Solar/batteries new 2022 315rlts information needed

[Payner9]

Hello,

I am new here, and just purchased a new 2022 315rlts. I have been super frustrated with no answers from dealership as well as Grand Design on the solar package and what exactly “inverter prep” means. I have been researching this for weeks and no real answers. Same goes for the electric and how things work in this new trailer.

question 1. If I switch to 2 lithium (battle born batteries) can I just do that with plug and play? It has the Furion 50amp charge controller. Can I just switch that to lithium and be good to go?

question 2. If I want to say add another solar panel or two, along with inverter since it’s “inverter prep” is there a place I can just quickly wire it in, and add the solar panels on the roof? I am not sure if the roof is wired for extra solar panels already? With an inverter what plugs should work inside?

question 3: First trip out for a weekend the fridge stopped working. Connected to 50amp shore power, after 48 hours running. Checked breakers, fuses, power source (watch dog said all clear) I was in shock. The rookie me not thinking new from dealer, the batter switch the whole time was set to off. What’s weird to me is jack worked, slides went out, lights worked, fridge worked all when set up and pulling out of the shop from home to the camp site. So the battery shut off doesn’t really shut anything off. Anyways the main thing is why with shore power did the fridge not run? I know it’s a 12v fridge, my hunch is the batteries where supplying the power, with it in shut off mode, they weren’t charging and the fridge drained the batteries. (I didn’t think of checking battery level) once I switched the batter stitch back on, fridge had full power. Is my hunch correct? I just want to make sure I don’t have a bad converter or something.



I’m not needing a total Solar off grid set up yet. I just got the residential fridge and I am mainly pacific north west with limited sun and y’all know the amount of rain we get. I want to be able to have drive days or stay a night or two with not having to use the generator at night for extremely basic power amount. Mainly the fridge to work and maybe charge a phone and turn some lights on. So I’m leaning towards just some battle born batteries but I’d like to understand this solar system and what it powers, (assumption is just the fridge and batteries).

Thank you all for the help!

[acoleman43]

Payner9 welcome to the forum and the new crazy world of solar and lithium. I'll do my best to answer your questions. The answers might be a little long, sorry :(

Hopefully other will add to this as there are some very smart people here.

Answer 1: It's more likely the determining factor is the converter/charger, not the solar charge controller. Look through your product literature to find your converter/charger manual. The converter/charger converts AC power (shore power) to DC power (to power the DC circuits) and charges the batteries from AC power. Most new converter/chargers are designed to work with both AGM and lithium batteries. The manual should have this information. If it is designed to work with lithium batteries, it is basically plug and play to switch to lithium. If your converter/charger is not designed to work with lithium batteries, it will still "work" with them, but will not have the optimal charge settings for lithium which will significantly reduce the usable life of the battery.

The solar charge controller is a separate from the converter/charger. The purpose of the solar charge controller is to convert the energy coming from the solar panels to work with the system batteries (converts "higher" voltage to 12v for the batteries). The energy from the solar charge controller charges the batteries only. It does NOT provide DC power to any DC circuit. Assuming your current batteries are 12v and the Battle Borns will be 12v, the solar charge controller will work with your batteries. It's likely the only thing that will need to be done is to change the charging profile to a lithium charge profile (its probably set to AGM charge profile now).

Answer 2: Adding solar panels- you will need to know the specs of your current panel(s) and the specs of the new panel(s). then determine whether you solar charge controller will be compatible with your new solar panel array. You will also need to find the size of wire coming from your existing solar panel to the solar charge controller and determine if the size is sufficient for your new solar array. There's many things to consider when expanding solar arrays. For max efficiency its best to always use the same panels in your array. When you start mixing and matching, your efficiency will decline significantly.

Inverter - I really don't know what is meant by "inverter prep". That's a very general statement from Grand Designs and can mean a lot of things. This should also tell you what will be connected to the inverter. I know there have been others in this forum with the same question and it has been answered. Hopefully somebody smarter than me can answer this.

Answer 3: The battery shutoff doesn't completely shutoff battery from all DC circuits. To be honest, I'm not really sure which ones are shut off and which ones are not. Because we have a solar panel and a couple batteries (which the panel keeps charged with a :floating" charge), we never switch the main shutoff...off. But, if you are connected to shore power, the converter will convert the AC power into DC power that SHOULD power all DC circuits including your fridge. The charger SHOULD keep the batteries charged. In my opinion, the only way the battery shutoff makes a difference (like you outlined above) when connected to shore power is if the If the converter goes through the battery shutoff before it powers the DC panel. If this is the case, I wouldn't shutoff the batteries unless you absolutely have to. The solar panel should be keeping your battery charged anyway......

Hope that helps a little.

[Mike & Rebecca]

Regards #1 and the converter in your trailer. Don't just rely on your build sheet to identify which converter you have. My 2022 260RD had a different brand altogether. I would never have known if I hadn't gone looking for the converter to verify. I ended up checking every listed component and found a few others (solar panel) that wasn't the model listed on the build sheet. In our trailer the solar charger is lithium compatible but not the converter.

[howson]

I am new here, and just purchased a new 2022 315rlts.

Hi Payner9,
Definitely want to help, but can we back up a second? There's a Welcome Letter to New Members that will explain how to interact and get the most from this forum. In the letter you'll learn the norm is to (please!) limit a thread to one question. Gets very confusing with multiple topics in one thread.

