How to know HOW MUCH Battery Capacity YOU need. Li Time / Ampere Time 100Ah LiFePO4 Battery Review

As a homeless guy I can't have enough of power, having said that, I can only fit a good 1000W in my vehicle.

so 500watts of solar to run a fridge

Theoretically it is as you say, but in real world when you end having 3 rainy days in a row, then you need 3 times more battery capacity and that cumulates to an other problem so you need 3 times more solar to get back that energy! It really is not that easy.

For those of us without solar panels is using a car's/truck's electrical system a viable way to charge a 1280 watt-hour battery quickly and efficiently enough to primarily use it with a DC charge controller and not for example using a 1200 watt pure sine wave inverter with a car battery as it's sole primary source to power it directly. The downside here being the alternator being 100 amps and the inverter not large enough wattage to take account for startup and peak wattage use.

So a couple thousand bucks cool cash to keep your salad chilled. If it's not raining. What a steal. Might be worth looking into buying a mule to walk around in circles tugging on a generator.

The wife of 27yrs and I have decided to buy a 95 Chevy flair 34ft class A like a week ago and we’re going off grid out here in flagstaff right before winter 😂 ..I know not smart but we’re 51 and tired of paying rent ..your videos are helping me a lot to figure out my solid set up and I think I’m going to run a wind generator also ..keep making these vids bud and thank you

I will check Ampere time. I appreciated the info on watt hours. I look at specs of batteries and there seems to be no consistency on what is shown; there are ah, wh, v ... trying to understand a batt capacity is a learning curve. Especially for a senior female with zero elec know-how :(
Also, wouldn't your electric bill have usable info? Mine (here in AZ) breaks down quite a bit, but not to hourly usage.

This was very helpful.

It seems that your calculation assumes to run the battery down to zero capacity. Some may prefer to run it down to anywhere from 20% to 5% remaining so as not to stress the battery chemistry. That may also be worth incorporating in one's capacity calculations, yes?

Nice detailed information. Thank God you live in Cincinnati and not in Seattle lol. Sorry that was solar / rain joke I love Seattle from far like their Starbucks coffee and Sleepless in Seattle movie. Hey I had a crush on Meg Ryan go figure

I was once an E.E for over fifty years...then modern science found a cure...
How come i dont see specifications from anybody regarding the battery terminal connection surface area.. this is important !

Oh.omg. I gonna have head problem if I do that.😂 thanks

if you are not worried about AC or heat and you are not working remotely - 3 batteries are more than sufficient
if you are working remotely, add 3 batteries - this will give you the ability to play some movies in the evening
if you install a mini split AC or have one of the new 12v efficient AC systems, you need 7 - 8 batteries to survive till the next day, 10 batteries would be best
if you are using the high powered roof AC - you cannot get enough solar nor enough batteries to boondock, you will have a massive daily loss requiring a generator

I know because I have been living in my RV full time for over 2 years with 2040 watts in solar, 7 battleborn lithium batteries, 2 MPPT's and Victron 3000VA inverter.
I work full time, my AC runs all day, even when I am driving - but I have a minisplit - the OEM AC was just too much power

your calculations are wrong because they are based on an assumption of the fridge. I have a fridge in my rv and live in it fulltime - I have done this in real world scenario and the fridge does not consume that much power and in fact barely draws any power.
A laptop is a larger drain than a fridge unless you have a very inefficient fridge

Great video, many thanks, what I got from it is I had no idea a fridge uses that much power, I always assumed they use just a trickle of power, how wrong I was haha, 4 panels just for a fridge alone.....wow!

Videos about a year old it may have changed since then. .05c is a better test

I really don't care about what's came with the Box only the battery. The manual of course is important but opening up the box I could care less as well as I've heard Aunt time you don't get the full 100 empower out of it you get about 96 amp hours

Can I replace my UPS battery with that battery, for more capacity? I have a 600 watts UPS in which I have my computer, 2 monitors and the router plug in. Can I use that battery? Thank you for your time and assistance!

Great info thank you.

How would three of them hold up in s 36 Volt EZGO Golf cart connected in series ? Thanks

so 600 watts of solar x 3 100ah batteries to have enough power just for the fridge . so basically about $2000 to run just my refrigerator and nothing else?

Great informative video thanks for sharing.

Im in the market for a solar system as we speak and this information has been so helpful. Thank you for breaking it down. Now i know exactly what i need.

I have a 2003 club car ds GAS and I am thinking about changing to a lithium battery , what are your thoughts on it

I'm getting a 2023 motor coach. It has 1 200 watt solar panel, a 1000 watt inverter , a dual controller what ever that is and 2 100 AH AGM batteries. I plan to up grade the inverter to 2000 or 3000 but initially would like to upgrade to a 200 or 300 AH lithium battery, can I just drop a lithium in with my current equipment ?

