May 21, 2024 • 48 mins
Our ULTIMATE Solar / Lithium Battery Build w/ Todd Henson from Big Beard Battery
We couldn’t imagine camping with out a Solar or Lithium setup anymore! After filming Season 1 of RV unplugged and only having a small Lead Acid Battery we knew that we would always want to have some sort of system to help up stay off grid, enter Big Beard Battery and our great friend Todd Henson! Now that we are in our new Alliance Valor 44V14 it was only a matter of time for us to get the Solar system installed! We spend a week with Todd at the NRVTA getting the system installed, and we couldn’t be happier with it! We will have all the specifications below if your curious about what was installed, but if you reach out to Todd and Big Beard Battery and chat with them, they can do exactly what they did for us, or build you your own custom system!
Our Build:
· 900 Amp Hours of 24V Lithium from Big Beard Battery
· 2 Victron Quatros inverters (4,000 Watts continuous power, max 5,000 watts)
· 2,690 Watts of Solar on the Roof (We may be expanding with deployable panels in the future)
· 5,500 Watt Generator (This was installed from Alliance and came with our RV)
To Learn More visit: http://www.nigbeardbattery.com
Links:
Big Beard Battery: http://www.bigbeardbattery.com
RV Unplugged Watch and Win: http://www.rvunpluggedtv.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
RV Unplugged Season 2 is about to release.
Plus, it is rally season.
If you're coming to theAlliance National Rally, it's
going to be our first one of theyear.
We look forward to seeing youthere and later on in the show
we are going to sit down withour good friend RV Unplugged
host, owner of Big BeardBatteries, Mr Todd Henson,
(00:21):
because we're going to talk allthings solar.
That coming up next on the RVShenanenanigans podcast, brought
to you by liquefied.
Welcome back to the rvshenanigans podcast, again
brought to you by liquefied.
My name is ryan.
Along with my wife lauren, wemake up what is known as
(00:43):
miller's in motion.
We've been full timing now fora little over two years in our
fifth wheels and we arecurrently living in our 2024
Alliance Valor 44 V14 that has abrand new power system on board
Spoiler.
We haven't been plugged intopower now for about three, four
days and it's amazing.
We are going to get into all ofthat here in just a little bit.
(01:04):
First, ironically, is the firstepisode RV Unplugged Season 2.
If you know, we competed onSeason 1 of RV Unplugged.
We had an absolute blast.
We've said it many, many timesthat is some of the best two
weeks that we've had camping.
We've made amazing friends withnot only the cast but the crew,
as well as the host andco-creators.
(01:25):
So with that, the season twoairs May 29th.
Make sure to tune in early,because Todd and Tony are going
to be doing a pre-show the halfhour leading up to it and then,
immediately following the airing, they're going to be doing a
post-show called Plugged In,where they'll answer some
questions.
Bring on some of the cast thatwere active in that season.
Plus, in addition to all that,just like we did our season,
(01:49):
they are also going to be doinglive chat.
So most of the cast will be onthere assuming they can be on
there and they will be chattingwhile the episode's going on.
You can learn more atrvunpluggedtvcom.
Plus the rally I'm not going toleave out the finale rally.
Come join us in Auburndale,Florida, at Camp Margaritaville
(02:10):
in August.
Watch the live finale with thecast, the crew, a little bit of
season one cast will be there,I'll be there, Lauren will be
there and a handful of othercast and the entirety of cast
and crew for season two.
It's going to be a blast If youattended season one rally, just
like the show is going to behigher produced.
The rally is going to be higherproduced, so we've got some fun
(02:31):
things in store.
It's definitely something youwill not want to miss out on.
Also, if you are coming to theAlliance National Rally, you
will be there during season oneairing.
Well, Tony is going to be intown, along with a few of the
contestants that are also allieswith Alliance, and so they will
be there as well watching theshow and then a few season one
casts.
Again, we will be there, somake sure and join us.
(02:53):
If you're there, we're going towatch it live in the main hall.
I believe that could change.
I'm still working on where andhearing back from the Alliance
people.
But in addition to that, rallyseason is here Segway.
You see how I like that.
That's when a bunch of prettymuch organizations,
manufacturers, start to do allkinds of fun things, and the
(03:15):
beginning one for us is theAlliance National Rally.
At the time I'm recording this,which we're going to get into
our interview with Todd here injust a second.
We filmed that a few days agowhen we were having the solar
system still installed.
I'm recording this literallythe day before you hear it.
I like to keep this portion ofit up to date and we are getting
ready.
This is the last kind oftechnical thing that I'm going
(03:35):
to do before we start packing upand getting ready to head
towards Elkhart, Indiana.
So if you're going to be at theAlliance National Rally, we
would love to see you.
If you want to see the newsolar system live and in person,
it's amazing, Shocker.
The next video full-lengthvideo on the Miller's In Motion
channel you'll be able to seethat and the installation
process.
Last week we talked with Todd alittle bit about, you know, kind
(03:56):
of picking the solar system andall those things.
But make sure and check thatout, because in addition to I
already mentioned it before butwe also have the RV Unplugged
Season 2 Finale Rally.
This rally is way more on thefun side.
We have a bunch of games, a lotof games that were in Season 2
and maybe a few games thatdidn't make Season 2.
Plus, if you're looking topotentially get on RV Unplugged,
(04:19):
in other words, be a contestantin Season 3 or beyond, there is
no better place than right hereto get the attention.
The people that do our castingStacey will be there, as well as
Tony Todd and the rest of thecrew and management team behind
RV Unplugged.
So, with that all being said,we hope you have a great kickoff
(04:40):
to your summer.
But now we are going to getinto our interview with Todd,
because we're going to gothrough solar system and shocker
.
We're going to talk a littlebit about cost.
That's normally somethingpeople avoid, but we're going to
talk about it because that's areal thing when you're picking
out a solar system.
So stay tuned for just onesecond and we'll be back with Mr
Todd Henson from Big BeardBatteries.
(05:02):
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(06:06):
Well, welcome back.
We now want to welcome not onlyour good friend, but owner of
RV Unplugged and host of RVUnplugged, a master certified
technician with the NRVTA, thekeeper of all your tech tips on
(06:26):
Tuesdays.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Mr Todd Henson and also the owner of Big Beard
Battery, because that's whatwe're talking about.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Well, thank you for letting me come on actually into
your RV, into your rig anddoing the podcast with you.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Well and fun disclosure at the current moment
, this entire podcast and thisRV is being powered by well you,
yeah, well, yeah, because youcan see I'm very active right
now.
You are very active.
It's like a bike you just keepgoing.
We got power.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
That's how this goes.
Got a new knee, I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
I'm like the Energizer bunny Exactly no, but
we are actually unplugged up asolar bill, which we're going to
talk a little bit more abouthere in just a second.
Absolutely, this whole thing'sbeing powered by your batteries
right now.
Yes, it is.
Cross my fingers.
So what made you really want tostart a battery company and
kind of toss into the mix of allthese things?
Right, didn't want to start abattery company?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
right, Perfect.
Like I said first, it wasbecause, as a master certified
tech hey look, there's a littlespider I'm going to move this
over here real quick.
Hey, you go find your home overthere.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
And full disclosure.
Todd, we don't edit a whole lotbecause that kind of stuff
people enjoy.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
That's fine.
Yeah, have you seen my stuff?
Does it look like there's edits?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah, if it makes the bloopers section, just know it
got real weird, right, realweird.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
So, no, I never intended to start a battery
business but, as someone whoreally delves into everything,
figured out that batteries werecomponent-based.
There was already people outthere taking them apart, kind of
reviewing them, and I'mwatching them taking them apart
and they're not picking up onsome things.
I'm like, hmm, look at thesmall amount of copper.
(08:00):
You can only get so much powerthrough there.
Yada, yada, yada.
So I decided well, you knowwhat I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do it right,because I want to show my
students how to build these.
And so that's where it started,just showing students how to
build these.
The problem was it's soextensive in order to do it
right that it just didn't makesense for students to do it.
So they were like well, youknow what?
What if we just bought, boughtthem from you?
So I started down that road.
(08:22):
Okay, you know what?
I will just sell them to thestudents.
Because the whole thing was isI want students to be successful
in their business and they caneither sell someone else's
battery, or what if they madetheir own, you know, and maybe
made a little bit more spread?
And it turned into you makingit for them.
Yeah, it turned into me makingit for them.
Well, over the years you knowswitching out the boxes, you
(08:43):
know still trying to geteverything right we finally got
the mix and then, just this lastyear, we decided we'll go
public with it.
So that's kind of where it went, that, and quite honestly, it's
for my kids.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Build a business for them, to kind of work at slash
manage Right.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Learn things you don't learn in school anymore.
That's how to run a business.
So you're talking inventorycontrol, you're talking customer
service, you're talking sales.
You know all of these differentthings.
That it's.
You know, quite honestly, wedon't focus on that stuff
anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
No, that's very true.
I mean, you go through schooland it's technical training
which is great, or a businessdegree.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
that is pretty much useless.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, I mean.
It got me interviews until Isaid I hate making money for
other people, right, realized Icould do it for myself.
So making money for otherpeople right, realize I could do
it for myself.
Um, so was there one definingthing that really said in the
marketplace that you wanted tochange?
Speaker 2 (09:29):
but besides, I mean with, with the bigger companies,
not the amazon kind of knockoffstuff, the big guys yeah, so
honestly, it was really aboutthe, the size, uh, of the total
power, okay, inside thebatteries, right, because in rv
space we're very limited onspace and you know the average
offering that came out was 100amp hour batteries and you would
end up with 12, 13, 14, justdepending on the size I mean so
(09:53):
now you got all of thesedifferent batteries.
it's taken up a lot of space andI said, well, what if we can
make bigger cells or find biggercells?
Not that we make them, um, butand put it, you know, just put a
bigger capacity inside thesebatteries.
You've got less batteries todeal with less balancing issues.
So that's kind of the wholepremise, right?
Big beard batteries, alwaystrying to give you the most
(10:14):
amount of power in the smallestbox possible, because, as RVs,
that's what we need.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
So when it comes down to looking at that kind of
stuff, when you're looking atthe size and all those things,
is that something that there'sadded benefits from picking a
bigger battery and going that?
Oh, yeah.
It's not necessarily the 12,24-volt conversation, which
we'll get into in a second, butjust versus having.
You're right versus 600.
Where does that balancing startto come into play?
Balancing issues right.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
So, just like anything else I call it like
herding cats or anything elseright, the more batteries you
have there's, you know there'slittle internal differences
between each one and we wantthese batteries to all work as
one, right?
So I usually tell a story inclass about, you know, push
starting a car or anything else.
Right, we all have to push onthree Is everyone pushing at the
(11:00):
same pressure?
You know some people arepushing with one hand versus two
hands.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Why are we leaning to the right guys?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Right.
So the more batteries you have,the harder it is to keep
everything balanced.
So, if we can condense thatdown to one battery, we don't
have balancing issues.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
So is that, in the combination of the controlling
systems, the technology side ofit, or is it also the physical
side?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Right.
Still, physical side.
Even when I build batteries, Ido everything I can to make them
exactly the same.
The internal resistance may beslightly off, okay, between each
one.
Well, not a big deal the firstyear or two, but over time
what's going to happen is is youknow they're going to, they're
going to get out of theirbalancing issue.
You know if they're completelycharged at the same amount.
One may be 28 volts, one may be27 volts.
(11:42):
The 28 volts can always win.
27 volts needs to get up there.
So the less batteries we have,the less balancing issues we
have.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
So what from the end user experience?
If you get some batteries let'ssay that they have a larger,
smaller capacity battery, let'ssay they got 10, 100 amp hour,
12 volts and you start to getover that line of where you
should have gone to a differenttype of system.
Oh, absolutely, what starts tohappen to the end consumer that
they actually see?
