2018 ai gt

[carpenc]

Thanks Protaganist. I’m not offended just irritated. The AI manual is awful for people like me who have NO experience . For the most part it just tells you to read the individual parts pamphlets!
So how many hours should I be able to boondock with the frig on if the batteries are already fully charged and every day is sunny?

[wachuko]

I have mine parked outside in the driveway while I finish all the stuff that I am doing to it... this week (well, starting yesterday) I left it unplugged to see what the batteries look like at the end of the week...

• I turn off the coach using the red switch in the panel. This, and you will see it from the photos attached, I was not consistent with (going in, turning the switch on to turn the lights, etc.)... give me another week and I will share what the graph looks like with red switch turned off all week.
• I turn off the fridge by the process described in the manual which is the same mentioned previously
• I make sure the propane valve switch is off (outside where the black cover is). I still have not done the install of a switch to control this from the inside)
• I make sure that the Fusion/Radio is off. I still have not done the install of switches to turn off both power sources to the unit. This needs to be done every time you turn on the Red switch as that head unit seems to have a mind of its own... once the switches are in place it will be isolated until those are turned on...
• I turn off the option on the driver area lights to not turn on when I open the door. I am not sure if these eventually turn off, but found that when opening the doors or unlocking the AI, these stayed on long... again, did not wait enough to see if they went out and just switched off that option.
• Because I added a power center in the rear (for the ARB cooler)... I make sure that one is also off.

Some observations (keep in mind that I changed the solar controller for a Victron unit and that I added two additional batteries to my AI...):

• Solar has been keeping all 5 batteries fully charged.
• I still need to measure how much the batteries are discharging overnight... have not been documenting this. Will start today to see if I have any other source draining the batteries and by how much.

I too have this concern as I need to move the AI to a storage facility. Unfortunately, in my case, is an outside facility with no power outlet (so basically just a parking spot)... so I need to make sure Solar is working as expected.

Edit: Forgot to attach the photos... now attached. Nothing much to say about those because, as mentioned, started doing this yesterday and the AI has been all over in terms of that red switch... I will share one week worth of being outside with everything off to show that that looks like.

Got to say, love the Victron solar controller and its capabilities to keep this history and ability to access it.

[FlyFishinRVr]

Originally Posted by carpenc

So how many hours should I be able to boondock with the frig on if the batteries are already fully charged and every day is sunny?

That's highly dependent on the outside (and therefore inside) temp. With the compressor running, it will draw 2.2A. You have 80Ahrs of "full" capacity (2x 80Ahr batteries in parallel, usable to 50%). The propane switch will pull about 1A/hr. Not sure if you have anything else on, but honestly if you are sitting in a storage lot, the Main Disconnect should be OFF (i.e. all power cut off from the batteries to "house" loads). Anyway, with the fridge/freezer running and the propane switch on, you are pulling, potentially, 3A+/hr just from those two loads. The math on that says you'll get no more than about 24hrs.

What will change that while boondocking is the solar, generator, and engine, and that's all highly variable. Assuming you park in the full sun, with 300W of solar you'll get a max of about 15A/hr during peak sunshine (roughly 4hrs centered at solar noon). Over the course of a day, you may harvest anywhere from 50A in the winter to over 75A in the summer. If you want to run the generator, you'll get 20A/hr, some of which will be consumed by loads. I don't know that I've ever seen numbers on exactly how much you'll get from running the diesel engine, but given the alternator is a beast at 220A, it could fill your batteries in just a couple hours (it's current limited by the BIM, so don't expect miracles).

All that to say it's basically impossible to tell you how long you can boondock. IMO, with full propane and full diesel, you should be able to go for weeks (just be aware MB doesn't recommend idling the diesel longer than 30 minutes, so you'd need a few sessions of 30 minute idling of the engine to fully recharge the house batts). If you only want to maintain your batteries via solar, then it's totally dependent on 1) how much energy you use and 2) how much sun you harvest. Could you go indefinitely? Of course! The solar can keep up with the fridge assuming ideal conditions (full sun for max hours), and would be even better able to do so if you replace the solar charge controller with a MPPT controller (many threads on that). Even with the compressor on 50% of the time (unlikely unless you're in a very hot environment and are foolish about how you use it), you'll consume about 25A in 24hrs. The solar can certainly keep up with that assuming max sun (i.e. sunny each day and parked in full sun for max solar harvest).

