MOD 2017 Newmar Ventana gets major Victron LiFePO4 upgrade

The dreaded before picture.​

From the thread "It is time...for new house batteries" - introducing the new house batteries! This article and discussion will likely evolve, I'll do my best to tell the story with as much detail as I can remember. It has been quite the week and a ton of information. The overall theme I want to share from my experience is "you don't know...what you don't know!" I could not be more thrilled with the outcome and how things transpired and my absolute kudos to Solar Energy Systems (SES) in Nappanee, IN (2 miles from Newmar) that took on this job on short notice and were beyond accommodating. They do not know (prior to the job) of this site or my relation to it, there is no sponsorship or affiliation - I paid cold hard debt for this! One item of note, apparently this year there is a 30% off solar (or batteries) tax break which I'll be asking my accountant about so hopefully I can take advantage of a write-off for this tiny investment (sarcasm). SES is one of the major Victron "hubs" in the US as they are a distribution center, training center, installation, and repair center (IIRC). Moral is, they know Victron!

Solar Energy Systems - Solar Installers - Nappanee, IN

Solar Energy Systems is a leading solar installation company in Nappanee, Indiana, providing solar energy solutions for residential, commercial, farm, and RV's.

sesindiana.com

Several weeks ago, when I created the above referenced post, I emailed Battleborn as I chatted with them a year ago but nothing transpired. I emailed them I was ready to move forward and gave my desires - I never got a response.

As I was at the Newmar Hoots rally in Hilton Head, I think was the time, I had an idea. I'm heading to Newmar for service and I really need house batteries as I was having a problem with my APC UPS (battery backup) and electrical weirdness when switching between shore power and batteries. It was time and I really didn't want to do this job. I decided to reach out to Solar Energy Systems, I have no idea why that thought came up! I got an immediate response and started figuring out a plan.

My initial plan was to keep my Magnum 2812 inverter and I already have solar, a Victron solar setup with charge controller, BMV-712, Venus GX, etc. I just need batteries. Brian B is the one I worked with (there are three Brians there) and he steered me away from an external BMS as he said if it detects something wrong in the batteries it will shut the system down. Now before I get too far into this, I had a lot of discussions and I very well have remembered something wrong so I'll do my best. But I understood and decided to go with their Elevation batteries, 8 x 120's but the number was in flux as it all depended how things fit. The alternate option were their elevation 100ah batteries. In the end I learned the Elevation batteries are ones they make, and they are very good. I wanted the design to be expandable, i.e. have slots on the bus to add batteries with ease should I want to add more later.

They scheduled me in for Mon-Wed of the week after my Newmar service. While going to Newmar I just didn't think I had that much to do and shouldn't be there the entire week which was allotted. I told SES that I may be done Wednesday so they booked manpower to be available for Thursday and Friday for the job and in the end that is what happened, Newmar did great and finished me Wednesday so Wednesday night I drove over to SES as they have 5 RV sites with water and electricity but water, like at Newmar, was shutoff for the winter. SES has a brand new facility, not sure when completed, but it's huge.

I arrived Thursday morning for the 0700 show time and met with Brian B to discuss the plan. In walking their showroom I told him how much I really liked Victron and really wanted to go with Victron - long story short I blew up the plan and we are now going all Victron as I saw how compact the Victron 330ah batteries were, but priced at around $3300ea, ouch! I want to do this right and enjoy it and be proud of it. On the way to Newmar I asked Brian about a dual inverter setup and it was an additional $6K because they need to redo the wiring to support the loads to run 2 x A/C's as Newmar's wiring is not sufficient. I declined. Right up until Thursday morning when I decided to go all out and do it right as Brian even said, you'll be back in a year or two to ask us to do this and it will cost more to do it then vs. now. The Victron batteries require an external BMS (as listed below) and I'm fine with that, it's the right way to do Victron! Once I told him of my love for Victron he showed me his electrical room with a wall full of Victron that is running their facility as obviously it's fully solar powered and supported - very cool!

​

I wanted to see how much the Victron 330ah batteries weighed and noticed what other vendors were selling them for - $2200! Wow, that's an amazing price compared to the Battleborn GC3's I was considering which are 270ah batteries. I emailed Brian of the price difference in that I wanted to give him my business but I wasn't thrilled with throwing away $1100 per battery. I asked if he could match the price. He contacted his rep, the pricing had just dropped, he matched the price. Hallelujah! The plan is now set for 4 x Victron 330ah batteries, dual Victron Multiplus inverters, Smart BMS, Cerbo GX, vent fans controlled by the Cerbo GX to ventilate the battery bay, AGS module that allows Victron to control the generator with far more control the Magnum even allowed. I learned from Brian that mixing vendors is not ideal as things don't work well, I won't get into the specifics of that discussion.

Day 1 was mainly demolition, removing all the old stuff out. My solar charger setup was all in the pass through bay on the wall and I wanted it all cleaned out and properly installed into the new sealed battery bay. They put temp batteries and inverter in place so I could stay in the coach in the evenings, so that was nice.

