Exposing 6 LIES They DON'T WANT YOU KNOWING & Designing your PERFECT Offgrid 12v system / SOLAR

our good day turkeys today we're going to be running you through the 12 volt mistakes that 99 of you make hearing all the time it's totally wrong it's total BS companies shouldn't even be selling that as an option because it's never going to work the reason I think that is plus covering the common misconceptions with 12 volt systems uncovering some myths and we're going to be showing you the secret to setting up your 12 volt system properly to your very need this video is going to cover everything from Caravans boats cars buses whatever you can apply this to it's stuff they don't teach in bloody school I can tell you that much so let's get inside and we'll start cracking on we've been doing a lot of giveaways lately and that is because we want to give back to you guys but this episode we're actually giving away a battery worth a thousand bucks so i-tech world have been nice enough to allow us to do this giveaway and to enter is absolutely free one of the things you have to do to enter is subscribe so go ahead and do that now somewhere in the video I'm going to drop in the other step that you have to do to enter this giveaway it's going to be for a limited time and you've got a high chance of winning you can win yourself an itech 120x lithium battery radio guys before we get into the video I'm very excited to do that but there's a full disclaimer here I am a fully qualified electrician and we have been living in a caravan for the last two and a bit Years Around Australia so I know I'm very qualified to talk about this sort of thing but this video is for entertainment purposes only just remember anyone can pick up a camera even you and upload a video to YouTube it doesn't always mean they know exactly what they're talking about and with 12 volt systems 240 volt systems anything to do with electricity it is very important that you listen to the people that are qualified that can talk about it and not someone that's going to mislead you and just remember always seek professional advice before you do anything to do with electricity don't want to throw that in there guys let's crack onto the common misconceptions these ones are pretty controversial and uh it's probably not what people have told you before so let's crack onto that alright guys our electrical system is under our bed fully legal a lot of people are saying this isn't legal anymore at 100 is that rules not come in and like I said things get posted on Facebook and then someone read it tells their mates Mrs brother and then all of a sudden it's a true fact and everyone knows about it so like I said Facebook and stuff isn't the best thing to uh rely on for facts and stuff so seek professional advice when it comes to anything electrical I'll reiterate that so come down here I'm going to show you our 12 volt system before we crack on with misconceptions uh it's real important that you see what we have and what we've designed for our needs and then I'll start to talk about how we can help you and get the most out of your 12 volt system so let's get into that so this is our system uh it's predominantly high-tech World a lot of the products we'll talk about today are 100 affordable for everyone I won't talk about anything that's Out Of Reach for people because we're all about keeping it cheap simple easy and effective too this is our system here after 600 amp hours of lithium batteries we've got 1050 watts of solar on the roof and I'm going to run through the charges and how we distribute that smartly so we get the most out of our system and we're running a BN proof front end so that's the 35 ha charger that's for our 240 volt and that communicates through the Bluetooth com link to our Odyssey from end screen on our Caravan all right first common misconception this one's a huge one hear it all the time it's totally wrong it's total BS first misconception the batteries are the heart of your 12 volt system everyone says oh this is the heart of the 12 volt system I've actually been uh guilty of saying that before I don't mean it in a literal sense it's just the biggest part of the system however solar is far more important than how you store the energy these boxy things here without making it super complicated all they're doing is storing the electricity if you can't actually capture the electricity there's no point even having these so you see these people putting 900 amp our systems in their Caravan they've got 600 watts of solar it's just not going to work companies shouldn't even be selling that as an option because it's never going to work so when people tell you they've got this massive system doesn't mean anything you know like it just the batteries are just there to store the energy if you can't capture it means absolutely nothing so solar is King Solar is the hardiest system and a general rule of thumb that we apply which we will cover later I'll put it into a real life situation and break it down for you why I think this I haven't pulled this number out of my head this is after years and years of knowing this stuff I've come up with a two to one ratio so for every two watts of solar you have one amp hour of battery so technically we're undergone with the 1050 watts of solar 600 amp hours technically we should have over 1200 watts of solar for this to be a balanced system in my point of view however the roof real estate that we've got is just not there to have that 