Thoughts on inverter and Battery monitor selection

[Ascrone]

I’m getting ready to a swap out to a residential fridge and wanted to get some feedback on my inverter and battery monitor. For the inverter I’m looking at the AIMS Power 2000W inverter with built in transfer switch. For the battery monitor I’m looking at the Victron SmartShunt 500 amp. I don’t have solar and mainly will use the inverter for when I’m traveling to keep the refrigerator running. We don’t boondock and I currently have 2 100 AH lead acid batteries which gives me 100 AH usable power. We do sometimes have longer travel days around 10 to 11 hours if we are on a long trip. If I don’t have enough capacity to last that long I will probably look at a DC-DC charger powered from my truck. One other thing I was wondering about is will the Victron battery monitor show how much charge I’m currently getting from my 7 way on the truck? Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Alan

[acoleman43]

Ascrone if you're just needing to keep the fridge going while traveling, a DC-DC charger may be a more efficient option. I'm no expert but it seems you could have a battery monitoring system with a DC-DC charger or inverter.

[mpking]

Hi Ascrone ,
I have the Victron smartshunt. Your question about will it show the charge your getting from the 7way is: Yes, it will show it, but with a caveat.

The Smartshunt will show you the cumulative of all the current Drains and Charges you are getting, from the perspective of the battery. So if you run your inverter (drawing the made up number of 2000w), and your truck is providing (the made up number) 100watts. The Victron will show 1900watts leaving your battery.

It will not show where and what is adding and subtracting.

I'm going to tag howson and ncitro for your inverter question. We're all pretty much Victron fanboys here :-) I'm a recent convert. I've used a lot of off-brand, cheap battery monitors on other products. They work, but the UI on the Victron is very easy to understand, and the thing that makes the higher price worth is they units talk to each other.

Here's an example using Victron's MPPT solar charger, and it's battery sensor. (Note, the Smartshunt has this battery sensor built in)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpO4s6Lrrmc

[ncitro]

Mike is exactly right. Also keep in mind this only works if you have all of your loads going through the shunt. At the national rally I was stopped by someone who wanted me to look at their rig because their monitor values were never making sense. We opened it up and he had a bunch of negatives connected to his battery directly, bypassing the shunt. As long as all your loads are connected to the shunt you'll be all set.

[Yoda]

I’m getting ready to a swap out to a residential fridge and wanted to get some feedback on my inverter and battery monitor. For the inverter I’m looking at the AIMS Power 2000W inverter with built in transfer switch. For the battery monitor I’m looking at the Victron SmartShunt 500 amp. I don’t have solar and mainly will use the inverter for when I’m traveling to keep the refrigerator running. We don’t boondock and I currently have 2 100 AH lead acid batteries which gives me 100 AH usable power. We do sometimes have longer travel days around 10 to 11 hours if we are on a long trip. If I don’t have enough capacity to last that long I will probably look at a DC-DC charger powered from my truck. One other thing I was wondering about is will the Victron battery monitor show how much charge I’m currently getting from my 7 way on the truck? Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Alan

Alan - lots of good advice above. As you have a 50a service you might want to look at the new Multiplus II https://www.victronenergy.com/invert...lus-ii-2x-120v that can feed both legs of the service. Also has everything built in including the transfer switch. Less cost and hassle in the long run. (Experts - did I link the correct unit?)


However I don't believe your battery bank is up to what you want to do without some serious help - solar and/or DC-DC charger. Your car charge rate will just not keep up with the fridge draw and then your relying on the shore power hook up to bring them to full charge by morning and the stock converter may not have enough power to do it (check what you have and post). Also that deep of a discharge on your lead acid batterys is not good - will reduce the life of them very fast. Anything goes wrong with the shore power and you may not have enough power the run the next day. What would help is the power requirements for the fridge your considering.

BTW - the current model of you unit can be equipped with a residential fridge from the factory - you might want to check how they are powering it and the system used.

I am looking into a DC-DC set up to run my RV fridge on AC while traveling rather than propane. I have 4 6V batterys 520 AH total (50% usable) and 540 watts of solar available. From numbers its iffy if I can run all day on the car/solar charge with my inverter on and still have power to run our CPAP's at night. I do random boon docking while traveling and some parks don't have hookups either. Just now planning the project.

Just my thoughts
Keith

[howson]

Ascrone

A battery bank that will provide the required amperage for the longest possible time disconnected from shore power or a DC-DC Charger are two options for running the residential while disconnected from shore power. I started with 4 100aH Battle Born batteries (worked great). However, it was the DC-DC Charger that really made the difference to ensuring I had what was needed on a travel day to ensure power to the refrigerator. (The battery bank is now the reserve should something go wrong with the truck.)