Day 2 was a little disappointing as at the end of day 1 they hyped the plan for day 2, then the morning of day 2 the same, and the day ran long so I expected major cool stuff to see but was let down. They simply paneled the bay using what they call FRP which is a white coated stiff board and also used spray foam behind the boards and also sealed the edges, etc.

I didn't want a white bay so I picked up carpet the week prior from Newmar parts and wanted the bay to be like the rest of the coach. I also purchased headliner 3M adhesive from Amazon and a roller to adhere and install the carpet which they did an amazing job on. The battery bay got a gasket added and I also removed the two bumpers Newmar installed on the door to help it vent for lead-acid batteries. I'm still working on the gasket situation and ordered a different adhesive backed gasket from uni-grip.com which is Newmar's supplier for bay gaskets but what's installed seems to be working well.

The job completed Thursday noon, a day later than planned but I threw changes at them and it was a major job. The job included changing out the wires from the transfer switch all the way to the half bath breaker panel which goes through the dual inverters using 6 gauge (if I remember correctly) wires otherwise what Newmar installs would melt from extended air conditioner use. There is a switch installed in the pass through bay, pictured below, which allows me to control the path of electricity from the default, threw the inverters, or there is an inverter failure, I can direct it to the stock Newmar way which is transfer switch to breaker panel.

​

I wanted the setup built for expansion so prior to the batteries going in Tuesday morning we looked at a 4 battery plan and 8 battery plan as I may add 4 more in a year or two. First I want to see how 1320ah works and is likely more than adequate but who doesn't have get'more'battery'itis? With that I decided, just like the initial plan, to ensure the system was plumbed for expansion so I had them add an additional Lynx distributor which is on the left wall which is where 4 more batteries will connect.

The victron setup is beyond amazing in that it is such a great design by using Lynx distributors instead of bus bars to connect batteries, Smart BMS, loads to coach, solar, etc. all fused and monitored by the Cerbo GX unit which has a display in the coach where the former Magnum ARC-50 was located. They had to run both a USB and HDMI cable up to the box for that display and control head as well.

Back to the theme of "you don't know what you don't know" became very evident throughout as SES has electrical engineers that design these setups ensuring proper wiring and safety and of course functionality. On top of that SES is also a member of my Victron Remote Management (VRM) portal and as I've done the past few days I've had questions and they reviewed items in this hefty setup. It has been quite a learning experience to date. While the price may seem steep to many, it's justified based on what is installed and the amount of labor that went into it. When you look at the cost of these components, batteries alone, then add 5-1/2 days labor with two people on the job non stop, and the engineers, post job training, and tech support on call, it's a job done right. I was also informed that SES does some of Newmar's Lithionics work and has also briefed and trained them on how they do wiring so Newmar won't go "we didn't do that, we're not touching it" so they are on board with what SES is doing to Newmar (and other) coaches that they may see.

Towards the end of the job I had an idea to box in the batteries with FRP and carpet to make it look clean and also decided to add the heating pads as LiFePO4's won't charge below 32F. What I've been surprised with though is that batteries put off heat just by doing their battery thing and even in freezing nightly temps they've been around 60-70F. We have a temp sensor in the battery bay that shows me the temps on the VRM portal and can also alert me based on alarm rules, and my wet bay temp sensor I installed from the prior setup is also integrated which is nice. The temp sensor also controls the battery bay ventilation fans so as heat rises in the summer it will ventilate the bay automatically.

Custom heating pads


Cooling fans​

So we (they) boxed in the batteries with adhesive heating pads installed and also put two vent holes on the right side per my direction which came out nice. I decided to go with a dual inverter setup which allows the coach to remain energized to 50A at all times. There is nothing in the coach I cannot run on batteries as if it was on 50A shore power. Another amazing feature of these Victron Multiplus 3K 120V inverters is a feature called PowerAssist. If I'm connected to a shore power source of at least 7.5A then the system will augment shore power with battery power to allow the coach to add 25A to whatever is coming in. For example, if I'm on a 30A shore power connection, the coach will still operate at 50A as it will supplement 20A from the batteries. Way cool!

Dual Multiplus inverters
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One nice feature I noticed on the Victron Multiplus inverters is they also serve as a UPS such as for computer equipment. As I bring my PC tower along I to date have had an APC BACK-UPS battery backup system I've had to use not only for surge protection but to keep the computer running when there is a power transfer such as from shore to battery. Magnum never handled this well and Victron says their inverters switch over so fast that computers will remain running. Sure enough I tested this out and it worked perfectly. Computer on, shore power, then went out and turned the breaker off and the computer was fine. No APC inline, so that is now out!

The AGS and control of it is amazing through tons of "conditions" you can set on the Cerbo GX unit. Quiet hours, SOC and voltage conditions but also conditions while in quiet hours such as if you get below a certain SOC even within quiet hours the GEN can come on.

