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Principles of Overlanding: Vehicle Electrical Systems with Mark Bruce · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Overland DURL podcast. I am your host,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Scott Brady, and for this week we have a principles
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: of overlanding Vehicle Electronics Systems. I'm joined this week by
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Mark Bruce. Now, Mark is an engineer, he's a product engineer,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and he works with a company called red Arc. Now
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: we don't talk about red Arc products. We don't really
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: talk about red Arc as a company, but they are
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: considered one of the pre eminent products, one of the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: best products in the segment. And because it's one of
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the most high end products, they have engineers like Mark
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: that are available to talk through subjects as diverse as
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: solar battery isolation, dual battery systems, lithium versus AGM. So
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: we go into a lot of detail around how to
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: fuse electronic systems. We talk about battery isolation, we talk
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: about the right kinds of systems to use. We don't
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: focus on any individual products in particular, focus more on
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the principles on the systems that you need to have
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: in place and the really core tenants of good electronic
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: system design. So we really have a great conversation. I
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: learned a lot in my conversation with Mark and I
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: think you will too, so please enjoy our principles of
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: overlanding vehicle electronic Systems and especial thanks to Winnebago for
• 1:20
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  Speaker 1: Get out there with the Winbago Backcountry Series and you
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: can learn more at Winnebago dot com. Thanks again, Winnebago,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: well Mark, thank you so much for being on the
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  Speaker 1: podcast with me today. So this is going to be
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: kind of a principles of overlanding on electrical systems. It's
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: a real it's a rare opportunity for us to have
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: access to your time. You and I met each other
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: many times over the years. I'm trying to remember if
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: we actually spend some time together. When I visited you
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: guys in.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Adelaide, I think I think I did.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: See it there ye as well, and that was incredible
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: to take a walk through the facility and see just
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: what it takes to make products like this, and it's
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: a very difficult thing to do.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: So when we talk about electrical systems for.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Vehicles, I thought it would be good to go through
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: some of the important use case scenarios about why you
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: want to upgrade.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Some of the electrical systems of your vehicle.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: You know, many vehicles that come from the dealer now
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: you know they'll have a twelve old outlet in the back.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: You know, some of them will even have an inverter
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: possibly on board. One of the big challenges that we
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: find with that is there's twofold so normally the inverter
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  Speaker 1: is not powerful enough to operate many of the things
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: that we need to have in camp. Before we started recording,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: you and I were talking about a coffee maker, and
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know about for you, I mean, I know
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: coffee is a thing in Australia, so for me it's
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: very important.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: We're often referred to as the coffee snops.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: You are yeah, and you order a flat white, which
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: it took me a while to understand what that meant,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: but it's basically a latte. And then there's a long black,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: which is just basically you black coffee.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: That's a minor America.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: That's right exactly, but you know then they all taste great,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: but you're not going to make espresso on four hundred watts,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: so you need to have a larger inverter. And then
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  Speaker 1: the other thing that we find, and this is where
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: people really run into trouble, is that the majority of cases,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the twelve O outlet that's going to be available in
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: the back of an suv, the wiring is going to
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: be underrated for most fridges, or it's not going to
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: be able to take the startup average of many of
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the fridges. And then when you turn the car off
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  Speaker 1: normally within a few minutes, you're going to lose those
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: accessory power outlets. So let's talk through what you see
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  Speaker 1: as best practice to address of both of those scenarios.
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  Speaker 2: I need a good inverter.
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  Speaker 1: I mean I don't need a blow dryer, but some
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: people do, so a blow dryer thousand watts fifteen hundred
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  Speaker 1: watts coffee maker one thousand watts, eight hundred watts, sixteen,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: you know, and then sometimes up as high as two
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: thousand watts, but depending on the coffee maker. And it's
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: also really good to look at those stats of whatever
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: you're buying because there are going to be things that
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: are going to be more efficient than others. So let's
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: talk about the scenario of plugging in the fridge in
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  Speaker 1: the back of the vehicle. What do you in your mind,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: what do you think is some of the best practice
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: ways to address that.
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  Speaker 3: Well, for example, just stop battery is there to do
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  Speaker 3: one job and that's his TetR.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, reliably every time.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Reliably every time. And the alternator has two jobs. One
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: is to maintain the fully charged star battery, not to
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: recharge it, to fully keep it full. And the other
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: thing it has to do is run your electrical loads
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: while you're driving. So if we think back years ago
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: to the old f trucks and things, they used to
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: have maybe an eighty ampol to that, but now they've
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: got like two hundred and eighty.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Ampols in that.
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  Speaker 3: Sure, it's not so that they can put more power
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  Speaker 3: into batteries so they can run more electrical loads in
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: the vehicle.
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  Speaker 2: Some vehicles have massaging seats. They can take a lot
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  Speaker 2: of power.
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  Speaker 3: It the all of these computer controlled gizmos that they
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: have that we can't live without. It's now even inverters
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: in the back of these things that are exceeding two
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  Speaker 3: thousand whatts some of them do? Let's be honest, you
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: know some of these trucks are amazing.
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  Speaker 2: But are a house with them?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, but they only run whiles your truck's running. I
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: don't know about you, but do you want to keep
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: your food and your drinks cold when the truck is off?
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  Speaker 3: It's important. So we can't afford to reduce the charge
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  Speaker 3: in our start battery. We can't afford to do that.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: So we've got to have another means of housing energy
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  Speaker 3: to be able to support our lifestyle. Our lights, lights
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: that we use whilst we're camping, our refrigerators are cooling fans.
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  Speaker 3: We need to keep things charged. Our mobile devices or
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: whatever whatever it might be now.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: That up a drone or a camera. Yeah, we want to.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: Run coffee machines. We can't do without our lattes or
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: our americanos were the stick.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: So we're not wrong, Yeah wrong, We've got to keep.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: The power housed somehow, so it's really important for us
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  Speaker 3: to have a second means of doing that, and that's
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: where auxiliary batches come into place.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and we're even seeing a lot of interest in
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  Speaker 1: induction cooking now, Like this trailer that we're in here
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: uses an induction cooker. It has a twelve old air conditioner.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: So there's more and more systems that are being powered
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  Speaker 1: off of twelve old at higher efficiencies. But that means
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: you've got to have bigger and bigger house batteries. So
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  Speaker 1: I think that that's a really good point. Is one
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  Speaker 1: of the main reasons why we consider a dual battery
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  Speaker 1: system is to protect vehicles starting because the reality of
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: being an Overlander is I mean, like when I did
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the Australian Byte with some of your team, you know,
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  Speaker 1: when we were out there driving through the Australian bighte
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  Speaker 1: in southern Australia, we were very remote, very very far
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  Speaker 1: from the nearest town.
