Good to know. I bought a little generator for my husband years ago for $100.00 Canadian. Best purchase ever. Still going stronger 20 years later. Helps my husband is a mechanic too. Enjoyed your videos!
It is a juggling act, isn't it. We manage with two 120-amp hour batteries & two 160w solar panels. But hey, there are only two of us & we're not charging computers, only our cel phones. I think you're managing very well. I enjoy your episodes Mike. Thanks so much.
thanks mate, It's a juggle alright, it's quite a fun challenge trying to keep the battery levels up in winter. Once we hit Sept, We generally have long enough solar days again and we were sweet last year. 5 of us def use a lot of power for a small space. Even just the water pump etc.
My daughter, wife and I live fulltime in our caravan. Upgraded batteries was a must for us as we needed the microwave in the beginning. We currently have 400amp lithium batteries inside and 680watts of solar. Plus using a 3000watt inverter. Unfortunately we still have to run a generator over the winter months. 3300watt powertec inverter which runs both ac chargers totalling 70amp per hour. $10k batteries setup. We are looking at spending a mounth in south island during winter months as you are so watching your videos closely to get ideas on where to go. Wish we could do what you are doing. Good on you for doing it.
thats a great battery set up mate. When we got the caravan new, they assumed that we'd be sweet with what we had and maybe if we have a week of bad weather we might need to plug in to power in the winter. Now We know every big battery set ups still need help down South in the winter. Not sure where your based but the angle of the sun is so low in the sky here, and the Temperatures make such a difference to batteries as well.
yea it's a game changer having those little generators to keep things topped up, No solar right now, fogged in, in twizel, batteries are tanking... that little eco flow is also great for us, giving us 240v power.
The wee generator does a great job keeping you powered up when you need it. Lithium batteries outside like that would struggle even more below zero - most won't charge at all
Thanks mate, Yes the editing is a labour of love, I really enjoy it, sometimes I get a bit fussy and spend too long on a video, but I like them to be good quality and an easy watch... I just finished another one today thats uploading, so stay tuned.
Definitely informative Mike, I’m sure a lot of travelling peeps like yourself will find this helpful! And like always keep warm, and to the many more adventures you will all have, GET IT our LEOPARD WHĀNAU!!🎉 Arohanui from this frosty morning Rotorua❤🎉
Thanks Teresa I've been getting a lot of questions about it from those who live in vehicles travelling like us and also struggle in the winter. So I thought I'd just make a short video explaining what we do. It's really good to be able to stay off grid.
Wow first to comment. It is awesome that you and your family are enjoying your trip. I have seen that your Twizel wait for hore frost. Love the scenic shot. Take care from Team Kawerau
I had an identical generator, great little unit however just note, only use the recommended oil viscosity as heavier oils will stuff it, as I found out the hard way. Just a suggestion, why dont you make or buy an adaptor cable with a three pin male and a caravan female. Plug the genni straight into the van then you wont have to go running cords through windows. Thats what we do and it works great. Love your videos.
@@moejoehvl yea I purchased the recommend oil for, it hasn't missed a beat yet... Can use an adapter our caravan will draw way to much power for it, it's only an 800w generator and realistically 650w which is about 50amps
@@leopardsgowild Yeah fair enough. Our van is a bit smaller than yours. I switch off a few things at the switch board to reduce the draw. We pull our van with a plugin hybrid (UK Van). Some time ago I retro fitted a 600w inverter to the cars traction battery. Indirectly it gives us a 15 kwh house battery for off grid camps. Works well, loads of power. Im in the north Island as well. cheers.
Hi Mike have you considered setting up a battery system in your ute to use as back up in the winter . Personally I would stick to AGM batteries rather than lithium for the type of freezing conditions you like. A solar panel on your ute roof coupled to a system that utilises the ute alternater when driving could power up a 270amp hour agm - connect to your caravan with a 50amp anderson plug. We have 540 amp hours of storage and supplement our roof top panels with an Arlec 200watt solar blanket which you can set up on a 45°angle for winter sun ( solar blanket is a game changer) provided of course that you have sun. Enjoy life in the freezer and safe travels.
Thanks for our kind thoughts mate, sounds like you have an epic set up. I so get a bit lost with all this solar and battery stuff, it's a bit over my head, I think I need to see it layed out and explained to me to understand it properly, I was never that good at school lol, But once I've seen it and understand it, I'm away. I think a big issue for us, is chasing these winter weather events, currently we're in Twizel in the hoar frosts Someone loaned me a battery monitor system, and our batteries are reading 0 degrees, and highest temp we have had in the last 10 days is about 6 degrees which would have lasted about 1hour before it started cooling down again. We are kind of our own worst enemies and we are grateful for a generator. I reckon the best thing we could do would be get the batteries inside some how, and get a DC to DC charger, Because our batteries are so cold right now, it's hard to get anything back into them.
We added a DC to DC enerdrive charger so that when driving we get around 40amps/hr charging and of course you’ll get that same rate with the car idling and being used as a charger. Also the car at idle is relatively quiet. The unit cost about $500 new.
Those look like a fantastic way to go, meet a few people recently who have them and just a good 30min plugged in and the batteries have hugely charged. I think I'd recommend that to any one starting out.
