad Heiser]

3 hours ago, dennisvr said:

Good morning Chad.  I may be interested in buying your used panels.  You can DM me what you want for them.  I live just south of Jackson CA.  I just bought a different toy hauler and will be leaving the 1000 watts of solar on the toy hauler I'm selling, they were used when I installed them so not worth removing.

.

I sent you a message.

[Chad Heiser]

Here are a few pictures. 

Here are the old panels and how they were configured when I originally installed them (look how clean that new roof is):

This is the roof after I pulled the old panels off (look how dirty that almost 5 year old roof is):

Here are the new panels all mounted up and the new locations for the antennas:

In the picture above, if you look close in the lower right corner in front of the dish, you can see the old outline of where the dish was originally mounted.  I moved it forward almost one full length.  It now sits alongside the fantastic vent rather than behind behind it.  The dome OTA antenna on the left used to be in front of that fantastic vent in line with where it is now.  You can really see the difference when you compare the old pictures with the new pictures.

Its hard to tell due to the perspective of the pictures, but the old panels were about 15" shorter than the new ones and didn't come anywhere near the air conditioner.  The new panels are only a few inches from the air conditioner in this picture now.  I had to move the WiFi Ranger antenna back alongside the air conditioner from it's original position because the new panel would have covered it up.

[dennisvr]

1 hour ago, Chad Heiser said:

I sent you a message.

Replied to your message

[RickS]

Nice Job Chad...I'm sure we'll be stopping at your place for a new solar system when we get our new rig! 👍