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  Speaker 3: One of the straight roads is one of the straight
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  Speaker 3: roads is like one hundred and forty five KOs long straight.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, got to turn exactly, So you're really really out there,
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  Speaker 1: and what you want to make sure of is that
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  Speaker 1: when you turn that key the next morning that the
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  Speaker 1: thing starts up. And if you want to if you decide, hey,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: we're going to spend a couple of days on the beach,
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  Speaker 1: you want to be able to do that, and one
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  Speaker 1: of the ways to do that is with a house battery.
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  Speaker 1: In your experience, what are some of the least the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: lower expense ways of doing that, like a lower expense battery.
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  Speaker 1: What are some solutions that you've seen to run these
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  Speaker 1: house systems that you think are a little more affordable.
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  Speaker 3: AGM batteries Whilst lithium batteries are so popular now it's
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  Speaker 3: a rule buzzword, the AGM battery lot. The lead battery
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  Speaker 3: is not dead. Lead's not dead necessarily, it's affordable. But
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  Speaker 3: the rule of thumb is with AGM batteries as an example,
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  Speaker 3: and please all my AGM friends out there, don't get
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  Speaker 3: angry with me. Essentially, the rule of thumb is we
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  Speaker 3: have fifty percent of our empower capacity available to us.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, when you've got an AGM.
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  Speaker 1: Back fifty percent depth of dray correct.
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  Speaker 3: So if we reduce the charge in that battery beyond
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  Speaker 3: fifty percent charged, we greatly reduce the life expectancy of
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: that battery. When we're trying to I guess suggest to
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  Speaker 3: somebody or how many empowers that they need in a battery,
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  Speaker 3: we've got to work out if they're using AGM batteries
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  Speaker 3: that empower capacity, they only have fifty percent of that
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: we want need a bigger battery, whereas if we went liftium,
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  Speaker 3: we could probably have half the amount of batteries.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, reduced the amount of space and weight and wait significantly.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: Like it don't necessarily costs us the whole long.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point, and one of the ways
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  Speaker 1: for those that are listening, there's some things that we
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: can look at around knowing what that fifty percent depth
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  Speaker 1: of draw is. And the easiest way to do that
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  Speaker 1: without a bunch of expensive diagnostic or a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: expensive gauges is these are twelve volt systems. So an
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  Speaker 1: AGM battery will typically have a higher float than a
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  Speaker 1: standard lead acid battery, and that float will be somewhere
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  Speaker 1: around thirteen point two thirteen point four volts or so
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: approximately in that range you have to work with from
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: thirteen point four down to twelve. So when you start
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: taking your battery down below twelve volts, and if you
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: do it very often, So if you get into that
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: eleven point eight, eleven point six, eleven point four, you're
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: starting to greatly reduce the life span of that battery.
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  Speaker 1: So we have to remember we're starting off with a
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  Speaker 1: twelve volt system, so the twelve twelve vaults is zero.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So I can share a really classic example with this,
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: and it's it's a it's roughly relevant to a battery
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: specific gravity level of the electrolyte in the battery. Right,
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: So let's say we have a fully charged.
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  Speaker 2: Battery at twelve point eight.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, at twelve point five, we're essentially seventy percent yeah,
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: that's right, seventy five percent at twelve volts where where zero?
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: So we're fifty percent at twelve votes that's right then
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: at ten point five where zero?
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So a twelve.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Volt battery, let us a battery a gen barry at
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  Speaker 3: twelve volts is essentially fifty percent. That's a rough scale
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: twelve point eight full twelve point five, seventy five percent
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  Speaker 3: twelve volts fifty percent as a rough scale for let
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: us at agen battery.
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  Speaker 1: And that's just really important for people to remember that
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: to use that as a guy is if you set
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: it up where one hundred percent is whatever the float
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: is and zero is whenever it stops providing power, which
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: some fridge is like an angle fridge will run all
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  Speaker 1: the way down to ten point five volts, so it
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: will flatten your house battery. And you do that a
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: couple times and they won't come back. And even if
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: you start playing in those high eleven volt eleven point six,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: eleven point five, you're going to greatly reduce the lifespan. Yeah, yeah,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: that's been my experience. Okay, so it seems as if
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: AGM might be less expensive, but do your research because
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: you may find that lithium is in fact, So what
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: is a good size lithium that you have found for
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: most travelers?
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  Speaker 3: If you're starting at one hundred ampound capacity, that's essentially
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: the sweet spot.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's been a lot.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Of talk out there where oh, yeah, you know, I've
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: got one hundred ampoud lithium battery and I've got one
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: hundred empowers available to me. I can fully discharge the battery, well,
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: not necessarily, Scott. I kind of think about your battery
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: is like fuel tank in your truck. Yeah, you might
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: have a forty gallon fuel tank. But do you use
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: the full forty gallons or do you go to the
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: gas station when you've got a little bit left in
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: the tank. That's right, So that is no dissimilar to that.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: So we want to make sure we've always got a
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: little bit left in the tank, especially with its lithium. Yeah,
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: before you know, before we let them get too flat.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: We never really want to go too flat. But the
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: majority of living batteries nowadays have that sort of technology
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: in them, so they don't go too flat.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they'll just shut itself off before they get
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: too low. To your point, the reason why we want
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: to have reserves of water, we want to have reserves
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: of fuel. We also want to have reserves of power
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: is that there are emergency situations that can occur. So
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: if you come into an emergency situation and you've been
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: just banging on your battery and it's really low, but
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: now you need to start using the starlink to communicate
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: with with maybe a remote medical doctor because you're having
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: a situation, or you.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Had a mechanical with the vehicle and now.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: You're using starlink or your sat phone, or you're using
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: other things that you need power on where you're using
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: tools and power tools and need charge. You want to
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: have that reserve capacity for those unexpected events that can occur.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: You know Starling's as example, we've got a new van
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: here at the show this weekend. We're using a Starling.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: It draws anywhere from ten to twelve amps. Yeah when
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: it's running. Yeah, so you know it does consume a
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: bit of energy. And if we think about that, ten
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: amps for an hour is ten amp hours, that's right.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: How long do you want to have your style income?
