(Van)Life after esk8…

Running the dehumidifier full time will tip it over the edge i think. Unless i get perfect sun every day (which i wont, because Melbourne), i don’t think its gonna top me back up enough.

I got 3 x 100ah lifepo4, 40a dc/dc charger with built in mppt and an extra 200w panel for 1275aud. I opted to get a new panel instead of using the house panel i’ve already got cos the house panel is just a bit too big for where i wanna put it.

I could make the agms work as-is and just cycle the dehumidifier but once the intrusive thoughts have entered they are hard to shake and it was an inevitable upgrade anyway. I don’t want to have to worry about power, it would always be on my mind.

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Just found out the lithium batteries are on backorder and they won’t be in until mid april :man_facepalming:

I will go and pick up the panel and charger today and get them installed asap.

For now i will just cycle the humidifier one day on/one day off or similar to give the battery a chance to catch up.

Will be interesting to see if the extra panel alone helps the agms. I feel like it will, but we will see.

In other news, i now have my version of a couch :joy:

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They hooked me up with a deal to bump them up to 120ahs instead cos they had those in stock :partying_face::partying_face::partying_face:

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So yesterday was kinda sucky because I just got new goodies and I had to go and help my sister with house/yard stuff all day so i didn’t get to play with them.

When i got home last night I figured i’d try to charge the batteries up with what I had laying around… i used a 12v15a power supply as a ‘solar panel’ through my new dcdc charger… it worked for a few minutes before the power supply popped :joy: 360ah would be a lot to charge, so I decided i’d get a 240v charger.

Went out this morning and purchased a 25a 12v battery charger, it does lead acid and lithium, so I can use it for my starter us well if I need to.

Weather here was woeful today, overcast and rainy all day. I figured it would be an idea to put a wattmeter on the solar panels to see how they perform in such weather…. They perform terribly :joy: like 10% of their capacity…

I didn’t want to have to rely on shore power, but I also don’t want to risk damaging my batteries running them low. Seeing how poorly the panels perform in bad weather at the same time as having a low battery prompted a shore power solution.

I didn’t want an obvious one sticking off the side of the van, so I ran a power lead through the floor and into one of these weather-proof connection protector thingies.

This will let me run power into the van no matter what kind of weather out and keeps it nice and simple.


The lithiums are a whisker bigger than the agms were and they went in without a millimeter to spare.

All of my power harnesses needed to be modified/remade as the new dcdc charger was wired differently than the old one. No love lost though, i prefer the way the new one is wired.

I installed the battery charger into the van so that future shenanigans are easier.

I’m not sure the batteries charged fully today as they seem to be hovering around 13.3v which the internet tells me is only around 80%

I’ll see how it goes tonight/tomorrow and probably put them back on the charger tomorrow afternoon, see if i can get them a bit fuller.

So the lithium upgrade is complete! Now i just gotta add that extra panel!

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Things are looking really good with the new batteries. Gonna take me a little bit to get used to the new voltage bracket but thats all good!

So i charged the battery up to full(ish) yesterday at i think 14.2 was the highest it got. Disconnected charger in the afternoon and used power as normal with the dehumidifier on all night and all day today.

It was a good day for solar, not the best, but good. Towards the end of the day we were at 13.46 which is basically still full :partying_face:


I dicked around this afternoon making and installing some attachment brackets to mount the new solar panel on the front of the van.

And my smart shunt arrived :partying_face: when I rewired the batteries I made sure this would be an easy install. The little voltmeter that i’ve got doesn’t really like the lithium battery much, the voltage jumps around on it by a few tenths of a volt all the time, despite stable voltage being measured at the battery :thinking:

But from what I have read, voltage is a pretty inaccurate way of gauging consumption with lifepo4, so this shunt will be cool. It has built in bluetooth, so i can just look at the app on my phone to see the battery happenings.

Taking a breather with doggo on a trail we havent ventured for a while.

I feel like i’m on a roll with all of this and part of me wants to skip dinner and keep plugging away, but at the same time, im super busy at work at the moment so I feel like i should be responsible, have dinner, rest up and keep going tomorrow.

Time will tell how the evening pans out.