The Welcome Letter is here: https://gdrvowners.com/forum/main-fo...to-new-members

Howard

P.S. Reading through the original post, the last sentence appears to be the main question: I’d like to understand this solar system and what it powers, (assumption is just the fridge and batteries). Is that accurate?

[Payner9]

Thank you all for the advise! I looked and have a progressive dynamics converter and it looks like It is compatible to lithium. So I should be able to add lithium batteries and change that over and the charge controller.

I ain’t to worried about adding more Solar, seems like a lot of work for now. But I guess I’m confused on why the fridge won’t run on shore power, only if batteries are off. Must be something with the system being on it’s own from the batteries. Just can’t find a solid diagram. The batteries charge fully when connected to shore power and stuff so there shouldn’t be a converter problem from my understanding. So all is good I think. I just wish Grand design had more of an explanation on this system, nobody could answer any questions on it at point of purchase or contacting them.

Thank you all for the help!

[Country Campers]

I have sone confusion, early in your first post you said you have the 12 v dc fridge, then at the end you said you have residential , which one do you have?

Brian

[Payner9]

I have sone confusion, early in your first post you said you have the 12 v dc fridge, then at the end you said you have residential , which one do you have?

Brian

I’m sorry I thought they where same thing. It’s residential but runs on 12v? It’s the furion Arctic 16cu.

[Cate&Rob]

I’m sorry I thought they where same thing. It’s residential but runs on 12v?

This can get confusing . Until relatively recently, RV fridges were "dual fuel" (propane/120V electric) using an absorption cooling cycle or "residential" (120V electric) using compressor cooling. The new player in the game is a compressor fridge that runs on 12V rather than 120V. So . . . sort of a 12V "residential" refrigerator. Compressor cooling is far more energy efficient than absorption cooling but requires considerably more 12V power than the minimal 12V power required for just the control circuits on an absorption fridge running on propane. Clear as mud ??

Rob

[Country Campers]

"Residential Style" is where the confusions sets in.

So on to your problems.

It is possible that the fridge is wired into the disconnect, if the disconnect is off the fridge is off. It also sounds like the disconnect is wired wrong for some other things. When OFF the slides should not work but the jack should, there are others things that work in general when the disconnect is off.

The inverter prep should be an orange wire located above and behind the Nautilus panel.

Adding 2 Battleborn batteries you may want to upgrade the wires from the batteries , larger wires.

As far as the solar what you have is a "starter kit", just a basic system that will put out very little charge to the batteries. If you decide at some point that you need a full solar system I would remove the panel that you have and install all new panels of the same size, you probably will also have to increase the wire size from the roof to the solar charger and may want a larger solar charger as well. A DC to DC charger is another option to add , charges batteries while traveling, this is talked about quite a bit here on the Forum.

I think you will have to check to see if the batteries charge while on shore power and also what is powered when the batteries are on and off.

Lots of questions in your post and I agree with Howard this thread will get confusing.

Brian

[On The Fly]

Pretty sure your 315 is wired like my 303:
The refrigerator runs off the batteries, and bypasses the battery cut-off switch. However, the converter needs the battery cut-off switch "on" to recharge the batteries.
It sounds like you figured it out, the Refrigerator sucked your batteries dead and stopped working. I have lithium batteries and the refrigerator cant kill the batteries because the battery management system will shut them down. So if you have lead acid batteries, keep an eye on them the next few cycles because they do not like being sucked dead.
Welcome to the 12v refrigerator Learning Curve.


Bill

[Payner9]

Pretty sure your 315 is wired like my 303:
The refrigerator runs off the batteries, and bypasses the battery cut-off switch. However, the converter needs the battery cut-off switch "on" to recharge the batteries.
It sounds like you figured it out, the Refrigerator sucked your batteries dead and stopped working. I have lithium batteries and the refrigerator cant kill the batteries because the battery management system will shut them down. So if you have lead acid batteries, keep an eye on them the next few cycles because they do not like being sucked dead.
Welcome to the 12v refrigerator Learning Curve.


Bill

Thank you for this! Yeah that’s what I was thinking and hoping. I’m glad nothing is wrong with a converter or anything. Also I am gonna be getting some lithium batteries here soon for some peace of mind.

[howson]

Thank you for this! Yeah that’s what I was thinking and hoping. I’m glad nothing is wrong with a converter or anything. Also I am gonna be getting some lithium batteries here soon for some peace of mind.

Many of us here use a battery monitor for further "peace of mind". If you're spending the $$$$$ on LifePO4's, consider a monitor, too.

I'm an unabashed Victron "fanboy", so naturally gravitate to the BMV-712 or SmartShunt. Do some research on the topic (lots of YouTube videos). Embedded AMSolar's video on the topic below:

Howard

[Mike & Rebecca]

Many of us here use a battery monitor for further "peace of mind". If you're spending the $$$$$ on LifePO4's, consider a monitor, too.

I'm an unabashed Victron "fanboy", so naturally gravitate to the BMV-712 or SmartShunt. Do some research on the topic (lots of YouTube videos). Embedded AMSolar's video on the topic below:

Howard

Howard, you (and others) are already costing me money!

I have the new PD lithium converter and BMV-712 sitting on the counter. Just waiting for the new lithium battery to show up. Not sure I'll get it all installed before the first big trip next week, but I may toss the lithium in and go for it.