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

#rvlife #vanlife #carcamping #rvliving #lifepo4 #offgrid #offgridliving

Note that Ampere Time has changed their name to 'Li Time' a few months ago to more closely reflect their focus on Lithium battery products.
LiTime has some great "Prime Day" running on all their products until July 19th!

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[marklewus]

I am a retired electrical engineer, and I see a lot of misinformation surrounding solar systems on YouTube with content providers mixing up power, energy, efficiency, and capacity. You did a great job here! This information is very helpful for people trying to size their systems. Thanks!

[kenleague]

I'm amazed... Someone on the internet who actually knows the difference between power and energy. I started googling this stuff and found that more than half of the hits were people talking that clearly had no idea. Thanks, this was super helpful.

[kuhrd]

My rule of thumb for anything you want to run pretty much off the grid indefinitely is to take your daily device power consumption for a 24-hour period and multiply it by 3 to 5 to give you several days of capacity in your battery bank in case of a string of cloudy days or snow-covered panels in the morning. This usually gives you a good base to carry through even a string of poor solar days. Then add enough solar panels to be able to charge your battery bank in 1 or 2 days from empty to full. This size of system will only use a fraction of the storage on a typical day with decent sun but will still have enough capacity that you don't need to babysit it all the time when the weather is bad.

[mr.hanger]

I have four of those same batteries in my shop that has no power otherwise. 6 100 watt panels keep them up just fine considering I use the shop mainly on weekends to scrap cars and other metals. I can run a sawzall, 12 volt LED lights, a fan to circulate heat, chargers for cordless tools, and whatever else for the entire weekend. These batteries are exceptional for the price. I've never had any issues.

[feltzea]

Use of the refrigerator as a reference, and project is brilliant! So many folks throw up random information which doesn't correlate to real world needs.

[vistagraphsnet]

I went off grid ten years ago and built my own home single-handedly. In June 2021 I bought a Tesla model 3 and wanted to charge it using the sun. Here is my setup: I have three 300 watt panels. I have a flat roof and leave them flat as I live in the middle of Oregon. (If I tried to point them south I would only get rays between 11am and 2 pm.) On a sunny day I get almost 800 watts. I feed this energy into a 60 amp MPPT charge controller keeping six 100 amp hour Battle Borne batteries charged. The key is using a 3500 watt inverter (pure sine wave). On a sunny day my Tesla wants 1500 watts if I set it to 12 amps and get 6 miles of range. On a cloudy day I need 1000 watts so I change the Tesla charging down to 8 amps and get 4 miles of range. I use thick wires so I do not loose current and protect batteries and inverter with 300 amp and 200 amp circuit breakers. If I tried to use 12 amps it would drain the batteries real quick so I keep it at 10 or 8 amps and it charges for 14 hours a day. This actually is as good as if not better than someone on the grid using 120 volts AC. Make sure you use a bonding plug (connect neutral to ground) if Tesla won't charge. Some inverters don't need one.

[chuckdaddyo]

I am so glad I found this channel I live in the same area and I am just starting my journey into me of a self sustainable way to power my home. I didn’t follow all of the logic, but I will be returning to this video until I do. Thank you.

[siobanny]

This was VERY helpful. The only suggestion for dummies like me is that you just round up from, say, 485 to 500, even if it's less accurate. The whole numbers make things easier by far! But yes, I watched this twice and hit rewind a few times, and it was much easier to follow than many videos on the topic. Thank you1

[UNUSUALUSERNAME]

This is the information that you NEED above all else! You NEED to know what your usage (rate of consumption) is over time. No other info is as important. You can now set up minimum and maximum usage over time and choose the capacity of storage that is needed! The Watt mater is the best tool in the arsenal. How are you supposed to know what you need, if you don't know what you consume? This is the area of solar power that people need to become educated in!

[valramsingh]

This is probably the best video on solar for non commissioned solar officers...please ..since you are so gifted..make some more...very real ..very simple..and i will call Ampere time for a very big order for my projects...simply because i believe you...

[danemmerich]

Great video. To me, it is all about using the AC, refrigerators, heaters and other high end energy consumption items. This will tell me how to set up my on a little bit of luxury camping. Boondocking in the high heat or winter is why both AC and heaters are needed. Maybe having solar and and inverter generator would be a good back up. All this seems EXPENSIVE!

[UserFormelyKnownAs_hjkh]

I know this is an older video but youve just made an entire video on something i keep bringing up to myself in a quest for a small DIY solar setup ive been building. Of course you need battery capacity to run something while there is no sun...but you ALSO need enough solar generation to run said item while there is sun AND have enough surplus to bring your battery back up to a 100% SOC at the same time. You are the first person ive seen to actually bring up this real world way of having solar. I didnt find this out until well after building my system. Had i known before hand, i likely wouldnt have spent money on 12V only inverter and would have well upgraded my charge controller as well. At this point im doing all i can to make things work with the several hundred dollars i have invested into a system that is almost maxed out.

[DBRGB]

Excellent explanation and detail without any background music!!! Keep up the great work!!!

[shophacks]

Something you didn't cover in detail is how much solar and battery capacity you need if you need guaranteed power 24/7/365. In most cases solar has to be 5x and battery capacity 10x for this to be feasible so a ICE generator is required for interrupted power without having to spend 10x.

A video covering typical worst case scenarios (i.e. a month long bout of clouds, rain, and snow) would be helpful and very interesting.

Thanks for making these videos. They are well done and interesting. done and

[dadandlokiinthewoods]

Great video. Hopefully people can see the true cost and materials needed just to power a refrigerator with just battery's and solar. Or maybe they can use this equation to see the cost of say 5 kW hrs of use per day. I am a huge fan of solar and battery back up power. Just wish it was more cost effective.

[Richard-nbiv]

On my sailboat, this year I replaced two - 4D AGM batteries with two 12v x200amp Ampere Time Lipo batteries. Before the final install I couldn't get the batteries charged up to capacity. I contacted support through email. They were prompt with a response. I was just impatient and just needed to let the batteries charge longer. So far everything has been fine and haven't had any issues. The weight savings is unreal! Those 4D's are hernias waiting to happen.

[Kennephone]

One of the best things you can do if you live totally off the grid is to use as many smaller 12v appliances as possible, so you only have to turn on the inverter in certain situations, saving quite a lot of power, and therefore money.

[davidpatrick]

I can attest the customer support ... and there were some minor concerns and all was resolved quickly and with good information.

[xxdawson]

Wow ive watched so much on solar and batteries and always was confused, you made this so simple to understand i truely thank you soooo very much, simple math and explained perfectly....im working on a 17 foot camper and want to start gathering my electrical system components and you helped me you very much

[socksonfeet]

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.