Lithium Batteries for Motorhomes- This is a GAMECHANGER for wild park-ups!!

I haven't plugged into an electric hookup for over four weeks and the lowest my battery level has got is 68%. To say I'm gobsmacked is an understatement. Hi I'm Kat and I live and travel in my motorhome full-time with my dog Mac. Right now I'm touring Ireland in my van and for this entire trip I have not needed to use a campsite or find an electric hookup. Let me show you how I've done it. Hey guys if you've followed me for a while you might remember that I sat down with the lovely Rob from Oaktree Motorhomes to have a chat about lithium batteries, how they work and what might be the best setup for me in my motorhome. That was a couple of months ago and after that chat we decided to fit the following. Let me read this I'll make sure I get it right. I have now got one 230 amp lithium battery that's got a heater and Bluetooth. I've got one 200 watt solar panel and Bluetooth Victron MPPT solar controller and I've got one Victron Orion 30 amp DC to DC. So all of those were added to my van and installed properly by the lovely people at Oaktree. I will tell you more about the fitting on that shortly. But that was a couple of months ago but I've only actually been able to really test out the system whilst I've been here touring in Ireland. And as I said I've been here now for over four weeks and I've not needed to use an electric hookup once. Just to be clear I don't have a generator on board, I don't have any other way of creating electricity other than my engine. I've got my original solar panel which I think is 110 watts and then I've got the one that they put on which is 200 watts and then I've also got my EcoFlow and obviously an inverter which charges my EcoFlow. That's it, that's my whole setup and I can't get over quite how simple it is or how effective it is. So let me give you some stats and tell you a little bit about how the whole system works. So as I understand it there are these magical fairies that live in the lithium battery and they create power just seemingly unendingly. I jest but actually I still don't really quite understand the change in my power. Now so before this I had a lead battery, a normal lead battery and I damaged it last winter which is why I was looking to change to lithium in the first place. And after I damaged it the most I could do off-grid, most of which was done on my parents driveway, was like 24 hours. It was rubbish but I knew that I damaged it. Before that if I was being really really good and careful I could get about four days and then my battery was down below or sort of around the 50% mark and I needed to charge it. I had to find some some charging point for my lead battery. This, I just I haven't needed any form of electric hookup for over four weeks. It's crackers. May I remind you it is March and April in Ireland. It's rained more than there has been sunshine so it's not like I've gone to the south of Spain or something and I've had never-ending sunny days. Between a combination of a bit of solar and a bit of driving it's just kept the batteries topped up superbly. Now driving I've done maybe three to four hours on my driving days and I've tried to do one or two driving days and then have a day off. Like today when I'm not driving anywhere I can catch up on some work, do some YouTube videos and generally just keep myself on top of everything that I need to do for Wandering Bird. So on a day like today when I've not been driving at all my batteries are being topped up a little bit by the solar but again Ireland, we're in April right now, it's not particularly strong sun and yet it seems to be keeping the battery at around 92%. Now the lowest the battery has dropped to is about 68% and one thing I love about this setup is the app. It becomes addictive because you can see exactly what levels left in your battery like this is brilliant. But the lowest that my battery has got to is about 68% and that was on a day where I needed to charge up my laptop and my EcoFlow was dead. I'd forgotten to recharge my EcoFlow while I was driving and that's what I've generally been doing is charging up my EcoFlow using the inverter whilst I've been driving because it's got a bit of this extra power boost and that way when I arrive at a spot whether I'm staying just for one night or whether I'm planning on staying for a couple of nights I've got enough power to use my laptop and then do everything else that I need to do. But one time I forgot about this so I decided to charge the EcoFlow just off the inverter which is using the power from the leisure battery without the engine running so it was just using what was in the storage bank if you like. It took about an hour and a half and that killed off 30% of my battery. Now it didn't kill my battery it just killed off 30% so I was really impressed. I wouldn't do that a lot because I like the rhythm of having it all charged while I'm driving and that makes sense in my brain but given that I have to keep a laptop fully charged because of all the emails and the YouTube videos and everything else that I have to do with social media plus my phone which I charge on the 12 volt sockets as I'm driving but then I've got things like my drone batteries although I've just lost my drone, R.I.P little drone and then all my other, I'm sad now I'm thrown, totally thrown but every other battery that I need to keep charged works just off this system I don't have anything else. I haven't got a portable solar panel or anything like that and I'm utterly gobsmacked at how well it's worked. I mean I think four weeks off grid you can't get a better test than that. Now a quick word on the inverter that I've got. I have got a 2000 watt inverter and it's a pure sine wave which means it won't damage your delicate electronics so if you do want a system like this make sure that you've got a big enough inverter for what you want it to charge and also make sure that it is pure sine so that you can charge things like your eco flow and everything else off it and it won't do any damage to them. Also let's talk about the solar panel so I now have two solar panels on my van. I've got my original one and that still does its job that it used to do so that gives a trickle charge to both my leisure battery and to my engine battery so when I'm sitting here by a beautiful waterfall like I am right now they're getting a little bit of a charge because it is actually quite a nice sunny day today. It's amazing but the big one the big one that gives all its oomph to my leisure battery is the 200 watt new solar panel and that is just dedicated to charging up the leisure battery because thing to remember is whilst you're driving your engine battery is getting a charge