Tag: Electrical
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Keeping my Lithium Battery Warm
If you are familiar with lithium batteries (LiFePo4) you know that they are not happy when they are cold. Charging a LifePo4 battery when the battery is below freezing or storing it below -4°F will damage the battery. Some batteries have built-in circuitry that cuts off charging at damaging temperatures and some have built-in heaters.…
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Camper Electrical – Version 4
A couple electrical-related things happened on our September 2020 trip. The result is ‘Camper Electrical Version 4’. 😁 Our OEM WFCO battery charger/converter failed, which meant that we could not charge our batteries even if we were plugged into an electric outlet. I bought an inexpensive automotive charger to use to top off the AGM…
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Portable Solar
Make a note. Compressor refrigerators are nice, but they draw significant amounts of power. Ours is large, poorly vented and poorly insulated, so it sucks (power). We’d like to be able to stay away from electric campgrounds more often, but because the 200W of rooftop solar doesn’t keep up with the refrigerator, our battery capacity…
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Battery Monitoring with Thornwave
Last summer I added a 100 amp-hour lithium (LiFePo4) battery to the campervan, and last fall I switched out the OEM flooded lead acid batteries for a pair of absorbed glass mat (AGM) batteries. In the current setup: The combination works OK under most conditions. In moderate weather, the AGM’s will run the fridge and…
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Out with flooded, in with AGM
The Coachman Crossfit came with a pair of no-name 100AH flooded lead acid coach batteries. For an RV with a compressor refrigerator, the 200AH of conventional lead acid battery wasn’t really enough. If the fridge ran too often I could barely make it through the night on the OEM batteries. To help extend our off-grid…
Michael Janke 