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: And if you leave it on overnight, which a lot
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: of times people will do or they'll forget, forget, you
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: could wake up in the morning and you're down thirty
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: forty percent.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well left ten your battery ten amps. Yeah, Tom's
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: ten hours. That's one hundred amp hours. Yeah, that's right,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: and you're done. You could only have one hundred amp
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: out battery and you're fully flat the next morning. No
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: one wants to wake up to that.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: No, exactly, and then you're trying to now get out
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: solar or you're trying to run the vehicle to get
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the alternator provide.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a battery.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I did with the starlink
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: that I own is converted to twelve vaults, so that
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: pulls it down to like that three and a half
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: amp or six. Yeah, well even three and a half
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: amps is what I'm getting out of it because you
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: don't have that the conversion of the front of the
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: parasitic loss both directions, so it really it really does
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: help with that. So you normally like to look at
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: it sounds like you like to look at a lithium
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: ion house battery around one hundred half hour capacity for most.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Travelers, yes, yeah, yeah.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: So if we think about a refrigerator, like a twelve
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: volt fridge, and let's say that twelve volt fridge is
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: drawing on average, say three amps. If I was drawing
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: three amps constantly for an hour and I never turned off,
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: that would be three amp hours consumed. If I ran
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: three amps for say twenty four hours, essentially, what's that
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: seventy two airb hours. Yeah, but fridge is their stay
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: on all the time. They stuck well, not off. So
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: if you're refrigerator recycling on and off, let's say fifty
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: percent of the time, because we haven't got it on
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: freeze as a refrigerator sure. Let's say we have it,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: it's drawing fifty percent, so that's thirty six amp hours.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: That's so if that fridge was running off that battery
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: constantly over over twenty four hour period without any other
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: charging sources supplementing the energy consumed, that could be say
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: thirty six to forty amp hounds.
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: We're almost at that fifty percent consumed.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: Right, How important is solar to be topping you up
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: whilst you're camping during the day.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: One of the solar panels that I really like, and
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: it's actually the one that I used in Africa, is
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: actually the same one that you guys sell. It's a
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: foldable solar panel and it comes you know, it comes
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: out about you know, I don't know what it is
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: in centimeters, but probably about eighteen inches square, and it
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: slides into a bag, and it's small enough that I
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: was actually able to carry it on the plane with
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: it well, I didn't think it would go well through
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the check bags, or if it would even arrive at all,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: you know, sixteen hundred dollars solar pan you know. So,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: but the thing that I really like about that panel
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: is it's basically the same size of a windscreen so
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: when I had it on on the grenadier and I
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: laid it flatting it or a seen with a seventy
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: series or very similar size to a windscreen, which puts
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: it a little bit at an angle.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: And if I remember, it was one hundred.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: And sixty wys okay yep, So does that sound right
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: like the one that you guys.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: There's one three hundred? Yeah?
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: And is that when you've got this one hundred emp
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: hour lifting on my own battery? What do you normally
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: recommend for the size of the solar panel for the system.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: So I'm really conservative in my calculations because the last
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: thing I want to do is mix up in a
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: customer's expectations versus their capability. Be really careful, So I
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: generally suggest to customers, we've got the ability to produce
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: five amps of charge per hundred bots of solar.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Ah, sure, so mixed conditions.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: To dial that down even more.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: It's for for every want of energy solar energy, we
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: can generate zero point zero five amps of charging power. Sure,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: one hundred times zero point five is five amps?
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: Five amps of charging power from one hundred What solar panel?
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: If I've got a two hundred what salt panel. That
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: means I can generate ten amps.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: So now you're maybe running the fridge at fifty percent
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: duty cycle and you're also running your starlink for a
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: couple hours a day, and then you're still able to
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: charge your laptop and a couple other things. You're keeping
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the battery topped off. It sounds like you normally like
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: to have the solar panel for that kind of a setup,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: call it a one sixty or a two forty, somewhere
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: in that range. Unless you're running fridge and starlink in
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a bunch of other systems, then maybe you want to
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: go a little bit bigger.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: My rule is one fridge and some lad lights, one
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: hundred amp hours.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: And a minimum one twenty what panel.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: And if I'm expecting to be moving around during the day,
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: like during the day or traveling on an adventure, you
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: can't beat the DCDC charging capabilities that are in the
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: market today.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because you can. You can so quickly charge. Yeah,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: there are many different sizes, so that's good. So we've
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: talked about the battery. Look at the difference between AGM
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: and lithium. Are you really saving any money because you're
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: certainly saving weight and then and spice, yeah, and space exactly,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: and then which can be a factor on some of
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: these vehicles.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, spice is at a premium when.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Really and so is payload.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: So now we know we need to be in that
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: at least one hundred and twenty wants of solar sounds
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: like two forty is going to be pretty good if
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: you've got a couple systems running or you're banging on
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: that espresso maker too much.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: And then we want to be able to provide good
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: charging current while we're driving. And one of the things
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: that I found that's come onto the market in the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: last five years or so with some really good solutions
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: is you've got a DC DC charger, but it also
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: is your solar charge controller. Yeah, yeah, and help help
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: the listener know the difference between a standard solar charge
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: controller and an MPPT charge controller.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: So MPPT stands for maximum PowerPoint tracking. So what that
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: does is the maximum powerin tracking solar regulator gets the
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: most or the best voltage point of that solar power
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: or that solar voltage where it can subtract the most
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: amount of current. It's the maximum PowerPoint of that solar
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: array where we can get the most from that sole pannel.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: So we're maximizing the power that's available from your sol puannel.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: You know, again, because we're trying to look at what
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: are there some of the less expensive solutions. Do you
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: feel like people really need that or do you think
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: it's become common enough now that you really should probably
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: have it?
