Adding AC

[alpine44]

Originally Posted by JDOnTheGo

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Oh... also... You lithium bank can be discharged to 15% SOC.

@crisfole
Go up to 100% when solar charging and you know you are going to use the battery soon. Like JD said, once it's full it's time to use it.

Keep the battery around 50% if the bus sits around idle for weeks/month. That's what most manufactures recommend for 'storage'.

Charge to 85%- 90% with the generator as the final charge to 100% takes a much longer time than the first half of the charge and you are just wasting diesel.

You see where the conservative 75% for the calculation came from.

[Doktari]

Great thread! That will be a very nice vehicle and energy system if you can pull it off.
One of my inverter/chargers is a older Victron Energy Multiplus and it has a great features called Powersave and Powerassist. The inverter will only use what it needs from the batteries to keep things running and the rest passes through from the generator or grid. It gives good flexibility to the system. I think most the other brands now offer “hybrid” inverter/chargers which have similar features . My older Outback FX2524 inverter/charger does not have it but the new Outback hybrid model does.
And the settings are adjustable with inverter/chargers. It takes a while to learn how to adjust everything but it’s worth it IMHO. I’m still learning. The “search mode” takes some playing around. It’s possible to get the idle power consumption down to 7 watts with the Victron if I remember clearly.
The powerassist feature enables me to get by fairly well running a small suitcase 1600 watt generator. The big motors on A/C units and air compressors start up great with a little boost from the battery.