My '04 Winnebago has the basement heat pump. It has two compressors, each taking about 10-11 amps, so max draw is about 2400 watts. When it goes out, my plan is to replace it with a mini-split unit that uses a third of that max when on turbo mode and even less while maintaining temps. To be honest, I'm kind of anxious to try it. Oh, I ordered my batteries (4 x 304AH) and wire to start hooking up all my big-blue stuff.
That's a great setup, 1200Ah of batteries is awesome! I'm sure we'll get to that point when we're ready to overhaul our setup, but we'll be at half of your capacity for a little while to come still! The mini split sounds like a great idea. I have a similar sort of idea for when we begin to have any troubles with our ceiling units, just replacing the A/Cs with fans and figuring out a good spot for a mini split setup!
@@CozyLivingMachine For the batteries, I'm using prismatic cells and building my own batteries with BMS. I'm okay getting grade B, cells to save money as in 8 or 10 years the battery playing field will be completely different. Because of this, I'm getting 304AH batteries for $360 plus the cost of a BMS.
That's a steal!! Granted, a little bit of labor there, some technical knowledge, but still. That should do you very well. And I'm very curious to see what the technology we have after LiFePO4 will be!
Coleman Mach are the ones we have. I do have a 3000 REnogy like yours that I used on my previous rv and could run my a/c with a soft-start (otherwise the protection will shut the inverter) and with a 300 AmpH lifepo$ battery, in Miami heat, it could run for 3 hours. Day off for me, that is why I am seeing your video earlier, my son graduation today, and I have to get ready and start going. Cheers !!!
You know, I'm wondering if the soft start units are now installed by default in these Coleman Mach A/Cs. It's tough to identify which model is which without removing the cover but I'm sure someone would know for sure. Ours acts like it has one and it's happy to run the A/C from the inverters. It could be that the 3kW is just beefy enough to do so without a complaint! Big day! Congrats to your son. Enjoy the day!!
Just need a mini wind turbine in front of the AC while it's going 😆 I would probably go with the EcoFlow Wave air conditioner, because it's portable, and battery powered, supposedly lasts all night. Could be good for the times when there's not enough solar.
You know, that's the best recycling idea I've heard of! 😂 I would love to play with a wind turbine though, we'll certainly have to do some experimentation at some point with that. I hadn't heard of an EcoFlow, but that sounds awesome. Looks like somewhere between a 1,000-1,200Wh battery, so theoretically not much time at all to charge up with a system like ours! A little pricey, but I'd love to try one out sometime and see how they do in a motorhome!
Is it not worth paying up and upgrading both AC units to 12 volt units, just for battery savings. Change all appliances to 12 volts. Also if the Ac units are quiet start, it makes it easier on the converter.
That's a good question! In most instances, it would appear that it isn't. There are a few variables. A lot of those units are quite expensive, and in some cases it appears that they'll run over $4k for an A/C, which is insane for a little unit like these. They may put out 10k BTUs, but from the spec sheets that I'm seeing, still run around 2000Wh or so. Some claim to be right around 900Wh, but it's all over the place in the Amazon pages for them and such. I know that one claims to only use 75A max, but that will still require much larger wire to go the distance because the amperage has to be higher. So chances are, the wire run would be at least 30 feet or so all said and done, that's going to be a minimum of 1AWG wire, and that's a good chunk of change as well! The same would go for all appliances being switched over. I suspect that in a van or teardrop, this wouldn't matter at all, but in a motorhome or larger trailer the weight would certainly add up. If an inverter has a 10% +/- loss, I'd say it's better to oversize the solar battery bank by at least 10%, and save a bunch of money on the wiring and appliances! A 600W maximum mini-split A/C would be the king in this scenario!
This is very interesting to me... For an RV like yours, do you think 1200 Amp Hour battery system is enough ? 6 batteries at 200 Amp Hours each... Also, can you recharge your batteries from the solar panels AND use power from the batteries at the same time ?
If our batteries are fully charged and all we run is the AC on full blast, we could run one 1500 watt AC for 9.6 hours. We definitely think that our 1200 watts of solar and 600 amp hour battery set up is enough for us in a sunny area. In a cloudy area, for the size of rig we're in we could use some more, but we definitely aren't hurting. And yes, you can recharge the batteries with the solar panels and use the power from the batteries at the same time, similar to charging your cell phone and using it at the same time. 🤗
Good morning ! Cool experiment ! You definitely have a nice setup 👍👍👍👍👍👍
Good morning! Thanks! I'm glad we could put it to the test. 😂
My '04 Winnebago has the basement heat pump. It has two compressors, each taking about 10-11 amps, so max draw is about 2400 watts. When it goes out, my plan is to replace it with a mini-split unit that uses a third of that max when on turbo mode and even less while maintaining temps. To be honest, I'm kind of anxious to try it.