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Look what you're thought.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: Look, MPPT, it's great.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: It's the new buzzword around SOLO.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: We have people coming up to us all the time,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: always your solar regular PWM does just fine. Smaller systems,
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: I think it doesn't. The MPPT really comes into its
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: own when you're in the big household systems. The smaller
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: systems you probably would won't see a lot of difference
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: in the performance on a smaller overlanding applicat.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: I agree. However, if you've.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Got maximum pappoint tracking and vilable and it's in your system,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: you know you're going to use it because it is
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: the better system, well, the more efficient system.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Sure it's good for people to know that you don't
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: have to have it that it is. It can be
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: considered an upgrade or it can be considered not even necessary.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: The other thing, too, is you know, as these systems
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: become like, an MPPT in general is going to be
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: a larger charge controller than an integrated standard solar charge controller.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: So I think either one, either one works. Not Going
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: MPPT might save you a little bit of money, but
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: it certainly is something to be aware of if you're
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: trying to go with the smallest panel possible and get
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the most out of it, that's certainly something to consider.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: But I like the fact that a lot of these
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: DC to d C chargers are integrating solar too. I
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: think it makes it easier.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: For that a lot because you got one one point
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: one point of connection.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Let's let's have a look at like what solar is
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: going to give us compared to what d C d
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: C CHI it's going to give us. So, for example,
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: if I've got two hundred watts and I'm getting ten
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: amps from that two hundred whats in theory, what time
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: span of the day can I really get that ten amps?
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: And basically we rely on five hours of really good
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: charge throughout the day, right.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Because the sun isn't that long.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: Are we really following the sun when we've got the
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: panel flat on the roof of Grenadier possibly not right.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: So let's say we've got five hours to produce ten
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: amps we're going to produce we're going to replace fifty.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: Amp hours over five hours.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: However, if you get a cloudy day or you're parking
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: in the shade, sure you know you're not going to
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: be generating that power. And no matter how much somebody
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: says there's solar panels a shade tolerant, the part of
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: the equation is it's a solar panel. If it's not
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: in the sun, it's not giving you what your papers right.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: So with DC DC charging, we can give you maximum
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: charge power while you're driving. So we're a two hundred
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: what panel might take us five hours to replenish fifty
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: amp hours. If I've got a twenty five amp DC
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: DC charger and I'm driving for two hours, two times
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: twenty five, it's fifty hours. We've done two hours of driving.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: And when we're out exploring and overlanding, we're driving more
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: than two hours.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Sure, let's be honest.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: For sure, from campsite to campsite, we're out exploring. This
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: is what we're doing. So let's capture that energy what
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: we've got available to us now. So when we're back
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: at the campsite. We don't have to supply power for
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: twenty four hours.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: You have to worry about solar.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: We can rely on solar to maintain rather than trying
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: to recharge. Yeah, for sure, and then use all of
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: our creature comforts throughout the late afternoon, throughout the evening,
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: and then do the same again and repeat.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: No, that's really true. Absolutely. One of the things that
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I found with the DC to DC chargers is there's
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of different AMP capacities available. I've seen
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: five AMP, I've seen ten AMP, I've seen two twenty AM,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: fifty AMP, and of course up from there. I normally
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: find that if you're wanting to charge while the vehicle
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: is sitting, you're going to want to have a higher
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: capacity to DC to DC charger because if you if
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: you have let's say, one hundred amp hour DC charger
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: DC to DC charger or a fifty, you're going to
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: get a lot more charging done in a short amount
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: of idle time for the vehicle. So think about how
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: you use the DC to DC charger. There's downsides to it.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: So if you go from a twenty five to a fifty,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: it's more expensive, takes up more space, generates more heat.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: So figure out what kind of charging that you need.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: If you find that you you drive just about every day,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and you come and you drive for four or five,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: six seventy eight hours, you're probably going to be fine
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: with a twenty five amp unit. But if you if
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: you like to stay in camp and you want to
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: use your vehicle as alternator, like a portable generator, and
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: you want to try to pop off your battery with
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: thirty minutes or forty five minutes of idle time a day,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: then you're going to want a higher capacity unit to
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: give you more currentiod of time. Yeah, what are your
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: experiences around that?
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So we've also going to be careful what's the
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: battery manufacturer's recommendation for maximum charge current because that's really important.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: With the lithium, you know, we're a little bit more
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: relaxed with it because they can accept a lot faster charge.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that they can even more than a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: more more than ajm.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, So what you're gonna be careful of though,
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: is do we necessarily.
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: Want to be fast charging our batteries all the time.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: You know, you get the old scenario where you got
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: your callers tool batteries, you know, and you whack.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Them on a fast charge all the time.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: The life expectancy of that battery is reduced because you're
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: pumping that charge back into it really quickly.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Now, let's checking on that because that's really interesting. So
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: with lithium, are you finding that you're tending to recommend
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: a little bit more of a measured approach around that,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: maybe fifty twenty five ams?
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so normally for a single battery, you know, I
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: recommend to customers normally the twenty five AM is plenty.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Like I said, one hundred AM hour I consume fifty
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: two hours drive. I've replenished, and it's not necessarily fast
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: charging all the time. I mean, now we've got a
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: battery now that can accept a maximum charge current of
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: one hundred and thirty five amps, you know, but I
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: don't necessarily want to be charging it with one hundred
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: and thirty five amps, not that I've probably got the
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: ability to.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Sure, as an alternator at IDLE, you'd be lucky if
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: you're getting half of the rated current.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Again, we don't want to go directly from an alternator.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: We've got to go through a DCDC charger. I guess
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: the size of your DCDC charger is relevant to your
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: battery capacity. So a rule that I use if you've
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: got a single battery, no matter whether it's an AGM
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: or a lithium, I normally suggest that twenty five am
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: charger is plenty on the AGM side, But if it's
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: a lithium, a single lithium twenty five amps is fine.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: But if the customer is using a lot more energy,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: maybe they up to the fifty Sure, because look, if
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: my battery can accept a maximum charge current of one
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: hundred and thirty five amps, fifty amps is going to
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: be way and the maximum and it'll, like you said,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: chi fast, it'll charge fast and it'll keep the battery
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: live for a long period of time.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: What are some what do you think is some key
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: considerations around d C two d C chargers. One of
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the things that I look for is vibration resistance. Not
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: all of them have good vibration resistance. I also tend
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: to look for units that either have good insulation or
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: potted and sealed, yes, particularly if it's going to be
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: installed underneath the hood.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: What are some other things or even let's talk.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: You could talk at length about what I just brought up,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: but what are some of the things that we want
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: to look.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: For in a DC to DC charger?