1200 watts of solar so we carry an extra solar blanket outside it's a 300 watt itech blanket and we get an extra 17.5 amps out of that in full sun when it's fully cleaned and everything 17.5 amps so that bumps us up to that healthy charge rate or else we would have a system that's over gunned on the battery side so that's the first misconception the batteries mean nothing if you can't capture the electricity misconception number two so dollar means absolutely nothing so what I just said gets thrown out the window if you can't actually regulate that solar and turn it into actual usable charge for your batteries because a solar panel puts an output of around 22 volts and average some are a little bit higher some are a lot lower depending on the quality of panel that you've got so 22 volts is far too high to be pumping straight into a lithium battery it'll damage the cells Prismatic cells will even get damaged they're no good so you need to regulate that charge so you need a solar regulator that's uh going to give you the most bang for your buck essentially now we rely on mppt charges that's our go-to there's a lot of people that use a pulse width modulating regulator totally different setup we've covered that in other videos which I'll link after this video we choose mppts Max PowerPoint tracking regulators and it's important that you know the max input into a charger like that so we're running 240 amp charges so technically we can have up to 80 is coming from the solar however 1050 watts is going to give you around 55 amps we get around 11 amps per panel in full optimal Sun so we've got 80 so we're well overdone there so with our infrastructure here our Regulators we can have up to eight panels give or take so we've got the infrastructure here to allow for even more panels but that's important there's no point having five panels if you solar regulator can only regulate three of those panels you're maxing it out there's no point and solar regulator Dirt Cheap compared to our solar panels so you might as well over gun your regulators and have your system running really efficiently the issue with this industry that we're in now is that people are trying to sell you options that they're going to make a lot of money from it doesn't necessarily mean it's the best thing for you so another really common misconception is hey expert I'm talking to an expert here I want to go off food for longer what do I need to extend my stay while I'm off-grid camping with the family whether that's on school holidays or for full-time use whatever it is the expert will always turn around and tell you that you need another battery now the reason they tell you that right is because a battery is far more expensive than a solar panel their margin on a battery will be a lot higher than on a solar panel they're going to make more money out of you from buying a battery than a solar panel I'm here to save you some money I'll tell you the opposite because of that first misconception solar is King right the battery side of thing is all good and well having a ways to store that energy but there's no point unless you can replenish it so if you want to stay off grid for longer all you need to do is get extra solar and I guarantee you that is the cheapest most simple and easy way to stay off grid for longer is getting another solar panel and if you want to be real lazy all I would do is get a solar blanket now a solar blanket is a thing that's flexible you don't have to mount it you can carry a lot of them fold up I'll go outside in a minute and show you our solar blanket they're the best ones because they plug straight in if you have an Anderson plug connection coming off your solar regulator you just plug it straight in and that's how you boost your time I'm off grid let's go outside now and I'll talk a bit about why I reckon solar blankets are better than a fixed panel in some cases let's go so guys we're outside now and I'm going to explain why I think the solar blanket is the easier cheaper simplest way to increase your skate off-grid excuse my voice um I've got covert 19. the reason I like this is because it plugs straight into things you can clip this onto your battery given that you're regulating it you can clip this onto batteries and charge them up so not only are they a lot cheaper than batteries but also they're they're fully portable so as the sun is revolving around the earth the optimal Sun angle is constantly changing especially because it's also dipping towards the horizon so the good thing about these things is that they're flexible and they're portable so you can actually pick them up Point them to where the sun is currently we're in a campsite here and it's full of trees so all day I've been actually moving the panel so I harvest as much sun as I physically can and that's why I think these are the best way to do it if you have a fixed panel on your car Caravan boat whatever it is wherever you've mounted that solar panel it is fixed so as the sun's moving going behind trees and stuff you're as good as boobs on a ball because that thing's not going to get you any more charged so this is definitely the guy I reckon everyone should own one of these things even if it's for backup so that's why I think they're great and they'll increase your time off grid if you were in the market for one of these two we do have a full discount code for the itech world SKT will get you five percent off store wide and right now is the best and cheapest time to