RussnSue

Hi there. Been away from the forum for a long time, but visited tonight and saw your post. I couldn't ignore it, because we experienced the same issue. The four solar panels on our van were cabled into the front boot in two lots of two panels. Each pair had its own fuse.In our case the fuses were inline, spade fuses, rated at 30A each. One of the fuse holders had gotten wet somehow and the fuse had corroded away. I replaced the holder and the fuse and it solved the problem. Hopefully, your van is configured similarly and the problem is an easy one to fix. Cheers Russ

One of the things I have always enjoyed about the Kedron Owner's Group forum was the general politeness of the members, the willingness to pass on knowledge and share experiences and the tolerance for differing points of view. Having sold our Kedron, I decided to stay on at the forum, as a guest, to continue that experience. But, just as one changes channel or turns off the telly if the programs are rubbish, I am too old to endure smart-arses for the sake of it, so rather than have my credibility attacked and put up with less than subtle smart-arsery, I'll just bid you all adieu. It has been great, being a Kedron owner and being on this forum, but all good things come to and end. Bye all. Russ.

Dave, as I said previously, I'm not interested in a war about this. I am an advocate of LiFePO4 batteries and had good service from those in my caravan, but it doesn't end there. Just to correct you on two things: If you re-read my last post, you will see that I specifically said "This first image shows the voltage of a 4 cell LiFePO4 battery....." so, yes, I am fully aware that you need 4 x 3.2 Volt cells to make a nominal 12 Volt battery. Also, there is no logic to your statement "Cell damage does not occur at 20% SOC - damage occurs when you drive then negative" If a battery has a service life of 5000 cycles at 20% SOC and this service life reduces dramatically to just 2000 cycles by discharging to 5% SOC, then only one thing can account for this loss off lifespan - damage. I will thank you not to question my competency when you have absolutely no knowledge of my background, as you did in this statement "I don't think you have analysed this properly and it is clear you don't have any practical experience" For your benefit, my entire career of more than 40 years has been spent working with DC systems of all sorts, including practical experience with LiFePO4 battery installations. I installed my first solar-powered communications site back in the mid 80's, so I know a thing or two about the subject. In your eagerness to pump up the good points of LiFePO4 you have ignored the simple fact that the Industry itself acknowledges and accepts that an 80% depth of discharge is for all practical purposes the recommended operating limit of practical use. Yes, this still makes LiFePO4 batteries superior to AGM batteries, but to ignore the price differential is wrong. And that was my point. Typically, a Kedron owner will keep his/her van for 6 to 8 years before selling. A well maintained set of AGM batteries used under the typical conditions that you, yourself describe, should last no less than four years. That means, discounting the original set of batteries, a typical owner will only need to replace their batteries once. After that, whatever happens, the next owner is going to get the legacy of any battery life that may be left. So, at the current price of LiFePO4, would I be donating the extra money I spend to the next owner, or would I be getting AGMs and spending the difference on something else? I'm going through that decision making process right now and I'm thinking that the money is better in my pocket. Just for the record,I have a real-world example of LiFePO4 NOT giving good service and it turned out to be an expensive experiment. I purchased a DC motor for my kayak. At top speed it drew 15A. As weight is only good in steamrollers, I decided to buy a 60AH Winston 12V LiFePO4 battery to run the motor. My sounder/plotter gives a readout of the battery voltage and I used this to monitor the battery volts at all times.At no stage did I ever allow the terminal voltage of that battery to drop below 13V. It was charged religiously after every trip, using a Sterling battery charger that was purchased specifically because the charging regime could be customised for perfect LiFePO4 charging and when 240VAC was not available, charging was via a Plasmatronics PL-60 that had been customised for perfect LiFePO4 charging. Yet, even after doing everything correctly, I noticed that the time that elapsed before the 13V was displayed on my sounder was getting shorter and shorter - in other words, the battery was losing capacity. I never did count the number of cycles that the battery underwent, but in two years of using the battery for maybe three months per year at most, that battery died. Possibly 100 cycles at most. OK, it might have been a dud. It might not have too. One thing is for sure, that battery could not have been treated any more kindly and it failed. Warranty expired, money gone. So the science is still not perfect. I still advocate LiFePO4 batteries - those in the Kedron (which were also Winston batteries) were still at peak condition when we sold the van - but I do not advocate LiFePO4 to the exclusion of all other options and I don't believe that encouraging people to spend twice as much money (at least) as they may need to, is a good thing, particularly if people are retro-fitting LiFePO4 batteries and will have to fork out for a new 240VAC charger and perhaps even a new solar regulator as well. Cheers Russ

