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I worked a bunch of overtime recently so I decided to put some of the cash towards a new inverter.
The new inverter is a Samlex PST-2000-12 with the accompanying RC-200 information screen. Cabling is 2/0 DLO protected by a battery post fuse. The batteries are Trojan T-105 Golf Cart batteries which I installed in the spring. They are pretty tall compared to regular deep cycle batteries so I extended the height of the battery box, I suppose I could have lowered the battery box to take them but doing the wood work was easier.
I still need to make some cords to wire into the van receptacles, add some ventilation, and some other minor stuff.
The reason I went with a 2000 W inverter is because I wanted to run a Keurig coffee maker when I'm in areas with less than favourable coffee choices. The whole installation will come inside the house for the winters so that I can use it to run the forced air gas furnace should the power go out for an extended period.
Yeah, both sections need venting but kept separate. The batteries are open to the drivers side exterior which is important to get rid of the hydrogen when they are charging. I need to make cut-outs for the cables so I can put the plywood cover down and ensure they are sealed to keep the hydrogen from coming up into the seat.
The seat the inverter is mounted in will need some venting too. The inverter is 85% efficient so it can make a lot of heat but I won't be using it for long periods of time.
I'll get it all figured out before the next camping season.
Good call on the trojan T-105 batteries. They are a true deep cycle battery.
Every 12 volt battery marketed as Deep cycle, is just a compromised hybrid battery that is closer to a starting battery in construction than it is to a true deep cycle battery.
No mattery how strongly someone wants to believe the deep cycle lettering on their 99$ wal mart battery, it will last only 1/4 as long as the trojan T-105 in actual deep cycle duty.
now while the T-105 is a great lead acid true deep cycle battery, it is not immune to abuse.
Chronic undercharging = abuse.
A battery takes time at the proper absorption voltage to reach full charge.
With trojan, 14.8v is the proper absorption voltage and once the battery terminals reach this voltage, about 4 more hours being held at this voltage is required before the specific gravity maxes out in the 1.280 range.
So If one were to think an hour of driving is going to fully charge these batteries when depleted to 50%, One sadly misinformed.
One can, with thick enough cabling between battery and alternator, get the battery to 80% fairly quickly, but from 80% to 90% it can take hours, and double that from 90% to 100%.
A battery wants to live its whole life at 100% state of charge, anything less than that compromises its longevity to some degree.
Get yourself a hydrometer and a plug in charging source which can actually fully charge the batteries. DO NOT TRUST blinking green lights to tell you when the battery is fully charged. They Lie.
You might have to remove surface charge and restart an Automatic charger half a dozen times before Specific gravity no longer rises.
it is possible to have too much battery capacity for too little solar. it really depends on the depth of discharge and if the discharge is daily.
The deeper the discharge, the more solar is required, not only to be able to actually replace all the amphours consumed, but to meet a minimum chargeing rate.
Unfortunately there is this widespread "trickle charge' mindset, that a low slow charge is always best.
often trickle chargers cannot maximize the specific gravity of a deeply discharged battery. they require higher amps and higher voltages.
But the trickle charge myth will never die.
Trojan recommends a 10 to 13% charge rate, and on a pair of T-105 batteries this is about a 25 to 30 amp charger.
Landyacht, the T-105s are definitely the real deal, they are about 70 pounds each which is much more than the fake deep cycles everybody sells.
I am a bit disadvantaged when it comes to charging.
The electrical panel in the coach only has a 5 Amp charger and I think it tops out at 13.6 Volts.
The van does have a 120 Amp alternator but there is only a starter relay and a 30 Amp self-resetting breaker used to charge the coach battery from it so I'm at a loss as to why they sized the alternator that large.
At this point I am just going to live with what I have for charging and let the batteries suffer. I'll look into a new charger or proper high-current battery isolator if poor charging prevents me from getting what I want out of the Inverter.
If they made 100 Watt flexible stickers I could put up there I would go that way. I'm not big on adding brackets and holes to my fibreglass roof.
T 105's are great batteries, but no lead acid battery is immune to capacity loss from remaining less than fully charged.
When a battery rests below 80% State of charge it is sulfating. The longer it sits there and the lower the state of charge, the more quickly the capacity is lost from the battery.
Pretty much impossible to restore it if they sit too low for too long.
If you have grid power available, use it, and top up theses batteries often, so that when you really need them, they have the capacity to deliver and not just allow than effing annoying low voltage alarm on the inverter to tell you, you coffee ain't happening today.
Don't let that day come too soon.
A pretty good Automatic charger for a pair of T-105's is the Iota DSL-30
Run some fatter wire from alternator to house battery over whatever type of isolator you use. If the isolator has large finned heat sinks, well, there are much better isolators which will not drop charging voltage by 0.6 volts.
10-03-2015, 06:45 PM
Addition of 2000W inverter
The whole installation will come inside the house for the winters so that I can use it to run the forced air gas furnace should the power go out for an extended period.