Oh yeah, I understand, they'regetting out of balance, but what
actually is happening?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I had a customer who bought a lot of these mini
100-amp-hour batteries about 15of them.
Oh boy, and he goes.
I didn't know that you hadoffered these.
I do want you to put it in, soit was.
The last one I did was someoneelse's batteries and literally
within three weeks he's callingme up.
My system is saying low voltage, he goes, but, todd, I've got
over 12 volts.
I said, well, what I need youto do is get out there with a
(12:32):
multimeter and check each oneRight, cause if you got 12 or 13
, no matter what you do, there'sno way they all get to that
inverted evenly.
And sure enough, he had somethat were at 12 volts, some that
were at like 11.6, simplybecause distance is resistance.
You know, the middle batterieswere not getting fully charged
and they were just staying downGotcha.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
So, like I said, it's a balancing issue.
Essentially, his system wouldjust not work, even though he's
seeing one thing andexperiencing another.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
essentially, Correct, because the inverter, you know,
is reading the voltage comingin Gotcha Right and sometimes
it'll catch the low voltage andit says, oh no, we're not going
to deal with this Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, so when people start to look into building out
a solar system, do they?
Because we're going to talk alittle bit about solar, not just
the lithium, but the entiresystem here for a little bit.
But you where?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
where's a good starting point for somebody?
Um, well, so I try and make itas simple as possible.
I always ask them to give methe vision.
What do you see yourself doingIf you could take your power
with you, right?
What do you want to run?
Where do you want to go?
Cause each person's different.
Some people they like coldweather, right, and so they're
going to use more propane.
Well, they want to go to thecoast, right, and they're, you
(13:48):
know, trying to go to the coastwith one AC.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
You know you're not going to make it right.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
The Keys is beautiful in August, but Right, you know.
So I would say what do you wantto do?
And then I ask them when itcomes to power, power
consumption, power delivery,what we're looking for is what
is the largest appliance thatyou need to run?
I need to have a system bigenough to run that largest
appliance.
Again, cast your vision.
What do you want to seeyourself doing?
There are some people thattravel around don't need air
(14:13):
conditioning because they stayin 70 degree weather.
Not a problem, small system.
But if they want to run that ac, um run the refrigerator and
everything else.
That's where we start looking.
What are the larger uhconsumption items?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
gotcha, we build it, build a system around that so
from that point do you typicallygo to the capacity side or the
inverter and then work off acapacity or well.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
So with that.
It gives me two differentthings.
One is the.
I want to find out.
What do they want to run?
Yeah, because I need aninverter big enough to run, you
know, whatever they seethemselves wanting to run.
One of the things I still havea problem with is they're
putting in these smallerinverters and putting in
sub-panels and all you can runis your GFCI outlets.
Okay, well, that's fine forsome people, others it's just
(14:57):
not Right.
Some people.
Others.
It's just not.
So we start from there.
So that would be like what sizeengine do you want?
That's what the inverter is.
Then, from there, how long doyou want to run it?
Well, that would be your fueland that's going to be your
batteries and your solar panels.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Okay, so this is difficult because it's hard to
talk about cost when you get inthe solar system, but it's also
one of those necessary thingsyou have to talk about.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, it costs a lot.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Well, it costs a lot and it fluctuates quite a bit
because the batteries themselvescost quite a bit.
There's a lot of fluctuation inthat market, right.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Well, not so much that, especially over the last
three or four years, because ofinflation going up and
everything else.
Resources there's only certainplaces that are mining this
stuff right, so prices are goingdown a little bit on some
things, but going up on others,but it does have to do with this
quantity, right?
So there's a huge variance inone person's system versus
(15:52):
another person's system, becauseof what they want to put in
there.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
And that's the hard part of trying to talk about
dollars, because that's probablythe biggest question we get
with our old system.
I know we're going to get itwith this.
One's like oh, what's that?
Like, what's something likethat run you.
It's like well, it's a loadedquestion, because if it's two
years later, I mean it's it'sdifferent, like we still get
questions on our old system andI'm sure that system now is more
expensive than it was when wedid it.
Yeah, and so for, for thepurposes of this conversation,
(16:16):
we're just going to kind ofrefer to more entry level, mid
range and upper end.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Sure, and that's going to be some numbers
capacity.
I mean, if you want to throwout numbers, that's fine.
I got no problem, because for alot of people, um, the sales
cycle on something like this isvery long.
Okay, because they like, oh, Iwant this, and then they go Holy
cow.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Maybe not Right.
And that's kind of like whenyou go to the restaurant, right,
you're like, well, there's a 20minute wait and it's a five
minute wait, you're all excited.
Versus it's like oh, it's afive minute wait, it's a 30
minute wait.
Now you're mad or in hell.
(16:52):
So it's kind of that same thingof like kind of expectations
and make sure we're also sayingthe accurate thing.
So, um, if you don't mind, I'mgoing to run through just kind
of some ideas of systems and youcan kind of throw out some what
it is and then maybe a roughestimate on range one million
the yeah right, how much do youwant to give todd?
um, so let's start with theentry level side.
Let's say somebody just has,like a, either a small travel
(17:14):
trailer, 30 amp coach or doesn'tneed to do a whole lot.
Um, maybe doesn't care aboutrunning an AC, but wants to run
everything else in the coach asfar as maybe the microwave every
once in a while.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Sure.
So the funny thing is, themicrowave by itself is almost as
powerful or almost asconsumptive as an air
conditioner.
And so this is where, again, Ihave problems with OEMs that
would put in a smaller, say 2000 watt inverter because that
can't run the whole household.
No, so they would spend moremoney putting in what we call a
(17:44):
sub panel.
And the money you saved andputting in a 2 000 watt inverter
, you ended up blowing onputting in a sub panel.
So how about we do this?
No matter what all builds,we'll just say one inverter
large enough to run anything inthe RV At one time, at one time,
and I'll tell you it's about$1,000 for that inverter.
Yeah, okay, to get one that's2,000 watts, same brand, you're
(18:09):
looking at about $800.
And you're going to spend about$200 putting in a subpanel,
gotcha.
So to me, $1,000 for oneinverter to run anything.
So that could be the microwave,that could be the air
conditioner, refrigerator, allof that.
So $1,000 there.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Batteries right Depends on how long you want to
run it.
So for the assumption, we'lljust say you want to run it, for
at the moment we'll start smalland we'll say, let's say four
hours.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, so we'll say one battery.
Okay, right, so they retail for2000.
Okay, right, so they're umsolar panels.
Honestly, you know, just tokind of give you a cost per watt
, every place is a little bitdifferent but between um we'll
say 75 cents per watt, unlessyou go with the really small
panels.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Okay, then they're a dollar a watt just because
they're more.
Are they more efficient or arethey?
Just now?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
there's less people that make them and we've got
this stigma that the 200 wattpanels are what we call rv
panels.
There's no such thing as an rvsolar uh panel or a residential
solar panel, just size gotcharight so obviously.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I saw obviously on an rv.
It's more of a jigsaw puzzle upthere where the house, you have
a little bit more space to work.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Quite honestly the bigger the size, the cheaper
cost per watt it is sure okay,you know, it's just like buying
in bulk.
Yeah, it's going to Costcoversus Target Correct or the
convenience store.
How about that?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
that's probably better.
Yeah, where?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
you buy a 16-ounce soda for $2.25,.
You can go get a two-liter for$1.99.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
So the next step up in system would really
realistically being maybe like-Two Well I was going to say that
one AC, but now for maybe eightto 10 hours.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, so now all you're doing is just increasing
your fuel.
So it'd be capacity.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
It'd be more solar panels, more batteries, gotcha,
yeah, and then from there.
Now we're up to okay.
Well, now I want to run acouple of AC.
One AC all night, two ACs, well.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I do want to cover one thing.
This is where a lot of peoplego.
We'll cover the major itemsinverters and batteries and
solar panels, and I've kind ofgiven the numbers there.
It's all the stuff in between.
That's about a third of thecost.
Cables, cables, disconnects, um, oh, labor separate, right.
But you know cause?
There's a lot of people thatcan DIY it and, um, some people
that semi DIY it.
(20:13):
If they just had a hand walkingthem through it.
That's my category, yeah, butright now you're paying for
someone's knowledge, right,right, to do that, and so you're
looking at about 125 to $175 anhour, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
For that individual who knows what they're doing.
And some of these systemsespecially, the bigger they are
and the more cumbersome ofwhatever coach you have, the
more cumbersome of system youhave.
They could be up there a week.
Yeah, Potentially about 35 to 45hours, depending on how big the
system is You've got a nicelittle simple coach that it's
easy, then it's not quite thatmuch.
So now we're going to move up,because at some point we'll talk
(20:47):
about what we just got donedoing, I think, before that,
let's talk about the old systembecause that's kind of the
mid-range.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
That was the mid-range.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
So on our old system we had dual multi-plus inverters
.
We had about 1800 amp hours ofbatteries, 12 volt, and then we
also had about 1800 watts ofsolar on the roof.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Okay, yep, so that's our mid-range system and, by the
way, that system smalls betweensix and eight thousand dollars,
right, total, all total, to putthat in, not counting labor.
Right, the next system up right, you're adding a second
inverter.
And if you're adding a secondinverter, right, not much cost
there, it's another thousanddollars.
But, quite honestly, you needto increase your fuel, right,
(21:27):
right, so you almost double yourbatteries and whatnot, and
that's where the cost comes in.
So you're looking between 14and 16 thousand.
Okay, to go to a doubleinverter setup, right, double
multi-plus setup with everything, yeah now, that's complete head
and toe and there's also otherthings.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Obviously we start running to run acs.
You want to put soft starts,easy starts, something like that
on to help out.
So there's not that they'rehorribly expensive and, quite
frankly, they're pretty easy toput on.
Um, you guys did it for meotherwise I'd right that's one
of those things I probably couldhave done right.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
But especially when they give you a qr code, you
click on it and it gives you alittle oh okay, this goes here,
this goes there, got it.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I do like it when it's easy like that.
Right Um, now we're going totalk a little bit about what
we've put on, and this podcastis coming out slightly after our
main video.
So if you're curious about kindof the visuals and a lot of
other stuff, make sure, sure andcheck out the youtube video
over on the miller's emotionschannel, right um, but yeah it's
.
I pretty much came to you andsaid we're getting a new coach,
yeah it's a toy hauler.
(22:25):
I have a little extra weightcapacity.
Um, I don't, I don't want toworry about this right, and that
is.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
That is the big difference between a mid-level
system and a huge system.
So a mid-level system, like youhad the double multi-plus that
can run two ACs or one AC andone microwave, but now you've
got all the other stuff right.
You have your refrigerator,that's on.
There may be some anything elsethat are what we call wall
warts that you're plugged intoWashing machine Dehumidifiers
(22:54):
yeah, dehumidifiers, whatever itis, and the hotter it is, and
that's really where I think alot of people don't quite
understand.
Whatever it is and the hotterit is, and that's really where I
think a lot of people don'tquite understand that the air
conditioner can consume so muchmore energy.
The hotter it is outside, right, right, and so they don't quite
understand.
It'll increase by four, five,six amps per hour.
That it's drawing from.
Well, that puts the system inpeak mode, right?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Just because it's working harder Right.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, so you guys learned that and you spent a
couple hours trying to detail.
I could turn this on and thison, but not this right.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So what it came down to is after talking with todd a
lot, I've learned the basics, Iwould say, in usage, consumption
, those types of things, and sopower management yeah, I
essentially went through forlauren because what she
requested was that I just needto know what I can and can't do,
essentially.
So I made a map.
If this says this, you can onlyrun these items, you can only
(23:47):
run by themselves or you can runeverything else.
If you turn these off, you cando that.
I kind of did that for bothlegs because we were not it was
leg to leg, because in a 50 ampcoach you've got two power legs
Right and so, yeah, I did thatand we still overloaded some
stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
So, Yep, and especially well, even during,
you know, RV unplugged rally.