Hi again I don't wish to start a war about this, but I have to comment on cvtripper's assertion that LiFePO4 batteries can be discharged by 95%. This is only true if you wish to have a VERY short life expectancy for your battery.See the images, below, for an explanation: (Clicking on the images will show a larger version) This first image shows the voltage of a 4 cell LiFePO4 battery, nominally known as a 12 Volt battery. In reality the battery, when fully charged and at rest, will have a terminal voltage of 13.3V. Once the battery starts to discharge the voltage drops, quite quickly to 13.2V, where it stays until the battery is 80% discharged. After this, the voltage drops away dramatically because chemical changes and damage begin to occur within the cells. Continually discharging LiFePO4 cells more than 80% quickly damages cells. The second image shows just how the number of charge/discharge cycles is affected by deep discharging. At 80% depth of discharge you could expect a well-made LiFePO4 cell to last 5000 cycles. By discharging to 90% the number of cycles drops dramatically to 3000 and at the 95% DoD that cvtripper advocates, you are looking at closer to 2000 cycles. So, to wring out the extra 15% of the power from a LiFePO4 battery, you more than halve its life expectancy. This is why most comparisons of lead-acid and LiFePO4 batteries use the 80% figure that I chose in my previous post. The cost of buying the different types of battery is not the only consideration. Most people want a long service life from their batteries after forking out a lot of dough. Given these factors, I stick by my assertion that, at the moment, LiFePO4 batteries are not at a competitive price-point. Cheers Russ

At the moment, with the price differential being almost 2:1 for LiFePO4 Vs AGM there is little point in getting Lithium over AGM unless you desperately need to save weight. Lithium batteries can deliver 80% of their power without unduly harming themselves, whereas AGMs can deliver 50% of their rated power. So, if you had a 100 AH battery of each type, the Lithium could deliver 30% more power for nearly twice the price.....very hard to justify. When I purchased Lithium batteries for my Kedron there was only a 30% price differential, which made the comparison equal - and I was after the weight saving, so I was in front. I am buying a new van at the moment and at current prices Lithium is not an option I am considering. Cheers Russ

There could be a couple of explanations for this. Initially, your PL-60 charger is probably in "Float" mode, meaning that it has given the batteries the bulk of the charge and is now simply tracking the load in your van (which must have been about 8 Amps at the time you were looking.) Under float conditions, the PL-60 will not put any more current into the batteries than the load being drawn, otherwise the battery is at risk of being overcharged. When you turn on the 240V charger it probably looks at the batteries and says "OK, I'll go through charge-cycle (which could raise the battery volts as high as 14.4 Volts) and then I'll go into float mode". I'm guessing that the initial 40 Amp charge (which would include 8 Amps going to the load) would drop away very quickly because the batteries are fully charged. The 240 Volt charger would be monitoring the battery voltage, which in turn would rise rapidly because the batteries are fully charged, and would go into Float mode quite quickly. Another possibility is this: Your PL-60 appears to have its Float voltage set to 13.3V. The 240V charger may be set to a higher Float voltage, say 13.6V. The initial in-rush of current may simply be the 240V charger raising the battery volts to what it thinks the Float voltage should be. Either way, something is not quite right about the settings in your system. If the batteries are indeed gel-cell, then the Float voltage for this type of battery is typically 13.1 Volts. If the batteries are AGM, then the float voltage should be 13.6V - 13.8V You may want to double-check what is written on the batteries (along with the type of battery, the information on the battery often includes the manufacturer's recommended voltage for Float and Maximum Charge.) Once the type of battery has been established, the chargers can then be set to match this and each other. Cheers Russ