I've been thinking about some solutions for the same issues you have. Here are a few things I have done to make my battery situation better! 1. Replaced all the lights with LED throughout the van 2. Connection to the towing vehicle so the battery can charge while driving, or stationery. ( quieter and more socially acceptable than a generator.) 3.I have made up my own 'patch' cord that is standard house plug (male) on one side, and Caravan ( female ) on the other side. Its about 1 meter long. I connect to my generator, (or house mains) with a regular extension lead with a safety trip breaker on it and connect right into the caravan power plug. That way everything works at the same time, no unplugging and replugging the battery charger, etc as they are all wired into the onboard 240v mains system already. I also have the regular campground powerlead as well for the powered sites. 4. Increased the size of my solar panels Happy camping!
Yea mate, some good learning in there for sure. All out lights are LED which I think helps. One big issue for us, is choosing to camp in these really cold places rather than choosing to be somewhere warmer, we are our own worst enemies lol... I'm glad we can make it work so we can stay off grid though and keep living our dreams.
@@leopardsgowild Its great that you are experiencing the cold too, you could write a book on how to camp NZ wild! You camped not far from us in Hoki a while back, we would like to host you sometime if your'e up this way again. We have a small exclusive site for one campervan with outdoor bath, pizza oven, separating loo and magnificent views. I could pick your brain as a new caravanner! Sfar travels, looking forward to the next issue!
@@2hands_and_a_brain917 oh that sounds very nice... We love staying with people who watch us and have taken a few of those offers especially if bad weather is in the forecast. I'll try and keep this in mind, I'm in no rush at all to leave the South Island.
Great video, as usual, thanks! What battery charger do you have that is connected to yiur batteries and generator to top up the agm batteries? Safe travels 😊
Hey there, the battery charger brand is called 'Means well' not very reassuring... I'm looking at changing it over to Victron and possibly replacing the batteries... Having the batteries on the outside is a problem, especially because we like to go to cold places in winter.
Hey Mike I’ve been told that Lithium batteries don’t like cold temperatures therefore don’t charge very well when temperatures are low compared to AGM.
yea mate I've been told also, which puts us in a spot of what to do... Lithuim has more power, but charges poorly in cold.... AGM also seems to struggle in these conditions though...
I looked at those, the big difference is the bluetti charges 4x slower than the ecoflow. That only matters though if you want to charge it on a generator like we do or normal 240v power for a weekend trip. If your charging it on solar or in a car, they are basically the same. The ecoflow will charge in 1hr from flat on 240v power.
Cheers brother, glad to see yah, I can't imagine how long your vids take to edit.days,weeks if youve got a ton of drone and extra clips.. if i surf for 6 hours and use all the battery in both gopros with good waves I have about 6 hours of editing or so... battery life is arguably the biggest issue for us nomads... have a good day bro 👍🤙✌️♥️
Thanks mate. The editing takes a very long time aye, not just going through the video footage, but finding music, any other extras, like for me google maps, and earth footage, but I love doing it, it's a lot of fun. Hope the surfs pumping... We are in the hoar frost...
Good to know thanks! Our ecoflo (same as yours) can’t charge our lithium batteries for some reason it just shuts off when I plug it in. Maybe drawing to much? We have a V8 diesel generator for our back up 😂 not as cheap to run as yours though. Thanks for the info clip great stuff once again.
Hey guys, I reckon your battery charger is likely trying to draw to much current... Our Battery charge looks garbage so I think our Eco flow can cope, we're as your battery charger is likely very efficient at putting power back in the batteries. Keep running that v8 mate... I tell ya what we are burning through the fuels this winter... around 4 litres of diesel for heating a day and a couple of litres of petrol for the generator, although, it's been bloody cold we're we've been, snow, big frosts and now hoar frost.
Just a question…..why can you not connect your generator straight to the connection you’d use to a mains power source? We have a three pin plug adaptor…..could we connect that direct to a similar generator?
hey there, simply because the generator isn't powerful enough for that, the caravan system would overload it. thats why we should have gotten a big sized engine, would make charging all the devices a lot easier.
hey there so we have 510w on the roof currently on a full sun day we are able to get about 180w of current back into the batteries totalling about 700w in a full day. but today we had fog and got 300w in.
@@leopardsgowildamazing thankyou! Do you also run a DCDC charger? Really appreciate the insight in your videos look forward to get out there soon too :)
@@blakebernhard1292 no DCDC charger, we do have an anderson plug but it doesn't really put much back into the batteries. I think they are a game changer for people though... Batteries on the inside of the van also makes a massive difference.
Doesn't make sense such a big van was sold so underpowered, was that from new or did the previous owners rob the high end batteries out of it? I hope the universe sends you a big set of lithiums soon!
yea mate, battery system in this van is hopeless for winter camping, It's pretty much 6 weeks either side of the shortest day, we can't even do 2 days off grid without needing some extra input. Having the batteries on the outside is also VERY problematic for the whole system.
I'm lucky I live in sunny Central Queensland, but last few weeks we had cloudy days, But because my caravan has 2/270 amp hr AGM's batteries I've only started the generator a few times, So in my case I have plenty of power, No need for lithium, as cost not worth it,
yea mate these caravans are totally kitted out for Aussie, they are great for our roads over here, but insulation is garbage we only reached 2 degrees here today caravan is getting pretty damp inside, although we are choosing to be somewhere really cold.
@@leopardsgowild , We have been down to -4c, but normally 8-12c , but we have beautiful day temperature 22- 28c, Summers are a different kettle of fish, over 40c, has been 50c plus , not pleasant
@@leopardsgowild it should be able to, we have the exact generator and thats how we do it, just make sure your fridge is on gas and doesn't try and switch to 240V
Oh yea, that sounds like very good panels. ours are only 2 years old, they do, charge pretty well, but not when the batteries stay so cold and the cloud is there, lots of things working against us
