I have a 30A service in my camper. I do not have an "inline" generator (meaning, it is not controlled by anything... I have to actually go out and turn it on...lol). I do have 600 watts of solar on the roof with a Smart Solar 100/50 MPPT, a Multiplus 12/3000/120, 210 Ah of Lion Energy Safari UT1300 LiFePO4 lithium batteries and a Cerbo GX. I also have a BMV712 keeping an eye on everything for me!
When not out camping I keep my camper plugged into a dedicated 30A plug at my home and continue to use some items in the camper. My goal now is to prioritize solar to maintain a charged battery bank, and then provide as much solar power as possible to run any loads inside the camper as needed. On the occasion that the solar does not provide enough power, I would then like for the shore power to kick in and *supplement* the solar power to meet these goals. I have no desire nor the hardware necessary to feed back any power to the grid, so this will only be for self consumption.
For reference, I am not a licensed electrician and only have a basic knowledge and understanding (but am happy and eager to learn!)
To accomplish this goal I was told to run the ESS assistant along with DVCC, however, when researching these options, I realize that Victron does not approve the use of ESS or DVCC in a camper/RV. After bringing this up I was directed towards the (old?) Self Consumption HUB1 assistant.
From reading, it looks like this is exactly what I want to do, however, it appears many functions of the HUB1 assistant have been deprecated. So, my questions are now geared towards this assistant...
1. Should/can I still use the Self Consumption HUB1 assistant to accomplish my goal? Is it still functional?
2. If I can still use this assistant, what country code should I use to enable the assistant? I am located in North America/USA and when using the "fake target with full options" to simply play with the settings rather than programming anything into my actual system just yet, I see no listing for North America in the country code drop down box. Is there an option for North America or USA when inputing the real assistant (not the fake version) in my actual system, or instead do I select one of the "Other" options... and if so, which one?
3. When going through the HUB1 assistant screens, under the "System" screen I have to choose a battery, but I am not sure which one to choose. As I mentioned, I am using Lion Energy Safari UT1300 batteries which does have an integrated BMS in each battery, however, I don't think this type of battery choice is on the list. The only one I see that may be close is the "System uses LiFePO4 batteries with a two signal BMS" however I don't think that this is exactly what my batteries are... so, which option do I choose?
4. In the "Policy" screen, the last option "Connected to mains, no feedback" sounds like the choice I need, is this correct? Also, I notice this one doesn't have the "DEPRECATED" stamp behind it, which makes me think that this is still a useable option that can be chosen?
5. Skipping over to the "Battery State Inputs" screen, how would I need to fill those blocks out? I assume I would need to use the T Sense wire that came with the Multiplus for this? For the record, I don't have this wire attached to my Multiplus at this time, instead I have the VE BUS Smart Dongle attached to the Multiplus, which as I understand it, the Smart Dongle supplies the Multiplus with both temperature and voltage information. But, should I use the T Sense wire instead, or can I just stick with the Smart Dongle? As well, what information do I use in those 4 drop down boxes? Will I have to program a relay??
I think this will get me started. And as I stated, I am not an electrician, and I am just learning all of this as I go. If you have any questions, or if I did not provide enough, or the correct information, please let me know what I need to provide in order to get this figured out. Thanks!
