Wiring Diagram

Above is the current wiring diagram I have in the van.  I recently had issues where battery C died, dragging down the system.  I used a battery checker - a little clear plastic device with a floater in it.  Battery C showed as weak while battery D showed as good (despite only measuring 7 volts when isolated from the system).  So battery C appears to have died and dragged down battery D's charge with it.  I took battery C home, replaced the fluid with fresh distilled water, and it charged up properly to 12V.  Hopefully that means the battery is now good.

Part of me wonders though, could my wiring be to blame.  Perhaps the right side is not charging like the left side and caused battery C to fail.

More battery findings

So today had more sun and the meter was reading around 25V. I dug around and was able to pull the "quick disconnect" apart. They don't always want to disconnect, and certainly not quickly. The disconnect was the positive lead between the charge controller and the battery bank.

Immediately, the meter dropped to 22.58, which just verified that they had been getting power from the panel. I then left and came back 3 hours later. The voltage had dropped to ~20V. This confirms that at least one of the batteries is bad.

So next week, I'll bring down my battery tester (the one that measures specific gravity) and hopefully a nice funnel or water bulb (like you sue for ears) to refill the water in them.

If a battery is fully bad, they should have a multi-year warranty that I need to check out.

Gotta go, my battery is low.

So I've been noticing for a long time that my batteries seem to drain down at night. This was a minor annoyance previously, but now that there are only around 10 hours of sunlight in the day (sunrise ~7AM / sunset ~5PM), it has become a real issue as the batteries are now hovering around 20V and barely get above 22 after a full day's charge.

Now, the charge controller is supposed to have a night disconnect that prevents nighttime discharging through the solar panel. I had assumed that this was controlled by one of the potentiometers on the inside. So last week, I broke out the manual and went over all the details and found that they really only control how high it takes the voltage before it stops charging. They do not impact the low voltage disconnect. I did make a few adjustments to have it try to give more charge to the batteries. This seemed to have no affect.

So I emailed the Xantrex support people. They gave me a few troubleshooting tips, one of which is to determine if the batteries themselves are holding a charge. To test this, I would charge the batteries to full capacity (which at this point may involve taking them home), disconnecting the load and charge controller, and see if the voltage drops over a 12 hour period. If I had one, I could also try a DC clamp on ammeter to see if current is flowing to the solar panels.

I currently have no easy way to disconnect the solar panels. I have ordered two DC circuit breakers - 1 50A one for between the solar panels and the charge controller and one 100A for between the batteries and the load. Each breaker is around $25 so I will be adding $50 once I set these up.

Weather and Life

Traveling

Last week, I took my van back home to get it's yearly inspection.  Unfortunately, the garage itself was out of stickers.  They could have scheduled me again for Monday, but I of course had to work Monday.  So we have one scheduled for Thursday, which means I'll be taking the van up a second time.

Remodeling

While I did have the van at home, I took the time to do some remodeling again. I cut the bed to be shorter (my length), made the desk a bit shorter (lengthwise, not height wise), and secured the sink to the side of the desk.  All in all, this gives me much more room to move about inside the van.

I also have brought down a microwave to heat soup up with.  I am not sure how well it works.  Transporting it the first time, it fell over, hit some junk I was transporting and dented.  I put my soup in on Monday to heat it up.  It ran, but made a whiny noise.  The soup came out tepid instead of hot, like I would hope.  I'll try it again next week (I only had the one can) for a longer period.

Weather

Things have been a bit chilly this week, with freezing/frost conditions in the morning.  I was supposed to bring my heater down with the van, but left it at home.  Despite this freezing weather, my sleeping bag still remains a viable source of protection from the elements.  Also, the temperature does warm up inside the van into the high 60s by mid-day.  On Monday, i even had to open a window and roof vent to let the cooler outdoor air in.

 

Oops and soup

Things are starting to cool down, but I still find myself needing ac for a portion of the day. Today around 11, I fired up the generator and the ac.  Then, around 3:30, I was up and noticed my inverter was only reading 20 volts. Turns out I had been running off of the inverter all day. That would be fine, except I was also running the generator with no load.