I think you had some issueswith that right, we did yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
And it was hot.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah, and it was hot.
So you know you spend a lot oftime in Texas.
It's going to be hot, so that'swhere I went to the next level.
So still the same amount ofbatteries, right, and you know
our goal Amp hours, right, sameamount of, they'll say, total
power Spoiler.
I got less batteries, right,less batteries, but yeah, more
(24:31):
power, right, or same power,right?
Actually a little bit amountAll right, but we did increase
how many solar panels you have.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
That almost went up by a little over right around
1,000 watts.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, so that's pretty good there.
But we basically enlarge theinverters to a 4,000-watt
inverter, so two of those 8,000watts instead of the two
multi-plus 3,000s and I knowthis is kind of confusing.
It's a 3,000.
It's not 3,000 watts, it's2,400 watts, it's 3,000, for a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, they kind of say what their max capacity is,
and that's not a sustainablething.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
It's a power factor, so they follow the generator
type.
When it comes to nomenclature,yeah, what they put on there.
Then you've got to read thedata plate.
Let's say soap, your chaos.
Yeah, and a lot of otherinverters, different brands.
They will say, no, we canmaintain it, each brand is a
little bit different.
Right, so we went to 8,000.
Now, 8,000 means you can runtwo ACs on one leg, right?
Right, so you only have threeACs, that's two ACs on one leg,
an AC and a microwave on theother.
(25:35):
Yep, and still have just alittle bit, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Residual stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, a little bit more, we have a 12-volt fridge.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So that's going to be our DC power and that is all
right through the same batteries, right?
We?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
didn't.
So there's no power factorthere.
The battery know, the batterycan handle that, um, depending
on the batteries, sure, right?
So yeah, now, basically, you'vetaken the mid-level system and
went to an advanced system wherethere's far less detail in what
you could turn on right now.
Is it still possible, uh, foryou to peak this system, sure?
Oh yeah, right, because youstill have a dryer.
(26:07):
And if you're running two acsand the dryer, yeah, now you got
, yeah, you could peak it, youknow, but far less, far less
time at that point.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So typically on that you go from three acs down to
two acs well and run your otherthings and what's interesting
too is when you start gettinginto that power management stuff
like we were talking about thisyesterday, just kind of
reviewing my breaker panel okay,well, for balancing the loads
right.
So, for whatever reason, on oneleg, my.
So we're in a toy hauler now,if you're not familiar with that
.
So our first reaction is goingto be, if we need to cut power
(26:39):
to anything for managementsystems, it's going to be a toy
hauler space Right.
When we're in transit it'sreally almost non-usable for us.
I mean kind of how we load it.
So I really wanted to have airconditioner and our bedroom air
conditioner on separate legs.
Yeah, because it spreads it out.
And of course, not a jab atalliance or anything, this is
just all oems.
They don't necessarily payattention to that they don't
(26:59):
balance it.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Not only that, but you, the rv user, you may want
this mid level, uh, so mid bomb,or I'll say this again um, how
about your kitchen ac and yourbedroom ac on?
The same time another personmay.
Their lifestyle may be kitchen,ac and rear.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
AC.
Yeah, and they don't know whatyour preferences are going to be
, and so for us it made the mostsense to separate our kitchen
and our bedroom air conditioner,and then they can be on the
same leg or at least get themicrowave off of it.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, I will say that .
Don't put two ACs and themicrowave on the same leg, which
is what our coach had yeah, nowI will say that Don't put two
ACs in the microwave on the sameleg, which is what our coach
had.
Yeah, and that happens and youknow, I and I know if you ask
the people who know at the OEMs,they know it just gets all the
way down and sometimes you knowpeople are people.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
It happens, yep.
Sometimes labels are put inwrong has done it perfect.
No yeah, exactly, evencustom-built.
You're going to go back and go.
And it was your fault.
You designed it.
You said you wanted that.
I didn't know what I wanted.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, that's totally true.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I'm guessing you get that sometimes when you're
actually designing systems forpeople of callbacks Like this is
actually I didn't need as muchor I wish I had I have yet I've
heard and that's actually theWayward Wags.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Now they're a little bit thinner than the rest of us.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
What are you trying to say, Todd?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Well, I'm just saying they're not average.
I still think I could takeDustin, Just depends on what it
is.
So they start off with a singleinverter system.
They drank the Kool-Aid andwithin two days, hey, let's go
with the second one.
It they drank the Kool-Aid andwithin two days, hey, let's go
with the second one.
It happens, but I've gottenword.
They're like hey, we don't needto run two, because of course
they travel and stay in fairweather, they can get by with
(28:41):
one.
They were so far the onlycouple that ever said well,
maybe I didn't need this much,Because I used to say I've never
had someone say, darn it, Ibought too much, Right.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah, darn it, I bought too much, right?
Yeah, that's also true, becauseit just works and you don't
really care how efficient oranything at that point because
you don't have to worry about it.
But they also might have been alittle scared of what they were
getting into at the time.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
And that's part of it .
Yeah, because you still don'tknow, especially if you're new
to boondocking like, ooh, I needto go ahead and prepare for
maybe the worst, and then youfind out.
Well, wait a minute.
What I always say is they mayRV right, they go where the
temperate weather is.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Again.
I feel like you're taking shotsat me over here.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
No, no no, it's just some people full-timers they can
move and for those of us thatare full-time and not
telecommuting or whatnot, we'rekind of relegated to wherever
we're at, and that's whathappens to us so we're not our
being right, because we stillgot businesses and everything
else right.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
So so when you do like and that's one of the
things that you and I talkedabout because I didn't know you
guys very well when I came toseason one production, yeah, we
didn't know you at all.
And then we got to know youthroughout the course of that
and then I remember somewherearound the first week mark and
you and I started to realize wekind of could you know, yeah, we
did smartasses together.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, we did like each other.
Yeah, repercussions foreverybody else.
It's like he's my brother.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, sorry for everybody else that got sucked
into that, right?
We don't poke fun at anybodyever.
We're angels, that's right.
It's all about other people.
Yep, so I told you.
Because you mentioned.
You said well, if you want todo something, just like, think
about it for the next week, likewhat, what do you really want
to have on right now?
Don't think about the fridge,we'll take that into
(30:18):
consideration.
Don't think about all this, likewhat there's the, what do you
want to get to get by, whatwould make it comfortable, and
then you know we'll talk aboutwhere that lands as far as
dollars and all of those otherthings and for the next week, as
I sweated because it was 90 umand I had my one lead acid
battery with the inverter thatbarely ran my fridge um that I
(30:40):
took that into consideration,especially the second night when
I was actually sitting outsideat three in the morning because
it was so hot inside the coachyeah, the best time to create
awareness is in the summer, whenpeople start thinking about it.
Yes, it was um, but no, but thatwas a serious like I kind of
said, like, well, I really wouldlike to run one AC overnight if
it just stayed on constantly,assuming it's under a reasonable
amount of load.
And that was the bedroom AC,because I told myself like
(31:02):
sweating, sleeping and the bed'samazing.
We've got a Brooklyn bed orrvmattresscom from Brooklyn
Bedding Bed, which is great.
Unless you're hot, then thatbig squishy thing just becomes a
heat tortilla.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Well, and you've got to think as well.
I mean, heat is going to gointo the surfaces and if you
only have one AC trying to drawall the heat out, it takes
forever to get it out ofphysical surfaces.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
The temperature in the air may be fine, but this
still may be three or fourdegrees warmer Right, and so now
you've knocked that AC down alittle further to kind of get it
to that point, and or basically2 am 3 am by the time you get
rid of swamp butt.
Yeah, pretty much so that's whywe and you even asked me that
well, what's overnight mean toyou?
I remember that questionbecause I was like that's a
really good point.
Because I said we go to bedaround 9 or 10 typically, we're
(31:43):
go to bed early, get up earlypeople.
And then remember you said likeokay 10 shoot, let's.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
What is that?
I've already got up for myfirst.
You break.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Insights to Todd's bathroom schedule.
That's right.
But, no, but you need to turnthe AC on a little bit before,
because RV air conditioners arenowhere near as efficient as
house air conditioners.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Well, I wouldn't say, the efficiency is not so much
in the air conditioning, as itis the RV itself.
It's a two-inch wall.
There's a lot of sliding parts.
Heat comes in.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
And it just takes a minute for it to cool off up
there.
So, we've gotten in the habitof starting it, so I remember
you saying well, if you want torun it for, let's say, eight
hours overnight, it's reallylike 10.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, so typically, yeah, what I do is I say,
knowing the RV industry, everyplace you go there may be quad
hours, so you can't run yourgenerator right and your solar
panels don't work.
At night you may see voltage,but it ain't doing jack until
the morning.
So to me I always ask what doyou run at night?
Because at night, during thattime frame, batteries are the
(32:44):
only thing you have.
You got what you got, that's it.
So tell me what you normallyrun, Because some people, like I
said, I'll even ask them whattemperature do you set your
thermostat at.
Ask them what temperature doyou set your thermostat at?
Oh, I like 68.
Oh, that means it's on 24-7.
All right, so, yeah, this ishow many batteries you need.
Oh, you know I'm skinny, so 78seems cold to me.
Oh, shoot, here's one batteryAlso.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
True, right, so as far as our system, when you
start talking about cost, justto kind of put a bow on that
side of the conversation, what Iknow, unfortunately, yeah,
between $24,000 and $28,000.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Okay, right.
So I know, and people are like,drop the phone right now.
Right Now, here's the thingYou've got to think now.
There's two different ways oflooking at this, right?
What I'll say is theintangibles, the conveniences
that you get from this.
It's hard to put a dollarfactor on it.
It is.
But if we look at an ROI returnon investment, hey, why would I
put in a $28,000 system when Ican go to RV parks?
(33:41):
Average overnight stay used tobe $45.
Now it's about $60.
I know it's gone up, right, soyou just take that average
overnight stay of 60 and dividethat into whatever the cost of
the build is Okay, and on that$8,000 system, that's half a
year.
Yep, right, all you got to dois spend half a year not at RV
(34:01):
sites.
Now you get to open up whereyou're going 16,000, roughly one
year.
Right, right 28,000, two yearsfor your ROIs.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
So it is.
I mean, if, if we had an rv andI'm like I'm only going to keep
this thing for a year, Iwouldn't have put this system in
oh, that's another thing Ialways ask him is this the rv?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
you're going to keep right, because it's kind of like
a swimming pool.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
You're not going to get back everything which and I
will say that is different formotor homeowners versus trailer
owners right, motor homeownerscan like, oh like, at least 20
years, and they could if it's adiesel pusher and they'd
maintain properly all thosethings.
Yeah, could do thathypothetically.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Trailers?
It can, but depending on howyou're using it how you've
retrofitted it.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I will say that's pushing it on a trailer, though,
Again, kind of like a pool.
It will be the first to sellRight Apples to apples, one with
a solar system and one without.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Ask me how I know, because they're sold really fast
thanks to the system.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
But it's kind of like a pool versus a really big pool
.
You're not going to get back asmuch on that really big pool.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
That's true.
That's where the intangiblescome in, but it is the
convenience of doing all thatand I think one of the biggest
conveniences that you didn'tmention, but it happened to us
is we actually at an RV park andthere was a storm that rolled
through Transformer went down.
Power went out.
Well, what's the transfer rateon these inverters?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
1 20th of a second In other words, barely blink.
And the power went out.
And if it's at night, nothingblinked because nothing was on.
That's also true, except forthe AC, ac doesn't see it.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Yeah, there you go.
So the power went out.
We were inside, it was justafter dinner sometime, it was
happening, so it was a littledarker.
It was a little darker, it wasa little cooler, so the acs
weren't necessarily on for thisscenario.
Right, the power went out.