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: Okay, around features, well, fatures.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: For number one, you need to ensure that it's going
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: to be compatible with your vehicle. If you've got a
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: modern day vehicle, say MS sixteen plus, chances are it's
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: got some sort of smart or variable voltage ALT hydra Okay, Okay,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: tempt are coinciding. Having something that's compatible with the modern
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: day ALTA nighter is very important.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Another rule that.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: I use is, like you mentioned before, we have fifty
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: percent of our alternator capacity available to us for DC
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: DC charging circuits. As an example, if I've got a
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: toy to full drive that's got maybe one hundred series
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: using technology here and it's got one hundred and three
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: truck and fantastic truck, and it's got one hundred and
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: twenty amp alternator, I've only got sixty amps available to
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: me for DCDC charging. So in the in the case
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: of a good quality fifty amp DCDC charger, that's going
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: to draw a maximum draw maybe from the vehicle around
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: fifty to sixty amps, So you can draw one for
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: the truck.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Or let's say, what if.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: The customers these these consumers are also pulling a trailer
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: with a battery system in it. They've got to they've
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: got to keep that in mind. So they need two
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: BC or DCDC charging cercuits, right, so they.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: Need one for the truck and one for the trailer.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: So you can't you shouldn't be going putting two fifty
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: AMP systems in because that could be say one hundred
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: and ten to one hundred and twenty.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: AM and then you're not getting you're not leaving enough
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: ambridge available for the vehicle systems.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: To run the truck and to maintain that's fully charged up.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: That's right, So we've got to keep that in mind
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: No, that's that's really good feedback. What do you feel
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: is some of the things that have to be considered
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: for underhood mounting, Well.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: If it's if it's underhood mounting, it's got to be
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: heat tolerant, it's got to be tolerant to moisture, it's
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: going to be tolerant to vibration.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of abration.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: So Australia corridors, it's terrible and you know, you've got
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: to have some sort of you know, your electronics have
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: to be encapsulated in some sort of silicon or some
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: sort of podding mixture to ensure that it's going to
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: be able to handle that. Getting the charger out of
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: the heat of the engine bay as well as much
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: as these charging systems can handle heat, getting them out
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: of the engine bay, maybe mounting up forward of the
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: radiator but behind the grill to allow for some airflow.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: That's clever.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: I mean these things. Most these things are, or some
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: of them are water resistance or as a waterproof getting
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: it out of the heat of the engine bay, but
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: also not going too far away from the.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: From where the auxiliary battery is.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Remember, we might be able to overcome voltage drop on
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: the input, but once the charge leaves the charger, we
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: have no control.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: So we want to ensure that the charging system or
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: the DC DC charging system, no matter what brand it is,
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: needs to be positioned close by the auxiliary batteries that
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: you intend to charge.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Because you're putting out so many amps a really long
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: run of cable, you could have a significant voltage drop,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: and that's where it's important to make sure that you're
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: going with the correct gauge of wirings to make sure
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: that you're minimizing the voltage drop, the quality of the
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: wiring that you use, the number of strands or within
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the wire, all of those things that the quality of
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: the insulation, all of that will contribute to a better result.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: And the fusing.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about this important because people burn trucks down
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: all the time, all the.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: Time, and I've seen some terrible, terrible practices.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's that's really important. That's a great idea.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about how we properly fe fuse a d
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: C to d C charger.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: To give you an example, what I've seen a lot
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: of is whether the DC DC charger is positioned. People
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: place a fuse right at the charger. So the distance
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: of the cable running from the power source, which is
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: in this case the start battery to the d C
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: d C charger, there is no fuse between the positive
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: of that start battery to that fuseholder. So placing the
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: fuse close to the d C DC charger means that
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: you've got protection from the fuse to the charger. And
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: you know, we might be talking six inches. That's max
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: whereas on the other side we might have five feet
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: of cable. So whenever you're doing an installation, you've got
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: to place the fuse protection close by the power source.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Power source is not the DC DC charger, it's the
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: start battery by alternative power. So we place the fuse
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: close by the start battery.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: And then once it comes out of the DC to
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: d C charger. Depending on the manufacturer, they may have
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: internal fusing, they may have fusing integrated with the DC
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: to d C charger, or you may need to place
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the fuse at the output of the DC to DC charger.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: It's got to go close by the auxiliary battery because
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: the fusing is there to protect the wiring, not necessarily
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: the charger.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: In the case of like our products, i'd like to
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: do it on both ends.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one coast by the start battery and one close
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: by the by the auxiliary battery. Because with most products,
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: or you'd hope most products, the products are current limited
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: in themselves anyway, so they have that protection and built.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: That's right, So you put one close by the where
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: the power sources are, because without the batteries, that charge
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: is not doing anything. Sure, it's got no energy in it.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: So the fuse needs to be close by H battery.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: So I would normally when I would do an installation,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: so I would put the fuse at the starting battery
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: to make sure that that protection of that length of
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: cable is protected. Then I would put one at the
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: auxiliary battery from the output of the d C to
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: d C. But I would also typically put a fuse
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: right at the d C to d C charger, because
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: if I have found that if you had a small arc,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: or if you had if you it was just barely
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: kind of clicking on and off, that you could actually
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: I have had some damage done. Now maybe your maybe
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: your units are protected against protecting stuff. So yeah, So
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: and the reason why I say that is I've gone
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: with a bunch of different types of systems, and some
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: of the dual battery systems that I've used have been
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: the traditional starter solenoid style, and those don't know that
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: something has arked off in between the ten whereas like,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: for example, your d C to d C is going
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: to have that intelligent control. If you're going with a
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: mechanical battery combiner or if you're using a dual battery
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: system that many of them use like a starter solenoid style.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: You may also need to fuse at the dual battery system.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's the rule that I've used all throughout
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: my years thirty five years in the industry. Is placing
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: the fuse close by the power source, which is the batteries,
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: is to protect the cabling from any shorts. Sure, the
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: product itself is going to take care of things. They're
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: current limited themselves anyway.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: And that's that makes a lot of sense, and that's
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: maybe it's another reason to consider these more advanced DC
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: to d C chargers over the more traditional solenoid style
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: dual battery.
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: System Solenoids aren't a charger.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: There are mechanical switch that simply link batteries together.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: And you know, and how.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Often is our start battery identical to our auxiliary battery?
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: How they ever anymized right?
