Low Power Propane Switch - March 2024 ($55)

After doing some internet searching, I found that Leonard Casella in Pennsylvania sells a modified low power switch.  I contacted him and he sent me one for $55. The install was fairly easy, it uses the same wires but needs to have a ground wire which I tapped off the compartment light. 

The switch consists of a three way toggle with a BUCK converter that lowers the current draw to keep the solenoid open. The LED is for testing purposes, I did not use it. 

This is the original Propane switch

This is the new one installed. There is not a good place for the BUCK converter in the Serenity, so I stuck it to the utility compartment wall. I tapped the ground off the compartment light. 

I turned on the propane stove to ensure the valve was open in the On and PS positions. 

It reduces the power draw by 0.83A and only consumes 0.15A while keeping the gas solenoid open. 

This is the battery monitor with the switch in the On position.

This is the monitor with the switch in the PS position. 

This is the monitor in the off position.

I consider this a success and still can't understand why an RV manufacturer would put such a device in a rig with limited battery capacity. 

Air Conditioner Soft Start - February 2024 ($263)

Upgrading the electrical on the Serenity provides enough battery power to run the AC off the batteries if needed. Frankly, I don't plan on doing this a lot but having the option is always nice. AC units draw lots of current on startup which can cause issues with the inverter. There are several companies that offer a solution to dampen the current draw. 

 

I chose SoftStartRV because it was just a bit less expensive and had good reviews. 

https://www.softstartrv.com/

This graph (from the SoftStartRV website) shows how the soft start damps the current draw during AC start.

This graph is from a Dometic 15K Penguin II AC unit, which is the unit we have on our Serenity. 

The install is pretty easy, but does require some rewiring of the AC unit. You basically remove the AC cover, install the unit and rewire using the crimp connectors provided. It took about an hour.

The AC unit without the cover. 

I tucked the softstart in next to the electric motor and secured it with zip ties. It fit pretty easily. It has three LEDs that show status, which are good to verify operation before putting the cover back on the AC unit. 

I ran it for over 30 mins in heat pump mode, since it is winter. It definitely has less of a surge on start. It seems to work as advertised, I will not attempt operating the AC off the batteries until I have my Epoch batteries which are due the end of March. We plan to leave before the end of March and return in the fist week of May, so it will be sometime before I can do the final testing. 

Electrical Upgrade - More Testing, Chasing Phantom Loads. February 2024

Batteries - Epoch has pushed out the delivery of my batteries to the end of March. I spoke with the company yesterday, they tried to get me to take a 460A single battery that they have in stock. I looked at the dimensions of this battery, but this will not work for me. 

We plan to leave on a trip before the end of March, so I am going to tidy up the install of Matt's TimeUSB batteries to make them suitable for an extended field test. These batteries have a 280Ah capacity versus the Epoch 600Ah capacity, but they are still over 2X the original 105Ah the Serenity came with stock. 

In the meantime, I have put the Serenity back together. June feels better about it now and has started stocking it for our spring trip. 

Phantom Current Draw - Short of disconnecting the batteries entirely, all RV systems have some current draw even when everything is turned off. For example, in the Serenity here are a few I am aware of; Antenna booster, step motor/light, Jensen Radio, Power Vent, leveler jacks, and C02 detector. 

I was aware of these potential loads, but before I put in the battery monitor, they were difficult to quantify. 

Using the battery monitor, I found that there was what I considered too much phantom current draw when the system was in standby mode. I define standby mode as everything OFF but the house disconnect switch ON.  The house disconnect switch powers the DC circuit panel. We almost never turn off the house disconnect switch. It needs to be on to run the refrigerator, furnace, etc., but the rig should use minimal power until something is actually turned on. 

Here is what the Victron battery monitor sees with the house disconnect ON but everything in the RV OFF. 

The house batteries are suppling 1.16A of power to something. That is a lot of power to do nothing. 

Here is what the Victron battery monitor sees with the house disconnect OFF but everything in the RV OFF. 

The house batteries are now suppling 0.13A of power. This is a pretty small number. 

I monitored the draw while pulling each of the 8 fuses in the DC panel and found that the bulk of the phantom power came from Circuit #1. The EEE documentation shows the following on that circuit.

The documentation from EEE is very good and I was able to find each of these circuits and I eliminated all of them from. 

I was scratching my head, so I contacted EEE. 

