Search results

To answer your two questions separately: 1. Your idea to freeze your battery then try to charge it is a good one. The 'don't charge below freezing' rule is like the 'don't use below 50% rule' for lead acid batteries - they are both blown way out of proportion on the internet. Yes charging...

As I mentioned in your other thread, unless you need the off road capabilities or smaller dimensions of the Tacoma, then an F150 sized truck is probably a wiser choice. However, be wary of mission creep, if you go to a bigger truck, it is easier to talk yourself into a bigger camper and...

I think the ARB/OME Dakar heavy duty kit would work well for your load: https://arbusa.com/toyota-tacoma-2005-2011/old-man-emu-4x4-suspension/ With my load (probably a little more than 1500) I ended up with ~1" lift, which I am OK with. However, Christo Slee at Slee Offroad in Golden is far...

That charger probably won't work. The Victron MPPT won't switch on until it sees the battery voltage +5V on the solar panel input. Unless the charger is putting out > 18V, the MPPT won't turn on. If you are OK with lower charge currents, you can use the much cheaper 15A/24V power supply...

I tend to agree that the Tacoma is not the right vehicle for you (coming from a serial Tacoma owner!). Unless you really need the off road capability, or something specifically small, then there are better options for less money. The Tacomas are great, extremely reliable and capable trucks...

While not exactly standard practice, this is a great way to charge your batteries, and it works well. What you want for this is not a battery charger, but a DC power supply. The power supply voltage needs to be about 5V over your battery voltage, and ideally close to what your solar panels...

The fuse/breaker size depends on the size of the wire you run. It needs to be smaller than the max ampacity for the wire.

I think Vic covered most of what you asked. One thing to note is that voltage drop is not important with a DC-DC charger, so there is no need to run heavy cables from the alternator to the camper. The cables only need to be rated to carry the current - for ~20A we are talking about here...

If the $/KWh were the same, I would definitely go with prismatic cells over cylindrical cells. I am only using cylindrical cells because they were a screaming deal at the time. If I built another pack today, I would use prismatic cells both because they are cheaper, are far easier to...

If the switch is in the 'down' or bi-directional charge position, then the starter battery is also charged. When I am not using the truck/camper I leave the switch in this position to make sure the truck battery is always fully charged. This, to me is one of the biggest drawbacks of a normal...

I apologize if my response came off as harsh. This forum is a great source of information for all things ATC/FWC and pop up truck camper in general and resource for trip planing and community. A quick search can usually answer most questions, and if not, a new post brings out the camper...

I am not sure what point you are trying to get across here? The output voltage of a the panel absolutely does matter, and they are not interchangeable. You cannot use a 12V nominal panel with a 24V nominal battery bank. You also cannot use a '24V' panel effectively with a 12V nominal...

Sounds like you have thought this through! I have no experience with wood framed campers, so I didn't know how this was typically done. Better than the competition is likely a safe bet.

Very nice woodwork, definitely a step up from the staple and twisty 2x2" on most wood framed campers! One question I have is if you calculated the loading for the cab over section attachment? It seems to me that that part is kind of the crux of the cab over design. I know with FWC the cab...

LiFePO4 is one of many 'lithium ion' chemistries, so both names are accurate.

Sounds like a fun project! Keep us abreast of how it all goes. Three years ago when I was working on my lithium batteries, the bare cell cost for prismatic cells was not enough less than the cost of drop ins to make that option worthwhile. Thus spending a lot of hour assembling old stock...

Definitely don't take any advice from that tech - he doesn't seem to have much of a grip on basic physics. I would agree with Vic to avoid Zamp in general. You certainly would not want to use a '24V' panel with a Zamp PWM controller, and a 12V battery, you would be throwing away more than...

What are the specs on the panel your are looking at? I assume a 300W panel would be a residential panel and therefor a higher voltage/lower current panel. To get to your question - the wiring should be fine up to at least 32A (assuming 12 AWG, but I think newer campers are wired with 10AWG)...

You don't necessarily need a DC-DC charger. Depending on your alternator output and the wiring gauge between the truck and camper your current maybe OK, or even a little on the low side (as mine is). I would buy the lithium first, then see how much current the battery actually draws...

With miss-matched panels with different currents you definitely don't want to put them in series. With the two panels in series, the output current will be limited to that of the lowest output panel, or 5.7A. In series, you will get a maximum of 5.7A * (18.6 + 17.9)V = 208W. In parallel...

That sounds completely normal. The 13.4V you initially see is the tail end of your charge voltage. Over time or with a small load this 'surface charge' will go away and the battery will stabilize at the fully charged resting voltage which is something in the range 12.6 - 12.8V. If you...

25' vs 50' won't make a huge difference in your power harvesting. Go for whatever is convenient to use and gets you to the sun. The black is the negative wire for the panel (not really ground), but by definition the exact same current flows on the negative wire as the positive wire, so you...

On the isolator itself, unscrew the heavy gauge wire from one terminal and move it over to the other terminal so both heavy gauge wires go to the same terminal post. The isolator is then just a junction block. You can disconnect the ground wire (the thin wire going to the isolator) as well...

I would wager that the vast majority of campers you see on 'small' pickups are over GVWR, and a large fraction on 'mid size' truck are as well. But I would qualify this by saying that GVWR is not some magic number where everything is fine when you are below it, and goes to pot if you exceed...

There shouldn't be an issue with DIY battery in parallel, even with a different BMS. In an ideal world, the BMS never has to do anything because the charge parameters are all within the BMS limits and the cells are balanced.