LiFePO4's, or Victron at least, can run down to 10.0 volts before requiring a shutdown. The BMS manages everything from cell balancing but also temp and voltage limits which is nice. It will also alert as needed for any fuse issues, cell issues, etc. so you are aware of anything and everything as needed in this system.

The control from VRM (web portal) is amazing as well, far more than what I had in my previous setup. I can control the inverters such as I did today to allow a discharge cycle which you should do with LiFePO4's at some period of time, which I'm still learning as I've heard monthly and also semi-annually. Using VRM I put the inverters into "inverter only" mode instead of inverter and charger and this allowed the batteries to take on the full loads and with OASIS on AC I for heat, it's pulling 30A's when OASIS runs. I can also control the GEN remotely so after I did the above I wanted to exercise the GEN so I put it on a timed run for 30 minutes to take over the charging a bit after the demands I put on the batteries.

A Li-BIM is installed that manages the charge flow while driving. I asked about any concerns of the Alternator as discussed on this site and he said he's never heard of a problem and that is what the Li-BIM is there for. The one downside of the Li-BIM which charges based on a timer, I believe, is you can arrive at your campground less than 100% SOC. This happened to me at my first stop after leaving Nappanee as I did a Harvest Host stop to test boondocking with the new setup and I was at 97% SOC. With a significant battery bank it's really a non issue as well as being able to go down to around 20% SOC on LiFePO4's. I did ask about it, if you want you can put in a manual control and manage it yourself but I am staying with the Li-BIM.

It's also neat to see how everything is centrally managed such as the BMS and/or Cerbo GX (not sure which) actually turns off the Solar charge controller which its not needed so you don't have unnecessary current coming in to the battery bank. The solar charger shows "externally controlled" in the setup as it's being managed by the inverter/chargers, etc.

As mentioned above my first stop was a boondocking stop at a Harvest Hosts to put this system to the test. So much so that I even decided to run the slides out on battery power where we typically are told to use the GEN to ensure sufficient power. I was surprised to see only about 5A needed for the slide motors. Then the next morning I decided to also bring in the slides on battery and due to the uphill nature of the coach position on the full wall slide it was significantly more power draw but it did fine. I'm still on the fence as to use the GEN or not but I wanted to trust in the battery horsepower and put it all to the test.

One final item of note. If LiFePO4's have an issue such as a thermal runaway they are going to smoke heavily. An item I think is critical is a smoke detector and I use the Google Nest smoke detectors in my coach which are Internet connected so I will get an alert on my phone wherever I am. All of the detectors in the coach will also announce the problem as I experienced once before when my OASIS heater had an electrical short. While I highly recommend changing your detectors in your coach to these, if you get LiFePO4's I suggest considering something like this strongly.

Amazon product ASIN B00XV1RCRY
I think that about covers it. Here is a brief list of materials from the final invoice:

1. 2 x Victron Multiplus 12v 3000w Inverter/Charger with Power Assist​
2. Victron Cerbo GX​
3. Victron Smart Battery Protect​
4. Victron Energy Interface MK3-USB​
5. Victron GX Touch 50​
6. VE direct cables​
7. Custom wiring for proper loads such as for running A/C's on battery without time limits​
8. 48" 4/0 battery cables​
9. Li-BIM​
10. Auto Gen Start module​
11. HDMI extension cable (for GX Touch 50)​
12. USB cable for GX Touch 50​
13. Victron Lynx Smart BMS​
14. 4 x Victron Lynx smart distributors​
15. 4 x Victron 12v 330ah Smart Lithium Batteries​
16. Fuses (150, 225, 300)​
17. RuuviTag sensor (temp sensor for battery bay)​
18. Extra parts for backup (fuses, MK3, etc.)​
19. Manual bypass switch and box to bypass inverters​
20. Breakers and cutoff switches​
21. New cables to breaker box from transfer switch via power switch box​
22. Miscellaneous parts not listed​

I could not be happier with the result. An absolute professional install, great people at SES, and I'll likely be back for more power at some future date. I look forward to heading out west and exploring more boondocking opportunities such as BLM land and this will obviously force me to put this investment to use and as a result, enjoy it such as I did greatly at Quartzsite.

Final bill: $27K

I will do my best to answer questions but hopefully I can get SES to come partake in the forums here and help educate all on this amazing capability. For those going to Nappanee, Elkhart, etc. I highly recommend considering SES for your battery investment. If ordering a new coach, consider minimizing what you get from the factory and put the money into the experts that can set you up right.

I'd like to thank Winnebago and Newmar for raising your prices so heinously that made this job an easy decision. A new coach is not in the decision matrix at current prices so the nuclear battleship "Ventessex" is for life.

EDIT: I did a google search on solar battery tax credit:

Do Batteries Qualify for the Solar Tax Credit in the Inflation Reduction Act?

