Charging Ollie With Multiple PowerSources, split from flex panels thread

[Ronbrink]

On 11/29/2023 at 9:55 AM, Ollie-Haus said:

As an alternative to lack of solar input, the DC-DC charger gets it done! 

[SeaDawg]

You have a lot of (enviable) lifepo4 amp hours. The dc to dc charger makes sense, for you. You get extra benefit from the fossil fuels burned, with no added cost.

For those of us who (now) tend to stay in one spot for a long time,with agm batteries,  or smaller lifepo4 banks, solar makes more sense. 

Best investments are based on individual camping styles,and everyone is different.  

[Ollie-Haus]

3 hours ago, Ronbrink said:

As an alternative to lack of solar input, the DC-DC charger gets it done! 

I like the idea of keeping the camper cool during hot weather while traveling to the next stop. With the DC-DC charging the bats from the truck, we can leave the inverter on and run the AC on low while driving and when we get to our destination, the camper is cool and the batteries will likely be 100%. No sense letting that alternator capacity go to waste. 

[Geronimo John]

 

17 hours ago, Ollie-Haus said:

That's my long term plan as well. I've yet to install my Victron DC/DC charging system, a project for next summer. When I do that I'll add trailer front connections as well for the truck solar panel to supplement the Oliver solar. And ours came with the solar port at the battery compartment and we got the portable panel so we would be able to charge at ~800 watts on good days. Can't wait to get it all put together and run some tests

I'm impressed!  I love diversity of power supply for sure.

When I was installing our Lithiums and DC to DC and solar suit case I asked the forum if they could all play together at the same time.  Got zero response back then.

Looks like with your DC to DC Charger + Solar Panel on TV Bed Cover + Oliver Solar + Portable Panel =  You seem to know how to do it.  Would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.  

Sorry in advance for hijackings my own thread!   🙂

GJ

 

[Ronbrink]

8 hours ago, Ollie-Haus said:

I like the idea of keeping the camper cool during hot weather while traveling to the next stop. With the DC-DC charging the bats from the truck, we can leave the inverter on and run the AC on low while driving and when we get to our destination, the camper is cool and the batteries will likely be 100%. No sense letting that alternator capacity go to waste. 

My 40A DC-DC will not totally offset the power consumption of the Dometic’s 90+amp draw when the compressor is cycling On. At best, I plan to do the same with inherent limitations; wherein running the A/C an hour or so prior to stops during hotter times of year for the added comfort. I recently upgraded to LFPs and installed a transfer switch to operate the Dometic via inverter; a relatively simple conversion compared to the DC-DC install, but well worth the overall cost and effort! However, you do have an advantage, in that your OTT equipped solar panels will further maintain battery bank levels when underway with optimum climatic conditions. I suggest you move up your tentative DC-DC install to next spring rather than summer; time’s a wastin’!

[Ronbrink]

9 hours ago, SeaDawg said:

Best investments are based on individual camping styles,and everyone is different.  

True that!

[Ronbrink]

5 hours ago, Geronimo John said:

When I was installing our Lithiums and DC to DC and solar suit case I asked the forum if they could all play together at the same time.  Got zero response back then.

I too was waiting for some response! To your original question, I kinda remember seeing those long, narrow flex panels installed on an Oliver within the curbside lower trough between the awning and roof rise, in similar manner on the street side, as well as the center roof. Not to offend, but I passed on the solar option not only due to the added expense, but also because of aesthetics; the ‘roof wings’ simply did not appeal to me, nor potential effects on aerodynamics, as you mentioned. 

[MAX Burner]

14 hours ago, Ronbrink said:

the Victron SmartShunt would have something to do with the balance of varied incoming currents

Our understanding of the SmartShunt's contribution to the overall charging/discharging system is to measure and report via the Victron Connect App or the Victron GSX what EMF (maybe not the correct technical term) or power is either being consumed or charged into the BBs.  Don't think the SS regulates various incoming amperages...  

Pls correct if wrong.  Just a dump fighter pilot as described above by @Geronimo John

[Ollie-Haus]

Love it! Thanks for sharing.👍

[mossemi]

I think of the Victron Smart Shunt or any of the Victron 700 series battery monitors as smart gas gauges.  They can give you an idea of your battery system SOC as well as the rate of charge or discharge that is occurring at the time of viewing.  They can provide information to other pieces of Victron equipment that can control the rate of charge, but as a standalone piece of equipment they do not have the ability to control the amount of charging from any source.

Please correct any part of my thinking you don’t agree with,

Mossey

 

[Ronbrink]

Thanks to all, somehow I feel a bit ‘smarter’ by way of your responses!

[Geronimo John]

On 11/30/2023 at 1:26 PM, Ronbrink said:

I would think (meaning I don’t really know in fact) the Victron Smart Shunt would have something to do with the balance of varied incoming currents

I agree with Mossemi.  My understanding of the Victron  712 Smart is that it simply is a reporting tool.  it does not change or modify any power flows. It simply measures voltage, current, and in some cases battery temperature.  It does not have any control features.

 

On 11/30/2023 at 12:10 PM, Ollie-Haus said:

I just want as you eluded to in your first response to this topic to have multiple options. In theory I could set this up with all solar sources feeding through the on board charge controller and just have multiple points of input. Although it will be interesting to see what the output is on each charge controller during various scenarios and how they play together. 

Precisely stated.

I have no doubt that as the Litho's SOC approaches 100% that all the connected charging systems will see the voltage and either shut down or go to maintenance.  So we are not at the  "She canna take any more, Cap'n! She's gonna blow!"  situation. 