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: And and you know, whether it's a different brand, different chemistry,
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: it's a different.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Capacity, different float voltage, just in a different location.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: So how does the ultimator know to send more charge
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: down to that auxiliary battery in the back of your
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: tacoma rather than the star battery at the front.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: It doesn't know.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: So the electricity takes the path of less resistance.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Just like water does.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: Right the battery that's the furthest away is going to
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: get the least amount of charger and that's where dc
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: DC charges come into their own.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: They have the ability to boost.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: To multiply that energy coming in and provide the battery
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: with the energy that they need to get charged the fastest.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: That that's great insight.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: That's something that I wasn't aware of, So thank you
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: for sharing that, because now I have a better understanding
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: of why the DCDC is even more superior to a
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: traditional soloid. Definitely, ah and a special thanks to Real
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Truck for their support of this week's podcast, Find Your
• 34:57
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• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Now, that's really that's really helpful.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: And a lot of them, not all DC to DC chargers,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: but a lot of them do integrate solar as well. Yeah,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: what are some of the features that you believe are
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: important in a DC to d C charger that also
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: includes solar.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: What are you looking for on that?
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: Well, I want an inbuilt stop bettery Arslada, Okay, I'll
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: want some sort of algorithm there to protect my stuff
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: battery from over discharge, because when I turn the truck off,
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: I don't want that DC DC charger continuing to draw
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: power from from a start battery. And so it's got
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: to do that. But it's got to be smart enough
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: to know that when I'm driving down the road that
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: the vehicle is still and the alternator reduces its voltage output.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: I don't want the DC DC charge it to all
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: of a sudden turn off because the truck's turned off.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: You need to have a smart charging system.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: So it's really important that you know you can allow
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: for every type of alternator or charging system, whether it's
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: standard or some sort of smart alternator. You know, having
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: a solar input as well as the DC DC charging
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: is simply you know, two things in two matches made
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: in heaven. When we're overlanding, we don't necessarily necessarily have
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: the ability to plug in the show power, but we
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: certainly have power from our vehicle and a solar panel.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: So these are two really important features.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: And size of the unit and the physical size the
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: space in which it takes up. I mean, you know,
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: we have a twenty five amp charger and a fifty
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: amp charger which are identical size. Yeah, it doesn't take
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: up any more space to get you more power.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. So if somebody needed to upgrade, they
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: could just swipe out the unit in the same mounting location.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: They we need to change the diameter the wires.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, listen, if you need more, you can parallel. Some
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: of these systems allow you to parallel them together to
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: give you more. Interesting so then you could get up
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: to one hundred in or something like that.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe you had a big battery array, are you, Sunds, Yeah,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: like exactly like this trailer that went right now exactly?
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: So are you finding that people are going with larger
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and larger house batteries and they need that kind of
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: compatcion absolutely.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because they want more and more creature comforts of home.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: They want air conditioning systems, they want inductive cook tops,
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: they want coffee machines, and you know, maybe maybe this
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: is a good example for us to talk about coffee machines.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: What's it going to take coffee? That's a great example.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: Let's do that.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, So let's say your coffee machine draws fifteen
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: hundred watts. So, using Ome's law, which is what's divided
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: by vaults equals current fifteen hundred, what's divided by twelve
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: is one hundred and twenty five amps. So to run
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: that coffee machine at fifteen hundred watts, it's one hundred
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: and twenty five amps from my battery. If that coffee
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: machine was left on making coffees for an hour, that's
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty five amp hours.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: That's a lot of energy.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: We're not making coffee for an hour.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: Now, we're making cop We're making coffee for like ten minutes.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Normally it's it's typically it's two cups of coffee in
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: the morning for yourself and your partner. Okay, so let's
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: think about that. So let's take one hundred and twenty
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: five amp hours, which is an hour. Let's divide it
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: by minutes sixty minutes, so roughly that's two point zero
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: eight ant hours per minute. Let's call it two ant
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: hours per minute. Ten minutes times two am hours is
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: twenty amp hours. So I've just consumed twenty amp hours
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: from one hundred amp hour battery to make two cups
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: of coffee.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Ye, and if you like a bunch of cup of
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: cups of coffee in the morning, you're going to go.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: Through some energy, yes sir, yeah.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: And the same thing applies for like a blow dryer.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Obviously a blow dryer isn't going to be used in
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: my case, but they can be fifteen hundred wats.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they're a heating element. Anything with the heating
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: element is a lot. So using our math just before,
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: if my wife wants to use the hair dryer and
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: there's fifteen hundred wats, she wants to blow dry her
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: hair for ten minutes, there's twenty emp hours gone.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Well, and that's fifteen hundred watts at
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: North American standards has at one hundred and twenty volts,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: So you're going through an inverter. Yeah, so it's actually
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: significantly more possibly.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Interesting. Interesting, Yeah, because you get the parasitic loss.
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: Inverteds one hundred percent efficient.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: So another rule I go by is to allow for
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: some losses in the equation. Rather than dividing by twelve,
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: let's divide by ten. It's a lot easier for us
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: to calculate to divide by ten one hundred and fifty.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: That's one hundred and fifty in And that's right.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: You can burn through a lot. You can burn through
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: a lot. But it helps when we do those calculations.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: It helps us be mindful of how we start stacking
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: them on top of each other. Yeah, so maybe you
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: do certain things and like maybe you use the starlink
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: in the afternoon and you use the coffeemaker in the morning.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: You get some solar charge during the day, and then
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: you fire up the starlink to do a little bit
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: of work for a couple hours in the afternoon.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Definitely, definitely.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: And microwaves, Yeah, mikwave ovece.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: Micwave ovens are sold in the cooking power capacity.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This classic example. Customer will come to me and say,
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: I want to run a microwave. Howe the microwaves nine hundred.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: What's oh okay, So you need a two thousand one inventor.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: No I don't.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: I only need a thousand what inverter. That'll be plenty, sir.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: I need you to go to your microwave and have
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: a look at that tag on the back.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: So the general rule of thumb I go by is
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: w cooking power will give you the what it'ge required
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: to run the.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Microwave, and that would need to be your continuous power
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: in your inverter. So inverters will normally have two specifications.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: They'll have like a startup or a momentary, and then
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: they'll have a running like.
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: A constant and a surge capacity.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can talk about inverters here a little bit,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: because I think we got a good understanding of a
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: basic system.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: That most people need.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: But the reality is is that there are a lot
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: of things that we use that require an inverter.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, what do you like to look for for.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Using that same example, you know somebody in a in
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: a land cruiser wagon with that system, what kind of
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: an inverter would you recommend?