Do batteries qualify for solar tax credit? This article explains how the Inflation Reduction Act expands the tax credit for battery storage.

www.solar.com

and also this:

When Does the Solar Battery Tax Credit End?​

The 30% federal tax credit for battery storage is available for solar battery systems that are installed between 2023 and 2032. At the end of 2032, the solar tax credit will be reduced annually and eventually phased out.

• 2023-2032: 30% solar battery tax credit
• 2033: 26% solar battery tax credit
• 2034: 22% solar battery tax credit

Installing solar plus storage sooner rather than later can secure tax credit savings and a faster solar payback period!

 

[Neal]

Thanks Dennis. For now I don't have enough data points to effect a change, and returning home Tuesday for long term storage so again won't have data until next year. However, one thing SES changed is the default absorption time. Victron default is 1 hour, SES recommends 8 hours to allow cell balancing. I also need to do discharge cycles which I believe LiFePo4 should be done monthly or semi-annually, have to research as I've heard both but I need to let them discharge at least once soon for a full cycle for the BMS to see. Nice thing is from VRM I can turn off the charger and let them discharge and a VRM alarm will tell me when they hit 30% so I can turn the charger back on. Easy to exercise them when not at the coach, and the GEN too for that matter. Neat setup!

VRM also has great info on current flow so I can see what the demands are and correlate SOC and see if it makes sense or not. Still need a good test of everything to make sure things are healthy and no issues post install.

 

[MemoriesByTheMile]

The Li BIM is the biggest disappointment in the system and something I'm going to have to think hard about in the future for a possible better solution. I can assure you the alternator is not a concern in the current setup. Yesterday I drove 5-1/2 hours and had an increase of 10% SOC which was disappointing. I left with around 70% SOC and arrived around 80% SOC.

When I asked about this at SES they mentioned an alternate option of a solenoid, i.e. manual on/off option to let the alternator charge the batteries. I certainly don't want to fry the alternator but there has to be a better solution for charging LiFePO4's while driving. The other option is to simply run the GEN and if you're going to make noise while driving then may as well make noise and exercise the GEN at the same time and let it pass the high current to get things charged up. But I'm open to what the group here discovers that move to LiFePO4 solutions on how to arrive fully charged. Note: It was cloudy so solar was not in play.

Another point that was interesting was when I arrived and plugged in I saw 180A of charge current. Wow! Baffling how a 50A service can provide that but it was interesting. I was thinking "I thought I had a 90A charge current limit set" which I do and that's per line i.e. per inverter hence why 180A was coming through. Obviously that charged me up quickly but once I turned on OASIS which consumed around 20A that dropped the charge current to 160A - still amazing.

I also believe the discharge curve is different on LiFePO4 vs. lead batteries. For example, parked overnight at my house running the diesel burner and both zones for heat to a setpoint of 65F had me at 70% SOC in the morning. With lead batteries, not sure about the heat situation, obviously we typically don't see SOC's that low, around 80% is expected. Not sure if it's a learning thing (BMS has to learn the batteries) or maybe, and my belief, is that the ME-BMK is not that great of a measure and the SOC's on the Magnum setup were a false sense of battery levels (although I did also have the BMV-712 which I would use and reference, so moot). SES was not a fan of the ME-BMK for LiFePO4's hence why I went Victron but in the end I'm not sure comparing LiFePo4 discharge with lead is comparable but I need to research. Obviously I can go far lower in SOC but it's interesting to see 1320ah drop as they are. Then again I need to do a full discharge as it may stabilize at a mid point with an initial fast drop off whereas leads to a different curve. Again, I need to research the discharge characteristics and compare the two as I learn this newer setup.

A 10% increase on SOC seems a bit low, but it might be in-line or correct, depending on the size of your alternator.

If I recall correctly, your new battery system is substantially larger than the replaced batteries, thus the same output of energy from the alternator would be a smaller % on SOC. From a cost effectiveness perspective, it will probably be more efficient to just run the generator while driving for an hour or 2, using the higher charge output from the inverter/charger.
However, for a point of comparison, in a 7 hour driving day our LFeP battery system with 950aH, on a sunny day with solar outputting ~20a, and with a 200a alternator with the 50% Li BIM charging - IIRC we can see a 30%-40% charge change on SOC meter.

The ~180A charge output you mentioned is what we typically see on our LFeP system when plugged into shore power.
Remember, that 50A service is at 120v, the 180A charging the battery is at 12v (more accurately you are probably charging at 14.0v to 14.5v, but 12v makes the math simpler). That 180A charge is using roughly 18A of the 50A service.

That overnight drop - was there anything else running? Did you just start the residential refrigerator and it started cooling? Any electric heat strips on holding tanks run? Any electric heat on the batteries?
I have not measured, but have wondered how efficient the little electric fans by the oasis heat registers run? What networking gear might have been running?

Once you get it all balanced out, the lithium battery systems are nice, longer durations of not having to worry about having enough energy. Knowing the BMS systems will shutdown and protect the battery in those rare moments that I.... forget something and battery goes down to 5%... priceless.