We literally had no idea.
And then we went to go take thedogs on their, on their walk,
and there's, you hear generatorsrunning and people are outside
with flashlights looking aroundand we're standing out in front
(35:45):
of our coach and realizing thatthe power went out, talking to
some of our neighbors and one ofour acs kicked on.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
yeah, uh, yeah, I got the stink eye real fast this is
, yeah, I know, that's just howyou pull your blinds down, you
know but let everyone know thatyou're.
You know you're rving right.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
You have all the power everything still works,
even though we're sitting rightthere and, ironically, the power
went out for almost three days.
Yeah, I mean, people werebailing at that point, right,
they're going to hotels, they'regoing to stay with friends,
friends and family and weliterally I mean we had to
obviously go into consumptionpower management mode and worry
about our consumption, but itreally worked, for the most part
, flawlessly.
(36:20):
There was a couple of times wehad to pull out.
We actually got and I want totalk about kind of backup
systems in a second Rightabsolutely.
We had a backup system in that Ihad an off-board generator.
Our old coach was a traditionalfifth wheel so I didn't have an
on-board generator on that.
So we just bought an off-boardand kind of put it in the back
of the truck and needed it whenwe had it kind of a thing Known
as a portable.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Or a portable.
Well, it depends on whichindustry you're in.
Yes, and I will tell you, inall systems I will recommend a
generator.
Right Again, I look at law ofdiminishing returns.
Well, what if I get one morebattery?
Well, you know, it'd be cheaperat this point, if it gets you
through the night, to get agenerator, because there's going
to be certain days where notenough sun, you're under a tree
(37:02):
or anything else like that,where having that generator will
definitely help out or it getsreally, really hot.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Right, let's be honest.
If it gets to 105, 110 degrees,you're in the Arizona desert in
the summer.
Right, sun's beating down onthe coach cooking you.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
These systems have what's called a power assist.
It allows the power to gothrough the generator, so the
inverters aren't working as hard, but they make up the rest of
it Right, so you can extend yourstay.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
And that's exactly what we did.
We would just run the generatorin the evening hours when we're
cooking dinner.
When we had some of our higherloads, the microwave might turn
on.
A few other things.
We got the TV going.
Acs might have kicked onbecause we're cooking inside all
that.
So we would turn the generatoron for four-ish hours in the
evening and it always wouldalmost support what we were
doing.
We'd have a little bit of powerassist, but then as we started
(37:45):
to wind down, we left thegenerator on a few more hours.
Just charge up the batteries.
Yep it's just charging thebatteries and we typically get
it back up to near capacitymaybe not all the way, and then
enough to get you through thenight enough to get me through
the night and I started to learnwhere that percentage on the
batteries or the volts thatyou're reading coming out of it
gets you to that point.
And then then I would turn itoff and we'd go to bed and wake
(38:06):
up the next morning, andtypically we get up about when
the sun comes up, and so it we.
If we had a good enough battery, I'd leave it and see what the
sun did in the morning.
We had good morning sun for thepanels where we were situated
in that in that scenario, right,and so I didn't have to use it
until again, probably about fouror five o'clock the next day,
ran it for about four hours andthat was our transition.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
For those, that's quite honestly the difference,
because I had the same systemthat we put in yours, other than
the quatt, but I had eightbatteries instead of six, and so
it only took me two hours ofgenerator time.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
You know, because with more capacity, yes, it does
take longer to charge up, but Ididn't need to, right, because
I had more.
So the question is is the costof the you know two more
batteries worth it versus thefuel of the generator?
That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
If it can get you through the night and you figure
that out, you get moreefficient with it, because
you're not running the generatorfor four hours, you're only
running it for three or whatever, or two, or just essentially
whatever that need is, andthere's times where you might
need it a lot more and timesyou'll never need it, but it is
nice to have that backup.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
And that convenience of not knowing when the power
goes out, because we have neverexperienced more power outages
than living in the RV,especially in Texas.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah, we have a power problem, apparently, and when
you think, man, there's ways tomitigate this.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
That's what I need, Right, you know, for us
intangibles driving down theroad with the air conditioners
on, even in a fifth wheel,because they've got a system
that'll do it.
Yeah, you know, get your sideoff, get into your site put your
landing gear down, get yourslides out.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
She already has 70 degrees.
Well, that's what I was jokingwith, lauren, because I'm
getting ready to head back andpick her up spoiler, she's not
here for the filming of any ofthis stuff, because she has to
work.
Yeah, she's.
She's that, I'm just kidding.
Sorry, baby, there's no onethere.
Um, um, wow, thank you, todd.
Um, we're cutting all of thatnow.
Thanks a prick.
We're cutting all of that now.
Thank you, prick.
You made me have to edit.
(39:58):
I don't even know what I wassaying.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Now I got focused on that, oh, that you were about to
drive out, maybe with the AC on.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
So not only am I going to go up to Fort Worth
with all the ACs on, but when Iget there I'm not overly
concerned about getting theelectrical cord out first.
Right, and all that stuff.
I can kind of get the slidesout and worry about that.
Sometimes it's one of thosewhere it's like I want to get
the ACs on, so I pull up and, asit's leveling, I'll worry about
the ACs.
Right Now, let it level, getthe truck out of the way and I
(40:30):
can go right in and startsetting as all get out.
They can come inside.
She can start doing her thing.
At the end of the day, itactually makes us more efficient
.
Yes, and it's not 90 degrees inthe coach when we get in here,
so it doesn't take an hour tocool off.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
It's just there already essentially those are
the intangibles.
It's hard to put a number on it, but man it changes the way you
RV, especially on travel.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Started talking a little bit about kind of
recharge and discharge rateswhen we were talking about
consumption a little bit.
So what a lot of people hear 12volt, 24 volt, 48 volt and all
of those types of things likewhat I mean.
Where do you even start at thatpoint when you start talking
about moving from a 12 voltsystem into a larger capacity?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Yeah, well, okay.
So here's a couple of things.
The debate between a 12voltvolt system, 24-volt system
and a 48-volt system the closerthe voltage is between the two
conversions, the more efficientit runs.
So a 48-volt system will alwaysbe more efficient than a
24-volt, always more efficientthan a 12-volt.
What does that mean?
I can get more out of thebatteries.
(41:29):
I can transfer that over intotrue power, right, because 48
volts going into 120 is a littleover two times, right.
24 volt going in there, fivetimes 12 volt going into 120, 10
times.
So there's a power factor there.
It takes energy to changeenergy, right?
So I lose some of the capacityout of my batteries just
(41:50):
converting it over.
Some people say smaller cablesand all that.
It's really not about that.
It's honestly up to you on whatyou want to do.
Here's a consideration your RVruns on 12 volts, right?
So if you go with a 24-voltsystem or a 48-volt system,
there's considerations.
Do you leave your existing12-volt system in to run your
12-volt system, right?
(42:11):
Or do you buy more componentsto drop down to 12?
I will say, though, the biggerthe system, right, um, going
with a like yours, in your casea 24 volt system, on these big
um five, um, quattro, 5000s.
Right one, the inverter isgonna be a little bit smaller.
Uh, a 12 volt versus a 24 volt.
The 24 volts smaller, yeah,because smaller size coils in
(42:34):
there don't have to it doesn'thave to work as hard Gotcha.
That's where the efficiencycomes in, so it's a little bit
lighter, so it's all on themargins, but a lot of people
typically, when we go to adouble inverter setup, that's
where we start recommending doyou want to go 12?
This is what it would look like.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
I mean, do you want to go?
Speaker 2 (42:51):
24?
This is what it would look like.
But quite honestly, you know, Ihave the guy who trained me has
a system just as big.
He went 12.
He just did a cost analysis.
He said, Todd, there's really ahundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Difference between the two.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
So I'd rather do that and then run all my 12 volts
off of my new system, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
So it just depends At my new system, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
so so it just depends at the end of the day, it's
really just what the person'sgoing to use it for.
The solar controller is reallythe biggest part.
Gotcha right, the solarcontroller.
I can go with half as manysolar controllers, uh on the uh
on the solar side.
Simply because 24 volts, it canpush out twice as many watts.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Okay, that's all all right, todd, besides your
batteries, because obviouslywhen you start talking about,
this is kind of the todd'sfavorites things section of this
.
So, other than your brisket,brisket and whiskey, um besides
the batteries, because obviouslyI think you're a fan of your
own batteries.
Um, are there particular kindsof equipment?
You prefer to stay with brandsyeah.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
So because there's a huge learning curve when it
comes to this, and if I'mputting in a system, you know,
in an RV for a customer whodoesn't know electricity, all
they want to do is just goexperience life, right, right, I
want a system that communicateswith that individual and tells
them what's going on, whateverything is, and so for that I
(44:10):
mean, right now it's Vitron.
Vitron has a communicationsystem that is far and above any
one other system out there.
Something goes wrong, it cantell you.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Not only will it tell me, but because he helped
install, he did install it andit didn't help at all, it
actually tells him too.
So if I have a problem.
It's nice because you haveaccess to my system via the
solution.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
I ain't going to look at it 24-7.
You're going to have to alertme.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Well, that's what I mean, though, is if.
I'm experiencing a problem.
It's kind of handy because thenyou can go oh hey, this is
what's going on versus the whole.
Go get a multimeter, do this,what's that say?
Do this, what's that say?
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Oh, completely, because it captures all the data
, and that's that's the neatthing.
Is that's all free when you buythe system?
Yep, you just got to set it up,right, right.
So, um, yeah, you have all that.
You have that connectivity.
There are some other brandsthat I'm, you know, working with
that, are you know?
I'm trying to get in the rvmarket, uh, solark, because they
have a wonderful all-in-onesystem, but there's certain
(45:13):
things in RVs kind of quirkythat we don't have in the
residential.
But that's really what I'mlooking at is what can inform
the RV owner what's going onwith the system?
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Very cool.
Well, hopefully you have somequestions about batteries,
inverters, all of that stuff.
So make sure, brisket, brisket,we're good with those questions
too.
I'll answer those.
We'll get Todd's opinion onthat later.
Depends on how you want it totaste Good or adequate, wow,
good.
Adequate, wow, we don't getalong at all, by the way.
(45:49):
Nope, but man big, thank you.
Where can everybody find toorder Big Beard?
Where can everybody, where caneverybody go to order a Big
Beard battery?
Or just find out moreinformation?
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Not only that, but if they want the one thing that we
do at our company, which isBigBeardBatteriescom or
BigBeardBatterycom Doesn'tmatter, you can actually go over
there.
We can actually even helpdevelop a system for you can
actually go over there.
We can actually even helpdevelop a system for you.
We actually do full of solarinstalls, uh, so, um, kind of a
turnkey situation here.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Well, you've got some cool stuff coming which
obviously we're not going totalk about because it's still
teetering in there, but uh, butyou have some really cool things
coming to the, to the new I'mjust gonna call it compound yep,
uh, and things that will go inalong with solar installs, solar
clinics, yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
We actually just released that, where you have
some of those that want to DIY,but maybe they don't have all
the tools and they just needsomeone to sign off on it, right
?
So they don't want to spend themoney, the complete, you know
amount, of having someoneinstall it, but it's just beyond
their reach.
Well, what if we grab five orsix of you and did a little
clinic and give you all thestuff that you need to build it
(46:56):
and watch over it?
Right?
So we're looking at creatingsome solar clinics.
There you go, yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Man, thank you so much.
Thank you for everything withthe RV.
Obviously, we're going to havebig plans to take this thing out
in the middle of nowhere andchill for a little while and
find some scenic views Right.
So make sure and stay tuned wehave a lot more coming up with
(47:22):
todd as well, because we are atthe day of the release of this
uh two weeks out, two weeks outfrom the premiere, is it two or
is it one?
Speaker 2 (47:25):
well, so it starts on wednesday.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Today is saturday so well, but it's not.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
I'm trying to release date oh, I don't know when
you're releasing, that's why I'mtrying to do math in my head.