Thank you , I learned allot.

Can parallel?

Thanks. I am still perplexed about the fact that 485 watt/h per day, during the winter, are unrealistic. Also, with your setting two days of rain would more than enough to entirely discharge 2400 wh batteries. To have just a chance to be independent from the grid, you would definitely need at least 3600 wh. Which is 1200 dollars, equating 12 years of costs

🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️Guess the solar would be a good fit for LED lighting and a few quick use appliances, don’t forget the 10 minutes of hair blow drying (Wife). If your looking to run a fridge, propane is a better option. 🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️

If you want to play around optimizing or designing your PV system off or on-grid use the PHOTOVOLTAIC GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM of the EU science hub.
You can place a marker on your house and the system will calculate using the geographical data for that location (sunrise and sunset and terrain).

I’m going to binge wash all your stuff.
My two to three yr plan is to buy a tesla small car (not yet in production) and use the car battery as a power reserve for a set up similar to your offer today. I have a solar panel array with a 2.9kw capacity and I would use that to produce power for the car and power the house in a “smart” arrangement as my mileage is low but a FSD car is the value for me at 83yo as I could lose my driving license in the near future. Can I use an EV in that way?

Can you recommend a Solar control panel for 2 of the batteries in your video ? Thank you , I did like and subscribe to your channel for future helpful videos thank you..

Great video, and your a drummer. I'm subscribing for sure.

Keep your loads 12v and you dont need much.

thanks for the info im starting my own outgrid setup and your input its great it help me a lot.

Is it okay to just use a battery with the inverter without using solar panels? (Mind you I am a complete novice in this area) - Thank you in advance for answering. 🙂

Extremely well taught but it's just as I thought, to wit, solar sucks

Took me a couple days to figure this out all on my own starting from zero knowledge of solar. This video would have helped big time a few days ago lol.Very clear and concise. In TX, in these past 90 days of 100+ weather the AC makes my daily usage 75,000 watts...Im gonna need a ton of batteries lol.

very good info. I design and install off grid systems and have lived off grid for 20 years.
firstly, living efficiently is the key and we use around 5.5Kw/day (Kw hours if you like). 3 - 3.5Kw is used per day just to run our fridge and chest freezer. so the most important part of design is to choose the most efficient refrigeration. most fridges give you a kw/year consumption rating, and this is great, but the rating is usually in ideal situations. if you have kids, who stand there with the door open and multiple trips to the fridge, the fridge will use way more power. Inverter fridges seem to be the best option. my old fridge is very inefficient, though 20 years old and was marketed at the time to off grid users as only using 1Kw/day. so you can see my fridge uses a lot more than the manufacturer stated.

the rest of our load is electronics, lighting etc, all adds up to around 2Kw/day. No ac, no electric stove top, hot water etc.

we have 1600Ah - 24V wet cell lead acid battery bank that is 20 years old, and probably only holding 50-60% of rated storage nowadays. but when new, at 50% doc (depth of cycle, we had roughly 20Kw of storage. so enough to keep us going for three days with no sun. 4rth day, kick on the generator.

anyway, hope that all helps someone.
cheers

👍👌❤🇨🇦,

Easy to understand like no music now I can actually use the info you show kudos

Great video and really like the way you have links to everything. Would you consider doing on something like EG4 All-in-one Solar System: 3000W Inverter?

Well we just finished a home in Maui and we did 3,240 amp-hours at 48 V. Now that my friends is a big ass battery bank! The solar array was 40 kW and the inverter power output was a modest 24 kW and the generator was 60 kW. It runs a $10 million home flawlessly including the Tesla car charger on high. About $280,000 installed. And permitted.

I need to run an electric chair i recently won at action from the Texas state prison. I have some friendimies I want to provide seating for. Once … whahaha haha ha

I have 5x150AH 12 VRLA batteries. They have been in a car which was rebuilt to electric and connected in series, got it as a gift. Voltage is above 13V. Now I want to connect them in parallel and have it as storage with 12V inverter doing 230V. Having in mind they for sure does not have all of the capacity the question is how big solar panel to place. The system is used for several days and then left alone for 2-4 weeks in cottage house so my assumption is that 100-200W solar panel would do the job as there is enough time to replenish. What is your opinion?

Something is missing...

Great video! I'm getting ready to retire and watch as much solar and batteries i can. I get confused when someone says they made a 24 volt or 48-volt system to put in their rv"s. Aren't rv's 12 volts? can you do that? I plan to be off the grid weeks at a time. I have now a 12-volt system with 4 - 6-volt acid batteries for a total of 480 AH's and a total of 200 watts panels. I will switch over to Lithium but i have to watch more videos to see how big of a amp hour system i need to run the air conditioner for a few hours if needed. Any advice or more videos would be appreciated. Thank you and thanks for your videos.