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I didn’t do anything else last night, just took a chill one.

Got a little bit done this afternoon… got the cable pass through done… kinda dogged it a little bit cos i was rushing, but its on there now and it should be watertight… i didn’t clean up or properly seal the raw steel edges where i made the holes though… if it eventually rusts there it will be sad. But i’m not taking it off now, its a permanent addition :joy:

I also connector swapped the solar panel and did a little work on it’s harness.

I’ve got tomorrow slated to install both the panel and the smart shunt!

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Hoping to sell these agms as they could still be useful to someone and recoup me a little cash…

Interestingly, the grey ones took over twice as long to charge to full capacity as the black one.

They’re 120ah and the black one is only 105ah, but i wouldn’t have thought that would make much difference.

Grey ones both took 24hrs each to charge up and the black one was good to go in 12.

Definitely explains why they were having issues getting back up during daylight hours

Lead acid chargers do weird things.
Some will hold absorption voltage for X amount of time, then flash the green light and drop to float voltage.

X amount of time does is a general guess, determined by bean counter joe and Lawyer steve, as what will be safest for the average dimwitted consumer.
Safest being an intentional undercharge for a guy who just wants his car to start in the morning.

Another charger might hold absorption voltage until amps taper to X amount, or perhaps stop tapering, and or when a certain amount of time has passed.

The green light does not mean the battery is fully charged, only that the charger has decided to quit holding absorption voltage, and revert to Float voltage.

If one had a well cycled flooded lead acid, and were to remove the caps, and use a hydrometer on each of the 6 cells, they will likely find that few cells are actually in the green, 1.265+ range, despite the chargers green light.

One might then try to restart said charger, but surface charge voltage which can last for hours, or days, would have charger see 12.7+ volts, and immediately flash green light and revert to float voltage.

One needs to load tge batterybuntil voltage drops to 12.6v, or less, then restart charger, then remove load.

The charger then might hold absorption voltage firvanother hour and specific gravity might creep up towards the 1.275 zone.
But likely not.

Getting 1.275 on all 6 cells can take many more hours held at absorption voltage and often absorption voltage will never do it, and one needs to go as high as 16v, and ‘boil’ the electrolyte.

This can be called Equalization, and is not farvdifferent from balancing lithium, if one were ok with overchargingbthe good cells to get the weak cells to catch up.

Getting SG up to spec on all 6 cells will have the battery perform noticeably better.

One cannot check SG on AGM, so one needs to monitor amperage.

When amps Taper to 0.5 PER 100 AH of capacity when held at 14.4 to 14.7v, then one can say the battery is fully charged.

one cannot determine full charge at lesser voltages.

Most AGMs cant be safely ‘equalized’, according to most sources.

The savvy LA AGM battery nerd knows the asterix’s involved and can accomplish the ‘impossible’

Overvolting an agm can be a very bad idea.

I found best results in restoringbtheir maximum potential performance and capacity by draggingbthem down to 10.5v relatively quickly, then high amp recharging them to absorption voltage, then holding them atcabsorption voltage until amps taper to 0.5 per 100ah, or stop tapering,vtgen float for 12 hours.

If amps start rising at absorption voltage quit charging immediately, and start shopping for battery deals.

120f /48 c is the no go zone.

Getting any ‘garage’ charger to actually fully charge well used deep cycling lead acids, is practically impossible.
A lesson in Futility.

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I am so glad I did the lithium upgrade :joy:

I just charged these until they got to stage 7 on the charger, will checkvoltage on them after they’ve rested for a day or two.

Lead acid/agm stuff seems like a dark art, i want nothing to do with it :joy: will sell these cheap and move on with my life

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Lead acid charger marketing…
“Stage 8, owner fellate”

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Today’s efforts were interesting to say the least.

Firstly i needed to complete the solar harness with some in-situ soldering off a ladder in the rain … then as the rain steadily got harder I proceeded to install the panel :sweat_smile:

Panel installation went reasonably well despite me getting very wet!

Next up was installing the smart shunt which turned into a much bigger mission than it needed to be…. The bolts on the shunt are bigger than all of the lugs on my wiring :man_facepalming::man_facepalming::man_facepalming:


I refused to be beaten by this and set out to achieve my goal by any means possible… i came up with this.

