OFF-GRID CARAVAN: Running Aircon + More With 600Ah Lithium & Solar! (Includes Cerbo GX 70 Tutorial)

Isaac walks us through our customer's brand new @leadercaravans RV, where we recently installed an epic energy system featuring 600Ah lithium battery storage, 600W rooftop mounted solar, and a touchscreen monitoring system with the crowd favourite @VictronEnergyBV Cerbo GX Touch 70.
Our customer wished to travel off-grid without compromising on comfortable living, so we designed and installed a solar and battery system that could power all their necessary appliances (including air conditioning, lights, kitchen appliances, and more) from anywhere in Australia.
The system features:
- x2 300Ah 12V @enerdrive-dometic B-TEC Lithium Batteries
- @VictronEnergyBV Multiplus-II 12/3000/120-32
- Victron Cerbo GX Touch 70
- Enerdrive 12V 40A DC-DC Charger
- Victron SmartSolar MPPT 100/50
- Victron SmartShunt 500A
- x2 @alvolta812 12V 200W Mono Solar Panel
Power your energy independence for all off-road adventures today! Get in touch with our expert team: bit.ly/34nSMRg
Or send us a message or call us on [phone] 👏

[@spiritzweispirit1st638]

Thank you' great video' and information!🖖

[@springers]

Cheers, glad you enjoyed.

[@krh007]

The biggest question Aussie caravaners want to know is what off-grid system will run the aircon (cooling mode set at say 22-23deg in hot weather) when camped up in a non powered camp site. Aware of different draw loads from aircons but lets assume the aircon is not the latest technology type like the newer Dometic Harrier Lite or plus units. And the caravan is 19ft or less in size and not a modern composite made van buit instead alloy clad to keep it simple. Our caravan is a Coromal 18ft 2005 model with its original installed wall mount internal aircon control unit and the compressor mounted seperate inside a lower kitchen side cupboard in its own compartment vented to the external wall. Most people are referring to use at night when they want to sleep at confortable temp on still balmy warm nights

[@krh007]

What was the aprox cost to this 600ah system complete (not including your instal fee) and any idea of total weight it added to the van? Thanks

[@user-gv1xp8xr8h]

What are the two different type of solar panels on the roof, and how do they differ in performance?

[@MarkCleeve-bk3zk]

Hi price for the system installed thanx

[@MrJdwalton]

How does this set up comply with standards of not having lithium battery’s not sealed and vented from habitable areas ? Confused

[@Rijidij]

I believe those laws are not retroactively enforced. So any solar system before that came into law is not effected and doesn't need to be changed. All future installs it does need to be adhered to, but existing setups are uneffected. I have not read the law, but informed post about it, best to confirm yourself, but from my understanding; it's correct.

[@springers]

Hi, this set up was installed before the new standards came into effect.

[@davidbarwick387]

What is the estimated price for this

[@bobcatman3844]

In my caravan I can run my air conditioning with a 600ah lithium battery it draws around 100 amps I also have 2x inverters 150/70 amps each and 1600w solar on the ground producing 120 amps enough to keep the aircon going all day I also have another 600ah just to run my 12v system with another 900w solar and another 2x solar chargers to recharge the batteries

[@donr62]

Is there a difference between RV Solar panels and home domestic panels? These days a single home domestic panel can be spec’d up to 440watts. The RV panels don’t seem rated the same.

[@springers]

Hey, thanks for the Q. Yes, domestic solar panels are usually much larger physically and are a higher voltage. Although they can produce awesome results, they are often not warranted for mobile applications.

[@GardenEdenPermaculture]

Amazing! Do you also have data with which percentage of the battery, how much degrees you are able to cool? It's for sure an expensive setup and even with 600Ah Battery your only able to run the AC for 8 hours, without counting in the solarsystem. So I'm curious how it does play out in practice

[@springers]

Hi, state-of-charge monitoring is done through the Victron Battery Monitor. Ambient temperature and available solar power is a large variable in this equation so it would really come down to the user monitoring the system and its temperature to ensure over-discharge of the batteries is not an issue. Hope that helps, thanks for the question!

