New owner of Vintage Bus 1980

[freds]

Here's another piece of eye candy which is a starting inverter management page with graphs of BMS data.



And here's the simple five minute effort that it took to construct it.



There is one error in the graphed data which is the state of charge, as it actually didn't hit 100% today, hence the solar input didn't hit zero at that point.

[Gil_J]

What a bizarre wattage curve. Is that showing solar charge wattage as the sun moves?

[freds]

What a bizarre wattage curve. Is that showing solar charge wattage as the sun moves?

Yes and the sun to the west is partially blocked by a hill LOL! This a graph of once a minute readings. Most solar graphs are the hourly or daily averages.

The bus is oriented east to west and panels are for now just leaning up against the bus. Now if the panels were tracking the sun it would be a more even graph...

[Joe Camper]

Hey Fred what do u know about solar fabric? Its tweaked my curiosity ever since I learned about them.

[freds]

Hey Fred what do u know about solar fabric? Its tweaked my curiosity ever since I learned about them.

Hey Joe, next to nil other than what the words imply.

In RV usage flexible solar panels are rumored/demonstrated to not last more than a couple of years, so best to go with normal house panels (20yr warranty) is the collective wisdom.

However I just saw a video of flexible panels from BattleBorn being applied to a an RV. Given BattleBorn's reputation in the market, I might give them a second look for the ease of mounting (peel and stick), however I have already purchased all of my solar panels already.

[Joe Camper]

It seemed like a perfect fit for rving. Awnings, window shades, figured there was good reason its not in play.

[freds]

It seemed like a perfect fit for rving. Awnings, window shades, figured there was good reason its not in play.

I did a little more reading and solar fabric is supposedly good idea that has yet to reach a prime market.

The closest that I have seen is an air lift-able drum that can roll out a linear sheet of solar panels on the ground for the military which is not a fabric; but a polymer sheet. Still very experimental and targeted at reducing fuel shipments for generators that can be ambushed for remote outposts.

I will believe it when REI has jacket's for keeping stuff powered while you hike in the great outdoors.

[freds]

My bus was converted about 40 years ago and it has two stainless steel tanks one for fresh water and the other as the combined grey/black tank.

In my reading most RV tank sensors are of the conductive type where they detect the level through current flow through the liquid.

In looking at my black/grey tank I see the following wiring:



As you can see there is two wires going to each sensor, what type of sensor do you think it is? Is it a float sensor?

My water tank is up front:



And on the back side of the tank it seems to have the four sensors:



Which I think are of the current flow type.

There was wires hanging loose that I moved out of the way to take the previous picture. Here's a picture of the wires hanging and not connected to anything at this location.




Stuffed in a bag I found a JRV Micro Monitor. In looking at the diagram there's a little combiner that converts the multiple sensors on each tank to a single signal line back to the monitor.

It looks like the monitor would have come with three combiners and two of them appear unused; with one of them in the disconnected wiring mess near the fresh water tank. Which leads me to believe that the monitor was only used for the fresh water tank.

Looking for feedback/advice here as to figuring out what I have here and how to test the sensors.

Thanks

[Joe Camper]

What if any display or panel is in the cabin? The wiring on those 2 tanks r definitely decades apart thats my guess. How important is it to u to retain that original stuff? U could real easy put new.

[freds]

What if any display or panel is in the cabin? The wiring on those 2 tanks r definitely decades apart thats my guess. How important is it to u to retain that original stuff? U could real easy put new.

I guess it is not important and now the determining factor is finding where the wires surface in the cabin; which is still a puzzle I need to figure out. The grey/black tank is empty so I could just try removing one the upper sensor's to see what's on the other side.