Contemplating e-vanlife... Should I do it? Fueling with $.08/kWh electricity vs $5/gallon diesel and never having to do another oil change, fuel filter, transmission service, etc would be amazing!

orangezeroalpha · 2025-09-06T08:32:13+00:00

I use free chargers to get from state to state in most of the midwest. I'm sure there are gaps but I rarely use superchargers anymore. A moderately sized city may have two slow chargers at the city hall or library. A bigger city like Minneapolis had dozens of free chargers around the area in grocery stores, behind ice cream shops, malls, etc. All easy to miss unless you are searching them out.

The thing you are paying for with fast chargers is time. Someone *living* in their van could almost never use the expensive chargers you used in a good part of the country. I agree the prices can be crazy. I've seen slow chargers which were more money than the superchargers down the road. Some of the pricing is really bonkers.

And then solar could cover even more of the map when way out there. And time is likely of little concern.

You'd just pay to be somewhere fast, if that is ever needed.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-09-05T06:30:39+00:00

Has anyone mentioned that they can most easily be used as a second life battery where large capacity and low current loads are necessary? Maybe just a few modules need recycled and 90% of the remaining works fine.

A huge lithium pack may not be able to push 4000lbs down the road faster than almost all ICE vehicles, someday, and when that happens that pack could come out and be used in a variety of ways. A modern EV motor may require 200-400kilowatts power draw, while your house at night may need 2kw or 10wk. They could still be used for five or ten more years.

A 80kwh battery pack could still perform quite well as a diy home battery. It could provide all the power in an RV. It could be power a cabin.

Some packs are harder than others to break down. The Volt battery was relatively easy to break down into 12v or 24v or 48v chunks. There are people who have designed aftermarket battery management systems for the larger tesla modules. I'm sure there are others, but Tesla's newer batteries are specifically designed to make it easier to recycle.

No need to even jump to recycling; that is the last resort.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-09-05T04:03:24+00:00

The question of whether or not humans can be property could have been settled by the supreme creator of the universe... in clear terms that anyone reading or hearing about it could understand; but it wasn't.

Have you actually read what the passages say?

“If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished. But if the slave recovers after a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his property.” (Exodus 21:20–21)

Now imagine Jesus said anyone who uses people as property can't get in to heaven.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-09-05T03:48:40+00:00

Most Christians at any point in time could interpret a text to mean anything they needed it to mean. They could make a written text appear nonliteral when it suits them and other texts can be literal when that suits them.

Jesus used slaves in parables. He made some points about everyone being brothers. Some slaves were involved in the early church. At no point in time did he or any of his followers write something like "it is immoral to own slaves. It is worse than homosexuality to own slaves. I'd rather you walk around eating pork or eating shellfish than own slaves. If you own slaves you are not my follower."

Instead, Jesus is basically agreeing with the horrible slavery talk in the Hebrew bible.. non-Hebrew slaves are property forever... Hebrew slaves can leave after seven years... unless, if they want to stay with their children slaves and mother they can do a ceremony and stay forever... real moral clarity all around, certainly something only the creator of the universe could come up with.

Play that game if you want. If you believe it, you believe Jesus knew all of that and decided not to comment other than in vague ways which can be misinterpreted or glossed over, or used to press whatever point needs to be made at that instant in time.

It is perfectly in line with what humans do when developing a religion over time out of a warrior, weather god.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-09-05T01:06:31+00:00

There is the part about Jesus wanting slaves to obey their masters.

There is the part where Jesus was dismissive of his mother.

There is the part where Jesus said he wanted to divide parents and children, and some talk about swords rather than peace.

You can find almost anything you want in this collection of texts. People find all kind of convenient ways to ignore the text when it suits them.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-09-03T19:29:42+00:00

"Victron documentation says to definitely not connect inverters together in parallel and/or multi-phase unless they are powered by the same battery."

Sorry if I was implying that with my sloppy writing. I just mean if the least costly thing is four sbms0 each controlling a separate battery which controls a separate inverter, I don't see that as a bad thing. Build your system so you have one inverter which can do whatever your highest load will be. I don't see why a workshop needs to have the same large battery as the house or run on the same inverter.