[@HatesSpam-cb4ym]

Why do you claim it will run the AC for 8hrs? There are MANY variables and its not as easy to say it will run for xyz. This is due to the fact that caravan insulation, temperature, efficiency of AC unit itself, AC temp setting, ect, ect all have an effect power consumption. There are a number of videos out there showing the newer Dometic Harrier Plus and Harrier Lite AC units that show they ramp down their power draw once the temp of the caravan has dropped. Since they use inverter technology, they don't draw full power the whole time and can go down to only a few hundred watts draw in the correct conditions. There a few videos out there and one bloke tested his overnight on the sleep mode setting which simply tries to hold the set temp and he used a bit under 60a/h from memory and that was left on overnight and was run for around 8 hrs. The technology has improved and if the caravan is has a composite body the AC may be extremely efficient.

[@HatesSpam-cb4ym]

​@@springersIs it me or is something wrong with the way that Victron MPPT charger is not accessing the full power that the solar array is able to supply? I have a 100/30 victron mppt and it will always supply the maximum it can at any given point regardless of whether the battery is high or not, this is known as a power supply mode and it makes sense to always be getting as much power from your solar vs any other source of electricity. This is because the solar panel are already installed and are able to supply that power. Example: With my 100/30 mppt and 440ah agm battery bank with 680w of solar, when the battery bank was fully charged and in float mode, any load applied would be powerd by the solar and not the battery. When you are soo reliant on the battery, the battery should not be able to discharge if there is available solar power to make up for the load. What is it that I'm missing about this system that it will draw the battery down before it puts full solar power into the battery bank?

[@springers]

@@HatesSpam-cb4ym Hey there, thanks for watching. Out of the 661W available the lithium battery bank was accepting 607W from the MPPT. The MPPT was also supplying DC loads in the VAN of approximately 54W. Cheers!

[@HatesSpam-cb4ym]

​​​​@@springersExcept at @9:49 the springers rep claims that the solar charge controller is limiting the amount power its supplying from the solar panel because the battery charge level is high (even though there is a load applied) and that was what I was referring to. In that situation the solar should be applying all it can from the solar panels to make up for the near 1.1kw load from the air-conditioning. Not sure where the 661w figure is coming from?

[@marnibarratt8805]

definitely not enough solar, you should have a ratio of atleast 2 to 1 so 600ah - 1200w of solar

[@jimq892]

How do you know what he's powering? Maybe he has plenty of solar for what he needs and he just wants extra battery storage for cloudy days.

[@marnibarratt8805]

but he doesn't@@jimq892

[@marnibarratt8805]

no good having a massive battery bank if you cant charge it!! solar is king! @@jimq892

[@davidbarwick387]

Where are you

[@springers]

Hey David, we are based in Brisbane, Queensland.

[@davidbarwick387]

What is the price installed

[@marnibarratt8805]

maybe he has a 600w solar blanket to add on??

[@unna1996]

Damm this set up look expensive 😅

[@cheesygamerz9298]

Sleeping on top of all that lithium power? No thank you lol

[@tonirex01]

GREAT SYSTEM but from what i heard anyway you look at it running aircon is a power sucker and not worth paying all this money to run an aircon for a few minutes here and there

[@HatesSpam-cb4ym]

Newer air conditioning units, like for example the Dometic Harrier models have inverter technology which means their motor will ramp down and draw less power as the room cools down in AC mode, or as it heats up in heater mode. There is also the sleep mode that will ramp power down and try to maintain the set temperature. There's a video on YT where a bloke tests the Harrier Plus (the bigger model to the one my Caravan came with) and he used it overnight in sleep mode simply maintaining a set temp and only used around 63ah. It was in heat mode though, which uses a little less power than AC on those units, but with 600ah AC wouldn't be an issue and one could easily run AC for hours.

[@chrisandshazza01]

Yep, can run air cons over night with these systems today