Hi all,
I wanted to hopefully add some value to this thread... not sure i will but here goes.
My T5.1 is fitted with a leaisure battery under the seat, there is a small invertor and somewhere under teh dash VanWorx fitted a split charge relay.
After speaking with
@Dellmassive i decided to upgrade things a little. First of all 2 BM2's so i could check the state of the Aux battery and the starter battery. - Love these little things my naighbour who is car mad, has since bought 3 for his kit cars!
The first thing i needed to do was find a simple way of charging the battery when docked - i think its termed Land side charging.
I bought a victron bluetooth charger as featured in Dell's posts... brilliant bit of kit. I bought an extension lead and loads fo the little battery clips so on my main car I have a simple plug and play battery charge point. I fitted one to the starter battery, but then started thinking how i was going to charge the leisure battery under the seat, as the relay on the T5 only allows charge through when the engine is running.
I extended the cable from the under the passenger seat from the battery, up through the bulk head and into the engine bay. I now have another Victron quick connect cable (fused at 50amps), one for the starter battery and one for the leisure battery. Simple land side charging now.
I also fitted a smart battery protector switch to stop my cheap leisure battery from going too flat and being beyhond recovery. All the loads now come from that smart switch. (its not bluetooth, but does have an audiable alarm now fitted).
If your still reading this well done. I will get some pictures of the above setup asap.
I then thought hang about, what about solar. So more research on this amazing forum and I bought a 100W Lensun flexible solar pannel (3 pannels), a Victron MPPT Charge Controller 100/50 and some cables and connectors. It arrived today. But once again I'm faced with how do I get that charge down to the leisure battery under the seat. There is no way i have room to fit teh MPPT under the seat with all the other stuff.
The answer was obvious really - make use of the Victron quick connect plug already in the engine bay. So i cut the exstention lead i have for the charger in half, wired the male end into the MPPT controller (battery side). I then fitted some short fly lead MC4 type to the Pannel input side. I have kncoked up a long extension lead to go between the pannel and the MPPT if needed, or i can just plug the pannel straight into the MC4's on the MPPT.
Not very obvious but this is me making the fly leads and extension leads (yes the wife was out hence using the kitchen top
)
bought some new tools - the MC4 crimp tools - worth having but if anyone in oxford area wants to borrow them give me a shout.. its not the kind of thing i use every day.
At about 5pm this evening i plugged it all together. I'm highly delighted with it all:
As above.. 3 pannels in sunlight
37W shown - the highest i got was 48W and that put about 3.6Amps current output.
My BM2 shows the charge spike in bulk mode at about 16:30 ish then tapers off to absorption at about 16:50
I'll update this thread with some pictures of the actual setup. At the moment the MPPT controller gets unplugged from the battery and stored with the pannel. IN theory this means i could use it with any other battery - subject to the proper connection options. I guess this means it wont keep a track of life cycle charge achieved etc but thats a small price to pay.
So thats me ordering a couple more Victro extension cables and the battery quick connects to make that easier on other batteries. I may buy a powerbank so when we go out for the day the fridge can live in the awning and use a bank for power.
A huge thank you
to
@Dellmassive wouldn't have been half as easy without your help along the way. Thank you
)
This is the extra pigtail lead I bought to connect panel straight to CTEK