 

On 11/30/2023 at 12:10 PM, Ollie-Haus said:

There's already a number of folks that have installed the DC-DC chargers on their systems and the truck is charging at a relatively high rate while connected and driving. With the onboard solar panels always on the job in daylight, my guess is they do exactly as you describe and probably remain in a float charge condition with the truck doing the real work of bulk charging, as the DC-DC will allow 14.6 and relatively high charge current. The onboard charge controller would just tell the DC-DC system to have at it big boy! 😆

I agree with your premis that one of the systems will assume the role of "Big Boy" and rule the roost.

For an older set up like ours (Hull 342 See Above List), the PD 4060 is the big boy in the fight.  This is in line with Ollie-Haus that the more powerful system will prevail.  But on the other hand we don't really know at this point which system and why it will act like the big boy regardless of it's power output ranking.   

If we really understand "how they play together", it would be productive to only turn on the systems that will maximize the charge process, especially when we are at low SOC.  No point in having other systems connected and at risk if the one acting like the big boy has them sitting on the bench. 

So, I'm thinking it is not necessarily which system is the most powerful, but rather more likely which system is operating at the highest voltage at the time that becomes the bully to the other charge controllers.

Any PHD Electrical guys out there?  This is WAY over my Mechanical Engineer's pea brain.

GJ

[topgun2]

GJ - 

And, I repeat - I like the way you think.🤔

Bill

[Geronimo John]

If we assume that it IS voltage that controls the individual charge controllers output, then we could adjust their system to shut down in the order that makes most sense to charge time reduction.  

Maybe to do that we would want the lowest charging power system to have a lower full charge cut off point, and exit the field first.  Then the next lowest power charge controller set at a slightly higher full charge cut off point.  So basically the team on the field would be reduced sequentially leaving the most powerful one in play the longest.  Thereby reducing total charge control Time.

This may work so long as all the team players are playing the same game... But if some are rugby, some are soccer, and at least one is football all bets are off.

Again way beyond anything I am qualified to think about.....

[Geronimo John]

Somebody throw me a rope, I'm way too deep in this rabbet hole!

[SeaDawg]

There you go, gj. 

[Geronimo John]

I think we'll need more rope. 🙂

GJ

[SeaDawg]

30 minutes ago, Geronimo John said:

I think we'll need more rope. 🙂

GJ

At least better rope. 😌 

[Ollie-Haus]

I felt like I was adrift in the pacific several entries back. 😵 I'm going to wait and see and then scratch my head and go "oh, I didn't expect that"! 🤔 Or just maybe I'll be saying, "wow that's exactly what I hoped it would do". 😍

[topgun2]

I suspect that (as I think GJ alluded to earlier) one would have to get the person that set up/manufactured each component of the system to sit down together with all the others and have a discussion as to exactly how each was programed or at least the way that piece was supposed to work.  Perhaps a flow chart of sorts for each would help.  Without that I don't see that it would be possible to fully understand each without reverse engineering it.

Bill

[Geronimo John]

For sure we don't have that much time or in my case skill.  But maybe Jason knows.  

[John Welte]

3 hours ago, topgun2 said:

I suspect that (as I think GJ alluded to earlier) one would have to get the person that set up/manufactured each component of the system to sit down together with all the others and have a discussion as to exactly how each was programed or at least the way that piece was supposed to work.  Perhaps a flow chart of sorts for each would help.  Without that I don't see that it would be possible to fully understand each without reverse engineering it.

Bill

Bill,

Do they cover some of these questions at the rally?  I don't have a good grasp of the electrical systems and how to integrate a portable solar panel if I had one available.

John

[Geronimo John]

2 minutes ago, John Welte said:

Do they cover some of these questions at the rally?  I don't have a good grasp of the electrical systems and how to integrate a portable solar panel if I had one available.

John

John W:

Even if they don't make it a formal topic, you'll likely have more than a few DYI owners there that would proud to walk you through their way of doing it.  Very valuable seeing various solutions first hand.  

GJ

[Ollie-Haus]

53 minutes ago, John Welte said:

Bill,

Do they cover some of these questions at the rally?  I don't have a good grasp of the electrical systems and how to integrate a portable solar panel if I had one available.

John

John, without digging into the schematics, my understanding is that the auxiliary solar port Oliver installs on our campers is directly wired to the batteries. This is the reason a separate charge controller is required on the portable panel. At this level it's not a highly technical process. The charge controller on the panel reads the battery SOC and controls the output to the batteries based on that reading. Adding an aux solar port to a camper that didn't already have one is pretty straight forward based on Oliver's method. The portable panel you buy must have its own charge controller. 

Now if I'm at a SOC of say 50%, I haven't spent much time yet analyzing the output level of the portable panel to the output of the onboard 400w panel on the camper. And of course another variable to observe would be the effect of plugging in the shore power and how that effects the output of the two solar power sources. Again an experiment yet to play with next summer for me. 

[SeaDawg]

It's electron magic, I guess.

We don't have the same system (we're blue sky solar, 400 watts fixed, 200 watts portable,  pd charger /inverter, and agm natteries) but all these systems are pretty much set up with limits and rules so that everybody follows kindergarten protocols... play well together. 

What we do is use genset in the morning, when most empty, and get the biggest bang for our fossil fuel buck, if boondocking. Let the solar take up the slower high end of the charge curve.

I actually have asked this question a number of times, to various manufacturers.  All the charging devices have limits programmed in, so, you can't "overcharge". (Though, as we all know, lifepo4 like to be charged only infrequently to 100 per cent. They're not happy with constant  float charge to full capacity, opposite of lead acid. )

So, we've run with that advice. Over seven years on current agms, approaching seven on flas on the boat, and 4 or 5 on house lithium powerwalls. I may not understand it all , but we follow their charts and settings, and so far, so good.