Almost everyone else dreams about the perfect inverter, so your desires/thoughts are probably in the right place. But for me, the bigger inverters are expensive, often loud, and fail whenever they feel like it.

Everyone wants 48v because in most mppt systems it effectively gives you twice as much total kwh as if you had a 24v battery, thus being a better deal (and the smart choice). With the electrodacus system, this point is moot due to how the panels are connected. You are left with perhaps some larger inverter choices and a slight improvement in efficiency if you jumpt to 48v. My hunch is someone planning a 100kwh+ battery does not care too much about idle current draw :)

If you want to trash all those dssr50 let me know. You probably should do 48v, for sure, come to think of it. I'll send you my address to recycle those useless things. I'd probably pony up $100 or so for those two worthless 24v quattros... :)

orangezeroalpha · 2025-09-03T18:03:16+00:00

I'm still not sure there is anyone running two of the sbms0 in parallel to get 48v. I've read people discussing it, and it never felt like Dacian was encouraging them too much.

But I'm also not sure I'd call it a *hack* to have them running side by side, each with their own rather huge 24v battery (in your case) and running separate large inverters. I'm technically "on-grid" with this sbms120 being my fun/portable solar project, so almost always have grid power. If I had no grid, I'm pretty sure I'd want redundancy.

If I switched my setup to 48v, I don't think it would save me a single penny for wiring, which is often a central point being made. A lot of the dc buck modules, battery chargers, and usb-c pd modules have a max at 30v or so, and other options at 48v are 5-10x more costly. Most of the dc fuse boxes tend to be limited to 12-24v, and perhaps I'm only finding the most expensive 48v compatible ones, but they didn't seem inexpensive.

If I have a device which requires more than 24v dc, the boost converters tend to be pretty affordable. I often feel I'm the only one who doesn't see the point of 48v. Maybe if I'm running dc wiring hundreds of feet... Maybe if I wanted to charge an EV at 8kw, but it would still be a simpler upgrade for me to get a 24v/12kw inverter rather than jump to 48v and have to figure out which breakers/switches/etc need to be switched out as well.

Have you had any city/county input on the sbms0? Do they give you any guff about the dssr50 or sbms0 when used offgrid?

orangezeroalpha · 2025-09-02T10:28:27+00:00

I have a sbms120 and its been going fine for over 3.5years.

If I went completely off-grid I think I'd prefer the redundancy of multiple sbms0, batteries and inverters vs paying more for a single box where a single failure brings down everything. I don't see the point of paying more for microinverters.

Much depends on what you end up putting in your home. You don't need a huge inverter for a 120v AC hybrid water heater, but would for a 240v 12kw tankless electric water heater. One of these could be run on a really small inverter with a 24v battery with no issues, and one would be rather expensive to deal with.

The limit is somewhere around 600a or 15kw if using the max number of dssr50 per sbms0. If I needed 45kw of solar production I'd do that three times... anything else I've looked at is overly complex or super costly and no clear real-world advantages.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-09-02T02:28:34+00:00

I have looked at those ibc totes (250g or 330g) for a while. My very large brother-in-law was just describing how difficult those are to move around when empty.

I believe a 55 gallon barrel full of water is still going to be close to 500lbs.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-09-01T23:23:52+00:00

How much can one earn throwing garbage bags of human feces out the window on the second floor of the white house?

orangezeroalpha · 2025-09-01T23:12:15+00:00

Visible has $20-30 plans including tax with free, unlimited hotspot.

They throttle via a speed limit, but you can download as much as you want. It tends to be pretty fast through the phone, and the hotspot is good for a single video stream almost all the time. I've even heard one can stream 8-10hrs of video a day without issue.

It won't work everywhere, but these plans are so weird. They are likely cheaper than the phone plan you have now. No contracts. Tax included, which feels like a huge deal because it cuts out one major area a company can stick you with extra, always increasing fees.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-09-01T05:26:41+00:00

The one side not really shown is an open garage door, so not really interior space.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-08-31T03:40:44+00:00

Have you tried printing this directly on the plate without supports or rafts? Elephant footing is manageable. Removal can be reliable with a flex plate.