Needed flat copper so that i could make little busbars. Hardware doesn’t sell flat copper so I had to improvise :hammer:

Bonus feature was that i got to change the orientation of the terminals to suit my preferred installation :partying_face:


Shunt installed! I need to read up on it and calibrate it properly, but its in and it works. Today’s mission was great success. But…

It was raining pretty heavily while i was installing the shunt and i noticed i was getting dripped on…. The rain was bouncing off the roof, hitting the underside of the fan lids and then dripping through the fans :man_facepalming::man_facepalming::man_facepalming:

Next mission: fan hats :joy:

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Welcome to the solar good life. Victron is minty AF

Work has gotten hectic and my motivation for van shenanigans has plummeted over the last week.

I’m also looking after my sister’s dogs for the week and they completely and utterly infuriate me so mojo is down.

I added some xt90s to my solar panel wiring so that i can connect wattmeters in a more convenient location than the battery box or the external connection.

I also added some padding beneath a couple of my rugs as i’ve found that i get around on my knees a bit in there, so the padding helps.

I have successfully sold a bunch of stuff out of the shed though and shifted most things that i want to keep into storage under the house.

I feel a bit drained/worn out, but I know that moping around is only going to compound that feeling and perpetuate it. Need to keep making progress.

Insulation is a good job to do when i feel like this because i don’t need to think too much about it. Tomorrow afternoon will be dedicated to insulation. Or maybe fan hats. We will see.

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Yeah you do girly

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I found that my knees were getting hammered when i was working on and around the van, and placing one knee on the floormatt in front of side doors to reach inside, without climbing inside.
Padding under my welcome matt helped, but not enough. I had to avoid putting any weight on my knee, and just climb up inside.

Also repetitive wear and tear on the knees I wanted to minimize, and so i made a step for me and Fiona.

The step itself was made from my first baltic birch skate deck which broke ahead of rear truck.

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Not a hugely productive day but i did get the fan hats most of the way…

Fan hat V1 was a little harder to fabricate than I would have liked and as a result, looked kinda trashy. Plus, it didn’t fit. Maybe someone wants it to put on their stooge board?


A lot simpler and easier to make. I got it bent up, painted, foamed so it doesnt rub against the racks and holes drilled in it to zip tie it up.

Will get it zipped on tomorrow. The peak that folds down pretty much hovers just above the van body, i’ll put a dollop of polyurethane under it so that it can never vibrate and abrade the body.

I also turned my van around so the front panel faces the sun better… makes a massive difference! The new panel in prime position is a powerhouse compared to the rooftop ones. I’m wondering if the age of the rooftop ones affects them much… wonder if i can find new ones exactly the same size…… :face_with_peeking_eye:

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My Kyocera 130gt panel still makes at least 85% of its original wattage…Its been installed since October 2007.

If you suspect your fan noise is partially due to impeller imbalance, I have used an accellerometer app and trial and error to add balancing weights for significant improvement on some of my fans.

The reflective windshield panels work best, when tight against the glass. Otherwise that airgap superheats the air between, which convects to the rest of the van. I made my own sun shields panels, for every window.
The windscreen one needs to be rolled, not folded, or it will fall apart quickly, and grow shorter.
The others are doubled or triple thick, edged with nashua flex fix tape, and are mostly friction fit, with magnets when necessary.

There is a style of reflectix, with one reflective side, one white.
Nice to eliminate that baked potato vibe inside.
Not too hard to keep clean.
Gotta have a good insulative panel storage area for easy quick disembarkation.

I turn my front.passenger’s seat backwards, Fiona has a perch.on the armrests, and panels go in footwell. Rear.panels stayed nicely atop the 3 surfboards strapped to ceiling, their wax not really an issue.

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Yeah that front reflector is hard to keep up properly, it needs more suckers.

The ones i have made for the back of the van are perfectly cut for the windows, but even then it is hard to keep them hard against the glass. You can see the superheat effect on some if them as the tinting has bubbled in some areas :melting_face:

I don’t think i’ll actually replace the rooftop solar panels any time soon, I just need to make sure I park the van in optimal locations to minimize any docking time. I feel like i’m probably gonna dock once a week anyway, and continue using the shed as a place to hang my laundry.

