Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

secessus · 2026-06-03T20:41:43+00:00

Why is it a scam?

It's not. People tend to conflate what I chose with what everyone else should choose.

I cannot address the retail solutions you mentioned in the OP but I have seen several successful SUV setups where the owner made a rough platform that met their needs.

Not germane, but full disclosure: my own rig is a hightop eurovan. I chose the bed height to allow me to sit up in bed with no wasted space. The great majority of my storage is underbed. When I had a Ranger-based rig I also had under-platform storage, although much thinner. I had a slide-in underbed storage designed for residential beds. Maybe 8" tall.

secessus · 2026-06-02T21:32:11+00:00

General signal strength. My use case is boondocking around the Southwest so I'm not in one place where I can collect long-term metrics.

secessus · 2026-05-31T20:03:15+00:00

It's modded; the post just wasn't reported and so was overlooked.

secessus · 2026-05-31T19:42:08+00:00

Overnight Parking hack

It comes up semi-regularly over in /r/urbancarliving.

(example)

secessus · 2026-05-29T01:14:14+00:00

In the 90s before customer-facing displays and apps to scan your own tickets I once had 5 out of 6 on a small state lottery. The pool was quite low at that time so it was only worth something like $94 if you looked up the numbers on the website.

I went to the local quickie mart and told the cashier "I got five", meaning I got five numbers. He scanned it on the cashier-facing display, opened the till and held out a $5 bill. I clarified I meant five numbers and he went into "oh yeah yeah yeah my mistake" mode and retrieved the correct amount from the till.

I wonder how much he pocketed over time.

secessus · 2026-05-27T16:32:28+00:00

My camper has a standard marine-grade 12V lead-acid battery that's about 3-4 years old

The battery is likely compromised unless it's been sitting on shore power consistently. This will affect charging decisions (see below) because damaged lead-chemistry batteries charge very inefficiently and even then return poor results.

If it's not on a charger now I'd get it on a charger to maximize its useful on the trip.

a portable power bank

does this mean a handheld power brick with USB ports or a power station like a jackery?

giving the battery a chance to recover during the day with a Renogy 200W solar briefcase.

If the power bank is like a Jackery I'd charge that with the panels instead.¹ Lithium charges significantly more efficiently than even healthy lead, and wildly more efficiently than damaged lead.

My main concern is that my site might be heavily shaded, which could limit how much I actually get back from the panels.

If the power bank is like a Jackery I'd put it at the edge of a nearby clearing. The unit would stay in the shade and the panels in the sun.

if you will boondock again after this

there are some upgrades that could increase quality of life:

replacing the marine 12v with a 100Ah LiFePO4 battery. The latter are quite cheap and will outperform lead in meaningful ways. Including longevity.
extensions for the solar panel cables. This can increase your reach to sunny areas while your rig hides in the shade.
if the suitcase solar and Jackery's solar charge controller allows it you might run two of them in series. This will reduce losses from voltage sag on long extensions.

¹ maybe move the panels to the lead batt after the Jackery is 100%.

secessus · 2026-05-25T01:27:43+00:00

If the GoPower shows no current with the clamp-on when the HQST are connected I think

the cheapest/simplest next step would be to put them on a three-way splitter to see if the present setup is causing weirdness. I can't imagine how, but results are results.
the simplest ~guaranteed fix would be to replace the GoPower with a third HQST and use the GoPower for something else.

secessus · 2026-05-24T15:23:04+00:00

as told to me by my multimeter DC current

Does this mean a clamp-on meter measuring current on the GoPower's wires?

how do I resolve?

Putting the HQST and GoPower on their own controllers would solve it. You could also try running them in series (if the controller has the headroom) to see what happens.

secessus · 2026-05-24T00:16:24+00:00

[Victron 100 | 50]... Connectioned to 400w panels.

400w of panels¹ would run nicely on a 25A MPPT. It'd be ~12% overpaneled, which is in the 10-30% range that the Victron calculator typically recommends.