 

[Neal]

Thanks @MemoriesByTheMile - great info. 180A sure looks juicy!

I have a lot to learn on my new setup and what loads are caused by what. In the scenario of the night before departure the frig was on and remains on, the dometic cooler in the basement remains on and other than that it's just the OASIS burner and zone 1 & 2 furnace fans. With that also means OASIS circulation pumps as we know. I think VRM showed around an average of 350W if I recall.

What I don't know the impact of and won't until I do some boondocking tests is the impact of dual inverters. I asked SES after I saw the same SOC decline the first night at a Harvest Hosts if I could turn off inverter 2 and if the additional inverter was a drain on the batteries and the answer to both is yes. I don't know how much of a drain but are two inverters really needed when boondocking? What is the cost in amp hours and that's what I need to learn.

With that said, the two inverters are energizing the coach as a 50A coach. The EMS shows 50A and I can run anything I want as if I was plugged into shore power (50A). The question is what is that costing me if anything if I'm not actually using anything 50A? I'm not running roof units, I'm not using the induction cooktop, but the coach is ready to run as if on 50A. Should I turn the inverters and/or EMS to a lower setting to reduce this? That's another thing I have to figure out and learn.

The heat pads were not used and I did see when they were it's actually a small load so that was nice to see. I also have them set to only run a short period of time, i.e. when it's 45F they come on and they turn off at 50F as the heat soak will last probably all day in the enclosed compartment. But again, they were not part of the equation.

I need to do some VRM study and again give this some time for a few cycles and learning and I have a few more questions for SES along the above to figure out what's going on. I think after the next boondocking opportunity I'll have them review VRM data to see what they think. My prior battery bank was 900 ah's, current is 1320, so I really did not expect to see below 85% on the new setup for a low demand overnight.

 

[Neal]

Okay, gonna not be lazy, the numbers are available in VRM so I date filtered this from sunset the night before departure until 8 AM the morning after prior to PV starting to become available.

Click images to view full screen, zoom as desired.

Battery loads:

BMS SOC:

BMS volts/amps:

Inverter 1:

Inverter 2:

 

[Neal]

Back from my trip, coach is parked in front of the house not plugged in to see how the boondocking tests go. Last night I did a good review of powered items turning off dash radio, basement lights (as I think I have a plunger not working properly and they may be staying on), checking boogey lights as they are power hogs, and setting the dometic cooler up to 36F. I even tried cycling various breakers to see if I could get the draw down from ~200W and nothing changed so it's what it is.

I reached out to @Chuggs to try and get a baseline as he's out RVing and wanted to know what our "disconnected" draw was with refer, etc. His aligns with mine so what I'm seeing is normal, approximately 13-20A (12V) draw from refer and oasis pumps, etc.

Overnight I had diesel burner on, zone 1 temp set to 60F and happily woke up to my 7 AM reference check at 84% SOC. More what I am expecting! About now at 9 AM I'm down to 81% and soon to pick up PV (solar) to do the charge and looking forward to seeing how that goes today.

Things are looking better, more stabilized, learning the setup, and pleased thus far. It's also been interesting running slides on battery power and seeing how little the actual draw is on the electric motor slides. Kitchen is around 4A and FWS around 7A for slide opening.

 

[Stuart W]

View attachment 21879
The dreaded before picture.​

From the thread "It is time...for new house batteries" - introducing the new house batteries! This article and discussion will likely evolve, I'll do my best to tell the story with as much detail as I can remember. It has been quite the week and a ton of information. The overall theme I want to share from my experience is "you don't know...what you don't know!" I could not be more thrilled with the outcome and how things transpired and my absolute kudos to Solar Energy Systems (SES) in Nappanee, IN (2 miles from Newmar) that took on this job on short notice and were beyond accommodating. They do not know (prior to the job) of this site or my relation to it, there is no sponsorship or affiliation - I paid cold hard debt for this! One item of note, apparently this year there is a 30% off solar (or batteries) tax break which I'll be asking my accountant about so hopefully I can take advantage of a write-off for this tiny investment (sarcasm). SES is one of the major Victron "hubs" in the US as they are a distribution center, training center, installation, and repair center (IIRC). Moral is, they know Victron!

Solar Energy Systems - Solar Installers - Nappanee, IN

Solar Energy Systems is a leading solar installation company in Nappanee, Indiana, providing solar energy solutions for residential, commercial, farm, and RV's.

sesindiana.com

Several weeks ago, when I created the above referenced post, I emailed Battleborn as I chatted with them a year ago but nothing transpired. I emailed them I was ready to move forward and gave my desires - I never got a response.

As I was at the Newmar Hoots rally in Hilton Head, I think was the time, I had an idea. I'm heading to Newmar for service and I really need house batteries as I was having a problem with my APC UPS (battery backup) and electrical weirdness when switching between shore power and batteries. It was time and I really didn't want to do this job. I decided to reach out to Solar Energy Systems, I have no idea why that thought came up! I got an immediate response and started figuring out a plan.

