The sound quality with these new enclosures is so much better, I am likely done. I already spent 3x as much time and made as 5x as much sawdust, building these enclosures, than I originally planned on.
I was hoping some simple geometry would make the trapezoidal build task relatively uncomplicated, but that would also require my table and chopsaws be tuned perfectly. Which I thought they were pretty close to, but, Good thing Gorilla glue expands and the sharp acute corners scared me enough to plane them off. wehne mounted in rear corners, That's where Fiona often decides to sleep, and shake when she wakes up, and her ears break the sound barrier when she shakes.
Gonna be rolling on some Epoxy today, onto new 2 piece hatch
Still very pleased with new speakers.
Vocals and guitar solos can help pierce that which the front door speakers cannot and when the Bass is dialed in to the volume and specific music is also way above acceptable, to me.
The thread forming bits, are a bit strange to work with in the thick copper bar.
Still at it, after breaking the 1/4-20 form bit after trying PB blaster as a cutting oil instead of 2% milk.
The free GC-2s Deka AGMs are powering this laptop right now using the previous cabling, for now.
Like I noticed when they were on the boat, they drop to 12.4 relatively quickly, then hold that voltage while the AH's tick off the counter.
Starting the engine with both pairs of batteries does not seem to spin it any faster, but voltage only drops to 12.54 during cranking the several day cold engine. I've not tried starting it yet, on only the GC-2's.
My under body battery tray, surprise surprise, was not square. The taller wider GC-2 batteries when lowered into it, would lean towards the center of the van. Made some different thickness spacers fro 'starboard' so they sit correctly, but this reduced the space I allotted for inbetween terminals and hatch cover.
Hmm, new phone takes pics too large to be uploaded. Oh well, another time
No chance of holding batteries down to tray across the width, so I had to hold it down across the 10.25" length of each GC-2.
1/4"-20 threaded rod, was used, and where the threads were not needed, I covered them with plastidip.
The cross bars C channel, were from some kitchen sink mounting system, and they press down on the plastic attachment points that are used to lift the batteries. But these would compress, so I had to make spacers to shift the compressive load to the edges of the battery lid/casing.
Had some nice Walnut
Had to seal it though.
Had to use Epoxy
Had to also use that epoxy to attach some tire innertube rubber at the same time.
This rubber caused C channel interference with the lid.
This caused me to shave the C channels that I had carefully Osphoed, and appliance epoxied and then covered with plastidip.
This shaving caused me to completely remove the plastidip, wirewheel them again, then just epoxy over them entirely for a dielectric barrier instead of plastidip, which is not really strong enough for this task anyway.
The threaded rods sandwich the bottom plate, which is 1/4" thick steel diamond plate.
I did not want the threaded rods in electrically conductive contact with this steel, so the holes got encased with epoxy and fiberglass, and I used stainless conical washers with captive rubber washers.
So the cross bars are not in electrical contact with teh threaded rods, which are not in electrical contact with the grounded 1/4" steel bottom of the battery tray.
Gigantic waste of time
effort and epoxy and plastidip but why use half my ass when the other butt cheek is right there.
I'm leaning towards eliminating the original Dodge 6 SAE gauge Alternator to battery circuit, and running 2awg from each alternator to the Battery 1 and battery 2 studs on my Charge 1/2/Both OFF switch, that I use for Solar and the MEanwell and Powermax plug in charging sources.
Each separately regulated alternator will feed its own battery, and I don't have to turn any switches after engine shut down to isolate, or after starting to insure the alternator(s) are charging both sets. If one battery bank needs both alternators, then I can turn the switch to combine their output to just one battery.
The G31 Northstar, the last time I took it to ~ 50%, did not come close to maxing out the 100 amp powermax plug in charger like it easily did when newer, and depleted to ~ 35% SOC.
I like the combine idea and separation. Removes the oh fu$k human element and allows redundancy with less futz I love less futz.
The big gauge upgrade as it has been coined in the car audio world is always a good idea. For the little cash it usually yields measurable results. It will be interesting to read if you see similar results. Or perhaps it is all just psychoacoustic...lol.
Glad you’re enjoying the speakers. Music is awesome for drowning the noise of humanity out.
05-27-2021, 03:13 AM (This post was last modified: 05-27-2021, 03:18 AM by rvpopeye.)
I studied psychoacoustics at work , it's a real thing.
It's about things you think you hear but are just the affects of physics making it happen.
Simple concept with confusing results for the recipient..
Doppler affect is one example. (The raising in pitch of a train whistle as it approaches and lowering pitch as it moves away.....
Sounds the same to the engineer but the speed of the train added or subtracted to the whistle note is
making you hear it change.....) I used effects to create affects ? orrrr sumpin like that........Language can be more confusing than physics......
The Stereo and speaker wiring as is, will stay as is, as the sound quality is more than good enough for me.
Only the battery / alternator/ electrical wall and circuits to and from batteries will be getting cables and terminations upgraded, and I am still waffling on the price and process and necessity of doing this to the degree I would like to, if Ideal and absolute minimal resistance is truly needed, versus just desired.
GenuineDealz seems to be out of a lot of cable too, and while I have found some other places that have 'tinned boat cable' in stock, at slightly better prices, I don't trust that what shows up will actually be American made tinned copper with 105c insulation, rather than aluminum wire with peanut butter impregnated insulation.
There's no huge rush on this, its not like i cant just plug my tablesaw into the grid when needed right now.
Last night when turning my Solar/Charge 1/2/both/off switch, the original problematic blueseas 6007m that I rebuilt months ago, I noticed the AH from full and % remaining screen on my battery monitor had reset. It only does this when power is removed, and I know I did not hit the circuit breaker.