Hi Ian Sorry about the delay in responding. Thanks to Telstra, the ADSL service at Evans Head has been off for the last three days. To answer your question, capacity is capacity. 400 Amp Hours rated capacity will equate to 320 AH of usable capacity, which is a pretty handy amount to have. If it is cost effective to go down this road, then I would. If it is cheaper to go with 4 x 100 AH batteries, then do that. You will end up with the same amount of usable capacity whichever way you go. Just go with a reputable brand and you'll have no problems. Cheers Russ

While load rating is very important, it is much more important to monitor tyre temperatures. When you let the tyres down significantly to improve ride, they will run hotter due to the increased rolling resistance and your load rating figure will go out the window. The only way to prevent heat damage to the tyre is to reduce your speed appropriately to avoid heating in the first place. We had Toyo Open Country tyres on the car for a short while and both of them failed due to overheating. The problem was due to the fact that the tyres have white-wall writing on them and the white layer delaminated, leaving very large bubbles under the outer, black, layer. I learnt a valuable (and expensive) lesson. I was only doing 60 KPH and did not know then, but do know now, that our rear axle weight was way over what it should have been (we were 350Kg overweight on the rear axles with the van hitched.) With a single axle setup, all of your eggs are in one basket, so to speak, so keeping a check of tyre temperatures would be well advised. Cheers

Hi Steve Yes, we are staying at the van park at Pinnaroo. It's $20 per night. There is a van park about 20Km over the border at Murrayville. It is $55.00 per week. We decided not to stay there because we couldn't be bothered driving the 20Km after knocking off from the arvo shift (which finished as late as two in the morning last year.) Also, it adds 25 Km (each way) to the trip to Loxton or Berri (for shopping etc.) The park at Pinnaroo is OK. It is quiet and there aren't any ratbags here. We use our own amenities, so really just using the power and water. Cheers Russ

Hi Kev No mate, I didn't bother to bridge the terminals. The unit is working fine. If I take the cover off for any reason I may do it, but otherwise..... Cheers Russ

As promised, here is the second annual report on the LiFePO4 batteries in our van. Over the last 12 months our batteries enjoyed life on 240V charger for just less than 6 months and the remainder on solar charge. The chargers are both configured to boost the batteries to 14.4 Volts, then float them at 13.8V (240V charger) or 13.7V (solar). We have 360 AH of capacity of which just less than 290 AH is available from the fully charged state. Typically, our state of charge in the morning (before solar charging commences) is between 70% and 80%, so they aren't working very hard. The lowest the battery was ever discharged to was a SOC of 50%. Determining the life expectancy of LiFePO4 batteries is quite difficult. I have to get technical here. From fully charged, LiFePO4 batteries deliver their power at 13.4 Volts for a short while, then 13.3 Volts for a little longer and then settle at 13.2 Volts, where they will stay until they are discharged by 80%. After this, if you continued to discharge the batteries (apart from ruining them) you would see the voltage drop away pretty quickly. If the life expectancy of the batteries were to be reduced, the capacity would be diminished and therefore the time to reach 13.1 Volts would be less. My solar charger records the maximum and minimum voltage of the batteries each day. As yet my batteries have never dropped to 13.1 Volts, so I conclude that I must still have plenty of capacity, based on the fact that when the SOC was 50% the voltage was still 13.2 Volts. I am going to have to learn to "trust" the batteries more. That is, allow them to discharge lower (because they can) rather than what I am doing now - which is, essentially, treating them as though they were AGM batteries and tailoring my power usage to no more than 35% of capacity. By forcing myself to do this I might get to watch a bit more telly or run the computers for longer. Physically there is nothing to see that would indicate any issues with the batteries. Conclusions: The weight saving is definitely worth it. The extra expense seems to be worth it, especially when I read, on this forum, about people being on their second and third set of AGMs since buying their van. The batteries need zero maintenance. So far so good. Cheers Russ.