My initial plan was to keep my Magnum 2812 inverter and I already have solar, a Victron solar setup with charge controller, BMV-712, Venus GX, etc. I just need batteries. Brian B is the one I worked with (there are three Brians there) and he steered me away from an external BMS as he said if it detects something wrong in the batteries it will shut the system down. Now before I get too far into this, I had a lot of discussions and I very well have remembered something wrong so I'll do my best. But I understood and decided to go with their Elevation batteries, 8 x 120's but the number was in flux as it all depended how things fit. The alternate option were their elevation 100ah batteries. In the end I learned the Elevation batteries are ones they make, and they are very good. I wanted the design to be expandable, i.e. have slots on the bus to add batteries with ease should I want to add more later.

They scheduled me in for Mon-Wed of the week after my Newmar service. While going to Newmar I just didn't think I had that much to do and shouldn't be there the entire week which was allotted. I told SES that I may be done Wednesday so they booked manpower to be available for Thursday and Friday for the job and in the end that is what happened, Newmar did great and finished me Wednesday so Wednesday night I drove over to SES as they have 5 RV sites with water and electricity but water, like at Newmar, was shutoff for the winter. SES has a brand new facility, not sure when completed, but it's huge.

I arrived Thursday morning for the 0700 show time and met with Brian B to discuss the plan. In walking their showroom I told him how much I really liked Victron and really wanted to go with Victron - long story short I blew up the plan and we are now going all Victron as I saw how compact the Victron 330ah batteries were, but priced at around $3300ea, ouch! I want to do this right and enjoy it and be proud of it. On the way to Newmar I asked Brian about a dual inverter setup and it was an additional $6K because they need to redo the wiring to support the loads to run 2 x A/C's as Newmar's wiring is not sufficient. I declined. Right up until Thursday morning when I decided to go all out and do it right as Brian even said, you'll be back in a year or two to ask us to do this and it will cost more to do it then vs. now. The Victron batteries require an external BMS (as listed below) and I'm fine with that, it's the right way to do Victron! Once I told him of my love for Victron he showed me his electrical room with a wall full of Victron that is running their facility as obviously it's fully solar powered and supported - very cool!

View attachment 21888​

I wanted to see how much the Victron 330ah batteries weighed and noticed what other vendors were selling them for - $2200! Wow, that's an amazing price compared to the Battleborn GC3's I was considering which are 270ah batteries. I emailed Brian of the price difference in that I wanted to give him my business but I wasn't thrilled with throwing away $1100 per battery. I asked if he could match the price. He contacted his rep, the pricing had just dropped, he matched the price. Hallelujah! The plan is now set for 4 x Victron 330ah batteries, dual Victron Multiplus inverters, Smart BMS, Cerbo GX, vent fans controlled by the Cerbo GX to ventilate the battery bay, AGS module that allows Victron to control the generator with far more control the Magnum even allowed. I learned from Brian that mixing vendors is not ideal as things don't work well, I won't get into the specifics of that discussion.

Day 1 was mainly demolition, removing all the old stuff out. My solar charger setup was all in the pass through bay on the wall and I wanted it all cleaned out and properly installed into the new sealed battery bay. They put temp batteries and inverter in place so I could stay in the coach in the evenings, so that was nice.

Day 2 was a little disappointing as at the end of day 1 they hyped the plan for day 2, then the morning of day 2 the same, and the day ran long so I expected major cool stuff to see but was let down. They simply paneled the bay using what they call FRP which is a white coated stiff board and also used spray foam behind the boards and also sealed the edges, etc.

I didn't want a white bay so I picked up carpet the week prior from Newmar parts and wanted the bay to be like the rest of the coach. I also purchased headliner 3M adhesive from Amazon and a roller to adhere and install the carpet which they did an amazing job on. The battery bay got a gasket added and I also removed the two bumpers Newmar installed on the door to help it vent for lead-acid batteries. I'm still working on the gasket situation and ordered a different adhesive backed gasket from uni-grip.com which is Newmar's supplier for bay gaskets but what's installed seems to be working well.

The job completed Thursday noon, a day later than planned but I threw changes at them and it was a major job. The job included changing out the wires from the transfer switch all the way to the half bath breaker panel which goes through the dual inverters using 6 gauge (if I remember correctly) wires otherwise what Newmar installs would melt from extended air conditioner use. There is a switch installed in the pass through bay, pictured below, which allows me to control the path of electricity from the default, threw the inverters, or there is an inverter failure, I can direct it to the stock Newmar way which is transfer switch to breaker panel.

View attachment 21885
​

I wanted the setup built for expansion so prior to the batteries going in Tuesday morning we looked at a 4 battery plan and 8 battery plan as I may add 4 more in a year or two. First I want to see how 1320ah works and is likely more than adequate but who doesn't have get'more'battery'itis? With that I decided, just like the initial plan, to ensure the system was plumbed for expansion so I had them add an additional Lynx distributor which is on the left wall which is where 4 more batteries will connect.