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: Well, you go start with. It must be a pure
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: song wife exactly the cheaper inverters out there are what
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: they call the modern.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Flats on wife. It's like a it's like a dirty power.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: A pure song wave will replicate the energy that you
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: get out of the wall of your home. So it's
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: it's how, uh, the AC accessory that you want to power,
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: it was how the manufacturer intended to be powered using
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: a pure songway do that?
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: And if I understand it and this maybe you could
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: expand on this a little bit. It's the problem comes
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: that you're going you're bringing in DC power and you're
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: converting it and inverting it to AC power, and that's
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: how you get these irregular sine waves that can do
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: some damage to sensitive electronics.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: So look, there's some there's some battery charges that won't
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: work on a modern flight song wave, or there are
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: some lot of power packs for computers. Sure that when
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: they run on a modflight songwave they get really hot,
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: they do, I've noticed that. But when you plug them
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: into a PUI somewhat they run quite cool.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: Sure, So it's I liken it to to running down
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: the street and only being able to breathe through a snow.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: Or straw or straw, you can do it.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: But you're gonna get really hot and we're out premature.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: But if you take that straw away and you've got
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: all this clean air, you're going to be able to
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: run for miles.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: Do you speak for yourself?
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: One time, I remember I plugged in my MacBook into
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: one of those cheap inverters, and I actually felt the
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: MacBook was like, I mean, it was like it was
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: buzzing all it had this really weird and it wasn't
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: getting electric uted, but it had a really weird kind
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: of resonance in the case something wasn't right.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: No, it's a dirty power.
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: So you've got to make sure it's a pure song wave.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: You've got to make sure that if you've got a
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: fifteen hundred what coffee machine, you don't go for a
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: fifteen hundred what.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Inverter, you know, so probably at least two thousand.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: Two thousand, you've got to give yourself a bit of
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: head room because these coffee machines, as you know, as
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: the manufacturer might say that it's a fifteen hundred what
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: power consumption, that's probably a temperature you know, like and
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: I'll use Celsius here forgive me. So you know, the
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: manufacturer lot with batteries through.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not advocating for fair and hate at all. No
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: eelsius makes so much zero is freezing, one hundred is boiling.
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: It makes so much sense.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: I don't even understand how farenheit works.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: As an example, battery manufacturers will specify their current capacity
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: or their current rating on the input, say for charging
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: at twenty five degrees celsius. Sure, when a manufacturer will
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: give you their current consumption for their device, it's likely
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: to be at twenty five C. That's quite comfortable. But
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: when we're out overlanding and we're getting into maybe through
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: Arizona or into some of the through Utah or some
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: of the hotder environments, maybe through Texas or something similar,
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: the product's likely going to draw a little bit more Sure,
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: So you've got to give yourself a little bit of headroom.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: It's like when we put a fuse in the circuit,
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: the rating of the system.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: It might be a fifty amp charger. Yeah, we don't
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: go putting in a fifty a fuse.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: No, we put in like a sixty am fusure. We're
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: going to give ourselves a bit of headron.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: And I've also noticed in installations that people will put
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: inverters in these really small enclosures, and that's in my experience,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: that's a bad.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: It is because they have fans.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Many of the larger ones will have fans on them.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: They're trying to get some airflow. So it's not a
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: good idea to shove your inverter in a box or
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: in a drawer or in some Yeah, you want to
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: give it some airflow.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: You know, when these things are working hard, they're going
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: to create a lot of a lot of hate into.
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: Conversion to give you the power that you need.
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: So well ventilated and just allow a clean flow, a
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: cool aad to run across it, that's really important.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's pivot the conversational of this has
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: been hugely informative. Let's pivot the conversation a little bit
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: to best practices around installation, types of wire, quality of components,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: things that you've seen in your thirty five years of
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: a career in this world where.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: You see people making mistakes and when you see people
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: making things done right. So talk us through installation, quality
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: of installation. Sure, some best practices.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: Okay, One of the most common thing I see in
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: particular in the US is consumers are using circuit breakers
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: for battery charging circuits. Circuit breakers, no matter how good
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: the quality is, they are a high resistant connection. They're
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: a bimetal strip. When they get too hot, they open circuit.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: So for DC DC charging circuit with the constant current
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: associated with these DC DC charging circuits, circuit breakers aren't
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: necessarily I guess compatible with those type of circuits. And
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: they get really hot. There's a lot of losses in them,
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: and they can cause and or burn out prematurely or
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: cause lack of energy to get to the source we
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: get to the Yeah.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: So you'll use a glass fuse or no, no, what
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: will you use?
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: I recommend a low resistant fuse that has a really
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: good fuse holder so we cinch down, we can bolt
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: it down, something that you can bolt down, like a
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: MIDI fuse M I d I or a megafuse M
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: E G A. Right, they're they're recommended fuses for d
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: C d C charging circuits. Depending on the size of
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: the circuit will depend on the type and or the
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: size of the fuse. But these are the type of
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: fuses that we get to bolt into a fuseholder, bolt
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: on your cable and tighten it down nice and tight, so.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Then you're not getting any interruption in that circuit. You're
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: not high vibration, No, it's not going anywhere. A little
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: dab of you know, anti ces on their moisture vibration,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. I can't stay the same for some
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: of these SECA brakes. Well, and that's so interesting that
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: you see that, because you'll even see you know, installers
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: that are considered of high quality and they'll use a
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: lot of circuit breakers.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Probably because it's cheap and it solves a couple of problems.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh, I can just disconnect the circuit real quick.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: You can still do that with a fuse. It's just
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: going to take you another thirty seconds. Yeah, with your
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Alan wrench, and yes, you remove the fuse if you
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: need to isolate the circuit. That's really great feedback. Now,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: what what do you find that you like for because
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: this is something that I am asking you the question
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: around what do you like for battery terminals? There are
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: there any brands that you like? Are there any types
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: of battery terminals that you find are great? Because I've
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: seen a thousand different options.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: Now with the you know, with a number of these
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: battery auxiliary battery systems that come out to the market.