G'day Steve and Kez Look forward to meeting you when you arrive. Cheers Russ

Hi Alan. Yes, we were/are selling the van with AGMs fitted - because we like the Lithiums so much that we wish to keep them. Cheers Russ

Hi Brenton and Lyn, we store ours in the side hatch (which conveniently happened to be located next to the gas bayonet.) I don't tie it down at all. We have one of those two-burner gas stoves that use the butane cartridges and when it is in its box, slides neatly over the top of the baby-Q with just enough compression to hold both things in place. The sides of the BBQ are packed with other bibs and bobs that we lug around with us. I had better add that the Baby-Q has its own protective cover that prevents chaffing. We do a lot of pretty crappy roads and tracks and nothing has ever moved or sustained damage. As for road tips: Plenty and Donahue Highways vary in condition depending on when they are graded. The whole lot can be corrugated and sometimes sandy around Tobermorey Station. Remember the golden rules - Air down tyres, lift up right foot. Roads around Boulia, Bedourie etc are generally always in pretty good nick. Birdsville Track is very easy these days, but do slow down and air down, especially on the bit that passes through the Stony Desert. Arkaroola via the Copley to Arkaroola road - watch out for dips and floodways. It is a bit windy but very scenic. The shale around Arkaroola is very sharp and it is very easy to do in a tyre so, again, air-down and right foot up. Cheers Russ

Good price there Kev. I wouldn't think that you'll have to worry about warranty issues. These things rarely break. Additionally, in the old days you had to worry about the input voltage and frequency (the US is 110V, 60Hz and we are 240V 50Hz), but with this unit it doesn't matter. At worst you may have to put an Australian 240V plug on the unit when it arrives. Keep your eye out on the forum. In the next day or two I will be publishing the two-year report on the Lithium batteries that I fitted (as I promised I would.) Don't forget that the 240V charger is only half of the story when it comes to charging Lithium batteries. Your solar charger has to be able to do it as well. Our van has the Plasmatronics 60A regulator, which can be programmed to suit Lithium batteries. It is my understanding that Kedron no longer fit these units. I have no idea what they changed to, or whether the new brand is programmable. Cheers Russ

G'day Kev When I got my Lithium batteries I had to do away with my perfectly good Victron charger. It couldn't be programmed to supply the correct charge regimes for Lithium. After much research I settled on this Sterling Pro-Charge Ultra in the 60 Amp version. The main reason I chose it was it can do everything. It is able to charge any kind of battery that you could fit into an RV. It also has a custom setting so that you can set your own charge parameters. One other handy feature is the ability to preset the maximum charge that the charger will output. For example, at a caravan park I can let it charge at the full 60 Amps, but when I run it with my 1KVA Honda generator, it is a simple matter of changing the output to 75% (45 Amps) to prevent the generator from tripping on overload. The charger has been in for two years now and has not given any grief at all. I can commend it to anyone. Cheers Russ

Hi Ian Related to all of the excellent points that have already be made is this: When you do certain things is very important as well. For example, if you have an inverter fitted and use it to run a washing machine, bread-maker or other device that is going to use a fair bit of power it makes sense to try and run these during peak charging times. During sunny weather your solar panels should start delivering enough current to cover the 'fridge load within two hours of sunrise. After that enough current should be available to run the 'fridge/'fridges and charge the batteries as well. As stated in an earlier post, the batteries will most likely be charged by around 1.00 PM. After that the regulator will go into float mode and will not put any more current into the batteries, no matter what. This is the best time to run those items that are heavy users of power. You will still have three or four hours of peak charging time to make up for any current used by these devices. Heavy-load devices should be off by about 3.00PM. You can run these devices while the batteries are still charging if: 1) you are confident that you'll have enough time left later to complete charging and 2) your regulator has a pretty high output capability, e.g. 40Amp or 60Amp Thankfully, 'fridges cycle less often after the Sun sets, so the main considerations after sunset are lighting, fans and your TV, all of which are "discretionary". I find that you develop a "feel" for how your batteries are going, without even consulting the readout on the regulator. With the right mix of panels and batteries you will rarely, if ever have to ration power during sunny weather and you soon learn to go without the telly if it has been a bit cloudy. I still have space on my roof for two more 130W panels and will possibly fit them sometime in the future. One thing holding me back is the fact that I will need to fit a second regulator to handle the current, which will then exceed the 60Amps that my present regulator is rated at. My $0.02 worth on fantastic hatches: A little bit noisy on low speed and progressively worse for each increase in speed. I find that the low speed is more than enough to give us a nice cooling breeze when trying to get to sleep (even during quite hot weather) and the noise level does not prevent me from nodding off. In fact, sometimes the fan shuts off due to the built-in thermostat doing its job and this shutting off (the silence) has actually woken me up. Cheers Russ

