RV Navigator Episode 232

Off the Grid

August, 2024

This month’s big project was upgrading our battery bank to lithium batteries.  We added about 1000 amps of battery power to our rig in the conversion process. The upgrade process for a motorhome involvees much more than just swappng out the physical batteries.  We now have all new electitic 12 volt monitoring system.  Because we have a diesel engine with 12 volt needs, we have to have the proper interface for the engine side.     We also added a solar panel into the mix.  A 24 hour test of the new batteries used only 30% of their capacity.  With the solar recharge, we’ll be good for quite a few days of boondocking.  After a couple of days for the install, we headed to annual Indiana Dunes mid summer trip.  We always enjoy a couple of days at the sandy shores of Lake Michigan.  The weather was perfect this as evidenced by the over capacity crowd that was in attendance on Saturday.

New this month is the Starlink mini as a standalone unit.  How do you stream with Starlink and does it provide TV service are some of the question that we answer this month. 

Episode 232 Web links 

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Above are some of the additional electronic components that were installed to complete the battery transition.  There was more to this process than just swapping out the batteries.

Below - the co-pilot holds some very expensive parts purchased at the factory store.

She’s not happy!

Above is what 8 tired AGM batteries look like in their slide out tray.  
They would not even run our fridge overnight

Below are the 3 replacement Victron lithium batteries that each store 330 amps which more than doubles our capacity AND they take up only of the bay.  The bay was reworked to make it clean and useful.