buy end of financial year sales are on so you're in luck it won't be cheaper Now's the Time to buy so SKT will save you extra bit of money so anyway let's go back inside and talk about another misconception all right so that misconception about batteries being the easiest way to uh extend your stays off grid is totally false get a solar blanket it's going to sort out all your needs only stipulation to that so this is the only case where that actually won't help you at all is if you don't have enough batteries to run your system at night time so soul is only good because it's working in the daytime if you can keep your batteries fully topped up while you're discharging off fuel batteries so effectively your soul is running all your loads your lights your your pumps and all that stuff if you can do that you're laughing however if your battery system at night can't handle your fridge running off it all night and you to wake up before there's any solar make your coffee turn some lights on whatever you're doing that's the only time where a solar blanket won't help you however 99 of the time a solar blanket will help we're not making any money off this advice so we're all about helping you guys and saving you money but also getting you the easiest cheapest simplest thing that's gonna help you the most so anyway let's go on to misconception number four or are we up to number five I don't know common misconception number four first massive elephant in the room uh anyone that designs 12 volt systems will say to me hi Dylan your 240 volt charger it's just not enough for 600 amp hours so this is a 35 amp hour charger and the reason I think that is it is big enough is because proof of principle so we've been on the road for two years now and we know for a fact every time we pull up to a spot where we're plugging in the van to 240 volt power Mains power it's for an overnight at least you never pull up to a place for an hour at a time so it does not matter how big your 240 volt charger is as long as it charges your system overnight that's all you have to do invest that money save your money on a massive 240 charger and bang it straight into solar panels uh regulators and maybe even some batteries that's my advice anyway so that's a massive misconception right there it's quite controversial but I stand behind it I back it and this system works an absolute treat controversial common misconception number five or six or whatever it is anyway normally you can't put lithium batteries under Bonnet for many years that has been the case they don't like heat as we progress mankind progressives Technologies do get better for a long time people say that you also not only can't put them under Bonnet but you can't charge lithium back batteries off an AGM charging profile now I'm not going to bore you to death this video is designed to help you not confuse you so in layman's terms the reason people don't believe in AGM drop-in Replacements because years ago that wasn't the thing now there is technology and bms's so battery Management systems that allow you to charge a lithium battery off a AGM charging profile that's what I'm going to clear up right now it's a massive misconception the technology has changed now there's only a few companies that actually do a proper genuine AGM drop-in replacement lithium battery that is capable of being charged off a lead acid or AGM charger so what I'm exactly saying is that you won't have to upgrade your charger to a lithium one to have lithium batteries in your setup is itech world all of their orange top batteries have a drop in Replacements and they're all under Bonnet rated the reason I in Happily say that is one because I understand the technical side of what's actually happening with the charging systems and charging Pro profiles all the charging profile is an algorithm that that charger does to make sure it charges that battery cell whether that's a lead acid AGM or lithium cell so it doesn't damage itself first and foremost but you also get the most out of your battery now we know the technical side behind it like I just said but we also know the practical sense we actually run an itech 120x under Bonnet all around Australia I'm going to drop in a clip right now of us Drew handing our car in Nolan's Brook up at Cape York Telly truck and the whole time we were stuck this 120x lithium battery was under the Bonnet and submerged in water for over 30 seconds yeah oh he lives in the watermark [Music] we popped out the other side and it was 100 fine so for me if you can submerge a lithium battery in a bonnet charged off a lead acid charger for 30 seconds at a time you pop out the other side it's 40 degree day and it's fine and it wants to run all the way home and keep your beers cold the whole time that is a good product and that tells us that it actually works it's all well and good knowing the technical backside of what's actually happening but to prove it in the product is another thing so that I'm telling the naysayers that say they can't a lot of people that haven't even tried to run them on a lead acid say they can't I'm telling you you can the itech batteries are a hundred percent AGM drop-in Replacements and they 100 work however do you get the top five percent out of your battery you're probably only going to get 95 capacity say you've got 100 amp hour battery you're probably only going to get 95 amp hours out of it but you won't even notice it in a practical sense you won't even know that you're