Kathy & Bill
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2017
- Posts
- 98
We bought a new T.T. that fulfills our needs and most of our wants. It took going to many RV shows and countless hours searching floor plans online, but we are very happy with our Apex. It also has nice size tanks for dry camping which we like to do.
I would like to put together a DIY system for the electrical to enhance our dry camping experience. I would like to build it in two or three stages; batteries and battery monitor first; solar, charger and inverter or inverter/charger; then a generator. We will be retiring in a few years and want to have it set up for extended stays dry camping.
I'm planning on biting the bullet and go with the Battle-Born 100Ah 12V LiFePO4 batteries. I'd like have 400Ah total which will pretty much eat up the budget for the first stage. I was looking at the Victron BMV-712 Battery Monitor. Any advantage/disadvantage using this brand/model over another? Seems like the Tri-Metric TM-2030-RV is the other popular one.
The second stage would be the Solar system. My head starts spinning after a few hours of reading everything that goes a long with that. Good thing I still have some time to figure all that out. One thing that is nice about the Apex, it has some nice roof space for the solar panels.
What is the consensus of going with a separate inverter and charger, verses a inverter/charger combo?
Looking forward to upgrading small things on our camper to make it comfortable for us. We like camping at the federal campgrounds in Allegheny National Forest in PA. We like our space and always are looking for the secluded/out of the way campgrounds.
This is a great forum and have learned a lot reading different topics. Looking forward to hearing everyone's ideas related to my build.
I would like to put together a DIY system for the electrical to enhance our dry camping experience. I would like to build it in two or three stages; batteries and battery monitor first; solar, charger and inverter or inverter/charger; then a generator. We will be retiring in a few years and want to have it set up for extended stays dry camping.
I'm planning on biting the bullet and go with the Battle-Born 100Ah 12V LiFePO4 batteries. I'd like have 400Ah total which will pretty much eat up the budget for the first stage. I was looking at the Victron BMV-712 Battery Monitor. Any advantage/disadvantage using this brand/model over another? Seems like the Tri-Metric TM-2030-RV is the other popular one.
The second stage would be the Solar system. My head starts spinning after a few hours of reading everything that goes a long with that. Good thing I still have some time to figure all that out. One thing that is nice about the Apex, it has some nice roof space for the solar panels.
What is the consensus of going with a separate inverter and charger, verses a inverter/charger combo?
Looking forward to upgrading small things on our camper to make it comfortable for us. We like camping at the federal campgrounds in Allegheny National Forest in PA. We like our space and always are looking for the secluded/out of the way campgrounds.
This is a great forum and have learned a lot reading different topics. Looking forward to hearing everyone's ideas related to my build.