Willie Neufield at EEE suggested I look at the propane switch and he was right. Why the excellent documentation from EE failed to list the propane valve is a mystery to me. 

Here is what the Victron battery monitor sees with the house disconnect ON but everything in the RV OFF, including the outside Propane switch OFF.

It is now only drawing 0.39A, so that switch is using about 0.8A just to keep the propane valve open. If you are boondocking, you need propane for the refrigerator and the furnace.  

The Serenity came with batteries that have a 105Ah capacity.  This setup consumes 19-20 Ah of your battery capacity every day, close to 20% of your battery is used just keep a valve open. I understand that for safety the valve needs to fail closed, but this some really poor engineering in my opinion. 

It is also one more reason why I am still considering going to a compressor refrigerator, at least you don't need propane to keep it running when boondocking. 

Of course there are smart people out there and there are alternatives. In the future, I will be making some kind of a modification to mitigate this issue. The one I am considering will reduce the load for the valve down to about 0.15A. This is much more reasonable. 

Assuming I modify the switch to get it to 0.15A, my total phantom load, with everything in the RV OFF but the house disconnect ON, would be about 0.5A. This is 12Ah per day. My Epoch batteries will have 600Ah of capacity, so with minimal solar assist you could park for at least 2 months before the batteries would run down. That should be enough. :-). 

Electrical Upgrade - Testing, January 2024, Final install May 2024, Final Cost

 As of the end of January, I have all the components installed but my batteries are taking a long boat ride from China.  I have a pair of TimeUSB Lithium batteries that technically belong to my son. They are two 140Ah batteries for a total capacity of 280Ah.  I decided to put these in the LTV for debug purposes. 

They easily fit in the planned location since the are a bit smaller than the Epoch batteries.

I was able to use the 2/0 wires that I removed to make the connections. When the final batteries go in they will be connected with 4/0 wire. 

I did not just turn everything on, I tried to do it sequentially to verify each component was working as it should before turning on the next.  And I did swap the monitor cables for the Solar Controller and the Battery Monitor (even though they were clearly labeled...DOH!), but it just blew the 1A line fuse on the Battery Monitor. I had to wait 2 days for a new fuse but luckily no harm was done.  

Xantrex Inverter - I tested this both in bypass and inverter mode. It seems to work as it should, I ran it up to loads of 1500Watts while testing.

Grid pass through mode. 

Inverting while powering the heat gun on low. 

Victron BMV-712 Battery Monitor -  The Victron battery monitor is capable of monitoring two batteries, but the second input is voltage only. The primary monitor is the house batteries and I connected the second to the chassis battery. I had to remove my chassis battery charger, so monitoring the chassis battery is helpful. 

The 3A draw is a few lights and whatever else is on. If I turn off all the lights, it draws about 1.5Amps or 20 Watts. 

There are a few things in the coach that are powered all the time.  Those that I can think of are the Radio, the door step under light (if the door is open), the CO2 detector and the Inverter in standby mode.

Victron Solar Controller - I verified that the solar controller connects to the App via Bluetooth, but until I take it out of the barn, I will not be able to test the solar. 

The solar controller is off because there is not enough solar to turn on the charger, but at least it reports the correct house battery voltage. 

Kisae DC-DC Charger - I did not buy the monitor for the Kisae charger, but did verify it was putting in current the batteries with the engine running. 

When charging, the Kisae continuously scrolls between charge voltage and charge current. 

This pictures shows it is charging at 14Volts.

And it is putting in 40+ Amps to the house batteries. 

I verified that the BMV-712 is actually reporting a charge going into the house batteries. 

The Kisae reports 40A and the BMV-712 only sees 33A going into the battery.  I am guessing this is because the Kisae itself takes power and the lights etc. in the coach take power that is not put into the batteries. I will have to see if I can find out what the Kisae draws by itself. 

As best I can tell, everything is working as I hoped it would.  When I get the Epoch batteries installed I will update all the parameters and do some real testing. 

I also have to put the RV back together, I have removed several of outside compartment doors, emptied every interior compartment, removed all the drawers, removed the table and a few other things. It will take a day just to put things back to where they go. 

So now I wait for my Epoch Batteries. 

May 2024 - My Epoch batteries arrived  21March, about two days after we left on or road trip,  We returned from our trip on 3May so they have been sitting in garage waiting for install. 

