This is the sixth in a series of educational videos about off-grid electric systems for campers. We talked about how to size your solar system, then which batteries to choose, which solar panels, which controller and which inverter. So basically, in the first 5 episodes of the series we learned about all the important elements. This series of videos was born both from the discussions we had both in our CamperVan Romania community, where we learn to build our own campers and expedition vehicles, and from posts in other communities, where questions like "What panel to put on the camper?" are very common. or "Do you think this battery is enough?". Consequently, we have answered the most common questions and tried to dispel the most common myths. If you like the material, don't forget to give a like, a subscribe and a share in your community.
Today we're talking about toys, and it's going to be a more, shall we say, fun episode. None of what we review today is absolutely necessary in a camper, but some of it analyzes, some of it protects, some of it makes your life easier, and some of it is just plain interesting.
We'll start with the alternator charging. Of course, on many production cars, it's something that comes standard. Not on overland cars or DIY vans. And it's a topic that needs to be covered. From my point of view, alternator charging is an extremely efficient and stable source of current. If there are situations where you do or don't have the sun, when the engine is running, the current comes in constantly. Of course, I don't recommend camping with the engine running for 3 hours to charge the batteries. But if you move every couple of days and drive around, charging from the alternator is a relevant and constant source of energy. This charging can be done through a relay, a DC-DC or buck boost. The most common relays are from IBS, T-Max or Cyrix from Victron. There are some good solutions at a very affordable price. The DC-DC charger variant knows how to charge better and somehow in smart mode, and you can find it from Voltronic, CTEK, Victron, MasterVolt or Dometic. We don't go into models but it's important to know that they can charge up to 100Ah, if the alternator lets you. We have a setup like this, the Gloria being factory equipped with an enlarged 260A alternator for special uses. Clearly, all of this is limited by the main battery voltage so the 100Ah isn't always present, but I usually charge with 50-70Ah which is brilliant anyway. Essentially they all do the same thing. Maybe we'll get to take individual cases and discuss them at length, but as an idea, they all help you charge from the alternator and prioritize the car battery for protection. In my case, in addition to the charging direction from alternator to auxiliary, I also have a Cyrix relay placed on the reverse direction, in which I can connect the auxiliary batteries to give power to the car, if it runs out for any reason. So it goes like this and so on.
Well, what else we got? Well, there's battery protect. Here I know of only one manufacturer, namely Victron, which has Battery Protect and Smart Battery Protect. The difference between them is that one has bluetooth and is easier to set up and check. This unit is placed on the circuit and cuts off the current from your consumers at an agreed voltage so as not to damage the batteries. Simple and to the point, but I think it's relatively important and cheap. A general purpose battery protect is up to a hundred euros and can save much more expensive batteries.
Also in the chapter of two-terminal stuff there is the shunt or smart shunt. Any company that manufactures camping equipment, or DC in general, is going to have some version of this product, Dometic, Mastervolt, Victron, voltronic and many others. And obviously the question comes: what the hell does this shunt do so magically, as I've never really heard of its existence. Well, it by itself doesn't do much, just passes current and information through it. But if you connect a screen to the shunt or connect your phone to the bluetooth, you can see a lot of information about that current: how much is flowing, how much has flowed, what is the status of the batteries and much more. It's a very useful measuring and control device. It doesn't sound like much but it helps to know exactly where you stand with consumers and battery power.
All the equipment we've talked about so far, as well as in previous episodes such as the solar controller, inverter or batteries, can be integrated into complex systems. I come back to these 3 big manufacturers Mastervolt, Victron and Dometic, who each have a version of this device. At Victron it's called Cerbo GX, at Mastervolt DC Distribution 500 and at Dometic ... I forget. But they all do the same thing, they link all the other elements and allow you to see everything that is happening anywhere, but absolutely anywhere in the system. We can look at mine, if we connect on bluetooth we have everything installed here, including we can see Cerbo here. But further inside we have a Touch GX where we can see all the information from all the stuff connected to the Cerbo GX. And, moreover we have the possibility to see and control the same parameters on the net as admins on Victron Remote Monitoring or VRM. So wherever I am, I can see how much current I have in my batteries, how much water I have in my tanks, what the inside temperature is and so on. Units somewhat like this, in fact rather Venus Gx can be configured later with more complex tasks. Example: if my batteries reach float, so as not to waste energy, turn on the electric boiler and heat the water. Or, if the temperature drops below x degrees, a relay starts my underfloor heating, or webasto. It depends from case to case. I haven't ventured that far into configurations but they are possible and very, very interesting.
There are also fuse panels, heblinks and all sorts of other little toys and we won't even bother with all of them. The idea was to see the larger and more relevant components: alternator charging units, battery protection, information, control and parameter modification. It's important to mention though that they tend to work when in a single brand ecosystem. That is, a dometic inverter or shunt will not talk to a mastervolt brain, for example. Each brand has its own protocols and different connection cables, and are designed to work with products from the same series. In other words, if you want to build a more complex system, it's good to choose in advance which manufacturer you want to work with and make sure they have all the stuff you want at the power you need.
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