It might be one week week, soit might be one week.
Yeah, we're a week out, a weekto ten days out.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
From the season two premiere of RV Unplugged.
Make sure and go over to RVUnplugged TV, sign up for the
watch and win, because there isa ton of stuff, a ton of
giveaways.
Yeah, you can win all kinds ofstuff $70,000 is what we have so
far.
Can I have some?
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Yeah, sure, that's not safe.
You just got a lot of batteries.
That's true, I did.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Thank you so much, man.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Thank you guys and we will catch you guys next week.
I'll see you later, Thank you.
RV Unplugged Season 2 is about to release.
Plus, it is rally season.
If you're coming to theAlliance National Rally, it's
going to be our first one of theyear.
We look forward to seeing youthere and later on in the show
we are going to sit down withour good friend RV Unplugged
host, owner of Big BeardBatteries, Mr Todd Henson,
(00:21):
because we're going to talk allthings solar.
That coming up next on the RVShenanenanigans podcast, brought
to you by liquefied.
Welcome back to the rvshenanigans podcast, again
brought to you by liquefied.
My name is ryan.
Along with my wife lauren, wemake up what is known as
(00:43):
miller's in motion.
We've been full timing now fora little over two years in our
fifth wheels and we arecurrently living in our 2024
Alliance Valor 44 V14 that has abrand new power system on board
Spoiler.
We haven't been plugged intopower now for about three, four
days and it's amazing.
We are going to get into all ofthat here in just a little bit.
(01:04):
First, ironically, is the firstepisode RV Unplugged Season 2.
If you know, we competed onSeason 1 of RV Unplugged.
We had an absolute blast.
We've said it many, many timesthat is some of the best two
weeks that we've had camping.
We've made amazing friends withnot only the cast but the crew,
as well as the host andco-creators.
(01:25):
So with that, the season twoairs May 29th.
Make sure to tune in early,because Todd and Tony are going
to be doing a pre-show the halfhour leading up to it and then,
immediately following the airing, they're going to be doing a
post-show called Plugged In,where they'll answer some
questions.
Bring on some of the cast thatwere active in that season.
Plus, in addition to all that,just like we did our season,
(01:49):
they are also going to be doinglive chat.
So most of the cast will be onthere assuming they can be on
there and they will be chattingwhile the episode's going on.
You can learn more atrvunpluggedtvcom.
Plus the rally I'm not going toleave out the finale rally.
Come join us in Auburndale,Florida, at Camp Margaritaville
(02:10):
in August.
Watch the live finale with thecast, the crew, a little bit of
season one cast will be there,I'll be there, Lauren will be
there and a handful of othercast and the entirety of cast
and crew for season two.
It's going to be a blast If youattended season one rally, just
like the show is going to behigher produced.
The rally is going to be higherproduced, so we've got some fun
(02:31):
things in store.
It's definitely something youwill not want to miss out on.
Also, if you are coming to theAlliance National Rally, you
will be there during season oneairing.
Well, Tony is going to be intown, along with a few of the
contestants that are also allieswith Alliance, and so they will
be there as well watching theshow and then a few season one
casts.
Again, we will be there, somake sure and join us.
(02:53):
If you're there, we're going towatch it live in the main hall.
I believe that could change.
I'm still working on where andhearing back from the Alliance
people.
But in addition to that, rallyseason is here Segway.
You see how I like that.
That's when a bunch of prettymuch organizations,
manufacturers, start to do allkinds of fun things, and the
(03:15):
beginning one for us is theAlliance National Rally.
At the time I'm recording this,which we're going to get into
our interview with Todd here injust a second.
We filmed that a few days agowhen we were having the solar
system still installed.
I'm recording this literallythe day before you hear it.
I like to keep this portion ofit up to date and we are getting
ready.
This is the last kind oftechnical thing that I'm going
(03:35):
to do before we start packing upand getting ready to head
towards Elkhart, Indiana.
So if you're going to be at theAlliance National Rally, we
would love to see you.
If you want to see the newsolar system live and in person,
it's amazing, Shocker.
The next video full-lengthvideo on the Miller's In Motion
channel you'll be able to seethat and the installation
process.
Last week we talked with Todd alittle bit about, you know, kind
(03:56):
of picking the solar system andall those things.
But make sure and check thatout, because in addition to I
already mentioned it before butwe also have the RV Unplugged
Season 2 Finale Rally.
This rally is way more on thefun side.
We have a bunch of games, a lotof games that were in Season 2
and maybe a few games thatdidn't make Season 2.
Plus, if you're looking topotentially get on RV Unplugged,
(04:19):
in other words, be a contestantin Season 3 or beyond, there is
no better place than right hereto get the attention.
The people that do our castingStacey will be there, as well as
Tony Todd and the rest of thecrew and management team behind
RV Unplugged.
So, with that all being said,we hope you have a great kickoff
(04:40):
to your summer.
But now we are going to getinto our interview with Todd,
because we're going to gothrough solar system and shocker
.
We're going to talk a littlebit about cost.
That's normally somethingpeople avoid, but we're going to
talk about it because that's areal thing when you're picking
out a solar system.
So stay tuned for just onesecond and we'll be back with Mr
Todd Henson from Big BeardBatteries.
(05:02):
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(06:06):
Well, welcome back.
We now want to welcome not onlyour good friend, but owner of
RV Unplugged and host of RVUnplugged, a master certified
technician with the NRVTA, thekeeper of all your tech tips on
(06:26):
Tuesdays.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Mr Todd Henson and also the owner of Big Beard
Battery, because that's whatwe're talking about.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Well, thank you for letting me come on actually into
your RV, into your rig anddoing the podcast with you.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Well and fun disclosure at the current moment
, this entire podcast and thisRV is being powered by well you,
yeah, well, yeah, because youcan see I'm very active right
now.
You are very active.
It's like a bike you just keepgoing.
We got power.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
That's how this goes.
Got a new knee, I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
I'm like the Energizer bunny Exactly no, but
we are actually unplugged up asolar bill, which we're going to
talk a little bit more abouthere in just a second.
Absolutely, this whole thing'sbeing powered by your batteries
right now.
Yes, it is.
Cross my fingers.
So what made you really want tostart a battery company and
kind of toss into the mix of allthese things?
Right, didn't want to start abattery company?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
right, Perfect.
Like I said first, it wasbecause, as a master certified
tech hey look, there's a littlespider I'm going to move this
over here real quick.
Hey, you go find your home overthere.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
And full disclosure.
Todd, we don't edit a whole lotbecause that kind of stuff
people enjoy.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
That's fine.
Yeah, have you seen my stuff?
Does it look like there's edits?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah, if it makes the bloopers section, just know it
got real weird, right, realweird.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
So, no, I never intended to start a battery
business but, as someone whoreally delves into everything,
figured out that batteries werecomponent-based.
There was already people outthere taking them apart, kind of
reviewing them, and I'mwatching them taking them apart
and they're not picking up onsome things.
I'm like, hmm, look at thesmall amount of copper.
(08:00):
You can only get so much powerthrough there.
Yada, yada, yada.
So I decided well, you knowwhat I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do it right,because I want to show my
students how to build these.
And so that's where it started,just showing students how to
build these.
The problem was it's soextensive in order to do it
right that it just didn't makesense for students to do it.
So they were like well, youknow what?
What if we just bought, boughtthem from you?
So I started down that road.
(08:22):
Okay, you know what?
I will just sell them to thestudents.
Because the whole thing was isI want students to be successful
in their business and they caneither sell someone else's
battery, or what if they madetheir own, you know, and maybe
made a little bit more spread?
And it turned into you makingit for them.
Yeah, it turned into me makingit for them.
Well, over the years you knowswitching out the boxes, you
(08:43):
know still trying to geteverything right we finally got
the mix and then, just this lastyear, we decided we'll go
public with it.
So that's kind of where it went, that, and quite honestly, it's
for my kids.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Build a business for them, to kind of work at slash
manage Right.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Learn things you don't learn in school anymore.
That's how to run a business.
So you're talking inventorycontrol, you're talking customer
service, you're talking sales.
You know all of these differentthings.
That it's.
You know, quite honestly, wedon't focus on that stuff
anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
No, that's very true.
I mean, you go through schooland it's technical training
which is great, or a businessdegree.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
that is pretty much useless.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, I mean.
It got me interviews until Isaid I hate making money for
other people, right, realized Icould do it for myself.
So making money for otherpeople right, realize I could do
it for myself.
Um, so was there one definingthing that really said in the
marketplace that you wanted tochange?
Speaker 2 (09:29):
but besides, I mean with, with the bigger companies,
not the amazon kind of knockoffstuff, the big guys yeah, so
honestly, it was really aboutthe, the size, uh, of the total
power, okay, inside thebatteries, right, because in rv
space we're very limited onspace and you know the average
offering that came out was 100amp hour batteries and you would
end up with 12, 13, 14, justdepending on the size I mean so
(09:53):
now you got all of thesedifferent batteries.
it's taken up a lot of space andI said, well, what if we can
make bigger cells or find biggercells?
Not that we make them, um, butand put it, you know, just put a
bigger capacity inside thesebatteries.
You've got less batteries todeal with less balancing issues.
So that's kind of the wholepremise, right?
Big beard batteries, alwaystrying to give you the most
(10:14):
amount of power in the smallestbox possible, because, as RVs,
that's what we need.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
So when it comes down to looking at that kind of
stuff, when you're looking atthe size and all those things,
is that something that there'sadded benefits from picking a
bigger battery and going that?
Oh, yeah.
It's not necessarily the 12,24-volt conversation, which
we'll get into in a second, butjust versus having.
You're right versus 600.
Where does that balancing startto come into play?
Balancing issues right.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
So, just like anything else I call it like
herding cats or anything elseright, the more batteries you
have there's, you know there'slittle internal differences
between each one and we wantthese batteries to all work as
one, right?
So I usually tell a story inclass about, you know, push
starting a car or anything else.
Right, we all have to push onthree Is everyone pushing at the
(11:00):
same pressure?
You know some people arepushing with one hand versus two
hands.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Why are we leaning to the right guys?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Right.
So the more batteries you have,the harder it is to keep
everything balanced.
So, if we can condense thatdown to one battery, we don't
have balancing issues.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
So is that, in the combination of the controlling
systems, the technology side ofit, or is it also the physical
side?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Right.
Still, physical side.
Even when I build batteries, Ido everything I can to make them
exactly the same.
The internal resistance may beslightly off, okay, between each
one.
Well, not a big deal the firstyear or two, but over time
what's going to happen is is youknow they're going to, they're
going to get out of theirbalancing issue.
You know if they're completelycharged at the same amount.
One may be 28 volts, one may be27 volts.
(11:42):
The 28 volts can always win.
27 volts needs to get up there.
So the less batteries we have,the less balancing issues we
have.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
So what from the end user experience?
If you get some batteries let'ssay that they have a larger,
smaller capacity battery, let'ssay they got 10, 100 amp hour,
12 volts and you start to getover that line of where you
should have gone to a differenttype of system.
Oh, absolutely, what starts tohappen to the end consumer that
they actually see?
Oh yeah, I understand, they'regetting out of balance, but what
actually is happening?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I had a customer who bought a lot of these mini
100-amp-hour batteries about 15of them.
Oh boy, and he goes.
I didn't know that you hadoffered these.
I do want you to put it in, soit was.
The last one I did was someoneelse's batteries and literally
within three weeks he's callingme up.
My system is saying low voltage, he goes, but, todd, I've got
over 12 volts.
I said, well, what I need youto do is get out there with a
(12:32):
multimeter and check each oneRight, cause if you got 12 or 13
, no matter what you do, there'sno way they all get to that
inverted evenly.
And sure enough, he had somethat were at 12 volts, some that
were at like 11.6, simplybecause distance is resistance.
