TucsonJim , ncitro Yoda howson
First let me say how much I appreciate all the advise. I've gone through several of the forums and you all consistently provide answers and advise to help the GD community have better experiences with their respective rigs. You don't get as much credit as you should, in my opinion. I for one am grateful.
To start, I took TucsonJim's advise to record settings for the below items.
1. Record the battery voltage from your BMV712 before you turn on any devices. Make sure everything is turned off, including your inverter. - Voltage was 13.6 - 80% SoC,
2. Turn on your loads such as the coffee pot and record your voltage while under load. - Voltage dropped to 12.45 - only power running was a coffee maker for about 10 minutes or so
3. When finished brewing your coffee, turn everything off including 12V draws such as the refrigerator, wait five minutes, and then record your voltage. Voltage at 13.19 - SoC 68%
Based on the numbers above I'm assuming this would be an expected power consumption. The dealer we purchased our rig from did the solar/inverter/battery installation and, based on comments, probably should have used a higher gauge wire. If I go the DIY route and pull the 1/0 and replace with 2/0 would I only need to replace the wiring from the batteries to the inverter and the jumpers between batteries, or would I need to replace any wiring that was less than 2/0? I will check the settings on the inverter to see if those could be contributing to my issue. I had been leaving the inverter on but this last trip only turned it on when power was needed. I could see an increase in power draw, on vs. off, but wasn't significant. However over a period of time could have an impact?
While we were camping this past weekend I brought our generator (Honda 2000) just in case. I did run it for about 45 minutes to put an additional charge on the batteries and the voltage went all the way up to 14.46 while the most I've gotten off the solar panels is 13.93. I was wondering if the 320 watts of solar is not sufficient to bring the batteries to a full charge?
Overall I have some work to do to better optimize my system. Programming the Victron will be easy but replacing the wiring will be a bigger project. I'll post updates as I get through it all.
Thanks again gentlemen,
Scott
First let me say how much I appreciate all the advise. I've gone through several of the forums and you all consistently provide answers and advise to help the GD community have better experiences with their respective rigs. You don't get as much credit as you should, in my opinion. I for one am grateful.
To start, I took TucsonJim's advise to record settings for the below items.
1. Record the battery voltage from your BMV712 before you turn on any devices. Make sure everything is turned off, including your inverter. - Voltage was 13.6 - 80% SoC,
2. Turn on your loads such as the coffee pot and record your voltage while under load. - Voltage dropped to 12.45 - only power running was a coffee maker for about 10 minutes or so
3. When finished brewing your coffee, turn everything off including 12V draws such as the refrigerator, wait five minutes, and then record your voltage. Voltage at 13.19 - SoC 68%
Based on the numbers above I'm assuming this would be an expected power consumption. The dealer we purchased our rig from did the solar/inverter/battery installation and, based on comments, probably should have used a higher gauge wire. If I go the DIY route and pull the 1/0 and replace with 2/0 would I only need to replace the wiring from the batteries to the inverter and the jumpers between batteries, or would I need to replace any wiring that was less than 2/0? I will check the settings on the inverter to see if those could be contributing to my issue. I had been leaving the inverter on but this last trip only turned it on when power was needed. I could see an increase in power draw, on vs. off, but wasn't significant. However over a period of time could have an impact?
While we were camping this past weekend I brought our generator (Honda 2000) just in case. I did run it for about 45 minutes to put an additional charge on the batteries and the voltage went all the way up to 14.46 while the most I've gotten off the solar panels is 13.93. I was wondering if the 320 watts of solar is not sufficient to bring the batteries to a full charge?
Overall I have some work to do to better optimize my system. Programming the Victron will be easy but replacing the wiring will be a bigger project. I'll post updates as I get through it all.
Thanks again gentlemen,
Scott
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