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Thought some might get a kick out of this video clip my wife shot in our back yard and set to music last rutting season. 4 bucks.mp4

We just spent 4 overnights between Flagstaff and the canyon. Not exactly the desert SW at 7600 feet but it was the week of July 20th with highs in the mid-to-high 80s, everyday up there (116F in Phoenix). Two of 4 nights we had monsoon rains and we had to cook indoors using a pressure cooker one night and Emeril oven another (microwave removed for the Emeril). We often use a portable induction cooktop but not this trip. We had the A/C on 24x7 in fear of overnight rains, when generally after dinner we would open windows. A couple nights the old Dometic 3-way fridge had the "Check" (LP) light come on, likely from the altitude, so we also ran the fridge on batteries for about 60 hours over the 4 days. With the Victron MP2 inverter/charger we can run the Chill Cube A/C, The Emeril Oven, the fridge, the TV and soundbar, etc. all at the same time without worry as to what we can or cannot run on electric. Coffee every morning with an 1100W electric kettle. With 900 Ah LiFePO4 batteries we have power to spare. I can see what you're saying, but of course with the old Penguin A/C you're not running A/C at all when unplugged. The P2 would bring 300 Ah down to ZERO in 2 hours. I thought we had all the power we needed to run A/C for 4 days straight, and we did but had not counted on running the fridge on electric too, which hour after hour takes quite a bit of Ah. The picture shows our remaining Ah on our 4th night at 7 PM. Epoch #2 was below 20% and it stopped showing up on the app (notice the pic shows 600 Ah total since it cannot see one battery). By morning SOC was 18% and when we got home late afternoon SOC was 43% with battery #2 again reading, recharged from the DC-DC charger. SOC of 43% might not sound too good, does it? But keep in mind 43% of 900 is 387 Ah. Instead of driving home, if we had driven to another campsite we'd be back in business for another couple days. I'd give up our 900 Ah right along with my right arm! 😎 But if you have no interest in upgrading your A/C and running it off-grid then 300 Ah is good enough. Those who go from 300 to 600 Ah can get down to 50% SOC and be at 300. If you have small Ah capacity, you always need it full. Having greater capacity allows you to run at lower SOC%. We were able to run A/C for 100 hours straight, including when towing, with our setup! And if you're always running near 100% SOC, the DC-DC charger will get lonely with no work to do! 🤣

It's not a complicated job to do on your own but will take a bit of time and it helps if you have someone to help. I replaced all of my springs and associated hardware as well as the shocks last spring by myself out of necessity, (one of my springs broke on my previous trip). It helps to have a good impact wrench with associated impact rated sockets. In addition to using the Olivers jacks it helps to have a couple of bottle jacks for supporting and manipulating the axles (when lining things up). I also had a couple of jack stands on hand for additional security but luckily didn't need them. Just take your time and you'll be fine.

First, great write-up. Saved it to my DIY file. We also travel long and far, and having a Victron DC to DC has been wonderful. Sadly ours is only the 30 amp verson. But when it fails, I'll be digging out my saved DIY of your efforts. So thanks in the future a second time. I too am open to roof mount solar, some day. Just don't like the look or their potential MPG impact, especially out west with high speed limits. I'm hopeful that future surface mount panels will be made to allow "full" covoerage of our roof. Specifically from the low outter sections to the main middle section curves. Current surface mounts that I have looked at don't have adequate bend radius to cover all three areas fully. Besides the power benefit, it would sure make waxing Ollie's top a LOT easier. Thanks again, GJ