When I changed over from lead-acid AGM batteries to Lithium, I mounted them under the rearmost lounge seat. I bought 4 x 90 AH LiFePO4 batteries and they fitted easily. I reckon I could have mounted at least one more, maybe even two. It was a simple matter to run heavy gauge copper cables from there to the front boot, where I connected the existing infrastructure. The cables are run in class 16 PVC pipe and this protects them well. I can't see why Kedron couldn't do the same in a new build (but they won't 360 AH runs our 230l Vitfrigio and our 50l car fridge (and not much else) for three days (remembering that you can discharge LiFePO4 batteries by 80% at a pinch) before we have to think about an external charge source. We have 625W of panels which supplies about 35A continuously for about 6 hours per day on clear days, so technically we should regain full charge in two days. A lot of people forget to factor in that the fridges are still drawing current while the batteries are recharging. In our case, with both fridges running it is near enough 8A, leaving 27A to charge the batteries. Thankfully the fridges have a 1:3 duty cycle. If I had my druthers I would buy at least one more 90AH LiFePO4 cell and two more panels (probably 80W) as I still have enough room for them on the slopey bit at the front. The problem is that I got rid of the AGM batteries because I had weight issues and I don't want to put more weight back into the van, so we have learned to throttle back the car fridge as it only has drinks in it. Our daily use of power can be as much as 200AH if we watch the telly and use both laptops. When it's cloudy the telly and the laptops stay off. When it's sunny we can recover 200AH in a day (just) provided that we get Sun on the panels for 6 hours in the middle of the day and at least one more hour of angled light either side of the 6 hours. Summary: With AGM batteries you need to regain all the current that you have used each day in a typical Kedron build. You have very little wriggle-room. With a set-up like mine, three days tops with careful rationing of power. Otherwise, it's out with the generator. You will run into weight issues if you cover the roof with panels and add extra batteries. A typical 130W panel weighs around 16Kg. Lithium batteries (90AH) are approx. 15Kg each. Don't even think about adding extra AGM, the weight would kill you. There is no magic bullet unfortunately. Cheers Russ

No probs Colin. I'll give you a buzz tomorrow (Mon). (Although I might be the one who is "buzzing", as we're going to the coffee museum tomorrow...lol...) Cheers Russ

Hi Colin, On the way out I had a better opportunity to choose a line where the van would not end up as close to the water trap. There were no trees on the RHS going out (other than the big one I had to dodge on the LHS going in.) I got through without incident, but even so, the van went perilously close to the water. Also, the exit bank of the gulley was neither as steep, nor as soft as the exit bank on the way in. Finally, the tyres were still deflated from our previous effort, affording me traction right from the get-go. We made it look easy really, but I won't be going through there again. (once bitten....) Btw, will be in Cairns on Mon 28th and Tue 29th. Are you in town and can we catch up for a coffee? I will be dropping the car off at the Land Rover dealer on Tues. AM for a service and will have some time to kill while waiting for that to be done. Cheers Russ

