Fogstar, THE BEST off grid Setup for Van Life? | Mercedes Sprinter VAN BUILD Ep24

[@Cheekymonkey1]

Good morning Lyds and Phil i love watching your KZbin videos on your KZbin channel I hope that you are both well and enjoying your conversion build on your new campervan, I am glad that both of you are back on your KZbin channel yesterday I missed you last Sunday on KZbin please keep safe and warm please keep up your good work on your you tube channel

[@PhilandLyds]

Thank you so much for always watching 😊 We really appreciate it!🫶

[@johnpatterson5744]

Fantastic well done.👍

[@PhilandLyds]

Thank you!

[@truth3358]

Phil have you ever or have any knowledge off electrics before doing this as this is a job well done 👍

[@PhilandLyds]

Thanks! No, It's my first time. Lots of research and a bit of OCD 😂

[@TheMattK2011]

Spotted your input voltage drops to 13.4 volts with the b2b switched on. This is the same as my sprinter, even measured at the battery. Shutdown voltage by default for a regular alternator is set to 13.5 volts, which you can change with Victron connect if you have any problems with not getting the expected charge rates.

[@PhilandLyds]

Thanks for the info. I'll have a look into that. It's not had any issues so far with charging, but I'll keep it in mind. Thanks for watching!

[@TheMattK2011]

@@PhilandLyds I've a pair of 30 amp b2b's and the second one will not start charging once the first one is on, took me a while to suss out why :) Interesting video thank you.

[@PhilandLyds]

@TheMattK2011 Ah I see. We don't have room for a 2nd unfortunately. May have to upgrade to the new 50a XS in the future to get a bit more juice!

[@ourworldonwheels]

Please tell me this is just for “testing “ and you’ll be fitting a MRBF or Class T battery fuse 😮 .. if you don’t have a main fuse off the battery to the Lynx that is deadly!!!

[@RichardBarleyphoto]

A class T fuse is required between the lithium battery and the main switch, I would suggest your battery terminals are insulated 😅

[@PhilandLyds]

😂 yeah, this was just for testing the setup. I have a MRFB on the positive terminal. Thanks for the concern though!

[@PhilandLyds]

Yeah, this was just for testing while we finalised everything. All terminals have insulation on them.

[@byrne8525]

Hi great setup, can i ask did you strugle with getting the victron isolator mounted to the lynx, mine seems to barley long enough to thread through the lynx bar, how did you get on?

[@PhilandLyds]

Hey! Yes, It is a little too short. I removed the spring washer to make it fit. I will use a bit of blue Loctite instead when it's finished. Thanks for watching!

[@byrne8525]

Yeah I thought about doing the same but went for a short link wire instead, I really don't think you should use lock tight as it does not conduct and can compromise the integrity of the connection, not something you want on the main supply connection, not a criticism just info incase you didn't know, all the best with the rest of your build👍

[@truth3358]

Great video 👍 Your link to the battery doesn’t go any where can’t open up page it might be me not sure Tried again only opens logo to the name fogstartdrift What’s the thickness off your ground cable ?

[@PhilandLyds]

I've changed the link to our battery now so it should work. They are out of stock of our size but they have a few other sizes on sale at the moment too. Our Grounding Cable is 120mm2 to match the cable that will go to our inverter. Thanks for watching!

[@holdenman8850]

You won't be able to see the charging rate on the the screen from your dcdc as it doesn't have communication with the cerbo.. The Victron XS12/12/50A dcdc has VE Direct cable to the cerbo and view charging on the touch50/70.. you can as you know view charging on the connect app on your phone. Mopeka water/lpg Bluetooth sensors and Ruuvi Bluetooth tags for temps work awesome with the cerbo.

[@PhilandLyds]

Hi, We're not too fussed on the charging rate on the screen but the XS may be a nice upgrade in the future! We would like to see a discharge time showing on the screen but I believe you need the Victron shunt to show this info which we were hoping to get away with not using one as we can plug the battery directly to the cerbo. We already have a manual gauge for the water tank but I will have a look into the Ruuvi for our LPG tank :). Cheers for the info and thanks for watching.

[@holdenman8850]

@@PhilandLyds no worries, the mopeka sensors are for lpg and Ruuvi tags are temperature and great for tracking fridge temps.

[@Ian-ev5tg]

That battery will be way overkill unless you are living in there? They don’t like to stay at 100% charge all the time. And from experience it will take a few days to drain one of those battery’s. Making your solar and b2b redundant for most of the time. Also the electrics will be very close to the underside of your bed. Assuming you are having a fixed rear bed. I’d also put a cut off in an easily accessible location as it’s difficult to get under the bed to quickly shut it off during an emergency. 120mm cable is way overkill too. The max amp draw of that battery is way lower than the amps that cable can carry and you’ll fuse the cable even lower. The place you need thick cable is from the inverter to the bus bars.

[@PhilandLyds]

Yeah that's the Plan! fully off grid. There will be gap and ventilation under the bed for the electrics. Our inverter (Multiplus II 3000) requires 2x 70mm2 for 12v, or 1x 120mm2 as we have done to make it simpler for us. I'd argue the cable from the battery to the busbars should be bigger than everything else on the system to cope with the loads. We've also done this for redundancy as we have the 3 fuse panels and the inverter and all will be able to be run at the same time without any issues. Thanks for watching!