In general, I think the AI gets a bad rap for being "bad" at boondocking, and I think it's just because people either don't know how to use the systems that are available, or have totally unrealistic expectations of what the various components can accomplish (or flat refuse to the use things like the genset or idle the engine). I ONLY boondock in my AI, and I have no issue pulling into a BLM or wild camping spot for the evening, using the coach as I normally would (lights, water pump, fridge, propane, charge phones, etc, both in the evening and again the next morning), then pull out and move to the next destination without needing to run the genset, and I still have 60% battery when I pull out in the morning. If I'm going to stay in one spot for more than a day, then I'll run the generator to charge the batteries back up, although I typically drive during the day though, even if I'm coming back to the same campsite, and that fully charges my batteries so I rarely need my generator.

I know others are going to come in here and poo poo the AI wrt boondocking. All I can tell you is I've done it, for over a week at a time, and it works just fine. Anyone can complain about anything, but the fact is it works if you know how to use it.

[wachuko]

^^ that is the math that I need to do!

[FlyFishinRVr]

Originally Posted by wachuko

Got to say, love the Victron solar controller and its capabilities to keep this history and ability to access it.

Hopefully this isn't too far off track, but.....

Looking at your screen shots, do you just have a single solar panel, or is there something you haven't done yet to configure your Victron? I see a max over 5 days of 124W, so unless you've had 5 days of cloudy weather, something doesn't look right.....

[wachuko]

Originally Posted by FlyFishinRVr

Hopefully this isn't too far off track, but.....

Looking at your screen shots, do you just have a single solar panel, or is there something you haven't done yet to configure your Victron? I see a max over 5 days of 124W, so unless you've had 5 days of cloudy weather, something doesn't look right.....

What should I be seeing?

Defaults settings on the Victron as I did not see those needing change
3 Panels (96 cells)... and going to 4 (128 cells)
Battery type set to 2 (Default) - description shows this is correct for AGM batteries


And yes, it has been cold and cloudy for the last week or so...

I did notice something that I attributed to full batteries and smart solar controller... but now that you call this out, may there is something wrong???

When batteries are fully charge, the watts displayed go very low... as if the solar controller goes to sleep... if I open the door, turn on the red switch, etc... anything that puts a load on the system, then the watts meter starts to climb...

[FlyFishinRVr]

Originally Posted by wachuko

What should I be seeing?

Defaults settings on the Victron as I did not see those needing change
3 Panels (96 cells)... and going to 4 (128 cells)
Battery type set to 2 (Default) - description shows this is correct for AGM batteries


And yes, it has been cold and cloudy for the last week or so...

When batteries are fully charge, the watts displayed go very low... as if the solar controller goes to sleep... if I open the door, turn on the red switch, etc... anything that puts a load on the system, then the watts meter starts to climb...

OK, the cloudy conditions may be causing it. With 3 x 100W panels, I would expect to see a Pmax somewhere between 200-300W, but was only seeing 124W.

Now, stop showing the fancy output from the Victron or you're going to cost me money.....

P.S. I see you edited your post while I was replying. Your controller is likely doing what mine does and is going into "monitor" mode. Basically if there's nowhere for the current to go, it shuts down and watches the batteries for a load. Once it sees one, it wakes up and starts running through its algorithms to decide what to do next (Bulk, Absorb, or Float).

[AI927]

In regards to the current draw of refrigerator my 2018 G nameplate shows 5.6 amps

[AI927]

I hit a wrong button somewhere. To finish my thought I don't expect the refrigerator to draw the full rated current of 5.6 amps. Also keep in mind the GT has a separate compressor for the freezer. It is rated at 5.6 amps also.

[FlyFishinRVr]

Originally Posted by AI927

I hit a wrong button somewhere. To finish my thought I don't expect the refrigerator to draw the full rated current of 5.6 amps. Also keep in mind the GT has a separate compressor for the freezer. It is rated at 5.6 amps also.

Good point. I didn't catch that the OP had the GT (even though the title of the post says "ai gt"....DOH!).

Doesn't the GT have the NovaKool 7300 which has a drawer freezer below the fridge? If so, the NovaKool website shows 3.5A per compressor (running), which would be 7.0A total. That would flatten the house batteries in about 11-12hrs. That should still last over night, and that's assuming the compressors are running 100% of the time (unlikely). Even in warm climates, I notice the compressor kicks on my smaller unit about every 30 minutes, runs for a few minutes, then shuts off.

Regardless, I think the fridge/freezer should run overnight on a full battery charge just fine, but with the higher draw of the GT fridge/freezer over the Lounge, the solar alone likely won't be enough to keep it going. It would be interesting if someone with the newer GT could do an experiment to see just how long the 300W of solar could keep up in full sun. With enough sun and a short enough duty cycle on the compressors, it's feasible that it would last indefinitely, but I think that's unlikely. Some quick math shows it would have to consume < 4A/hr on avg (total for the whole unit) to even give the solar a chance to keep up.....

