 If anyone thinks they're going to avoid having problems by doing the van life We're sadly mistaken So here's what's going on today This is my solar charge controller it basically Besides can you know kind of controlling the solar energy that comes into the system? It also gives me a reading of the voltage of the battery Long story short my batteries are shot Terrible news, right? I paid about $700 for one big battery The good news is I stopped last night in Eugene Only about 10 or 15 minutes away from AM solar. They've been super helpful this whole way. They actually gave me the panels I'm gonna swing by and they're gonna fix it for me. I'm gonna get two new batteries today It is gonna cost me a bit of money, but If I don't have power it can't make YouTube videos This is my battery it is now gonna be charged and possibly disposed of I let it get super low because on the The charge controller goes up to I don't know 14 and down to like 10 or something and the many times It's been in the 11 range So what did I do wrong by letting it go below 12.2? So basically the charger Charges at 14.4 absorption and 13 5 float the batteries the lowest it should ever go is 12.2 volts And what was going on is these batteries again drop below 12.2 regularly And you know jacks didn't know and any of that out yesterday. I should have told them months ago, but Anyhow now we know So basically all you guys on the internet making buses doing vans don't let it go below 12.2 Unless you want to buy $700 batteries every single year. I didn't know I thought this baby could handle it It can't none of them can and you're just gonna throw money away. So don't do that. This is a new setup We got two six-volt batteries Same brand lifeline. They're supposed to be the best That is if you don't abuse them like I did well, we also Installed this right here It is a battery monitor. There we go. The light's getting a little bit better It's a battery monitor and then there's something called a shunt Which is right down here and we're gonna have a little explanation on What the heck it is and what it does because I couldn't tell you I can just repeat things. I'm told So like I said this morning, I woke up. I've been having this battery issue It's been driving me nuts because the inverters been waking me up in the morning because of low voltage So Mitch installed a battery monitor. Could you tell me how this thing works and why it's good to have a battery monitor? Yeah, so this is the Victron battery monitor Bluetooth capable the the reason you want something like this is to prevent what just happened to Jax which is not knowing the state of your batteries allowing them to get too far down too far gone Especially when you've got the fiberglass matte AGM batteries which take damage easily from being under voltage So and under voltage to be clear is under 50 percent. That's bad, right exactly And once you hit the 50 percent mark or 12.2 volts, which is what they say That that is when they start to degrade really quickly and they're interchangeable But that's the point where you don't want to be you want to be above that. Yeah Yeah, and unfortunately Jax's batteries are at the point of no return. Oh, yeah So we we installed a couple of new batteries. He's got a little bit more capacity in there now But a couple other nice features about this so it's got Bluetooth You can actually without even having to get out of bed in the morning You can pull your phone out flip open the app and actually see the state of charge your battery voltage your net current I know if you're generating power from solar losing power from loads. It's got quite a bit of nice features But the main thing that's really nice is the percentage you wake up. You're like, oh, I'm at 90% I'm good to go or moment 60. I'm really close to my base floor of the batteries I need to get something charging right away. Yeah, so basically what he's saying is that if you don't know the Percentage of the battery capacity you could be like me and ruin a $700 battery nobody wants to do that and how much can they get this for approximately? Oh, man I don't remember exactly, but uh to something right? Yeah, it's like 200 and something This is what happens when you toast your battery. You have to buy new batteries. So what are these exactly? these are six CTS or GPL six CTS which are two six-volt batteries And so these are each 300 amp hours at six volts together You get 300 amp hours at 12 volts as Individually, they're six volts at this the 300 amp our capacity, but when you join them through series You double the voltage you keep the same amperage cool So they're they're each individually 300 amps, but they're each as well individually six volts So we doubled the voltage, but not the capacity Yep, and they're a little bit bigger about I think 50 amps larger than his last battery the 8d which is also a GM same company nice quality, but just a little bit of a different golf cart style battery Yeah, so important note good quality. However, if you don't take good care of your batteries It doesn't matter what brand you get Yeah, unfortunately All right over here. We've got the battery monitor itself got a nice little light on it there Maybe a little hard to see in the dark, but this gives you the net amperage What we're seeing so we're actually losing a little bit of power probably because the fridge is running or something like that You get to see the battery voltage Also the engine voltage engine battery voltage so both And then that's right. There's the capacity so you can actually see the state of charge the batteries in a percentage And I'm 99% charged so yeah high five Mitch Thank you again for saving my life in the electricity world It is now time to hit the road I love seeing these guys, but I prefer to see you at tiny house things when we're having a beer together So thank you so much you guys have been awesome to me So go check out AM solar for all your solar needs. Thanks. Hope to see you again soon under better circumstances Eight bucks right in the tank. Thanks Jesse. Yeah, very nice meeting you man This is my stop right here. I use gas buddy. I see that's right I saved like I don't know 15 cents a gallon. So it's worth it. Especially when you're putting in 25 gallons. Okay We're at Walmart, but why you may ask Jax are we at Walmart? Well, I got to take back this thing backpack rain cover Did not fit over my heater also was not really a big fan of these headphones I do like the fact that they fold up like so, but the sound not so great And they're going back. I keep it with my Sony electronics. I got these The only thing you don't like first at looking at these things. They don't fold like the other ones. So We will see. I'm in where am I Medford. I am gonna try and get Maybe two hours into California. I don't know. I think I'm still about an hour away from the border Maybe 45 minutes. I'm hungry tired. Gotta go number one Can you guys see that? This is a real life battery usage app This is what the bus is using for example right now. I'm using three amps. Watch what happens when I turn the lights off It will jump up. Why should say down and now I'm only using one and a half amps pretty cool, huh? so Boom, there you go. So it goes back to three so you can say that Oh, these lights are about one and a half amps By the way, I'm at a rest stop. I stayed here before this is On the California side over by Weed California. I'm gonna call this home tonight. It's cold outside. I'm gonna go back inside This is gonna be home cooking up some lentils and some peas inside. That's it for today We got a lot of driving to do tomorrow. I'll see you guys on the road tomorrow Thanks for watching