The victron setup is beyond amazing in that it is such a great design by using Lynx distributors instead of bus bars to connect batteries, Smart BMS, loads to coach, solar, etc. all fused and monitored by the Cerbo GX unit which has a display in the coach where the former Magnum ARC-50 was located. They had to run both a USB and HDMI cable up to the box for that display and control head as well.

Back to the theme of "you don't know what you don't know" became very evident throughout as SES has electrical engineers that design these setups ensuring proper wiring and safety and of course functionality. On top of that SES is also a member of my Victron Remote Management (VRM) portal and as I've done the past few days I've had questions and they reviewed items in this hefty setup. It has been quite a learning experience to date. While the price may seem steep to many, it's justified based on what is installed and the amount of labor that went into it. When you look at the cost of these components, batteries alone, then add 5-1/2 days labor with two people on the job non stop, and the engineers, post job training, and tech support on call, it's a job done right. I was also informed that SES does some of Newmar's Lithionics work and has also briefed and trained them on how they do wiring so Newmar won't go "we didn't do that, we're not touching it" so they are on board with what SES is doing to Newmar (and other) coaches that they may see.

Towards the end of the job I had an idea to box in the batteries with FRP and carpet to make it look clean and also decided to add the heating pads as LiFePO4's won't charge below 32F. What I've been surprised with though is that batteries put off heat just by doing their battery thing and even in freezing nightly temps they've been around 60-70F. We have a temp sensor in the battery bay that shows me the temps on the VRM portal and can also alert me based on alarm rules, and my wet bay temp sensor I installed from the prior setup is also integrated which is nice. The temp sensor also controls the battery bay ventilation fans so as heat rises in the summer it will ventilate the bay automatically.

View attachment 21884
Custom heating pads

View attachment 21887
Cooling fans​

So we (they) boxed in the batteries with adhesive heating pads installed and also put two vent holes on the right side per my direction which came out nice. I decided to go with a dual inverter setup which allows the coach to remain energized to 50A at all times. There is nothing in the coach I cannot run on batteries as if it was on 50A shore power. Another amazing feature of these Victron Multiplus 3K 120V inverters is a feature called PowerAssist. If I'm connected to a shore power source of at least 7.5A then the system will augment shore power with battery power to allow the coach to add 25A to whatever is coming in. For example, if I'm on a 30A shore power connection, the coach will still operate at 50A as it will supplement 20A from the batteries. Way cool!

View attachment 21880
Dual Multiplus inverters
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One nice feature I noticed on the Victron Multiplus inverters is they also serve as a UPS such as for computer equipment. As I bring my PC tower along I to date have had an APC BACK-UPS battery backup system I've had to use not only for surge protection but to keep the computer running when there is a power transfer such as from shore to battery. Magnum never handled this well and Victron says their inverters switch over so fast that computers will remain running. Sure enough I tested this out and it worked perfectly. Computer on, shore power, then went out and turned the breaker off and the computer was fine. No APC inline, so that is now out!

The AGS and control of it is amazing through tons of "conditions" you can set on the Cerbo GX unit. Quiet hours, SOC and voltage conditions but also conditions while in quiet hours such as if you get below a certain SOC even within quiet hours the GEN can come on.

LiFePO4's, or Victron at least, can run down to 10.0 volts before requiring a shutdown. The BMS manages everything from cell balancing but also temp and voltage limits which is nice. It will also alert as needed for any fuse issues, cell issues, etc. so you are aware of anything and everything as needed in this system.

The control from VRM (web portal) is amazing as well, far more than what I had in my previous setup. I can control the inverters such as I did today to allow a discharge cycle which you should do with LiFePO4's at some period of time, which I'm still learning as I've heard monthly and also semi-annually. Using VRM I put the inverters into "inverter only" mode instead of inverter and charger and this allowed the batteries to take on the full loads and with OASIS on AC I for heat, it's pulling 30A's when OASIS runs. I can also control the GEN remotely so after I did the above I wanted to exercise the GEN so I put it on a timed run for 30 minutes to take over the charging a bit after the demands I put on the batteries.

A Li-BIM is installed that manages the charge flow while driving. I asked about any concerns of the Alternator as discussed on this site and he said he's never heard of a problem and that is what the Li-BIM is there for. The one downside of the Li-BIM which charges based on a timer, I believe, is you can arrive at your campground less than 100% SOC. This happened to me at my first stop after leaving Nappanee as I did a Harvest Host stop to test boondocking with the new setup and I was at 97% SOC. With a significant battery bank it's really a non issue as well as being able to go down to around 20% SOC on LiFePO4's. I did ask about it, if you want you can put in a manual control and manage it yourself but I am staying with the Li-BIM.

It's also neat to see how everything is centrally managed such as the BMS and/or Cerbo GX (not sure which) actually turns off the Solar charge controller which its not needed so you don't have unnecessary current coming in to the battery bank. The solar charger shows "externally controlled" in the setup as it's being managed by the inverter/chargers, etc.