not getting that last 5 amps so they 100 works it's proven technology that is why itech world are offering a five-year warranty on their batteries meaning you can put it under Bonnet charge it off a lead acid charger and you still get a five-year warranty so that is pretty much proof in the pudding they wouldn't offer that if it couldn't happen and we've proven it ourselves so that is a massive misconception AGM drop-in Replacements definitely do exist all right so we've run you through uh some of the misconceptions I've spoken through our system and how we've designed it off our personal experience travel in Australia plus my electrical knowledge so like I said 600 amps lithium a kilowatt of solar on the roof we've got 80 amps of MPP charges we've also got a 40 amp DC to DC charger all that gear is from itech World we're also running their 3000 watt inverter that allows us to run the coffee machine the airfryer and a few things that we'll talk about now so you're probably thinking to yourself yeah Keon that's all well and good you're telling us all this crap but I want a design a system that's good for me whether you have a bus Caravan boat car whatever you got I'm going to tell exactly how you design your system so it's perfectly balanced for your needs now you don't have to be a rocket scientist to do this and they certainly don't teach you this at school so listen up and I'm going to tell you exactly how you can do that let's design your system with you I'll do it for you while we're here I'm going to use this Caravan as an example because we're standing in it's easy we're going to calculate your loads how much battery power you need how much solar you need and we'll go from there this is the stuff that the experts that you go and talk to at these shops don't have time to tell you about so strap in and we're going to explain it all now so everyone's needs are different especially when it comes to Camping everyone's got different setups yada yada so what I need you to do while I'm talking is thinking about what stuff that you run that requires a 12 volt power system so for us we're running lights water pumps um air fries coffee machines um anything you can poke a stick out pretty much fridges microwaves bloody everything so our Baseline will calculate your base fine so what I like to call a baseline is the amount of power that you're going to be using throughout a day on just a daily basis so these are normally things that are needs not once so I won't put the coffee machine and airfryer into this one we'll use that calculation later so let's calculate your Baseline so for us our Baseline we're running lights every day that's just to keep to be able to see us doing stuff we're running water pumps to to drink water and stuff these are needs we run the fridge yada yada we also work from our Caravan so we're charging laptops that's a big one and we also run a starlink these things aren't the most efficient things they definitely draw a lot of power so our Baseline is around 16 amps every hour that we're awake during the day 16 amps every hour so that's our Baseline plus while we're sleeping our fridge is using about four amps right so for fridges everyone's got a fridge I like to throw four amps to 5 amps at them per hour that's a nice average consumption rate and that goes across little fridges big fridges they're all around that four to five amp hours every single hour so now I've got my Baseline we needed times that Baseline I'll put a little calculator up on the screen just here so we need to calculate our Baseline so let's say 12 hours of the day we're running 16 amps worth of stuff for them 12 hours so we need to do 16 times 12. now that's for the daytime hours for the other 12 hours the fridge is running while we're sleeping so that's going to be using around 5 amps so let's plug that in and see what we come up with radio guys so our Baseline per day so that's just the stuff that we need is 252 amp hours so that's how much batteries we need we need 252 amp hours worth to achieve just our Bare Bones Daily Light pump fridge just the basic stuff you can see how quickly it adds up okay let's talk about appliances everyone wants to run them so first of all let's have a look at the airfryer now this is a big air fryer as you can see um this one is actually 1700 Watts so when you're choosing the right size inverter this invert this Appliance would run off a 2000 watt we've got a 3000 because we like to run a few things at once so 1700 Watts you're probably thinking to me oh thank you and how much is 1700 watts in amps so I'm going to give you an equation that you need to remember power which is his Watts so 1700 is referring to the power equals voltage times amperage right so we know the power we know the voltage because it's a 12 volt system we need to divide 1700 by 12 volt surface of keeping it really simple I've used 12 volts but the nominal voltage of a lithium battery is normally around the 12.8 volt now the answer to that is 140 amps that's referring to the amount of current that this Appliance is going to draw per hour so amp hours 140 amps this is going to draw off the 12 volt batteries if you were to plug this in on 240 at home it'd only draw around 8 amps the lower the voltage the higher the current if you transpose the equation so we run the airfryer for about 30 minutes per night so given the mass you divide 140 by two we're having to add 70 amps to our Baseline just to run the airfryer per day so 250 