 Today I'm going to be turning my little silver twinkie into a power producing and storing powerhouse That will let me camp anywhere without a hookup. Happy Sunday birdwatchers. It's Robin with creativity RV I hope you're all doing well out there. Today is a big day for me Because if you follow my channel, you know that I have been a full-time Boondocking RVer for almost six years and I've had different rigs But about six months ago. I switched to the tiniest airstream that is made. It's a 16 RB So it's only 16 feet long my repair guy is going to be here And we are going to install a whole new system That's going to let me boondock all the time without putting any additional solar on the roof It took us a while to figure this out, but thanks to our friends at Battleborn and Victron We were able to do that I was able to talk to them and really come up with a solution for me But I thought it wasn't possible because I cannot fit one more panel on this roof This 2021 airstream came with 90 watts of solar already installed on the roof and One charge controller and when we looked at the roof there is literally no space to put on another panel I looked at getting the curved panels that you can kind of glue on Airstream doesn't recommend that because it wrecks the coating on top of the aluminum. So for the first six months I've been hooking external solar panels, you know directly into my battery And I've had the starlight coming in through the window and it's like cords everywhere And I was still was not making enough power one thing about the newer airstreams is that the refrigerator does not work off of propane it's a tiny fridge, but still it takes power and This RV came with you know the two standard AGM batteries that are outside in an exterior case I don't even know if they were fried before I got them or if the 90 watts on the solar just wasn't you know producing a lot but I was constantly having to Manage and curtail my power and use only jackery power boxes and that kind of thing and with regular AGM batteries You have to be really careful not to run them down past the halfway mark because it destroys them with lithium I don't have to worry about that. Let me give you a list of what I'm going to be installing today And then I'm going to tell you how it all works and why this is a solution for me without having to put more solar on the roof I'm here inside the peanut. Most of our components are right here You can see that I have two amazing Battle-Borne lithium batteries that is going to give me such better power For boondocking. I'm super excited about that a 2000 watt inverter some miscellaneous components and Then over here. We have the DC to DC charger, which is key to my setup and the charge controller Here's the problem that we ran into in addition to not having any space on the roof for solar I don't have a lot of space in this 16 square feet to put these components in so on the left-hand side of the dinette here You see that there is still a bench here and when you look inside, that's where my water tank is There's a little bit of extra room, but there was not room for like the inverter or the batteries Now we could have fit the new lithium batteries in the same case outside up front where the AGM batteries were But it's important that those batteries be near the inverter So what we've decided to do is completely get rid of the batteries up front in that case I'm just going to use it to store blocks or something and then We're going to put the two lithium batteries and the inverter in the back storage compartment and Run the cords up from there to the front where the DC to DC charger is going to be Now let me take you through some of the installation Remember underneath the dinette. We had my water tank in the existing MPPT solar controller up there on the left on the right hand side We originally installed the DC to DC charger that's going to change So be sure you watch until the end of the video But let me explain to you what that is the DC to DC charger is the way to go Your seven pin connector will give you a little bit of a charge But it is not efficient and it's also running a whole bunch of other things like your lights So when we set up this DC to DC charger It's going to be a direct line where the Jeep is going to be charging my batteries And it is twice as efficient or more than just having a standard seven pin connector Okay, you see that bright red Anderson connector that is now attached to the back of my Jeep My installer wasn't comfortable putting that in from my alternator all the way back to the bumper himself So we took it to an audio installation place and for a hundred and eighty bucks They took it all the way through the interior of my Jeep out to the back Which worked great and a quick note here. These can be complicated installations So you don't want to just do it with your buddy or I don't know your local repair guy You want to do it with somebody that knows what they're doing and is Victron certified So I'm going to leave you guys a link below that will take you to a list of all the technicians that are Victron certified So that you don't have to go back and change anything After your installation and you don't have to worry that your house is going to burn down while you're going down the road After my guy got all the cables ready We started to work underneath that dinette and you can see here He's working on the original solar controller which had some wires that went out the bottom of the dinette to the Existing batteries so we just piggybacked on what airstream originally did but we added some more cables You can see here There's quite a few because we've got cables that will go directly to my portable solar panels to the DC to DC charger and To my star link subscribe if you haven't already to see that cool setup coming soon We worked on a few different configurations for where to put the batteries in the inverter And this is what we landed on the batteries are back