I don’t like the idea of drying laundry in the van due to added humidity and I hate the idea of paying to use the dryers at the laundromat :joy:

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Hmm. So it turns out that getting an esk8 before finishing the van may not have been the best idea :joy:

The past 3 weeks have seen extremely minimal progress, but still inching forward! Today I closed the door on perhaps one of the most painful parts of this build…. But we’ll get to that soon.

This was how the fan hat ended up once fitted. I really hope it doesn’t make any/much road noise.

It’s a slippery slope towards winter here in Melbs, and there’s been a few single digit C evenings already so I got the diesel heater running… although this immediately presented a problem that I knew was coming…

The diesel heater exhaust pointed out from the side of the van directly behind my side sliding door. I knew after I’d installed it that I didn’t want it there, and the first waft of exhaust in through the door was the motivation to move it. I ran it back out to the other side of the van and called it done…

I also installed a co2 meter/alarm to make sure i don’t kill myself trying to stay warm.


IMG_7991

But the co2 detector surprised me. Even with the roof vents open, co2 builds up super quickly with me and doggo inside the van. Within 1-2 hours, levels rise to about 1500-2000ppm. They don’t seem to get much higher than that, overnight I kept an eye on it and it seemed to sit right around 1800ppm with no ‘active’ ventilation.

I haven’t noticed any adverse effects in regards to co2 exposure symptoms but on a small amount of pondering, I decided that I don’t really want to be exposing my self to those levels every single night… so it comes back around to my arch nemesis of this build… the fans.

If you’ve kept up with the fan saga, you’ll know that i’m on my 3rd set of motor controllers for them and I an STILL not happy with them, things needed to change. Taking @SternWake’s advice on board, i fished through a random box of goodies I had in the shed and found this chonky buck converter.

I hooked this up to one of the fans and like magic, they horrible whining sound in the fans went away! The fans still don’t sound great, but they are many times better running off a proper buck.

So I ran one fan as an exhaust overnight at 3v in an attempt to keep the co2 levels down. It worked! Very well in fact. With a single fan running exhaust, co2 levels stayed below 800ppm. Baseline fresh air outside of the van is about 550.

So with this win in hand, I set out to once and for all solve my motor controller issues.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_msXvlKj

I ordered a couple of these buck converters so that i could have a nice power display and easily adjustable voltage for the fans. They arrived during the week and i got to work designing a housing for them.




The green switch powers on the buck converter, then the DPDT switch determines the polarity that is sent to the fan, so it can run as intake or exhaust.

I just realised while looking at the listing again that I can get bluetooth receivers for these bucks, so i’ve just ordered some of them too :grin:

Their final position will see them installed into an overhead cabinet, but this is very much the end of the fan saga. They run a hell of a lot quieter now, i believe they are also more efficient than the pwm controllers from some clamp meter comparisons.

The bluetooth receivers will be the icing on the cake, for remote control of the fans :sunglasses: i feel like its ended as somewhat of an overkill solution, but I am very happy with it and since moving to the buck converter, I have been using the fans every night, as opposed to never using the fans with the pwm controllers.

So that’s basically been the last 3 weeks… not a massive amount of progress, but a considerable milestone for me as these fucking fans have been a total nightmare from the start and it’s nice to have ended on a solution that i’m happy with!

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Thanks for CO2 data. I never bothered to check, but always wondered.

There were times I was up at high elevation with my vents closed off, bed area partitioned and under every blanket and wearing like 10 layers to stay warm at night. Having to piss sucked so bad, I was genuinely thinking about some incontinnce underwear, remembering how good pissing in my wetsuit felt surfing winters in the US North east.

Glad the vbuckers worked on your brushed fans so well. I left a giant ziplock baggie worth maybe 120$ of PWM motor speed controllers in California when i left there.
Dont be afraid to use vbuckers on led lights either. No flickering and they dim to tiny pinpricks of light instead.of just shutting off while still pretty bright.
I also found them to be more efficient.

Kinda proud my info helped you.

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