[JCTex]

OK Forest,

Disregard all previous transmissions from that guy of the same name who was going to put a Lit. system in a van. That project stopped and the 7.3L Ford RB van is for sale.

Instead, I bought a 2008 Country Coach 470 Allure 37' and will be driving to Minnesota next week to do final inspections and drive it home to Texas. Therefore, I'm now in the same ball game as you and the other MH owners. The OO's did not opt for an all-electric coach. So, I'm going to rip out their 2-8D AGM's, their 2000W inverter, and a bunch of too-small cables. Both AC and DC distribution panels may be replaced with marine grade. Additional circuits must be added for the new residential refrigerator, and others.

Mr. Samra is very nice but very frustrating in their total lack of customer service. He owes me a quote from emails we exchanged last week.

Here's what I THINK but have not confirmed: Their new Battery Management System began production and sale in March to RV and boat manufacturers. I do NOT think it's a separate box. Rather, I think they build it into every battery pack they sell. It's spec'd just for the size of the bank. If this is true, that's why we haven't been able to get an information about the new BMS. This is subject to his response to my emails. That response was supposed to be here by now. Not so much. I'll ping them again Monday.

It's obvious they are not very interested in selling to general single-buyers; but I haven't given up hope.

If, and right now, it's a BIG if, their BMS is proprietarily built-in, the I may get lucky and receive a plug-and-play battery pack, already banded, tied electronically among cells, and possible leveled. Wouldn't THAT be a game-changer for the wanna-be Lithium RV'ers?

If that ends up being true, I'm just a catastrophe fuse, some Pergo switches, a neg-side shunt, and cables away from attaching it to my central terminal blocks.

Then, it's a matter of my local mobile power expert (and Victron dealer) and I to make the Victron 3000 play nice with the batteries. Since it's designed to do that, I don't anticipate a problem if I can get that far. My guy has direct-line contact with their US techs. I think it may be a matter of some more breakers, switches, and cables. We're going to get a monitor from Victron, too; but I donno which one.

While that's being hooked up, we'll attach a MPPT solar controller from Victron. If all this results in getting AC into the 120V distribution panel and DC into the 12V panel, then I'll proceed to add the other DC in from the coach alternator and the AC in from the surge protector/shore power. At my latest count, I've got 5 major cables going into each of the pos and neg main terminal blocks (bus).

I'm going to see if the alternator on the coach needs to be bigger and will consider the regulator-device you added.

I can't determine the Amp hours I need to buy of batteries until I get the coach home and measure available space on the roof. I'll install as many 160W panels (from AC Solar) as I can; but given its overall 37', I'm not holding out much hope for more than 6, or 960W. Lithium systems will tolerate not being fully charged by my solar. Plus, I have an 8.0 generator and road-driving, too. So, I'll be willing to oversize my battery bank above solar a little bit.

That may limit me to a 1,000Ah bank; that's not so bad considering when full they'll give me ~800Ah. Balqon has that size in stock now. What are your thoughts about putting my entire storage in one factory-combined pack (versus paralleling 2 or 3 together? One big "battery" is cheaper a little but it will save lots of money in cables.
On a lark, I may opt for 2-700Ah packs (which they also stock) an see if I can charge 1,400Ah. OTOH, 1,120Ah does seem a little overkill for my size coach--even for a 2-week-long boondock.

Let me hear from you.

JC
McKinney