12May, I removed Matt's TimeUSB batteries and installed the Epoch batteries. They are only slightly larger but have over 2X the capacity, 300Ah each vs 140Ah each, have self heaters so they can be charged at low temperatures and have built in blue tooth monitoring. Of course they are over twice the price but pack a lot of function in a very small foot print. 

To make them fit, I also had to shave the plastic handles off one of the batteries, I planned this and did verify with the battery manufacturer that this would not be a problem. 

The batteries have a different terminal configuration which required a change in the battery wiring and due to the larger current capacity, I had to go from 2/0 to 4/0 wire, which is no fun to work with. 

The final install fits quite well. 

One of the added features is a built in battery monitor. It is nice to be able to check each battery separately with charge info and temperature. I took this picture while running the heat pump off the batteries. 

The following is simply a record for me.

Final Schematic: 2016SerenityLithium.pdf

Final Material List and Cost. LTVLithium.xls

That is the end of this project, I found it fun and rewarding.  

Electrical Upgrade - Control Panels, Trim and Inverter Connections. January 2024

Control Panels - I mounted all the control panels in the same location EEE used, over the wardrobe closet. 

Brother Tom came over and helped me make the escutcheon trim, he is better at it than me.  We used 1/8" thick ABS plastic to make the escutcheons. 

Any mistakes (and there were a few) were made by me, but they are hardly noticeable. 

Covering up - I put the solar controller and the solar disconnect switch in the back of the wardrobe closet. It was convenient because that is where EEE had put the solar controller originally.

 

It is a hidden space so I was not too concerned about looks, but I may add some type of trim around the components later. 

Inverter Wiring - I first connected the new 10AWG AC wiring to the inverter, the AC IN feed from the panel (Shore/Gen) and the Inverter AC Out back to the panel. The lock down connectors on the Xantrex make this pretty easy. The previous inverter (Magnum) controlled the inverter by using a 12V power wire from the panel. This gets turned off when the disconnect in the stair well is turned off. This allows turning off the inverter by connecting this wire to the ACC input on the Xantrex inverter.  The inverter did not come with a connector for this, but I made one from a Mercedes pin connector. I also connected the remote panel via the RJ12 connector. 

After making the AC connections and control connections, I made up the 4/0 cables to connect the Lynx Power bus to the Inverter.  I torqued them to spec and rechecked everything twice. 

My batteries were due on the 20Jan but have been delayed due to the attacks by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi militants on ships in the Red Sea. Ships are being diverted around the tip of Africa causing 3-4 weeks of delays.  My new ship date is 14Feb2024.

Since everything is in place sans the batteries, I may just put a set of batteries in to test and debug.  The tricky part is that the location of the battery connections is different on my new batteries. I only have enough 4/0 cable to do the job, if I can makeup some cables from what I pulled out, I will give it a try, otherwise I will have to wait for my batteries. 

Electrical Upgrade - Distribution Panel and DC - DC 50A Charger, January 2024

Distribution Panel - To power everything in the Serenity that is AC from the inverter, it requires some modification of the distribution panel. 

The existing wiring only powers some AC circuits directly from the inverter. This keeps the inverter and house phases separate since they are never on at the same time in the panel. The panel is setup for 240 so has two separate power buses. Since 30A is only 120V it only needs one side of the panel. I will power one leg with the shore/Gen power and the other with the inverter. To do this, I need to move all loads to the inverter side and cut the neutral bus so that the Shore/Gen power and the Inverter can have their own phases. 

This is the existing panel before modification. All AC circuits are on one leg, including AC power to the inverter, which passes this onto the single inverter AC circuit in the RV. 

I was lucky that when I pulled the old inverted circuit wire back from the old inverter, it was long enough to reach the panel.  I did have to run a new Inverter AC IN wire because it needed to support 30A and EEE only ran 12AWG wire, so I ran two 10AWG wires from the panel to the inverter for the Inverter AC IN and AC OUT (back to the panel). 

This is the panel after modification. I have cut the neutral bus to separate the Shore/Gen side (right) from the inverter side (left). 

On the left, all house circuits (sans the 3Way fridge) will be on the Inverter circuit and be fed from the inverter via pass through of Shore/Gen power or inverted power from the batteries. 

The right is the Main Shore 30A breaker, a 30A feed breaker to the Inverter and a 15A breaker for the 3W Fridge. 