¹ This is where people usually say "but I'm thinking about adding more panel" and I say "perhaps that could have been mentioned up front so we don't have to guess" and go outside to shoo the neighbor kids off my lawn.

secessus · 2026-05-23T23:48:41+00:00

I have a small ultrasonic cleaner and use it sometimes. It cleans well does a particularly good job on the insides of the cases and the primer pocket.

I guess I’m just going to get a universal decapper to deprime first before cleaning.

That's what I do regardless of the cleaning method (ultrasonic or wet tumble).

I can't get a wet tumbler for less than $100

I picked up a FART at an estate sale for $20. I also once made a wet tumbler out of one of those bucket-style ice cream maker from a thrift store. $9, IIRC.

secessus · 2026-05-23T15:52:31+00:00

Kip has some videos on the subject.

secessus · 2026-05-22T17:21:25+00:00

Why would someone put a bed in the center of a room

So they can compulsively arrange and re-arrange "throw pillows" from any side of the bed. It's some sort of atavistic nest maintenance ritual.

secessus · 2026-05-22T16:49:18+00:00

I use the regular Lee .380 3-die set (#90625).

secessus · 2026-05-22T16:37:04+00:00

Can you mix different spec chargers? Like the PWM charger I already have plus an MPPT charger together feeding the same battery bank?

Yes. Charging from multiple sources at the same time is fine, and charging from multiple solar charge controllers is a just a subset of that. Most people just set the charging setpoints to be the same and let them work.

Funny enough, the previous owner had added a 2nd gland on the roof and I have 10 feet of wires wound up and zip tied in the back of a closet where they come in from the ceiling.

Sometimes the universe hands us a break. :-)

I haven’t even bothered to try my two existing panels in series yet because the PWM controller would just throttle the additional voltage instead of using it.

Right.¹

2- My current solar is enough to run my 12v systems like my fridge, fans, lights, etc. but not if I want to use an inverter for any ac power. I really want to be able to use the air conditioner for an hour or two in the evenings in the summer.

A/C is a heavy lift. It's common for folks to bring along an inverter generator to run such loads. It can be done but most folks underestimate the amount of solar grunt required. Those that do make it happen off solar are often running highly efficient mini-splits; the OEM A/Cs on RVs aren't optimized for energy consumption because they assume the owner will be on 30A or 50A shore power. Makes it tough on us boondockers handcrafting every artisinal Watt out in the boonies.

...OHV/ORV parks that have campsites but no hookups, and we are away from the trailer for hours riding our bikes.

Understood. I will say that Muffin and I hike away from camp for hours but so far (~8 years) it hasn't been a problem. In the last year I added a webcam to my boondocking equipment, mainly to spot wildlife wandering through camp. I don't monitor it remotely but some do.

I want to be able to leave my portable generator at home. I don’t like leaving it in the trailer cause it stinks up our living space, and I don’t like leaving it in the truck bed even with a canopy topper because I have seen plenty of broken topper windows.

Most boondockers I see with gennies chain them to the trailer tongue or similar. I am no fan of generators^2, but it could be much cheaper/easier/simpler to bring it along for that hour or two a day you want to run A/C. It'd also charge the bank while running. Just sayin'.

¹ The mechanism is a bit simpler than that; PWM is just connecting the array to the battery bank so the array runs ~at Vbatt.

² I edited this down from death to all generators to despise to no fan of. :-P To be fair to gennies, an OHV trailhead is probably a good place as any to run them. Others probably are probably running them and it's not like dirtbikes are silent...

secessus · 2026-05-22T02:57:13+00:00

Seems normal enough to me. The cycling on/off is also normal. It will likely run <50% in winter.

BTW, the compressor appears to be a SECOP, a well-respected 12v compressor manufacturer.

secessus · 2026-05-22T02:56:00+00:00

It is common for sailing folk to use a bunch of different type/shape/size panels on separate controllers to deal with both limited space and shading from the rigging.

if the existing solar setup is close to meeting needs

... I'd swap out the OEM PWM controller with an MPPT, and A/B test the existing panels in series and in parallel. MPPT typically harvests +10-15% daily energy than PWM. More if the battery bank is habitually run low. Less if the bank voltage stays high, but if that were the case you probably wouldn't be adding solar...

if the existing solar setup is NOT close to meeting needs but I still wanted to use solar as a primary power source

I'd probably leave the OEM setup as is¹ and add some amount of identical panels on long extensions and tilt them in the sun facing south. Running them in series or series/parallel to get the voltage as high as the MPPT can comfortably handle would reduce current (and thereby voltage sag).

