Poor man's solar setup

[tompotts]

New 22' XLS 17MKE with 165w Furrion factory installed with 100amp shunt from the factory. I camp at a lot of air show events and usually don't have hookups. I have a Harbor Freight Predator 3500 that runs AC when I need it but the rest of the time but still need 120v power and also run the 12v refrigerator/freezer. I made a backpack style power box last year that has a 100Ah Lifepo4 cells 120a BMS and Victron 15/75 with 2 100w panels running a 2000w inverter. Mounted my older equipment I already had to a backboard added 200Ah Lifepo4 battery, 500a shunt, disconnect, fuses and breakers then brought both batteries to the same resting voltage and joined them in parallel. One in the passthrough the other in the front box. I get 300Ah and about 22Amps charging in full sun. I am running it now with everything on but the AC to see how it run. I welcome the comments but be gentle. I'm not a PRO

[RV adventure]

To be clear I am not a solar pro. However I certainly like your cable management and clean install. One of the things I might have missed in the description is the battery control. What prevents the batteries from low voltage conditions? Also what keeps the batteries balance charged? New to solar so I will be following. Thanks for posting

[Soundsailor]

New 22' XLS 17MKE with 165w Furrion factory installed with 100amp shunt from the factory. I camp at a lot of air show events and usually don't have hookups. I have a Harbor Freight Predator 3500 that runs AC when I need it but the rest of the time but still need 120v power and also run the 12v refrigerator/freezer. I made a backpack style power box last year that has a 100Ah Lifepo4 cells 120a BMS and Victron 15/75 with 2 100w panels running a 2000w inverter. Mounted my older equipment I already had to a backboard added 200Ah Lifepo4 battery, 500a shunt, disconnect, fuses and breakers then brought both batteries to the same resting voltage and joined them in parallel. One in the passthrough the other in the front box. I get 300Ah and about 22Amps charging in full sun. I am running it now with everything on but the AC to see how it run. I welcome the comments but be gentle. I'm not a PRO

Looks like a very clean install. Should be good for the purposes you mentioned. Others may know more but I've always heard that it's best to pair batteries of like capacity. I'd be interested to hear down the road how your pairing of a 100 Ah and 200 Ah work out. The BMS may be able to handle that, just curious.

[tompotts]

To be clear I am not a solar pro. However I certainly like your cable management and clean install. One of the things I might have missed in the description is the battery control. What prevents the batteries from low voltage conditions? Also what keeps the batteries balance charged? New to solar so I will be following. Thanks for posting

Both batteries have their own internal BMS and balance cells internally the 100An and the 200Ah were joined in parallel when they were charged to within .05 volts of each other.

[tompotts]

So far it's working as intended. Under a 75 amp load with a heat gun the 100Ah was supplying about 22 amps and 53 amps from the 200Ah. I wanted to check outputs because the 100Ah has a 120 amp current shutoff and the 200Ah is rated for 200 amps.

[Dennis1]

Great work, I too am interested in see how mixing battery types works out. That’s what I’ve always heard to keep battery amperage the same. I guess by doing that it helps keeps the charging and discharging balanced evenly. Always wanted to but “afraid” to take the leap. It’s an expensive experiment to discover that it doesn’t work. That’s coming from someone with limited experience/knowledge. Wish you the best of luck.

[Soundsailor]

So far it's working as intended. Under a 75 amp load with a heat gun the 100Ah was supplying about 22 amps and 53 amps from the 200Ah. I wanted to check outputs because the 100Ah has a 120 amp current shutoff and the 200Ah is rated for 200 amps.

Glad to hear that it's working out for you.