At work, I have been primarily eating soup, while eating fast food during the day. So this week I purchased a thermos.  It seems to work pretty good. The soup I made at 6am is still hot and it has its own cup to pour the soup into.  My plan is to take the thermos back into work each day for cleaning and refill.

One Year Anniversary: One year of camping.

As of August 17th, I have weathered summer, fall, winter, spring, and summer again in the van. It wasn't always easy, but it wasn't that bad either. Over time I have improved the interior of the van to the point where I now have reliable power, a bed, a desk, a chair, and storage. In short, it has become an adequate mobile apartment (minus a shower/sink). From the world's perspective -- I am roughing it in a van. From my perspective, I have a comfortable place to sleep.

One thing that has really helped is the presence of a local library. I can go to the air conditioned library with my laptop, get online, and stay there for as long as I like. I recently been utilizing the library to study for an Oracle certification. In fact, the library is tied in with Safari Bookshelf, so I have access to large number of study materials beyond what the library has.

Money-wise, I have continued to keep up with tracking my expenses. This spring, I had some major expenditures in solar panels, batteries, charge controllers, and wiring of the same. The end result of this is a 24V solar-charged battery system that provides 12/24V DC and 120V AC power to anything I need. I spent around $1700 on this system, so that brought my equipment costs to $4,698, or $391.50/month. My operating costs include things like generator fuel, propane, inspection, insurance, and gym membership. The total in operating costs for the year was $581, or $48.44/month. The combined total was $5,279, or $439.40/month.

For comparison, a cheap 1-bedroom apartment (in a shared house) in this area is $500/month and utilities would easily add $100 on top of that. So over the course of a year, I would have spent $7600 on such an apartment. This means that over the course of 1 year, I saved $2,321 in rent/utilities by camping at work.  What makes this more exciting is that the bulk of my cost was purchasing equipment.  Barring any issues with my equipment and assuming $50/month operating cost, my second year will only cost me $600.

Where I Went Wrong

Looking back, there are a few things I would have liked to do differently. 

1. The mattress.  I started off with the van's mattress, which was an ok way to get started, but then I went to an air mattress.  If I had done my research, I would have learned that air mattresses and cold weather don't mix.  I replaced it with a foam mattress from Ikea, but I would have been $50 richer going with the foam mattress from the start.
2. Solar panels.  I should have gone a full summer of measuring my air conditioner's load before building my battery/solar panel array.  I was basing it off of my usage from the end of August.  Also, I didn't get a chance to measure wattage pull until winter.  To do this, I cranked up the furnace at home and then turned on the air conditioner.  I came up with a pull of 500-600 Watts.  However, during this hot summer, I really pull 1000-1200W, about double what I built for.  In order to handle that, I will need 2-3 times the batteries I currently have, plus the copper wiring to tie it all together.  Once I increase my batteries to handle the load, I would then need to add another solar panel to recharge the system in time for each week.  If I had waited and got a full summer's worth of readings from the watt meter, I could have purchased and built with more confidence.  On the other hand, researching setting up the system was a desired learning experience that I suspect will prove useful in the future.
3. Generator choice.  Granted, I probably couldn't have known this, but the generator I got often requires moving the choke in order to start it.  So while I was able to rig up a remote start, most of the time I still had to go to the generator and operate the choke.  I may be able to work around this using a cable and spring setup, but I suspect the result will be flaky.  Some of the more expensive generators from Honda come with remote starts (and are quieter).  The downside is that they usually only hold 2 gallons of gas.

 Camping at work has been a dual-purpose endeavor.  On one side, it has a very practical application of saving me money.  The other purpose is that of learning.  When you go "off-grid" you no longer can rely on cookie-cutter solutions.  You have to come up with your own solutions for each issue and experiment until you find what works. 

84 sq foot house

During half the week, I live in a 60ft square foot home, but I don't cook and shower inside it. This lady has essentially built a house on a trailer and has 84 square feet.  I like it.

   http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/81014570/