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: They allow you a couple of different methods to attach cable.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: So if you're going to use the regular clamp stall
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: battery tuntal where you have the tone for the clamp
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: over and you.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Do it, I'm most and taught.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: On the other side, the settlement top battery totals aren't
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: necessarily the best to go because there's a lot just
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: clamping down, not too dislimmat like a blade top fuse. Sure, well,
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: you know that's another top of fuse. Sometimes I'll see
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: in DC charging circuit, which isn't a good idea because
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: you know, we push that fuse into that holder and
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: it's it's essentially a sprung like a sprung connection. So
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: with all that current passing through it, the metal heats
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: up and the metal expands. The more it heats up,
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: the more it expands, the more resistance that creates, and
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden you've melted the fuse. You haven't
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: blown the fuse, you've just melted it and then that's
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: gone open circuit. So a fuse and a fuse holder
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: that offers the least amount of resistance and then it
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: comes on the cabling.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: Cabling is important.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: So the smaller the cable that we applied to the circuit,
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: the harder the product's work to operate.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Well, it's like pushing water through a small diameter hosing
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: in your garden. You know, you're just not going to
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: get a lot flow with.
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: The DC DC charges. They're going to pull that power through,
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: so they're going to cause a lot of heat in
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: that cabling. So the sizing of your cabling is really important,
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: so look to the manufacturer to their recommend I used
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: to write an article for a magazine in Australia and
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: I used to talk about, you know, losses on cabling
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: and sure, and I gave examples on the different sides
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: of the cable versus the length.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: Sure, because the longer the length, the bigger the cable
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: we got to go.
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: You know, it's it's really important for the d DC
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: charges go to the biggest cabley you can get because
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: that's going to offer you that I.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Mean, big cabin is always good, you know.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: And also just like taking the time to be mindful
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: about your installation. You see in a lot of people's
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: vehicles they start off with one system and then they
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: add this other thing, and then they add solar, and
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: then they add their coffee maker, and then they add
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: s pod, and they add they add all these different
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: things on top of it, and it looks like a
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: spaghetti mess just waiting for a fire. Every time that
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: you you go to start a system, think about all
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: the things you may want to add in the future
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: and make sure that you're set up to be able
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: to integrate those. And that means like going with the
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: right kind of holders, Go with the fuse holders that
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: maybe have a couple open positions.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: For the future.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: For you to kind of future proof your installations, keeping
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: the lot the wiring away from moving components in the
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: engine bay and away from heat from the exhaust, because
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: the installation will get hot, it'll get cracked and brittle,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: it'll get hard, and.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: Then it can split. Any number of things can happen.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen electrical cables fall into pulleys and
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: get you know, the pulley goes through next all that stuff. Yeah, yeah,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: and those things can happen. So that's really good feedback
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: around the quality of the cabling as well.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: The time and money spent on the installation will prove
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: paramount to product longevity and performance. So you don't want
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: to be that guy who's a week into his trip,
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: one hundreds of miles away from home and then having
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: problems thinking oh, maybe I shouldn't they use that blood fuseholder,
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: or that it's a circuit breaker because now I'm having trouble.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: Spend a little bit more money, spend a little bit
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: more time on doing the job properly or having the
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: job done probably sure profession you know, because that's going
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: to prove so much more successful when you're down the
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: road and you're having trouble free ivy landing.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: And what I would recommend if you have an installer,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: do these systems, which there's nothing wrong with it. I
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: think it's a good idea. Make sure that when you
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: sit down with the installer, you say I'm going to
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: pay you for the time that it takes for you
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: to draw a schematic of what you're installing, so that
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: way when I pick the vehicle up, I have the
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: schematic of what you've done. And then I'm also going
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: to pay you the time necessary to label each one
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: of the circuits at both ends of the cable, so
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: that way you know that this wire is the one
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: that goes to the DC charger, not the one that
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: goes to the dual air compressor. Otherwise, how do you know?
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: So when you have that stuff installed, put the expectation
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: you need to pay your installer fairly. But say I'm
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: going to use this vehicle on a long trip. It's
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: really important that I'm able to service it myself or
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: have someone else service it. So I need you to
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: label all the wires, and I need a complete schematic
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: of what you've done.
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: And carry space.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, carry and spare.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Fuses and some spare length the wire and connections.
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: And it's also important equip yourself with some basic utensils,
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: some basic tools, a test line or an inexpensive multimeter,
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: because if you phone up tech support, let's say for
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: the company that I work for, and you phone our.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: Guys or myself, you know I'm going to want to know.
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: I want you to do some checking for us, right
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: so I can help you get out of trouble. So
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: if you're equipped with.
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: Some basic tools, uh, you know, you could save yourself
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: a lot of money.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: You absolutely could. I also wanted to take a brief
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: moment to thank all of you for listening to the
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Ovalandural podcast. By listening to this podcast and subscribing to
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: the Overland Dural magazine, you're supporting our employee own and
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: veteran owned business. Impartial reviews and in depth content like
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: this would not be possible without your support. If you
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: enjoy the podcast, I think you'd really love the print
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: magazine as well. And one percent of that subscription price
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: goes back into creating the content like you're listening to
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: right now. And as a special thank you for your loyalty,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: we're giving twenty percent off any subscription and that even
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: includes our special lifetime subscription which includes numerous lifetime only benefits.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: You can go to Overland Journal dot com and use
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: the Code Overland podcast at checkout. Again, that's Code Overland
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Podcast at checkout, and that'll give you twenty percent off.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: I sincerely appreciate your support.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Mark. This has been a fantastic conversation. Thanks.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: You have a great reputation in the industry. We intentionally
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: didn't talk much about the company that you work for,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: being red Arc. Red Arc is a highly respected organization.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: The fact that they have someone like you on staff
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: speaks to their intention around quality. There's lots of great
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: other companies on the market too, so we're not at
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: all says that red Arc is an end of one.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: But you spending the time with us today sharing your
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: knowledge around electrical systems. I have to say that in
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: my experience, the most common failure of an overland vehicle
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: is a flat The second most common failure of an
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: overland vehicle is the electrical systems, and that's usually because
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: they're poorly installed. So people they're frustrated because their food
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: is getting hot and their fridge isn't working or something
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: they smell electrical current burning in the vehicle. This can
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: be very unsettling for people. So we've talked a lot
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: about best practice in this podcast, the foundation of a
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: great electrical system and you guys, if I remember you
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: guys also have good information on your website as well,
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: So there's some really good educational resources available on red
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: ARC the red Arc website that you can find out
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: more information about how to set these systems up longerally.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: Definitely. Yeah, Well, Mark Bruce, thank you.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: So much, Thanks Ti Man, push that really everybody, and
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: thank you all for listening, and we'll talk to you
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: next time.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: Thank you.