As mentioned above my first stop was a boondocking stop at a Harvest Hosts to put this system to the test. So much so that I even decided to run the slides out on battery power where we typically are told to use the GEN to ensure sufficient power. I was surprised to see only about 5A needed for the slide motors. Then the next morning I decided to also bring in the slides on battery and due to the uphill nature of the coach position on the full wall slide it was significantly more power draw but it did fine. I'm still on the fence as to use the GEN or not but I wanted to trust in the battery horsepower and put it all to the test.

View attachment 21881
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One final item of note. If LiFePO4's have an issue such as a thermal runaway they are going to smoke heavily. An item I think is critical is a smoke detector and I use the Google Nest smoke detectors in my coach which are Internet connected so I will get an alert on my phone wherever I am. All of the detectors in the coach will also announce the problem as I experienced once before when my OASIS heater had an electrical short. While I highly recommend changing your detectors in your coach to these, if you get LiFePO4's I suggest considering something like this strongly.

Amazon product ASIN B00XV1RCRY
I think that about covers it. Here is a brief list of materials from the final invoice:

1. 2 x Victron Multiplus 12v 3000w Inverter/Charger with Power Assist​
2. Victron Cerbo GX​
3. Victron Smart Battery Protect​
4. Victron Energy Interface MK3-USB​
5. Victron GX Touch 50​
6. VE direct cables​
7. Custom wiring for proper loads such as for running A/C's on battery without time limits​
8. 48" 4/0 battery cables​
9. Li-BIM​
10. Auto Gen Start module​
11. HDMI extension cable (for GX Touch 50)​
12. USB cable for GX Touch 50​
13. Victron Lynx Smart BMS​
14. 4 x Victron Lynx smart distributors​
15. 4 x Victron 12v 330ah Smart Lithium Batteries​
16. Fuses (150, 225, 300)​
17. RuuviTag sensor (temp sensor for battery bay)​
18. Extra parts for backup (fuses, MK3, etc.)​
19. Manual bypass switch and box to bypass inverters​
20. Breakers and cutoff switches​
21. New cables to breaker box from transfer switch via power switch box​
22. Miscellaneous parts not listed​

I could not be happier with the result. An absolute professional install, great people at SES, and I'll likely be back for more power at some future date. I look forward to heading out west and exploring more boondocking opportunities such as BLM land and this will obviously force me to put this investment to use and as a result, enjoy it such as I did greatly at Quartzsite.

Final bill: $27K

I will do my best to answer questions but hopefully I can get SES to come partake in the forums here and help educate all on this amazing capability. For those going to Nappanee, Elkhart, etc. I highly recommend considering SES for your battery investment. If ordering a new coach, consider minimizing what you get from the factory and put the money into the experts that can set you up right.

I'd like to thank Winnebago and Newmar for raising your prices so heinously that made this job an easy decision. A new coach is not in the decision matrix at current prices so the nuclear battleship "Ventessex" is for life.

EDIT: I did a google search on solar battery tax credit:

Do Batteries Qualify for the Solar Tax Credit in the Inflation Reduction Act?

Do batteries qualify for solar tax credit? This article explains how the Inflation Reduction Act expands the tax credit for battery storage.

www.solar.com

and also this:

Wow that is a very clean setup

 

[Stuart W]

Neal I had the opportunity to sit down and read this thread last night. It is a very clean installation that I’m sure absolutely checks the box enjoy and be proud of.
I know that you enjoy off the grid camping and this looks like it truly is the ticket. In addition it frees up some very valuable storage real estate. The ability to run one or 2 roof ac’s while driving without the generator running is probably the most attractive feature for someone like me that mostly stays in full hook up locations.
Great information, thank you for sharing

 

[Neal]

Thanks @Stuart W - I think it's the way of the future. It would be nice if your new coach could come with it as you have many of the components already in place.

 

[Rd1]

Hi Neal,

Thank you for the write up;

Is this the Victron Multiplus 12v 3000w Inverter that you are using in your coach?
Trying to figure out the dimensions of the inverter; w=10", L=9", H=14.3". is this about the size the inverter is in your compartment bay?

Also, from the pics, you were able to place these between the rails and above the compartment??

Also, trying to get a sense of dimensions for the BATTs, w=14", L=8.11", H=10.4", if this is what you have?

Thank you.

 

[Neal]

Yes, that looks like the inverter. I have two side by side that they mounted on a platform and lifted it to bolt it between the rails. I don't believe it would fit in the prior inverter location and I think it had to go between the rails. I'm not at the coach, it's in storage. If you need pics let me know but I haven't reviewed what I posted, it may be in the post as well.

Edit: My OP has pics of the inverters

Victron 330ah batteries.

Victron Energy BAT512132410 Smart Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery 12,8V 330Ah

Wow, I can't believe they're down to 1650 now. Hmmmmmm