If I was buying batteries today I'd look at two of Battle Born's "Game Changers" (270aH each) so I'd have 540aH available. LifePO4 batteries are also very expensive, but the performance is worth the expense for those that have to rely on battery power. Consider reading Morton on the Move's information on this topic here: https://mortonsonthemove.com/best-rv...-test-results/

What about solar? Solar is great, and fun to mess with, but unreliable in many cases due to the very nature of requiring sunlight to generate power.

The battery monitor? As mpking put it, I'm definitely an unabashed Victron "fanboy". Their components are expensive, but how well each one works together makes the cost worth it (IMO) if the budget allows. The SmartShunt is a great place to start. I think every owner should have a quality battery monitor. If Cate&Rob is reading this post he's thinking, "I wonder where he got THAT idea!" It was, of course, from Rob.

Howard

[ncitro]

Agreed on the DC to DC charger. I run 1200 watts of solar and still think the DC to DC charger is the bigger improvement. It allows us to dry camp on all of our drive days (Walmart, Cabellas etc) rather than need to occasionally find a full hookup campground to recharge if its been a rainy cloudy day (my drive days seem to have a lot of rain lol).

If I were starting over again I would also do the GameChanger batteries, less interconnecting wire and a simplified layout. I currently run six Lion Energy LifePO4 batteries and they are great for us though.

[Ascrone]

BTW - the current model of you unit can be equipped with a residential fridge from the factory - you might want to check how they are powering it and the system used.

I checked with Grand Design on what they are installing on the 2022 models. They are installing a Haier which is what I have ordered. They are installing a HRQ16N3BGS which it looks like Haier has discontinued and the unit I believe howson installed. The current model is a QHE16HYPFS which I believe the only difference is the newer model can have an ice maker added. Once I get it I will hook my wattmeter to it and find the actually power usage. From what I can tell Grand Design simply adds a WFCO 1000 watt inverter to power the fridge and a second battery. I asked them for more information on making the modification on my unit but they wouldn’t give me any advice since it was a non factory modification. Doesn’t make since to me since they do install it now.

[Ascrone]

What about solar? Solar is great, and fun to mess with, but unreliable in many cases due to the very nature of requiring sunlight to generate power.

I’m definitely not against solar or the Mulitplus units, I just don’t want to spend more than I need to right now to just power the fridge. Was hoping to get by with just the inverter and maybe a DC-DC charger. But it looks like from everyone’s input I need to look at better batteries too.

[ncitro]

Ascrone I first installed a Samsung unit that I loved but drew way too much power. I have since moved it into my house and installed a more stripped down and slightly smaller GE in the RV which uses a lot less. There are definitely a variety of options out there. I can tell you from having gone down that rabbit hole that the power draw of the compressor (listed inside all the fridges I looked at) was not a good indicator of total power usage. The Samsung was listed as a lot less of a power draw but over time used more. All I can figure is it drew less but ran more or longer than the GE.

[mpking]

I checked with Grand Design on what they are installing on the 2022 models. They are installing a Haier which is what I have ordered. They are installing a HRQ16N3BGS which it looks like Haier has discontinued and the unit I believe howson installed. The current model is a QHE16HYPFS which I believe the only difference is the newer model can have an ice maker added. Once I get it I will hook my wattmeter to it and find the actually power usage. From what I can tell Grand Design simply adds a WFCO 1000 watt inverter to power the fridge and a second battery. I asked them for more information on making the modification on my unit but they wouldn’t give me any advice since it was a non factory modification. Doesn’t make since to me since they do install it now.

Have you considered getting a Norcold 12 Volt Compressor, based fridge? (Or Dometic?)
https://norcold.com/product-category...refrigerators/
https://www.dometic.com/en-ca/outdoo...c4101-_-242459

The Norcold is 15cubic feet, and draws 6.5A from the DC bus. No power losses to convert to AC.

[Ascrone]

Have you considered getting a Norcold 12 Volt Compressor, based fridge? (Or Dometic?)

I had looked at the Dometic but it was smaller than what I already had. I like the size of the new Norcold but can’t find pricing of when it will actually be available. I decided on the Haier residential mainly because that is what Grand Design is installing in the 2022 model like mine. I’m guessing that new Norcold will be quite a bit higher priced than a residential, but I wouldn’t have needed the inverter. Maybe I should have waited a few months.

[JRKJR]

FYI, I just pulled for 11 hours. I have the Samsung residential fridge. I used just over 38amps over the 11 hours and that included running the jacks while hooking up and running the hydraulic slides out once to get to the refrigerator.

The Victron will account for the power coming from the 7 pin if hooked up correctly.