plus 70 that gives us 320 amps and that's not even getting into the coffee machine so let's get into that right let's calculate the coffee machine so this is a Breville Brewster Pride this is 16 80 Watts so 1 680 watts in this thing given our equation P equals VA we know the power we know the voltage divide and it's 139 amps this thing uses every hour that we run it so we have roughly five to six coffees every morning just me and then Sarah has a couple as well so I reckon we're running this thing it takes about three minutes to make a coffee so let's just say half an hour every day we're running the coffee machine that's another 70 amps of battery storage that we need just to achieve our day-to-day stuff as you can see everyone's Baseline is going to be different ours is definitely on the higher end all right so straight right off the bat I've just done the quick math in my head 392 amps of battery storage we need to just achieve our day-to-day lives so that's not even including the Sirocco fans that we sometimes run at night it's the 12 volt TV that we run pretty much every night so we're probably up around that 400 amps every single day so it is very important that you calculate your Baseline what you use on a daily basis because that governs what you should put into your battery system 200 amp hours for us wouldn't be enough uh 400 amp hours wouldn't be enough so that's why we've selected the 600 amp hour system and these are the calculations that you need to be making before you design your 12 volt system because you know it's going to work you give a man a fish he eats for one day you teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime these are the things that I'm trying to teach you guys to help you make these decisions for yourself so you can even go seek that electrical advice and you already know the principle behind what you're talking about so we've chosen 600 amp hours because we need 400 amp hours so I know what you're thinking right you're thinking just you are right you're thinking to yourself okay Keelan so I'm only talking about the the charge coming out of the battery in relation to loads I'm not talking about the solar that's coming in simultaneously at the same time and you're right so let's talk about how much solar we need now so a lot of the times the batteries are fully charged so the solar is just running the electricity straight through and feeding all the appliances now that's a perfect world now solar Point your fingers batteries is misunderstood solar is even more misunderstood um experts get this one wrong solar and knowing how much solar to put on your roof literally comes down to experience because it's quite counter-intuitive even the amount that we carry isn't enough and I'm going to explain why that is all right so if we've got 400 amps of outgoings per day you're probably thinking well sorry 99 of people will think I don't you only need 400 amps to come in solar to make it a nice balanced equation let's use 200 watt solar panels to make it really easy each 200 watt solar panel you get a roughly 10 amps out of every hour so how many hours per day is that their day lot there's 12 hours per day that there's daylight so each solar panel so 10 amps times 12 for every hour of the day you should expect to see 120 amps per solar panel per day is that reasonable to to think oh yeah that's pretty reasonable that's probably what 99 of people would tell me so if we're going 120 amps per panel to replenish 400 amps we'd need around four panels and we're in the green I'm going to tell you why you're horribly horribly wrong and this is something that we've learned since being on the road principle of operation right so over the years I've learned that solar panels are horribly inefficient especially if you choose a solar panel that's flat and they just glue it to your roof everyone's seen them they look epic they're Slimline they're flat there's nothing to them but there's no heatsink so solar is inefficient enough and then you go slap no heatsink on it like I said you're good as boobs on a ball because you're going to get no charge your 200 watt solar panel is actually 80 Watts when it's in full sun and it's heating up so I 100 suggest you're getting proper house panels that have a heat sink on them they're the most efficient ones that I recommend and uh yeah this is why four panels is horribly wrong one thing that really affects the fish efficiency is heat once they heat up in the middle of the day when the sun's on them when you should be harvesting the most amount of solar you sell panels of day riding because when they heat up they don't produce as much power okay so that's the first one the second one yes you got 12 hours of daylight in a day but you only have six hours of daylight in the day whether it's actual optimal Sun angle where you can actually get enough charge into your batteries that's worth having pretty much so eight o'clock in the morning yes it's light outside but the sun's not even in line with the top of the van yet it needs to get another 20 degrees higher before it even hits the solar panel so really in a perfect world even six hours a day is good that's optimal all right so all of a sudden we're going to need a lot more solar panels than just four okay solar panels are great the on the box it says you're gonna get 10 amps out of it you put it on the roof you drive down the road they get Dusty as soon as you get any dust on them not to mention a rogue pigeon uh