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Post by Mustang on Mar 26, 2022 13:44:12 GMT 10
A statistic from our Way Out West Tour: Winter 2021
V8 Landcruiser, combined weight car & van 5.5 tons.
Kilometres 12803
Fuel used 2660 liters
Fuel Cost $4250
Average 20:77 liters / 100 kilometres, mostly towing 2.5 ton
Tasmanian Tour Summer 2022
Kilometres 7553
Fuel used 1352 litres
Fuel cost $2369.
Average 17.9 litres / 100 kilometres
Vehicle now has 63K kilometres, a pick up of 3 litres to the 100km, interesting.
Cheers
Mustang
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Post by Mustang on Apr 5, 2022 19:39:36 GMT 10
The last two trips to Tassy we have run out of battery (120ah). Two years is best we can get out of an AGM, mind you we work them. Tassy is not the cheapest place to buy deep cycle batteries, so we opted for a Century 105 ah at $375.00, on special, a 120ah was quoted at $600.00. Back home we bit the bullet & changed to a decent size 200ah Lithium, along with a 2000w inverter. 200ah - 23kg, the inverter 5.3 kg.   Should get it all mounted tomorrow. |
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Post by Mustang on Apr 6, 2022 17:16:16 GMT 10
Plenty of room for the 200, no battery box available, so I fitted wooden stops with straps, to keep it safe. The 40 amp Enerdrive charger started the fan, which I have never heard before with the smaller batteries it ran for an hour to fully charge , so I remounted it off the wall with spacers to enable better cooling. (May need a 60 amp) Previously in the battery area we added an extra vent.  The inverter is in the same box with short cables to prevent any voltage loss. I mounted it with S/S metal threads instead of screws. (for corrugated roads)  The front is easily accessible straight into the kitchen area. The chrome vent was already in place.  |
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Post by 78466noM on Apr 24, 2022 22:47:57 GMT 10
looking good
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Post by Mustang on May 31, 2022 8:02:27 GMT 10
More of the kids inheritance has been added to the modern, with two new solar panels, the roof is now full, with 540 watts of solar.  The new battery had made its way down to 50% (leakage somewhere?) but when the sun briefly poked its head out here in SEQld the results were dramatic it charged to 100% in 30 minutes !!!! The supply & fit was carried out by (https://suncoastcaravanservice.com.au) very nice people to deal with. |
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Post by snoops on Jun 6, 2022 12:40:32 GMT 10
Just a quick one - not sure quite how your system monitors battery state, but with the Victron battery monitors, they drift a bit over time so actual state of charge isn't the same as the actual state of charge. The easiest way of fixing this is to park the van in the sun for a few days so you know the battery is 100% charged then reset the battery monitors 100% setpoint - which is easy to do on the Victrons. With 540 watts of solar there's no way your battery went from 50 to 100% in a few hours - in perfect conditions, that would take around 2.5 hours and in reality around 4 hours. I'd be making sure it is fully charged either by leaving the van in the sun or plugging in the charger to the mains and leaving it for a few days either way - just to make sure.
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Post by Mustang on Jun 7, 2022 8:34:17 GMT 10
Hi Snoops, Good to hear from you, how's your progress with your van. The monitor we have has a square black box above the readings, I presume this acts as a capacity indicator ,on the day of testing it was half full, 30 minutes later it was full ? This may be a rough indication of battery capacity. I was surprised the capacity (?) would have been down to half, as a new battery of 200ah with nothing running, should last a few weeks, so it was possibly closer to full, the voltage was near full at the time. I'd better re-read the instruction booklet. Cheers Mustang  |
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Post by Mustang on Aug 10, 2023 16:56:55 GMT 10
For a long time, I've worried about our Dexter rubber suspension, so little travel, wears magnets out in a few trips!!!!  So we have bitten the bitumen & splashed out on a Cruisemaster off road suspension system: Interesting stat is that we only gained 8 kilos over the standard Dexter weight. ![]()    Only lament was the engineer would not approve our 17" Land Cruiser wheels for a 2.8 Ton upgrade BUT he approved the 16" wheels that came with the van (chinese?) go figure? The stub is 63mm & the 46mm shock has a cooling device, my wallet is overheated !!!!!!!. We can upgrade this system to disc's & bags at any time. The van is now another 4.5" higher, should go anywhere we are game to go, so now do we upgrade the suspension on our standard Cruiser? |
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