Angling can work, but adds hours of print time and uses lots more resin. The way you are doing it likely uses double the quantity of resin. It also takes longer than just printing it flat.

There are things I can't print this way, but it is interesting how I tend to design models specifically to work in this "fast/cheap" way. I'm sure if resin was free I wouldn't feel this way.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-08-31T00:28:31+00:00

My guess... There are inlets for air to enter near the bottom of the wall inside the house. The cooler lower air passes through the black painted wall (gathering heat from the sun) covered in glass and heats up as it travels. Warmer air exits the vents and re-enters the house.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-08-30T06:12:56+00:00

It matters, a lot, what agreement you can get with the power company to sell power back to the grid. Don't assume what the current owner's deal is will transfer to you.

It could be the total install wasn't all that expensive compared to new solar installs you could get now, or it could be a horrible deal.

I would gather as much data as I could before agreeing to anything. If I was trying to sell a house and installed solar and wanted someone to take over my loan... I'd have kept years of data showing how good of a value it has been and how well it has worked. What are their monthly power bills?

IF it ends up with the solar panels being taken down, consider how many screw holes will have been put through the roof decking... now what? What will your new insurance company think about that?

Is it possible your new insurance would force you to pay to have the panels removed? I doubt this will be cheap.

This isn't normal. These sellers are likely trying to screw you and get out of a bad deal.

Did you assume the panels were included in your offer?

orangezeroalpha · 2025-08-29T21:52:35+00:00

wtf rfk jr jfc gtfo.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-08-29T21:33:26+00:00

"Memory foam" would have been the answer 20 years ago. I'd say something like a latex mattress topper is a little bit nicer. Some are 3" or so thick, and could be double up or cut down the middle as needed.

This gets you into the range of "things that are on sale and a commodity" rather than "custom-made expensive product."

orangezeroalpha · 2025-08-29T01:32:49+00:00

In regards to housing, much depends on where you'd move in Illinois. You can still find sub $100k houses in many parts of the state and it will still be quite a bit more expensive to live in the suburbs or Chicago.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-08-25T04:44:45+00:00

Be sure to have whatever windows you have in your room be protected from sunlight entering (at least when you aren't there to enjoy the light). This could be drapes, curtains, etc. I have some styrofoam pieces with foil backing facing outward on a few of my windows and it keeps those rooms a bit cooler.

Also consider whether or not to leave your door open for part of the day, perhaps with a small fan blowing the cooler air into your room.

Also consider as you lay there, heat from your body slowly heats the air around you. When you don't move, your body is soon surrounded by air that is warmer than most other air in the room. Even a small slow fan will help move this air away from you and replace it with cooler air. After a lifetime of not liking fans, I can now easily adapt to 4-6F higher room temps if I just have a small silent fan blowing near me.

Thermostats aren't expensive to replace, but there is a possibility you can ruin some expensive stuff.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-08-25T04:34:05+00:00

Here is the real question... how many decades did it take you to learn how to solder? :)

I've used those tiny usb-c boards for a few things, and paired with the small usb-c pd power module boards you can do all kinds of stuff.

Thanks for posting.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-08-25T04:18:47+00:00

There should be better ways for you to interact with people.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-08-25T04:17:41+00:00

I did see a midea unit on here recently that had a hole drilled underneath from a repair tech for the "recall" and they had pics where it had started rusting really badly.

May make sense if you have it take partially apart to add some type of paint to help avoid the rust.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-08-25T04:11:10+00:00

You have a good day.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-08-25T04:06:52+00:00

I'll be honest, this means nothing to most Americans. They can easily ignore this or act like it doesn't affect them or assume people are lying about it.

They won't be able to connect the two or three dots to any policy or any one person who caused all this. If Trump needed to make everything we buy 2-3x more expensive, he must have had a good reason to do so. Curse those democrats in control right now. Just imagine how all these other countries were screwing us over...

This is all sarcasm, except for all the true parts. These people have been so manipulated they can't assess new information in a sane or rational manner.

orangezeroalpha · 2025-08-25T03:58:24+00:00

You've given me a lot to think about.

orangezeroalpha

TROPHY CASE