This is the finished panel.

Alternator Charging -  One of the good/bad things about Lithium batteries is their ability to deliver and receive large currents (Amps). Unlike a lead-acid battery, the internal resistance and corresponding voltage of a lithium battery does not rise until it is nearly 95% fully charged. This will result in a heavy load being drawn from the alternator for a long time causing over heating and burnout. The solution is to limit the amount of current the lithium batteries can draw from the Alternator. 

To address this, I am removing the existing isolation solenoid/charger from the LTV and replacing it with a Kisae 50A DC to DC charger. This will limit the charge current to 50A while driving. The Sprinter has a 220A alternator of which 80A can be used for auxiliary devices per the Mercedes specifications. 

In addition, I am adding isolation breakers (60A) and a relay switch to turn off (sleep) the charger when the vehicle is not running. The Relay basically uses the ignition wire to determine if the engine is running and not connect the chassis battery/alternator to the Kisae until it sees 12V from the ignition. The Kisae is powered by the house batteries and thinks the engine is running when it sees more than 12.8V sustained from the Chassis/Alt battery. This is a problem if you attach a charger (like a trickle charger) to the chassis battery, the Kisae will power up and could discharge the house batteries as well as the chassis battery.  This is also an issue for the Trik-L-Start charger I had previously installed in the LTV.  Lithium batteries have a higher float voltage so the Trik-L-Start thinks the RV is plugged in and will try to to charge the chassis batteries even when not connected to shore power. I had to remove this device and may add a device that is compatible with Li voltages later. 

I put the charger, breakers etc. under the dinette seat. I moved some of the self resetting breakers and a few other things to make room, but there was plenty of space. 

I am still waiting for my batteries, when they arrive, the next phase will be wiring up the batteries and the lynx distribution bus. 

Electrical Upgrade - Inverter and Lynx, Januray 2024

The disconnect switch I have been waiting for arrived on Friday, yesterday (Sat 12Jan24). I was able to finally mount the Inverter and the Lynx power distribution bus in place. 

As planned, I put the new inverter where the old one was located.  There is not a lot of extra room, so I placed it against the rear vents to give as much room wiring as possible. 

I ran the control wire up through the dinette, under the galley and into the back of the coat closet. I plan to mount the panel in the same location as the original monitor. 

I needed the disconnect switch because I need to fit everything in a very tight space and there is no substitute for having the components in hand when trying to put 10lbs of stuff in a 5lb bag...

To make the power system compact, I fit it up on the bench. I used my shop press to make a 4/0 lug into a copper connecter from the Disconnect switch to the ANL fuse block. This saved a lot of space. 

I am mounting the Lynx to the ceiling of the compartment. I found that LTV put metal in the ceiling so it is difficult to drive screws to mount the hardware. They likely are protecting something that they ran between the floors. The floor is wood, foam, wood, about 2 inches thick and they often run channels in the foam for conduits. 

The completed module consists of the Power bus (Lynx), Disconnect Switch, the ANL Fuse/Holder and the Battery Monitor (BMV-712). 

I mounted this all on a board so that I had the freedom to find the places in the ceiling without metal plating. 

The hole in the board is for the rear seatbelt anchor.

I ran the Battery Monitor cable the same route as the inverter control to the back of the coat closet. I plan to mount it on the same panel as all the other monitors.  

I now should be able to wire everything in this compartment except the batteries, which should be here in a bit over a week. 

I still need to install the DC Charger under the seat and run the AC wires from the distribution panel, so this compartment is going to get pretty busy. 

As this project goes on, I continue to learn more about the wiring of the LTV and try to update my schematics as well as update the LTV schematics to reflect the changes I have made. 

This is my representation of the upgrade. 

Another long update...but it is for me.  I have CRS really bad. 

Electrical Upgrade - Solar Controller and Grounding. January 2024

Solar - Technically since I am not changing what is on the roof, I only needed to move the wires that go to the batteries since I am relocating the batteries. However, I wanted to plan for more solar in the future, so I upgraded the Solar Controller from PWM to MPPT and 30A to 50A. I also added a solar disconnect switch to comply with electrical codes and make it easier if something did need to be done with the solar. 

The LTV wires coming from the roof are 10AWG. I would prefer two 300W arrays on the roof, but would have to increase the wire size from the controller to the roof.  Two 300W panels in series would be OK, but I would prefer the parallel configuration in case one is shaded. 