so normally as long as you've driven for over sort of half an hour or so that engine battery has got re-topped up and is fine for when you next need to use it to start up your engine. The one that you're going to be using more of is the leisure battery so on solar you want it mainly going into your leisure battery which is why they set it up so that this big 200 watt solar panel that was fitted to the roof goes straight into the leisure battery and that's worked really really well. And then of course when I'm driving we've got the DC to DC charger which is recharging the engine battery which has just been used to start the engine and also giving some charge to the leisure battery. I seem to be getting so much more oomph, it's so much more efficient the charging whether it's by solar or by the engine. It's just working so much better, it's incredible. Right if that's not in the same place sorry the dog just knocked it over. He wants to go for a walk and he is unimpressed with the fact that I am still talking to the camera. Now one thing I will point out is I'm a big fan of the EcoFlow. I've got it, I use it all the time, it's brilliant and this video is in no way associated with EcoFlow. But if you don't have an online business, if you don't need a laptop every day, if you don't edit YouTube videos which seems to suck so much power, you can survive quite happily just off your lithium leisure battery. Try saying that three times fast. So you don't need that, the only reason I've got that is because I use my laptop all the time. So a couple of things that I really like about the setup which is new to me. One is I mentioned the app. The app is fantastic and I've got two apps. One that shows me the level that the battery is at and also how much juice I've been getting from the solar. And then the DC to DC which only works really when the engine is running. You can see how much juice you've been getting from that. And I find it quite fascinating just how much power I have used but also how much I've got back and how quickly I've been able to get it back. The other thing I love is how simple it is. It's such a simple system, I haven't had to worry about it. In fact I don't spend any time whatsoever thinking about power anymore which is bad. I probably need to make sure I have some sort of alert set up so if I do forget to look at my battery and it drops down too low then I can think about it. With the lead acid battery I was always checking the voltage making sure it wasn't too low. This because I've used it so many weeks now and it's been so brilliant. I just don't look very often. I maybe look at the app once a day maybe once every other day. So two more things to cover. One is how much does it cost and two do I think it's worth it. So again let me check my notes. The cost of this, the system that I had was around £3,000. Now that's a lot of money don't get me wrong, but I haven't stayed in a campsite for four weeks. I have paid for services, I have paid to use you know emptying my waste and getting some fresh water but I've paid I think it's about £60 at this point on services. So the average cost of a campsite at the moment for one adult is about £25 a night if you use a Carvanimo Tome Club campsite. So that is £175 a week. So if we take four weeks of that, that is about £700. So take off the £50 for services, I've been rounding these into nice easy figures, that's £650 I've saved by not needing campsites. £650 in one trip. Now I know I'm a little bit unusual in terms I've had four weeks for a holiday and not everybody does and that's fine, but that's just one trip. By the end of this year I will easily have saved in campsite cost what the cost of this setup is and that is quite incredible. Absolutely, it's like when you get refillable gas bottles fitted, how quickly you can earn that money back again because the gas on refillable gas is so much cheaper and it's so much easier and I don't have to worry about campsites, especially when I first got to Ireland. So it was before St Patrick's Day at the beginning of March and there were very, very, very few campsites open. So it just gives you so much more freedom and I'm heading to Europe later in the year and I want to use airs and stay off grid as much as I possibly can and this system is just perfect for that, absolutely perfect. Which brings me to my final point, if you want to stay on campsite, you like having the electric hookups, you like having all the facilities, then you do not need a lithium battery setup. Don't do it, save your money, get a good and approved lead battery, but just stick with a lead battery and save that money for other things that you will use in your motorhoming life. But if you like the idea of staying off grid, visiting some of the wild spots, coming to Ireland and doing a trip like I've done and just being off grid a lot, it's fantastic. It will probably go in one of my five things that you really, really need if you're going to be doing a lot of wild camping or off grid parking. If anyone complains that you can't wild camp in the motorhome, it's really genuinely a good system. Now I know there are going to be some people who say something along the lines of, well, I'd have one too if someone gave it to me. And yeah, don't get me wrong. I appreciate that this is an expensive system, but now having seen how good it is and how long I've been able to stay off grid, I would put my own money behind this. And if I get another van in the future, I will absolutely pay to get a system like this set up with a lithium battery installed. It's that good. If it wasn't fantastic, I would not have stayed off grid for four weeks. Just it wouldn't happen. If you do want to know more about the technical pros and cons and why different bits are right for different people, then go back and watch the video. I'll link it here somewhere that I did with Rob about the different pros and cons for lithium batteries and what set up's best for what kind of person and how you want to use your motorhome or your camper van. Just a note that Oaktree have now passed on their fitting service. They've been inundated apparently with people wanting lithium batteries. They've now passed it on to a company called Bluefix, who are an approved partner. You'll get the same high standard of care and professionalism that you would get from Oaktree. So contact them. I'll leave the link for all their details in the note. I've got lots more videos about Touring Ireland to come and I'm also going to Iceland in a few weeks. So if you're not already subscribed, then please do hit that subscribe button. And if you've got any questions, feel free to drop them below. I hope you found that useful and I will see you on the next video. Bye.