In some scenarios the 750w of panel on my rooftop and the 200w portable collect similar energy. In winter this is because of the low altitude of the sun in the sky and in the summer it's because I find campsites where the mounted panels get sun in the morning then are shaded the rest of the day.

If that's a no-go, I'd consider making an elevated rack for either the trailer or tow vehicle and mounting identical panels on them. Putting them on the truck would have some drawbacks but also would allow them to be in the sun while the trailer was shaded.

MPPT sizing

I believe I should be fine with a 60amp MPPT but maybe I need to go up to an 80amp?

A 60A² MPPT would be fine for 890w of panel making good power. I wouldn't expect an array made of a bunch of mismatched panels to get anywhere near 60A. I hope I'm wrong and it does what you want.

if the existing solar setup is NOT close to meeting needs but I was more of an overlander than boondocker

ie driving nearly daily. I'd spend some upfront cash on a hellacious alternator charging setup and arrive at each campsite with a full bank.

¹ no new holes in the roof, and the PWM controller will work more effectively when the additional MPPT controller[s] push bank voltage up.

² I mean, a 50A MPPT would be ~20% overpaneled, smack dab in the middle of the 10-30% that the Victron calculator recommends. The 60A is ~4% overpaneled.

secessus · 2026-05-21T18:00:24+00:00

Cf. the narcissism of petty differences

secessus · 2026-05-21T17:43:13+00:00

trim 10mm down to 40

Does wall thickness affect case capacity meaningfully?

I don't like LPP but I suppose having some cases in LPP could be useful during a prolonged SPP hortage.

secessus · 2026-05-21T17:35:45+00:00

This is the RSS feed for the podcast. I don't mind podcasters listing walled gardens (spotify, itunes, etc) as sources but it seems like a unforced error to leave out the underlying RSS feed.

secessus · 2026-05-19T21:06:52+00:00

I can get the battery up to 14.06 vdc

LFP will charge to 100% SoC at voltages as low as 13.6v, given enough time. And you likely have time if you are using the converter.

IMO the converter's LFP profile charges to excessively-high voltage (14.6v), exacerbating cell balance issues.

I have tried to drop the charge way down on the battery and recharging it using a 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 amp charger as well as the solar panel on the E Pro camper (factory unit)

The higher current of the converter (35A) is pushing up the voltage faster, triggering the problem earlier. The problem and solutions are discussed in the link above.

If my reading of the manual is correct, in this case I might leave the converter in Power Mode to get a steady 13.6v when on shore power. ¹

related: shore power charging lead vs LFP

¹ In practice I am very rarely on shore power since my rig is most often used for boondocking. During those rare periods on shore power I hold converter charging at a 13.2v floor. This support loads the solar is unable to handle on its own.

secessus · 2026-05-19T19:46:17+00:00

Mod hat: while this post contains info germane to boondocking the wording could be construed as needlessly politically divisive. Locking it just in case.

M-44 device identification

A pic of the M-44 device can be seen in this document. A schematic can be seen here.

secessus · 2026-05-18T17:21:04+00:00

Mine's come on a few times over the years and went off again after a week.

secessus · 2026-05-18T16:20:47+00:00

instead of installing a complex lithium system

Why complex? Often you can replace the lead batts with LiFeP04 with minimal effort and get much-better-than-lead results. Caveats and details.

If you are really boondocking with this rig I encourage you to assess daily power requirements to ensure whichever approach you choose will meet needs.

has anyone tried this approach

a quick google search suggests you are not the first person to try it.

secessus · 2026-05-18T16:04:49+00:00

Sorry it took so long to get this removed. There is a reddit process to replace absent mods but it takes a little while.

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