The above being the case I removed the old GoPower controller and installed a Victron 100/50  with a disconnect switch. The controller can handle 100V input with 50A output to the batteries. 

I located them both in the back of the closet where the original solar controller was located, They are recessed into the wall where there is open air flow behind them. 

The Victron instructions state to mount the controller on a non flammable substrate. Although I have seen many youtube videos of the controller being mounted on wood, I covered my wood surface with metallic tape. 

I ran new 8AWG wire from the controller to the battery compartment. It is routed under the galley, and into the dinette seat directly over the battery compartment. 

I really wanted to use the existing ground cable but it is only 10AWG.  There is lots of confusion on the grounding of MPPT controllers and the Victron documentation doesn't help much. The 8AWG cable is back ordered so I did connect the 10AWG that was there for now. 

Grounding - Since I was moving the batteries, I also needed to move the Chassis ground.  Ideally, I would connect directly to the vehicle frame but that is not an easy thing to do since is very much buried and painted. I looked at what LTV did and they simply connected to metal storage compartments that are mounted to the frame.  I did the same but also will use the 1/0 ground wire they ran to the original inverter to connect my new ground to their previous ground.  This should make a solid connection to all devices that were sharing the previous ground and the new ground.  

12V Power Distribution - I will also use the previous inverter 1/0 cable to connect other 12V devices in the house by connecting to the new positive bus bar (Lynx) to the original battery connection.  This will pass power to the circuits that are connected to that point, such as the master disconnect switch for 12V devices in the house part of the RV. 

In this picture the old battery cables are removed but the connection points will remain. 

I am still waiting for the Battery disconnect switch to commit to the placement of the final components. 

Electrical Upgrade - Implementation - January 2024

Today is the 4th of January, nearly all my components are here, I am still waiting on the battery disconnect switch which I would like to have before I commit to the location of my DC power bus (Lynx). In an effort to document, I have updated some of the TripleE (Leisure Travel Vans) documentation to reflect my changes. I have also found an error in one of the diagrams, I sent an email to EEE to verify, but I have not seen an answer. 

My updated 12V DC wiring diagram. 

In looking at the AC side, I came across a transfer switch under one of the galley drawers. 

After some research I figured out what it is and I think it is pretty ingenious. A typical RV has a 30A shore power. Using multiple high load appliances can easily exceed the 30A. For example, you arrive at your site and turn on the AC (15Amps), the electric water heater (15Amps) and then throw something in the microwave (15Amps).  Turn on some lights, etc and it is easy to get over the 30A. The way EEE tried to mitigate this is by putting the water heater and the microwave on a single 15A breaker. The breaker feeds the transfer switch which provides power to both devices until the microwave demands a large load, it then will shed (pause) the water heater load until the microwave finishes. This allows running two high load devices from a single breaker and minimizes the probability of tripping the main 30A breaker. 

The above does present a quandary for me. I want to power the microwave from the Inverter, and it is fed by the same breaker in the panel as the electric water heater.  Since the water heater can also run on propane, I might want separate the two. I am thinking at this time to not change it since there is a switch that controls how to heat your water, with electric or propane. We will just have to remember to not use the water heater in electric mode when using the inverter. If it becomes a problem, I can rewire it later. 

I have figured out how to power all 110 circuits from the Inverter. Previously EEE had fed a single circuit of limited receptacles directly off the inverter, that was it, no AC, Microwave, water heater or the other remaining receptacles in the RV. I was able to pull the feed of this circuit back from where it connected to the inverter to the compartment under the dinette seat and there is sufficient wire to connect this directly into the Distribution panel. I will just have to add a breaker for it. 

This is the AC IN and Out pulled back up into the compartment under the dinette. I will feed the circuits formally fed by the inverter directly from the distribution panel and I will replace the AC IN wire with 10/3 wire since it needs to support 30A. 

I have decided that I will locate the Inverter in the same location as the old one. This is a picture of the old, 1200W, inverter. 

The new inverter is bigger and will make more heat so I wanted to improve the ventilation of the compartment. 

I cut holes to align with the fans on the new inverter and added splash shields and wire mess to minimize anything getting into the compartment while providing good ventilation. 

This entry is already too long, so I will stop here. When I get the disconnect switch, I will start installing components.