there on the back And then here you see the inverter and then my guys started to run the wires from the dinette Behind the refrigerator underneath the microwave and the poor guy Underneath my closet and my bed out to the back where the wires were run around the corner Then across the roof and to all of the new components Here's what it looked like in the end and see that little blue box That is a smart dongle this thing allows me to run this entire system off of the Victron app with Bluetooth on my phone you can see here a screenshot of three of my components the smart shunt is at the top I've got 13 volts in this image, and I'm using a lot of power I'm not making any solar, but I still have a whole day of power left to go all of my new cables are Conveniently stored now in my old battery compartment those red and black cables pull out to hook up to my solar panels When I'm going to be somewhere for a few days And then you can see I also have my regular seven pin connector and the connector to the DC to DC charger right there Now if we go back over to my phone you can see when those solar panels are out They are making a lot of power like I said the weather here has been awful and even on a semi rainy day I was making 306 watts with those two panels also right on my phone I control my inverter so I don't have to have a big panel inside And I don't have to go to the back and turn the inverter on and off back there I can do it right from my phone and here you can see another component is on the list at the very top there where it says Orion smart That's the charger that allows me to charge my lithium batteries Directly from the alternator in my car. Hey everybody fast forward about a month And I'm out here boondocking with my new battle-born Victron system and overall I absolutely love it It is going to be perfect for my boondocking life And let me tell you this kind of a system is an investment but as a boondocker, I'm not paying rent and I'm not paying for a mortgage and Being out here camping on public lands without paying for an RV park or a campground Has allowed me to live the life that I want to live So for me, it's an investment worth making. Maybe you can see the camera moving It's because the weather outside is nasty and ever since the day of my install It has rained every single day and even with that my system is working great Except for a couple of things that I'm going to change the first place I went after my install was a Jeep adventure that was a harvest house So I drove there and I was able to stay there overnight And when I got back from my adventure my power was great And I kept on moving to my next boondocking location where I put out my two big 200 watt external panels they were out for a couple of days and Then my solar controller stopped working Well, we called the people at Battleborn who were fantastic and helped us figure out That we had the 90 watt on the roof and the 200 watt external panels Connected to the same as solar controller and I needed to have two solar controllers So for a couple of weeks after that I had to choose which one was connected So I chose the external panels Instead of the 90 watt on the roof and I'm so glad I did because look at this location Where I was camping in a national forest campground where there was just dappled sunlight My 90 watt on the roof wasn't getting anything but because I had those external panels I was able to move them around and get the most sunlight possible which kept me going there for three days Remember this picture of what's underneath the dinette right now. Well, see on the right hand side there where you have the DC to DC charger That's going to be moved to the outside of the dinette on the wall of the dinette underneath where somebody's legs would be and the other MPPT controller is going to go right there I'm having the 90 watts on the roof hooked back up and that's great because I like that DC to DC charger to have More airflow that it had under the dinette because I know that they can get pretty hot The nice thing though is that even with this weather and without having the 90 watts on the roof I've been fine. I can sit here at work. I can work on my big computer You can see my Starlink is going right outside the window and that's even without the 90 watts being hooked up yet And I'm loving the DC to DC charger Absolutely a game changer for me because if at night my power was getting a little bit low I just remote started my car and just topped off my batteries for the rest of this year I'm going to be traveling quite a bit So the DC to DC charger while I'm driving and the 90 watts on the roof should be just fine to Charge my two lithium batteries so that I have power when I'm not traveling. I can run my inverter I can run my microwave my refrigerator I can even run my air conditioner on this system if I wanted to without having to worry and then if I'm going to be some Place more than two or three days That's what I'm going to pop those big 200 watt panels out of the back of the Jeep and set them up Now I will tell you that those are big panels They're 37 pounds a piece so they can be a little unwieldy to get in and get out So it's not something I want to do every day But they are a lot better than the 200 watt flexible panels that I had before Because they don't blow over and they just make a crazy amount of power even though they're only 400 watts I've made 430 when the Sun comes out so I'm really loving that system so far if you guys want to know more about BattleBorne batteries or Victron systems check out the link below it will give you an automatic discount I've also put the link below for the Facebook interview that I did with BattleBorne and for Harvest House If you're not a member already if you haven't subscribed to this channel yet, please consider doing so and give this video a thumbs up I'll be seeing you all again next week with an all-new video until then Everybody out there have happy travels and be free