that's just had a big night out on the Indian curries come through and just layers of fat across the whole roof of your Caravan you're gonna get like two amps less off every panel that that you have so you can see how ineffective and inefficient solar is it is such an awesome awesome green energy however it is so inefficient plus the number one killer is actually trees 99 of campsites around Australia believe it or not have trees and trees shade panels and even the slightest bit of shade on your panel can wipe out entire solar panel depending on what solar panels you have so shade is the biggest arch nemesis to solar panels it's almost like the Joker and Batman they hate each other they don't get along so as you can see you could have six hours of perfect sun in a day but you've got dust pigeon on your panels and their Shades you're only going to get three hours a day and this is stuff that sales people won't tell you because they want you to buy the battery I'm telling you line the roof with solar panels you won't regret it so in reality to replenish 400 amp hours of charge in a day without doing the the exact math on it you're probably going to need around six panels at least five anyway um and that's a good day of solar charge too I hope everyone's still awake I know it isn't the most exciting thing this video is purely trying to help as many people as we can I know a lot of people love our 12 volt videos so uh hopefully you're staying along and if you are enjoying it and finding it valuable please hit the Subscribe button it means the most to us and it keeps us making videos like this and helping as many people as we physically can so the next bit of advice I'm going to give you is arguably one of the the most valuable pieces that I've ever learned and that is simultaneous charge is the bomb so when I say simultaneous charge I mean if you've got a decent DC regulator and you've got car charging the DC to DC a lot of The Regulators only allow car car charge or some dollar charge not both at the same time so what we've done in this setup is split up with mppt Regulators so the solar coming on means the batteries on a totally different system than the car alternator charge and what that means is when we're traveling on a beautiful sunny day we've got 40 amps coming from the car we've also got 55 amps coming from the 5 210 watt panels on the roof we can have almost 100 amps of charge every single hour so if we run our batteries all the way down because we're running the aircon all day the next day we don't have to drive the car for nearly as long and it means we can stay off grid for longer because we're recharging it quicker and that goes back to that point battery system is awesome like batteries are awesome the the harder your system is the solar panels the alternator charge and The Regulators that are putting the charge into the batteries the batteries are just a means to store the energy don't let anyone tell you any different because that's the honest truth if all this jargon is going over your head just go to your auto Spark or whoever's doing the work and say Keelan told me to get simultaneous charge in my system I want the solo to be out of charge at the same time as the car and they'll know exactly how to make that happen all right guys so I've spoke my voice is absolutely cooked we've we've spoken about the the system that we're running we're running obviously the 600 amp hours we've run high-tech World products in our first Caravan our second Caravan and our third Caravan this one we've runed our first car and second car we've run their batteries under the Bonnet we've run them on lead acid charges we've literally tested them all the wrong things to do to a battery and 12 volt here and they are highly reliable we absolutely swear by them they're also really affordable especially right now they're having a massive end of financial year sale so our code SKT will get you an extra five percent off it's also a good way you can support us and our Channel right now is the cheapest it's going to be up to 90 off so get in right now and you'll save the max amount of money all year long so definitely do that started the video we said you could win an not fit one thousand dollar itech 120x lithium battery for your setup the first step you just have to hit that red button below that subscribes to our channel it's absolutely free to do plus there's a link in the description all you have to do is enter your email address into the link and you've subscribed to itec well as well they're the two steps to be in the running absolutely free I hope you win um it's an amazing giveaway we love this system but all this means absolutely nothing if you don't go watch this next video and how people rip you off in the industry because you don't know this stuff [Music]

Channel: Sarah and Keelan Travels - Offroad Caravanning Aus

Views: 656,558

Keywords: offgrid, 12v, 12V, DIY, DIY SETUP, Lithium, Budget, AGM VS LITHIUM, Lead acid vs AGM, lead acid vs agm vs lithium, volt drop, cable size, lap of aus, Caravan DIY 12v setup, itechworld, urban, hybrid offroad caravan, off-road caravan, offgrid setup, full time travel, travel vlog, australia, solar, watts, amphours, solar panels, the best 12v setup, fishing, surfing, living, exploring, inverter, 3000w, 2000w, 200ah, 300ah, 400ah, 500ah, 600ah, 700ah, 800ah, 900ah, 1000ah, 1KW solar

Id: HQthAzrrzkg

Length: 30min 29sec (1829 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 04 2023