You know, the middle batterieswere not getting fully charged
and they were just staying downGotcha.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
So, like I said, it's a balancing issue.
Essentially, his system wouldjust not work, even though he's
seeing one thing andexperiencing another.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
essentially, Correct, because the inverter, you know,
is reading the voltage comingin Gotcha Right and sometimes
it'll catch the low voltage andit says, oh no, we're not going
to deal with this Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, so when people start to look into building out
a solar system, do they?
Because we're going to talk alittle bit about solar, not just
the lithium, but the entiresystem here for a little bit.
But you where?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
where's a good starting point for somebody?
Um, well, so I try and make itas simple as possible.
I always ask them to give methe vision.
What do you see yourself doingIf you could take your power
with you, right?
What do you want to run?
Where do you want to go?
Cause each person's different.
Some people they like coldweather, right, and so they're
going to use more propane.
Well, they want to go to thecoast, right, and they're, you
(13:48):
know, trying to go to the coastwith one AC.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
You know you're not going to make it right.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
The Keys is beautiful in August, but Right, you know.
So I would say what do you wantto do?
And then I ask them when itcomes to power, power
consumption, power delivery,what we're looking for is what
is the largest appliance thatyou need to run?
I need to have a system bigenough to run that largest
appliance.
Again, cast your vision.
What do you want to seeyourself doing?
There are some people thattravel around don't need air
(14:13):
conditioning because they stayin 70 degree weather.
Not a problem, small system.
But if they want to run that ac, um run the refrigerator and
everything else.
That's where we start looking.
What are the larger uhconsumption items?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
gotcha, we build it, build a system around that so
from that point do you typicallygo to the capacity side or the
inverter and then work off acapacity or well.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
So with that.
It gives me two differentthings.
One is the.
I want to find out.
What do they want to run?
Yeah, because I need aninverter big enough to run, you
know, whatever they seethemselves wanting to run.
One of the things I still havea problem with is they're
putting in these smallerinverters and putting in
sub-panels and all you can runis your GFCI outlets.
Okay, well, that's fine forsome people, others it's just
(14:57):
not Right.
Some people.
Others.
It's just not.
So we start from there.
So that would be like what sizeengine do you want?
That's what the inverter is.
Then, from there, how long doyou want to run it?
Well, that would be your fueland that's going to be your
batteries and your solar panels.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Okay, so this is difficult because it's hard to
talk about cost when you get inthe solar system, but it's also
one of those necessary thingsyou have to talk about.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, it costs a lot.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Well, it costs a lot and it fluctuates quite a bit
because the batteries themselvescost quite a bit.
There's a lot of fluctuation inthat market, right.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Well, not so much that, especially over the last
three or four years, because ofinflation going up and
everything else.
Resources there's only certainplaces that are mining this
stuff right, so prices are goingdown a little bit on some
things, but going up on others,but it does have to do with this
quantity, right?
So there's a huge variance inone person's system versus
(15:52):
another person's system, becauseof what they want to put in
there.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
And that's the hard part of trying to talk about
dollars, because that's probablythe biggest question we get
with our old system.
I know we're going to get itwith this.
One's like oh, what's that?
Like, what's something likethat run you.
It's like well, it's a loadedquestion, because if it's two
years later, I mean it's it'sdifferent, like we still get
questions on our old system andI'm sure that system now is more
expensive than it was when wedid it.
Yeah, and so for, for thepurposes of this conversation,
(16:16):
we're just going to kind ofrefer to more entry level, mid
range and upper end.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Sure, and that's going to be some numbers
capacity.
I mean, if you want to throwout numbers, that's fine.
I got no problem, because for alot of people, um, the sales
cycle on something like this isvery long.
Okay, because they like, oh, Iwant this, and then they go Holy
cow.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Maybe not Right.
And that's kind of like whenyou go to the restaurant, right,
you're like, well, there's a 20minute wait and it's a five
minute wait, you're all excited.
Versus it's like oh, it's afive minute wait, it's a 30
minute wait.
Now you're mad or in hell.
(16:52):
So it's kind of that same thingof like kind of expectations
and make sure we're also sayingthe accurate thing.
So, um, if you don't mind, I'mgoing to run through just kind
of some ideas of systems and youcan kind of throw out some what
it is and then maybe a roughestimate on range one million
the yeah right, how much do youwant to give todd?
um, so let's start with theentry level side.
Let's say somebody just has,like a, either a small travel
(17:14):
trailer, 30 amp coach or doesn'tneed to do a whole lot.
Um, maybe doesn't care aboutrunning an AC, but wants to run
everything else in the coach asfar as maybe the microwave every
once in a while.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Sure.
So the funny thing is, themicrowave by itself is almost as
powerful or almost asconsumptive as an air
conditioner.
And so this is where, again, Ihave problems with OEMs that
would put in a smaller, say 2000 watt inverter because that
can't run the whole household.
No, so they would spend moremoney putting in what we call a
(17:44):
sub panel.
And the money you saved andputting in a 2 000 watt inverter
, you ended up blowing onputting in a sub panel.
So how about we do this?
No matter what all builds,we'll just say one inverter
large enough to run anything inthe RV At one time, at one time,
and I'll tell you it's about$1,000 for that inverter.
Yeah, okay, to get one that's2,000 watts, same brand, you're
(18:09):
looking at about $800.
And you're going to spend about$200 putting in a subpanel,
gotcha.
So to me, $1,000 for oneinverter to run anything.
So that could be the microwave,that could be the air
conditioner, refrigerator, allof that.
So $1,000 there.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Batteries right Depends on how long you want to
run it.
So for the assumption, we'lljust say you want to run it, for
at the moment we'll start smalland we'll say, let's say four
hours.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, so we'll say one battery.
Okay, right, so they retail for2000.
Okay, right, so they're umsolar panels.
Honestly, you know, just tokind of give you a cost per watt
, every place is a little bitdifferent but between um we'll
say 75 cents per watt, unlessyou go with the really small
panels.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Okay, then they're a dollar a watt just because
they're more.
Are they more efficient or arethey?
Just now?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
there's less people that make them and we've got
this stigma that the 200 wattpanels are what we call rv
panels.
There's no such thing as an rvsolar uh panel or a residential
solar panel, just size gotcharight so obviously.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I saw obviously on an rv.
It's more of a jigsaw puzzle upthere where the house, you have
a little bit more space to work.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Quite honestly the bigger the size, the cheaper
cost per watt it is sure okay,you know, it's just like buying
in bulk.
Yeah, it's going to Costcoversus Target Correct or the
convenience store.
How about that?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
that's probably better.
Yeah, where?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
you buy a 16-ounce soda for $2.25,.
You can go get a two-liter for$1.99.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
So the next step up in system would really
realistically being maybe like-Two Well I was going to say that
one AC, but now for maybe eightto 10 hours.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, so now all you're doing is just increasing
your fuel.
So it'd be capacity.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
It'd be more solar panels, more batteries, gotcha,
yeah, and then from there.
Now we're up to okay.
Well, now I want to run acouple of AC.
One AC all night, two ACs, well.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I do want to cover one thing.
This is where a lot of peoplego.
We'll cover the major itemsinverters and batteries and
solar panels, and I've kind ofgiven the numbers there.
It's all the stuff in between.
That's about a third of thecost.
Cables, cables, disconnects, um, oh, labor separate, right.
But you know cause?
There's a lot of people thatcan DIY it and, um, some people
that semi DIY it.
(20:13):
If they just had a hand walkingthem through it.
That's my category, yeah, butright now you're paying for
someone's knowledge, right,right, to do that, and so you're
looking at about 125 to $175 anhour, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
For that individual who knows what they're doing.
And some of these systemsespecially, the bigger they are
and the more cumbersome ofwhatever coach you have, the
more cumbersome of system youhave.
They could be up there a week.
Yeah, Potentially about 35 to 45hours, depending on how big the
system is You've got a nicelittle simple coach that it's
easy, then it's not quite thatmuch.
So now we're going to move up,because at some point we'll talk
(20:47):
about what we just got donedoing, I think, before that,
let's talk about the old systembecause that's kind of the
mid-range.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
That was the mid-range.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
So on our old system we had dual multi-plus inverters
.
We had about 1800 amp hours ofbatteries, 12 volt, and then we
also had about 1800 watts ofsolar on the roof.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Okay, yep, so that's our mid-range system and, by the
way, that system smalls betweensix and eight thousand dollars,
right, total, all total, to putthat in, not counting labor.
Right, the next system up right, you're adding a second
inverter.
And if you're adding a secondinverter, right, not much cost
there, it's another thousanddollars.
But, quite honestly, you needto increase your fuel, right,
(21:27):
right, so you almost double yourbatteries and whatnot, and
that's where the cost comes in.
So you're looking between 14and 16 thousand.
Okay, to go to a doubleinverter setup, right, double
multi-plus setup with everything, yeah now, that's complete head
and toe and there's also otherthings.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Obviously we start running to run acs.
You want to put soft starts,easy starts, something like that
on to help out.
So there's not that they'rehorribly expensive and, quite
frankly, they're pretty easy toput on.
Um, you guys did it for meotherwise I'd right that's one
of those things I probably couldhave done right.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
But especially when they give you a qr code, you
click on it and it gives you alittle oh okay, this goes here,
this goes there, got it.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I do like it when it's easy like that.
Right Um, now we're going totalk a little bit about what
we've put on, and this podcastis coming out slightly after our
main video.
So if you're curious about kindof the visuals and a lot of
other stuff, make sure, sure andcheck out the youtube video
over on the miller's emotionschannel, right um, but yeah it's
.
I pretty much came to you andsaid we're getting a new coach,
yeah it's a toy hauler.
(22:25):
I have a little extra weightcapacity.
Um, I don't, I don't want toworry about this right, and that
is.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
That is the big difference between a mid-level
system and a huge system.
So a mid-level system, like youhad the double multi-plus that
can run two ACs or one AC andone microwave, but now you've
got all the other stuff right.
You have your refrigerator,that's on.
There may be some anything elsethat are what we call wall
warts that you're plugged intoWashing machine Dehumidifiers
(22:54):
yeah, dehumidifiers, whatever itis, and the hotter it is, and
that's really where I think alot of people don't quite
understand.
Whatever it is and the hotterit is, and that's really where I
think a lot of people don'tquite understand that the air
conditioner can consume so muchmore energy.
The hotter it is outside, right, right, and so they don't quite
understand.
It'll increase by four, five,six amps per hour.
That it's drawing from.
Well, that puts the system inpeak mode, right?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Just because it's working harder Right.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, so you guys learned that and you spent a
couple hours trying to detail.
I could turn this on and thison, but not this right.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So what it came down to is after talking with todd a
lot, I've learned the basics, Iwould say, in usage, consumption
, those types of things, and sopower management yeah, I
essentially went through forlauren because what she
requested was that I just needto know what I can and can't do,
essentially.
So I made a map.
If this says this, you can onlyrun these items, you can only
(23:47):
run by themselves or you can runeverything else.
If you turn these off, you cando that.
I kind of did that for bothlegs because we were not it was
leg to leg, because in a 50 ampcoach you've got two power legs
Right and so, yeah, I did thatand we still overloaded some
stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
So, Yep, and especially well, even during,
you know, RV unplugged rally.
I think you had some issueswith that right, we did yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
And it was hot.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah, and it was hot.
So you know you spend a lot oftime in Texas.
It's going to be hot, so that'swhere I went to the next level.
So still the same amount ofbatteries, right, and you know
our goal Amp hours, right, sameamount of, they'll say, total
power Spoiler.
I got less batteries, right,less batteries, but yeah, more
(24:31):
power, right, or same power,right?
Actually a little bit amountAll right, but we did increase
how many solar panels you have.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
That almost went up by a little over right around
1,000 watts.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, so that's pretty good there.