We decided to spend some time at Lakefield NP in north Qld. As most of you would know, you have to pre-book and pay for your site at Qld NP's. So, we duly got on the web, looked at the availability and, more importantly, the size of some sites. We found one that looked the goods at "12 Mile Campground" - site 9, to be precise. Now, what the web page does not tell you is what the access to the site is like. Maybe we should have made a call to the Ranger? Anyway, we took off from Laura in the morning and were at the turn-off into the campground within an hour. The 13Km track into the campground was narrow in places, but do-able. Then the problem came up.....camps 7-9 take the left turn, camps 1-6 go straight on. OK. Left turn we do and....oh shit! Look at that gulley! A tight left hand bend on the drop into the gulley, a decent kick to the right in the gulley and a very sharp left turn and steep bank to exit the gulley - not to mention the tree on the exit that makes it very easy to take out the left side of the van as you try to sweep around it... Oh, for added measure, as well as being a sand trap in the middle and on the exit, there was also a water trap on the right hand side of the gulley (golfers will know what I'm talking about.) It's times like these that the optional-extra long drawbar on our Top Ender was not going to be an advantage. I cautiously dropped the car down into the gulley, then felt the surge as the van added weight to the situation. Before long the car was about halfway up the exit slope when all forward momentum ceased. The van had tracked a good two feet further to the right than I had hoped and had oozed down into the wet sand right next to the water trap. Looking in the rear-view mirror I was horrified to see the angle that the van was on. I had visions of her tipping over! Close examination revealed that the entire RHS was on the deck and would have to be dug free. I set about digging her out and after a while handed the shovel over to Sue while I deflated the tyres as much as I dared. I knew that traction was going to be a real issue if we were to be successful in skull dragging the Kedron up that slope without the benefit of a rolling start. I let the (low profile) tyres on the Land Rover down to 15psi and the van tyres (on the high side of the van only - I was worried that letting any air out of the buried side might add to the tipping angle) down to 18psi. I tried to pull her out (2nd gear, low-range) but did not have sufficient traction. The right-hand front wheel was actually off the ground, which was not helping matters. About then a trio of vehicles pulled up and a very helpful aboriginal chap assessed the situation and determined that if we filled the hole behind the van wheel (on the buried side) with some timber that was lying around, then I could reverse the van onto them and get a small (less than a metre) run-up when I went forward. This we did and I heard the wood cracking as he guided me back over it. He halted me a couple of times as the van tilted even more precariously, but was eventually happy that I'd gone back as far as I was ever going to get. I gunned the car and quickly surged forward the metre of timbered track allowed, then felt the lagging as the van wheels hit the sand again, but the momentum was there and the vehicle kept going. The angle of the bank of the gulley was so steep that all I could see was sky, but I steered straight ahead as long as I dared, before making the left hand turn to accommodate the bend in the track. Around I went, watching the big tree on the left hand side as the van drew level with it. I thought I was too close and backed off the throttle but Sue and the bloke both yelled "keep going, keep going" and I floored the pedal again. I watched with relief as the van slid very closely past the tree. We were out! We thanked our willing helper and set about repairing the damage we had done to the track. all the while I was wondering how the heck we were going to get out of there two days hence..... Some photos for your amusement....

G'day. Sue and I are at Seisia now. The first travellers, including an old single-axle Windsor van, got through two days ago. They report that the road is pretty good, but a lot of washouts to watch for and many crossings with deepish water. Should be much drier in 3 to 4 weeks. We drove down as far as the Jardine Ferry yesterday and the road was pot-holed, but not corrugated, with only a few minor washouts. Stick to Russ' Rule: "Tyres down, right foot up" and you'll be fine. Cheers Russ

Hi all, It has been a wild and woolly day here at Broken Hill, allowing me time to write another chapter of the Blog. Around and Around We Go Cheers Russ

Hi all, at the risk of boring you to death, I'm striking while the iron is hot. There'll be no updates tomorrow (today?) The fishing forecast is excellent! The link: Crossing the Simpson Desert Cheers Russ

Geez Koggers, that's two blogs in two days. If you know me then you'll know that it means that it's too windy to go fishing...lol... I've already started the next one and, with any luck, I might even get through 2013 before I leave Perlubie Beach in a week's time. The link: All roads lead to Birdsville Cheers Russ