Oh, I ordered my batteries (4 x 304AH) and wire to start hooking up all my big-blue stuff.
That's a great setup, 1200Ah of batteries is awesome! I'm sure we'll get to that point when we're ready to overhaul our setup, but we'll be at half of your capacity for a little while to come still! The mini split sounds like a great idea. I have a similar sort of idea for when we begin to have any troubles with our ceiling units, just replacing the A/Cs with fans and figuring out a good spot for a mini split setup!
@@CozyLivingMachine For the batteries, I'm using prismatic cells and building my own batteries with BMS. I'm okay getting grade B, cells to save money as in 8 or 10 years the battery playing field will be completely different. Because of this, I'm getting 304AH batteries for $360 plus the cost of a BMS.
That's a steal!! Granted, a little bit of labor there, some technical knowledge, but still. That should do you very well. And I'm very curious to see what the technology we have after LiFePO4 will be!
@@CozyLivingMachine I'm hoping sodium ion continues refinement so they can stop with all the rare earth elements.
@@brianvandy4002 I've seen a few videos on sodium batteries. The tech sounds fantastic!!
That was a fun experiment. Now we know why the mini's are popular with solar setups.
Absolutely! I love that many of the mini splits also have a heat pump that's rather efficient, which would sure be nice for winters!
Coleman Mach are the ones we have. I do have a 3000 REnogy like yours that I used on my previous rv and could run my a/c with a soft-start (otherwise the protection will shut the inverter) and with a 300 AmpH lifepo$ battery, in Miami heat, it could run for 3 hours.
Day off for me, that is why I am seeing your video earlier, my son graduation today, and I have to get ready and start going. Cheers !!!
You know, I'm wondering if the soft start units are now installed by default in these Coleman Mach A/Cs. It's tough to identify which model is which without removing the cover but I'm sure someone would know for sure. Ours acts like it has one and it's happy to run the A/C from the inverters. It could be that the 3kW is just beefy enough to do so without a complaint!
Big day! Congrats to your son. Enjoy the day!!
Just need a mini wind turbine in front of the AC while it's going 😆 I would probably go with the EcoFlow Wave air conditioner, because it's portable, and battery powered, supposedly lasts all night. Could be good for the times when there's not enough solar.
You know, that's the best recycling idea I've heard of! 😂 I would love to play with a wind turbine though, we'll certainly have to do some experimentation at some point with that. I hadn't heard of an EcoFlow, but that sounds awesome. Looks like somewhere between a 1,000-1,200Wh battery, so theoretically not much time at all to charge up with a system like ours! A little pricey, but I'd love to try one out sometime and see how they do in a motorhome!
Is it not worth paying up and upgrading both AC units to 12 volt units, just for battery savings. Change all appliances to 12 volts.
Also if the Ac units are quiet start, it makes it easier on the converter.
That's a good question! In most instances, it would appear that it isn't. There are a few variables. A lot of those units are quite expensive, and in some cases it appears that they'll run over $4k for an A/C, which is insane for a little unit like these. They may put out 10k BTUs, but from the spec sheets that I'm seeing, still run around 2000Wh or so. Some claim to be right around 900Wh, but it's all over the place in the Amazon pages for them and such. I know that one claims to only use 75A max, but that will still require much larger wire to go the distance because the amperage has to be higher. So chances are, the wire run would be at least 30 feet or so all said and done, that's going to be a minimum of 1AWG wire, and that's a good chunk of change as well! The same would go for all appliances being switched over. I suspect that in a van or teardrop, this wouldn't matter at all, but in a motorhome or larger trailer the weight would certainly add up.
If an inverter has a 10% +/- loss, I'd say it's better to oversize the solar battery bank by at least 10%, and save a bunch of money on the wiring and appliances! A 600W maximum mini-split A/C would be the king in this scenario!
Were you in a campground where this was recorded?
At the Rev Service Center in Coburg, OR. They have a nice lot for those needing to stay during the repairs!
This is very interesting to me... For an RV like yours, do you think 1200 Amp Hour battery system is enough ? 6 batteries at 200 Amp Hours each... Also, can you recharge your batteries from the solar panels AND use power from the batteries at the same time ?
If our batteries are fully charged and all we run is the AC on full blast, we could run one 1500 watt AC for 9.6 hours. We definitely think that our 1200 watts of solar and 600 amp hour battery set up is enough for us in a sunny area. In a cloudy area, for the size of rig we're in we could use some more, but we definitely aren't hurting. And yes, you can recharge the batteries with the solar panels and use the power from the batteries at the same time, similar to charging your cell phone and using it at the same time. 🤗