But we basically enlarge theinverters to a 4,000-watt
inverter, so two of those 8,000watts instead of the two
multi-plus 3,000s and I knowthis is kind of confusing.
It's a 3,000.
It's not 3,000 watts, it's2,400 watts, it's 3,000, for a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, they kind of say what their max capacity is,
and that's not a sustainablething.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
It's a power factor, so they follow the generator
type.
When it comes to nomenclature,yeah, what they put on there.
Then you've got to read thedata plate.
Let's say soap, your chaos.
Yeah, and a lot of otherinverters, different brands.
They will say, no, we canmaintain it, each brand is a
little bit different.
Right, so we went to 8,000.
Now, 8,000 means you can runtwo ACs on one leg, right?
Right, so you only have threeACs, that's two ACs on one leg,
an AC and a microwave on theother.
(25:35):
Yep, and still have just alittle bit, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Residual stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, a little bit more, we have a 12-volt fridge.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So that's going to be our DC power and that is all
right through the same batteries, right?
We?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
didn't.
So there's no power factorthere.
The battery know, the batterycan handle that, um, depending
on the batteries, sure, right?
So yeah, now, basically, you'vetaken the mid-level system and
went to an advanced system wherethere's far less detail in what
you could turn on right now.
Is it still possible, uh, foryou to peak this system, sure?
Oh yeah, right, because youstill have a dryer.
(26:07):
And if you're running two acsand the dryer, yeah, now you got
, yeah, you could peak it, youknow, but far less, far less
time at that point.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So typically on that you go from three acs down to
two acs well and run your otherthings and what's interesting
too is when you start gettinginto that power management stuff
like we were talking about thisyesterday, just kind of
reviewing my breaker panel okay,well, for balancing the loads
right.
So, for whatever reason, on oneleg, my.
So we're in a toy hauler now,if you're not familiar with that
.
So our first reaction is goingto be, if we need to cut power
(26:39):
to anything for managementsystems, it's going to be a toy
hauler space Right.
When we're in transit it'sreally almost non-usable for us.
I mean kind of how we load it.
So I really wanted to have airconditioner and our bedroom air
conditioner on separate legs.
Yeah, because it spreads it out.
And of course, not a jab atalliance or anything, this is
just all oems.
They don't necessarily payattention to that they don't
(26:59):
balance it.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Not only that, but you, the rv user, you may want
this mid level, uh, so mid bomb,or I'll say this again um, how
about your kitchen ac and yourbedroom ac on?
The same time another personmay.
Their lifestyle may be kitchen,ac and rear.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
AC.
Yeah, and they don't know whatyour preferences are going to be
, and so for us it made the mostsense to separate our kitchen
and our bedroom air conditioner,and then they can be on the
same leg or at least get themicrowave off of it.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, I will say that .
Don't put two ACs and themicrowave on the same leg, which
is what our coach had yeah, nowI will say that Don't put two
ACs in the microwave on the sameleg, which is what our coach
had.
Yeah, and that happens and youknow, I and I know if you ask
the people who know at the OEMs,they know it just gets all the
way down and sometimes you knowpeople are people.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
It happens, yep.
Sometimes labels are put inwrong has done it perfect.
No yeah, exactly, evencustom-built.
You're going to go back and go.
And it was your fault.
You designed it.
You said you wanted that.
I didn't know what I wanted.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, that's totally true.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I'm guessing you get that sometimes when you're
actually designing systems forpeople of callbacks Like this is
actually I didn't need as muchor I wish I had I have yet I've
heard and that's actually theWayward Wags.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Now they're a little bit thinner than the rest of us.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
What are you trying to say, Todd?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Well, I'm just saying they're not average.
I still think I could takeDustin, Just depends on what it
is.
So they start off with a singleinverter system.
They drank the Kool-Aid andwithin two days, hey, let's go
with the second one.
It they drank the Kool-Aid andwithin two days, hey, let's go
with the second one.
It happens, but I've gottenword.
They're like hey, we don't needto run two, because of course
they travel and stay in fairweather, they can get by with
(28:41):
one.
They were so far the onlycouple that ever said well,
maybe I didn't need this much,Because I used to say I've never
had someone say, darn it, Ibought too much, Right.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah, darn it, I bought too much, right?
Yeah, that's also true, becauseit just works and you don't
really care how efficient oranything at that point because
you don't have to worry about it.
But they also might have been alittle scared of what they were
getting into at the time.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
And that's part of it .
Yeah, because you still don'tknow, especially if you're new
to boondocking like, ooh, I needto go ahead and prepare for
maybe the worst, and then youfind out.
Well, wait a minute.
What I always say is they mayRV right, they go where the
temperate weather is.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Again.
I feel like you're taking shotsat me over here.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
No, no no, it's just some people full-timers they can
move and for those of us thatare full-time and not
telecommuting or whatnot, we'rekind of relegated to wherever
we're at, and that's whathappens to us so we're not our
being right, because we stillgot businesses and everything
else right.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
So so when you do like and that's one of the
things that you and I talkedabout because I didn't know you
guys very well when I came toseason one production, yeah, we
didn't know you at all.
And then we got to know youthroughout the course of that
and then I remember somewherearound the first week mark and
you and I started to realize wekind of could you know, yeah, we
did smartasses together.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, we did like each other.
Yeah, repercussions foreverybody else.
It's like he's my brother.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, sorry for everybody else that got sucked
into that, right?
We don't poke fun at anybodyever.
We're angels, that's right.
It's all about other people.
Yep, so I told you.
Because you mentioned.
You said well, if you want todo something, just like, think
about it for the next week, likewhat, what do you really want
to have on right now?
Don't think about the fridge,we'll take that into
(30:18):
consideration.
Don't think about all this, likewhat there's the, what do you
want to get to get by, whatwould make it comfortable, and
then you know we'll talk aboutwhere that lands as far as
dollars and all of those otherthings and for the next week, as
I sweated because it was 90 umand I had my one lead acid
battery with the inverter thatbarely ran my fridge um that I
(30:40):
took that into consideration,especially the second night when
I was actually sitting outsideat three in the morning because
it was so hot inside the coachyeah, the best time to create
awareness is in the summer, whenpeople start thinking about it.
Yes, it was um, but no, but thatwas a serious like I kind of
said, like, well, I really wouldlike to run one AC overnight if
it just stayed on constantly,assuming it's under a reasonable
amount of load.
And that was the bedroom AC,because I told myself like
(31:02):
sweating, sleeping and the bed'samazing.
We've got a Brooklyn bed orrvmattresscom from Brooklyn
Bedding Bed, which is great.
Unless you're hot, then thatbig squishy thing just becomes a
heat tortilla.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Well, and you've got to think as well.
I mean, heat is going to gointo the surfaces and if you
only have one AC trying to drawall the heat out, it takes
forever to get it out ofphysical surfaces.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
The temperature in the air may be fine, but this
still may be three or fourdegrees warmer Right, and so now
you've knocked that AC down alittle further to kind of get it
to that point, and or basically2 am 3 am by the time you get
rid of swamp butt.
Yeah, pretty much so that's whywe and you even asked me that
well, what's overnight mean toyou?
I remember that questionbecause I was like that's a
really good point.
Because I said we go to bedaround 9 or 10 typically, we're
(31:43):
go to bed early, get up earlypeople.
And then remember you said likeokay 10 shoot, let's.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
What is that?
I've already got up for myfirst.
You break.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Insights to Todd's bathroom schedule.
That's right.
But, no, but you need to turnthe AC on a little bit before,
because RV air conditioners arenowhere near as efficient as
house air conditioners.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Well, I wouldn't say, the efficiency is not so much
in the air conditioning, as itis the RV itself.
It's a two-inch wall.
There's a lot of sliding parts.
Heat comes in.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
And it just takes a minute for it to cool off up
there.
So, we've gotten in the habitof starting it, so I remember
you saying well, if you want torun it for, let's say, eight
hours overnight, it's reallylike 10.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, so typically, yeah, what I do is I say,
knowing the RV industry, everyplace you go there may be quad
hours, so you can't run yourgenerator right and your solar
panels don't work.
At night you may see voltage,but it ain't doing jack until
the morning.
So to me I always ask what doyou run at night?
Because at night, during thattime frame, batteries are the
(32:44):
only thing you have.
You got what you got, that's it.
So tell me what you normallyrun, Because some people, like I
said, I'll even ask them whattemperature do you set your
thermostat at.
Ask them what temperature doyou set your thermostat at?
Oh, I like 68.
Oh, that means it's on 24-7.
All right, so, yeah, this ishow many batteries you need.
Oh, you know I'm skinny, so 78seems cold to me.
Oh, shoot, here's one batteryAlso.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
True, right, so as far as our system, when you
start talking about cost, justto kind of put a bow on that
side of the conversation, what Iknow, unfortunately, yeah,
between $24,000 and $28,000.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Okay, right.
So I know, and people are like,drop the phone right now.
Right Now, here's the thingYou've got to think now.
There's two different ways oflooking at this, right?
What I'll say is theintangibles, the conveniences
that you get from this.
It's hard to put a dollarfactor on it.
It is.
But if we look at an ROI returnon investment, hey, why would I
put in a $28,000 system when Ican go to RV parks?
(33:41):
Average overnight stay used tobe $45.
Now it's about $60.
I know it's gone up, right, soyou just take that average
overnight stay of 60 and dividethat into whatever the cost of
the build is Okay, and on that$8,000 system, that's half a
year.
Yep, right, all you got to dois spend half a year not at RV
(34:01):
sites.
Now you get to open up whereyou're going 16,000, roughly one
year.
Right, right 28,000, two yearsfor your ROIs.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
So it is.
I mean, if, if we had an rv andI'm like I'm only going to keep
this thing for a year, Iwouldn't have put this system in
oh, that's another thing Ialways ask him is this the rv?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
you're going to keep right, because it's kind of like
a swimming pool.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
You're not going to get back everything which and I
will say that is different formotor homeowners versus trailer
owners right, motor homeownerscan like, oh like, at least 20
years, and they could if it's adiesel pusher and they'd
maintain properly all thosethings.
Yeah, could do thathypothetically.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Trailers?
It can, but depending on howyou're using it how you've
retrofitted it.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I will say that's pushing it on a trailer, though,
Again, kind of like a pool.
It will be the first to sellRight Apples to apples, one with
a solar system and one without.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Ask me how I know, because they're sold really fast
thanks to the system.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
But it's kind of like a pool versus a really big pool
.
You're not going to get back asmuch on that really big pool.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
That's true.
That's where the intangiblescome in, but it is the
convenience of doing all thatand I think one of the biggest
conveniences that you didn'tmention, but it happened to us
is we actually at an RV park andthere was a storm that rolled
through Transformer went down.
Power went out.
Well, what's the transfer rateon these inverters?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
1 20th of a second In other words, barely blink.
And the power went out.
And if it's at night, nothingblinked because nothing was on.
That's also true, except forthe AC, ac doesn't see it.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Yeah, there you go.
So the power went out.
We were inside, it was justafter dinner sometime, it was
happening, so it was a littledarker.
It was a little darker, it wasa little cooler, so the acs
weren't necessarily on for thisscenario.
Right, the power went out.
We literally had no idea.
And then we went to go take thedogs on their, on their walk,
and there's, you hear generatorsrunning and people are outside
with flashlights looking aroundand we're standing out in front
(35:45):
of our coach and realizing thatthe power went out, talking to
some of our neighbors and one ofour acs kicked on.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
yeah, uh, yeah, I got the stink eye real fast this is
, yeah, I know, that's just howyou pull your blinds down, you
know but let everyone know thatyou're.
You know you're rving right.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
You have all the power everything still works,
even though we're sitting rightthere and, ironically, the power
went out for almost three days.
