Briohny: Hey guys, Andrew and Briohny here from Accelerate. We’re going to walk you through a lithium upgrade that we have just done in this Tungsten X-Treme by Urban Caravans. So firstly, Andrew, why did we go with the lithium upgrade on this one? What problems did the customer come to us, wanting us to solve?
Andrew: The main one was the aircon off grid, and just microwave, and so on. But really aircon was the one for this one.
B: So they wanted to run the aircon and their microwave, while they weren’t at any caravan parks, all plugged into 240 current power, correct? All right. So what did the caravan have in here to start with, that we’ve worked with?
A: So this one is pretty similar to like a New Age or a Jayco. It came with a BMPRO-HA, so that was already lithium-ready with the Trek screen. It had two of my favourite I-Tech World lithium. So they’re gone and it had 320 watts of solar on the roof, that we’ve added to.
B: Okay, so we’re here inside the caravan, and Andrew has managed to fit everything under the bed here in this neat little lines, as you can see, we haven’t actually lost too much storage in here, which is always a big factor when upgrading. So what is in here, Andrew? Let’s start with the battery. What did we go with?
A: Yeah, so this has just got one 200Ah. And it’s all set up so that we can put a second 200Ah in it. So just bang one next to it, if it’s not enough, but it’s got one 200Ah. That pretty much all these big cables are for the 2600 Watt inverter. So Enerdrive inverter and Enerdrive DC2DC charger, and also a Morningstar solar regulator that’s doing all the solar-ing.
B: So we’ve gone with the Enerdrive system, let’s start with that. So it’s an Enerdrive, 200-Amp power B-Tech.
A: Yep.
B: We’ve gone with that simply because it matches in with the inverter and everything, I’m assuming? In the DC to DC?
A: Yeah, It’s good package, good price when you buy it as a package. Yeah, everything’s together in one brand, and nice and neat.
B: So the Enerdrive, 2600-watt inverter, why do we go with that in caravans?
A: So it’s a transfer inverter so what that means is, all we need to do is turn the inverter on, and all GPOs in the van will be live. And then if we plug into 240V, like for a caravan park, it’ll just bypass for us straight away and be live that way. So it’s a pretty much seamless transition between sure power and 12-volt, 240V power.
B: And 2600-watt is like, we don’t try the 2000 because we wanna run the AC, is pretty much it, we got to the 2600.
A: Yeah, look, to be honest, it’s more just that it’s not that much more than the 2000, and it means whatever he throws at it, it’ll handle. Especially once we put a second 200Ah in there. So we got plenty of room. It’s not that much more expensive and it’s not that much bigger. So, just put a big one in and no future problems.
B: So we then got the DC to DC charger. So what is this doing?
A: So that is actually in this one is only doing alternator, basically Anderson plugs. So alternator from the vehicle in, we haven’t used a solar feature on that, and I’ll explain why in a minute.
B: So that’s gonna charge the batteries while we drive, basically.
A: And that’s all it does, yeah.
B: And so we’ve upgraded the cabling in the car, or did we install it to charge lithium?
A: No, the car had really good cable start off with, it’s actually a RAM, and yeah, whoever did it, did it right.
B: So you’ve got to basically use a bigger cable through the car.
A: A minimum of 6 B&S. It actually had heavier than that. It was a good cable.
B: And then the next thing we’ve got here is the Morningstar Tristar regulator?
A: Correct. Morningstar Tri-Star, that’s a 45-Amp there that’ll handle everything we’ve got on the roof.
B: So we do the both because as in the DC and the regulator.
A: Well, yeah. So we separate it. So that way, when he’s driving, he’ll be getting up. We haven’t had sun yet to see what this will do, but I’m expecting a good 30-Amps out of this system, easy. So he should get 30 out of that. And 40 out of that basically while he’s driving. So 70-Amps going in.
B: So that’s per hour?
A: Yep, per hour in full sun while he’s driving. So if we run to a separate, solar regulator, separate DC-DC charger, basically they both work while we’re driving.
B: So you mentioned solar panels there. What was on the roof of this van and what have we put on it?
A: So there’s 320W on the roof, and then we’ve put two Enerdrive 180W’s. So there’s 360W. So basically 700W in total. So, it should be really good. There’s gonna be, there’s a lot on the roof here. So I think other than midday, there’s gonna be shadows cast all over the panels. We’ve got sat dishes and so on. And so that might hurt its efficiency. There’s nothing really we can do about that. But yeah, it’s still gonna be heaps of solar, and should perform really well.
B: Cool.
A: Yeah. So obviously that all goes through that. And then we’ve just on a side note, but why, if before you ask why we haven’t used that for folding panel we’ve actually still got the BMPRO in this. So we’re using the solar input on the BMPRO-HA as a folding panel regulator. And we’ve simply done that, so that it’ll actually show up on his Trek screen, what he’s getting out of his folding panel. So as he moves it around and the sun changes, he’ll actually have a full display with a separate icon on his trek screen. So, a bit tricky there.
B: So is there a port somewhere or plug somewhere, he can plug the solar folding solar panel into?
A: Yeah, it’s in the hatchet. The customer had actually already fitted it himself as an add on. So we’ve just left that alone.
B: So, you’ve got the panels on the roof, plus folding. Okay, that’s pretty cool.
A: Plus the folding, that’s gonna go through a third solar regulator in the van.
B: So once this bed is down, all of this is closed up, and we can’t see our battery or anything. How are we monitoring what’s going on in here?
A: So we utilised the original Trek screen that comes with the BMPRO in this van. So Jaycos, New Ages, heaps of others come with that. And then this shunt here that we’ve added, then you’ll notice the blinking light, that actually communicates via Bluetooth to the BMPRO which goes to the Trek screen. So that shunt there takes care of all the monitoring of everything that’s going on with the battery, and also being an Enerdrive battery. You’ve also got the app.
B: So just up here above the sink, we have got the Enerdrive switch to turn our inverter on, basically hold your button down, it’ll beep. And then it’ll all kick in. And your inverter is now working and running all your, GPOs and AC system off-grid. Okay, so over here, we’ve got the Trek BMPRO screen. So this is basically showing us that at the moment we are discharging 0.5-Amps. It is a really rainy overcast day here on the coast. And if the sun was shining, it would basically over here say charging and tell us how much is coming in. And that’s pretty much it. You’ve got your water tanks over here, and your battery status here. Anything else to add on this one?
A: No, that’s a good, simple one. It’ll work well. I think one 200Ah with the aircon probably is a bit lean. Well, it definitely is lean, but the facility is there to put a second one in, customer’s well aware, it’ll be fine. This was just a good starting point and grow from there. Good system.
B: So, if you liked this video, check out our playlist of other caravan off-grid setups here. And YouTube thinks you should watch this video here. As always, comment below if you have any questions, and thanks for watching.