[AI927]

Yes, 7300 refrigerator freezer. Just rechecked nameplate and it does state 5.6 amps each at 12 volts or 2.8 amps at 24 volts.

I could do a test here but it is right at freezing here so it would not be much of a test.

[FlyFishinRVr]

Originally Posted by AI927

Yes, 7300 refrigerator freezer. Just rechecked nameplate and it does state 5.6 amps each at 12 volts or 2.8 amps at 24 volts.

Interesting. I wonder if that's a "max" number and the one that's listed on the NovaKool spec sheet is more of a "typical" number, meaning once the compressor is running vs. the initial current to get it going. If it's the latter (and I suspect it is), then we'd need to use the NovaKool spec sheet numbers to get an idea of how long these little beasts will run on the house batteries.

[RandyNH]

While I do not have a 7300, I have a 5810, it operates as per the NovaKool spec sheet, 4.4 amps. While it depends upon the environmental conditions, unless you are in an extreme location and open the door a lot, you should be able to plan on a 50% run rate, at 4.4amp mine has typically used 23AH during the over night and 320 watts of solar has no problem maintaining, although I do have an MPPT controller.

There is no noticable startup draw, they are nothing like an air conditioner, they are smoothly controlled and variable.

These are all just my experiences with my NovaKool

[AI927]

Just pulled up the spec sheet from Nova Kool again. I see the 3.5 amps per compressor. Months ago the 7300 was not in their spec sheet.

I do see that they state this is running amps and that the amps will change with ambient temperature and door opening. Maybe the new 3.5 amp spec is running the compressor at a slower speed. Per the manual the speed can be changed by changing a resistor.

I thought I read somewhere in this forum that the refrigerator would not cool enough so maybe they sped up some units and that is why my nameplate is 5.6 amps?

[carpenc]

TayaraTravel, having to turn the frig off defeats the purpose of having it on board in the first place. There must be another way!

[carpenc]

Thanks Pahaska.

[carpenc]

Thanks Wachuko. You have a great attitude and also skills . I have neither! I will be interested to see what you find over the week. I assume you will include outside temp and hours of sun?

[carpenc]

Thanks AI97

[FlyFishinRVr]

Originally Posted by AI927

I thought I read somewhere in this forum that the refrigerator would not cool enough so maybe they sped up some units and that is why my nameplate is 5.6 amps?

I think the forum posts about insufficient fridge/freezer cooling was for the small units in the Lounge.

@RandyNH - thanks for that info. 23Ah over night, assuming that means 8-10hrs, would be about a 50% duty cycle as you indicate. That's actually a bit high as my 3100 runs at about a 30% duty cycle (turns on for 10 min every 30 min), but that could be totally dependent on how high yours is set (I typically leave mine about half way....if I remember right that's around 4 out of 7).

So....with this info, assuming a 50% duty cycle on a 7300, you'd pull about 3.5A/hr total, but that number could be as high as 5.6A/hr at 50% or 11.2A/hr at 100%. That's quite a range, and means the OP really needs to experiment and determine how long his unit will run based on where and how he camps. I know that doesn't answer his question of "how long", but when you're dealing with a consumption range that large, it's really not possible to give a definitive answer.

P.S. With this new info on the GT fridge/freezer (well, not "new", just a revelation for dolts like me), I'll modify my stance on the AI as a boondocker and say that the Lounge is better suited to that use case vs. the GT, mainly due to the larger fridge/freezer in the GT. To turn the GT into a roughly equivalent performer vs. the Lounge, I think you'd need to double the usable battery capacity (160Ahr - so 320Ahr of AGM or 200Ahr of Lithium). In the AGM case, you could get there by adding 2 more 80Ahr, 12v Lifelines (easiest and cheapest solution), or switch to 4x 6v 220Ahr (and modify the storage trays because these WILL NOT FIT the existing trays) and get 220Ahr. To get similar capacity from a Lithium bank, the cost will be 2-3x (or more) vs. the AGM solution.....

[AI927]

Airstreaminc

Could you respond publicly if a 2018 Grand Tour can camp one night (12 hours) without shore power and still have over 50% battery charge? Please factor in the other various electric loads also such as a hour or two of TV, propane solenoid, electronic panels and a little lighting.

I had a Forest River product before this and they had a factory rep respond publicly on the forum. In fact he strongly discouraged private messages to him so that more people could learn.

Thanks for your consideration.