Yeah, I mean, people werebailing at that point, right,
they're going to hotels, they'regoing to stay with friends,
friends and family and weliterally I mean we had to
obviously go into consumptionpower management mode and worry
about our consumption, but itreally worked, for the most part
, flawlessly.
(36:20):
There was a couple of times wehad to pull out.
We actually got and I want totalk about kind of backup
systems in a second Rightabsolutely.
We had a backup system in that Ihad an off-board generator.
Our old coach was a traditionalfifth wheel so I didn't have an
on-board generator on that.
So we just bought an off-boardand kind of put it in the back
of the truck and needed it whenwe had it kind of a thing Known
as a portable.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Or a portable.
Well, it depends on whichindustry you're in.
Yes, and I will tell you, inall systems I will recommend a
generator.
Right Again, I look at law ofdiminishing returns.
Well, what if I get one morebattery?
Well, you know, it'd be cheaperat this point, if it gets you
through the night, to get agenerator, because there's going
to be certain days where notenough sun, you're under a tree
(37:02):
or anything else like that,where having that generator will
definitely help out or it getsreally, really hot.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Right, let's be honest.
If it gets to 105, 110 degrees,you're in the Arizona desert in
the summer.
Right, sun's beating down onthe coach cooking you.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
These systems have what's called a power assist.
It allows the power to gothrough the generator, so the
inverters aren't working as hard, but they make up the rest of
it Right, so you can extend yourstay.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
And that's exactly what we did.
We would just run the generatorin the evening hours when we're
cooking dinner.
When we had some of our higherloads, the microwave might turn
on.
A few other things.
We got the TV going.
Acs might have kicked onbecause we're cooking inside all
that.
So we would turn the generatoron for four-ish hours in the
evening and it always wouldalmost support what we were
doing.
We'd have a little bit of powerassist, but then as we started
(37:45):
to wind down, we left thegenerator on a few more hours.
Just charge up the batteries.
Yep it's just charging thebatteries and we typically get
it back up to near capacitymaybe not all the way, and then
enough to get you through thenight enough to get me through
the night and I started to learnwhere that percentage on the
batteries or the volts thatyou're reading coming out of it
gets you to that point.
And then then I would turn itoff and we'd go to bed and wake
(38:06):
up the next morning, andtypically we get up about when
the sun comes up, and so it we.
If we had a good enough battery, I'd leave it and see what the
sun did in the morning.
We had good morning sun for thepanels where we were situated
in that in that scenario, right,and so I didn't have to use it
until again, probably about fouror five o'clock the next day,
ran it for about four hours andthat was our transition.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
For those, that's quite honestly the difference,
because I had the same systemthat we put in yours, other than
the quatt, but I had eightbatteries instead of six, and so
it only took me two hours ofgenerator time.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
You know, because with more capacity, yes, it does
take longer to charge up, but Ididn't need to, right, because
I had more.
So the question is is the costof the you know two more
batteries worth it versus thefuel of the generator?
That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
If it can get you through the night and you figure
that out, you get moreefficient with it, because
you're not running the generatorfor four hours, you're only
running it for three or whatever, or two, or just essentially
whatever that need is, andthere's times where you might
need it a lot more and timesyou'll never need it, but it is
nice to have that backup.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
And that convenience of not knowing when the power
goes out, because we have neverexperienced more power outages
than living in the RV,especially in Texas.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah, we have a power problem, apparently, and when
you think, man, there's ways tomitigate this.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
That's what I need, Right, you know, for us
intangibles driving down theroad with the air conditioners
on, even in a fifth wheel,because they've got a system
that'll do it.
Yeah, you know, get your sideoff, get into your site put your
landing gear down, get yourslides out.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
She already has 70 degrees.
Well, that's what I was jokingwith, lauren, because I'm
getting ready to head back andpick her up spoiler, she's not
here for the filming of any ofthis stuff, because she has to
work.
Yeah, she's.
She's that, I'm just kidding.
Sorry, baby, there's no onethere.
Um, um, wow, thank you, todd.
Um, we're cutting all of thatnow.
Thanks a prick.
We're cutting all of that now.
Thank you, prick.
You made me have to edit.
(39:58):
I don't even know what I wassaying.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Now I got focused on that, oh, that you were about to
drive out, maybe with the AC on.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
So not only am I going to go up to Fort Worth
with all the ACs on, but when Iget there I'm not overly
concerned about getting theelectrical cord out first.
Right, and all that stuff.
I can kind of get the slidesout and worry about that.
Sometimes it's one of thosewhere it's like I want to get
the ACs on, so I pull up and, asit's leveling, I'll worry about
the ACs.
Right Now, let it level, getthe truck out of the way and I
(40:30):
can go right in and startsetting as all get out.
They can come inside.
She can start doing her thing.
At the end of the day, itactually makes us more efficient
.
Yes, and it's not 90 degrees inthe coach when we get in here,
so it doesn't take an hour tocool off.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
It's just there already essentially those are
the intangibles.
It's hard to put a number on it, but man it changes the way you
RV, especially on travel.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Started talking a little bit about kind of
recharge and discharge rateswhen we were talking about
consumption a little bit.
So what a lot of people hear 12volt, 24 volt, 48 volt and all
of those types of things likewhat I mean.
Where do you even start at thatpoint when you start talking
about moving from a 12 voltsystem into a larger capacity?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Yeah, well, okay.
So here's a couple of things.
The debate between a 12voltvolt system, 24-volt system
and a 48-volt system the closerthe voltage is between the two
conversions, the more efficientit runs.
So a 48-volt system will alwaysbe more efficient than a
24-volt, always more efficientthan a 12-volt.
What does that mean?
I can get more out of thebatteries.
(41:29):
I can transfer that over intotrue power, right, because 48
volts going into 120 is a littleover two times, right.
24 volt going in there, fivetimes 12 volt going into 120, 10
times.
So there's a power factor there.
It takes energy to changeenergy, right?
So I lose some of the capacityout of my batteries just
(41:50):
converting it over.
Some people say smaller cablesand all that.
It's really not about that.
It's honestly up to you on whatyou want to do.
Here's a consideration your RVruns on 12 volts, right?
So if you go with a 24-voltsystem or a 48-volt system,
there's considerations.
Do you leave your existing12-volt system in to run your
12-volt system, right?
(42:11):
Or do you buy more componentsto drop down to 12?
I will say, though, the biggerthe system, right, um, going
with a like yours, in your casea 24 volt system, on these big
um five, um, quattro, 5000s.
Right one, the inverter isgonna be a little bit smaller.
Uh, a 12 volt versus a 24 volt.
The 24 volts smaller, yeah,because smaller size coils in
(42:34):
there don't have to it doesn'thave to work as hard Gotcha.
That's where the efficiencycomes in, so it's a little bit
lighter, so it's all on themargins, but a lot of people
typically, when we go to adouble inverter setup, that's
where we start recommending doyou want to go 12?
This is what it would look like.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
I mean, do you want to go?
Speaker 2 (42:51):
24?
This is what it would look like.
But quite honestly, you know, Ihave the guy who trained me has
a system just as big.
He went 12.
He just did a cost analysis.
He said, Todd, there's really ahundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Difference between the two.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
So I'd rather do that and then run all my 12 volts
off of my new system, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
So it just depends At my new system, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
so so it just depends at the end of the day, it's
really just what the person'sgoing to use it for.
The solar controller is reallythe biggest part.
Gotcha right, the solarcontroller.
I can go with half as manysolar controllers, uh on the uh
on the solar side.
Simply because 24 volts, it canpush out twice as many watts.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Okay, that's all all right, todd, besides your
batteries, because obviouslywhen you start talking about,
this is kind of the todd'sfavorites things section of this
.
So, other than your brisket,brisket and whiskey, um besides
the batteries, because obviouslyI think you're a fan of your
own batteries.
Um, are there particular kindsof equipment?
You prefer to stay with brandsyeah.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
So because there's a huge learning curve when it
comes to this, and if I'mputting in a system, you know,
in an RV for a customer whodoesn't know electricity, all
they want to do is just goexperience life, right, right, I
want a system that communicateswith that individual and tells
them what's going on, whateverything is, and so for that I
(44:10):
mean, right now it's Vitron.
Vitron has a communicationsystem that is far and above any
one other system out there.
Something goes wrong, it cantell you.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Not only will it tell me, but because he helped
install, he did install it andit didn't help at all, it
actually tells him too.
So if I have a problem.
It's nice because you haveaccess to my system via the
solution.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
I ain't going to look at it 24-7.
You're going to have to alertme.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Well, that's what I mean, though, is if.
I'm experiencing a problem.
It's kind of handy because thenyou can go oh hey, this is
what's going on versus the whole.
Go get a multimeter, do this,what's that say?
Do this, what's that say?
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Oh, completely, because it captures all the data
, and that's that's the neatthing.
Is that's all free when you buythe system?
Yep, you just got to set it up,right, right.
So, um, yeah, you have all that.
You have that connectivity.
There are some other brandsthat I'm, you know, working with
that, are you know?
I'm trying to get in the rvmarket, uh, solark, because they
have a wonderful all-in-onesystem, but there's certain
(45:13):
things in RVs kind of quirkythat we don't have in the
residential.
But that's really what I'mlooking at is what can inform
the RV owner what's going onwith the system?
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Very cool.
Well, hopefully you have somequestions about batteries,
inverters, all of that stuff.
So make sure, brisket, brisket,we're good with those questions
too.
I'll answer those.
We'll get Todd's opinion onthat later.
Depends on how you want it totaste Good or adequate, wow,
good.
Adequate, wow, we don't getalong at all, by the way.
(45:49):
Nope, but man big, thank you.
Where can everybody find toorder Big Beard?
Where can everybody, where caneverybody go to order a Big
Beard battery?
Or just find out moreinformation?
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Not only that, but if they want the one thing that we
do at our company, which isBigBeardBatteriescom or
BigBeardBatterycom Doesn'tmatter, you can actually go over
there.
We can actually even helpdevelop a system for you can
actually go over there.
We can actually even helpdevelop a system for you.
We actually do full of solarinstalls, uh, so, um, kind of a
turnkey situation here.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Well, you've got some cool stuff coming which
obviously we're not going totalk about because it's still
teetering in there, but uh, butyou have some really cool things
coming to the, to the new I'mjust gonna call it compound yep,
uh, and things that will go inalong with solar installs, solar
clinics, yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
We actually just released that, where you have
some of those that want to DIY,but maybe they don't have all
the tools and they just needsomeone to sign off on it, right
?
So they don't want to spend themoney, the complete, you know
amount, of having someoneinstall it, but it's just beyond
their reach.
Well, what if we grab five orsix of you and did a little
clinic and give you all thestuff that you need to build it
(46:56):
and watch over it?
Right?
So we're looking at creatingsome solar clinics.
There you go, yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Man, thank you so much.
Thank you for everything withthe RV.
Obviously, we're going to havebig plans to take this thing out
in the middle of nowhere andchill for a little while and
find some scenic views Right.
So make sure and stay tuned wehave a lot more coming up with
(47:22):
todd as well, because we are atthe day of the release of this
uh two weeks out, two weeks outfrom the premiere, is it two or
is it one?
Speaker 2 (47:25):
well, so it starts on wednesday.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Today is saturday so well, but it's not.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
I'm trying to release date oh, I don't know when
you're releasing, that's why I'mtrying to do math in my head.
It might be one week week, soit might be one week.
Yeah, we're a week out, a weekto ten days out.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
From the season two premiere of RV Unplugged.
Make sure and go over to RVUnplugged TV, sign up for the
watch and win, because there isa ton of stuff, a ton of
giveaways.
Yeah, you can win all kinds ofstuff $70,000 is what we have so
far.
Can I have some?
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Yeah, sure, that's not safe.
You just got a lot of batteries.
That's true, I did.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Thank you so much, man.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Thank you guys and we will catch you guys next week.
I'll see you later, Thank you.
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