I found the switch was indeed breaking before making contact when moving the switch from Both to battery 1. I removed it and took it to workbench and found the dead spot again with the DMM, and then opened it up.
I am not sure exactly why this dead spot was occurring. There is a plastic separator the dimpled copper plate has to ride over when the switch is turned. This copper plate has three dimples with the spring pushing it down and when one of these dimples was going over this plastic barrier, that sits slightly proud of the copper that holds the studs from battery one to battery two, it was losing contact. I thought perhaps when i screwed it back together months ago, the spring loaded dimple plate had shifted and it was kinked. I reassembled it and the dead spot was gone.
But, after several rotations CW and CCW, it came back.
I opened it up again, and figured the plastic separator was somehow lifting both dimples off the stud plate allowing the break before make intermittent behavior. I had flattened these dimples slightly , previously, as it seemed asinine that upto 350+ amps continuous was to pass through such a small amount of surface area. No doubt this was part of the issue, the dimple flattening.
I wound up using the dremel to level off the slightly raised plastic separator between the stud plates and after much testing, this seemed to remedy the issue entirely, and I returned it to service.
One other possibility, is the Deoxit Shield S5 spray I used. I have noticed this product, on the OEM accordian type connector seals, causes them to swell, making the connector very hard to reseat at a later date. It is a possibility that the S5 spray did the same thing to the plastic, swelling the plastic, raising the separators, thus helping the plate's flattened dimples lose contact with the stud's plates when the switch is turned.
Will C&P this info into the actual 6007m thread.
I still have one 6007m 1/2/B/O switch that I have not yet opened up, which will explode as soon as I remove the screws holding it to the wall due to the original design defect.
If the plastic separators are not slightly raised between the stud plates, then the Deoxit Shield s5 spray hypothesis holds water, if they are, then my dimple flattening is solely responsible for the break before make behavior I observed. Behavior which could perhaps fry the solar controller, or anything else which does not like being removed from the battery during operation, like Alternator diodes.
My electric wall is basically right behind driver's seat inside a lockable cabinet. A new larger inverter will not ergonomically fit Inside this cabinet, and neither would the 100 amp adjustable voltage Powermax. I could put these on the other side of cabinet wall, behind seat backrest nearer floor, an area prone to a lot of dust and sand build up, or perhaps make a new cabinet partition that is angled like the back of the driver's seat.
The Powermax usually resides in workshop, but the workshop is temporary. The meanwell's 40 amps is usually sufficient. The powermax has a handle and dual 45 amp anderson powerpoles. The meanwell removes with 4 short screws to become portable. The powermax would Ideally also be easily removeable and portable from any future location, and ideally would have a huge anderson SB connector, as well as 45 amp powerpoles.
The one alternator for each battery bank is more and more appealing the more I look at wiring diagrams of it. Previously, last time I had two battery banks, pre june 2015, after engine starting on battery one, I would switch to both, and then on engine shutdown remove engine battery from house loads. But this gets old quick, and often I'd either forget, or remember but not bother as there is No danger of overdepletion with a battery monitor and so much capacity and an engine which starts so easily and quickly in mild ambient temps.
I still plan on relocating the Main 1/2/Both/Off switch where I can reach it from driver's seat with left hand, but expect I will only rarely turn it, and likely only when one alternator cannot bring either depleted bank instantly to absorption voltage,which might not even be a factor anymore since the G31 Northstar has aged and cannot gobbler up the 134+ amps it could when newer and well depleted.
The 4 year old Deka AGM GC-2's, if well depleted themselves, might not be able to max out either alternator at hot idle either. They are rated at 900 CCA when new, whereas the G31 northstar is 1050 CCA so its likely that the NS at just over half the weight of the gC-2s could ask for more.
The Northstar does certainly hold a higher voltage during discharge given the Ah removed and the load. I never really had any way to easily judge the health of these GC-2's, until my battery monitor got a hold on them, and the 6007m switch screwed up last nights data collection.
I was discharging 4 of them without an Ah counter, in the workshop at night, so voltage held for Ah removed was not something I could easily take notice of, like I can in the Van.
But the shunt on the battery monitor will be counting current into both battery banks when the alternators are spinning, throwing it off to some degree anyway. The battery monitor can be an inaccurate, but still useful tool. One needs to know when it is likely to be inaccurate, and when it is. Having only the one battery for house and engine eliminated much of this. I could go through some extreme efforts and include some more switches to route current through or to bypass shunt, but its not worth it.
I Do have 3 more ammeters, hall effect ammeters, one of them claims to count amp hours. I've not played with it yet. Seeing how much amperage a Lead acid battery accepts at various voltages is a great indicator of state of charge. With relatively healthy AGMs that taper to near Zero at near true full charge, it's easy enough to see where the battery is % SOC wise, just by seeing amperage flowing into it at absorption voltage, and I can spin a dial to achieve absorption voltage 99.5% of the time when the engine is running, or when plugged into grid.
The cabling between 6007m switches as is, is unacceptable.
One potential reason that the rebuilt solar/ charge switch had the more recent issue issue, is that 100 amps of Powermax was trying to flow through 4 gauge aluminum wire with the worlds thinnest shittiest, never should have been bought much less employed, ring terminal.
The 2 KW inverter at max load would melt and smoke things.
1/0 gauge or fatter from Northstar and Deka's to shunt and 6007m and in between 6007m's, should be used.
For a capacity and capability I do not really need at this point in time.
05-30-2021, 12:05 AM (This post was last modified: 05-30-2021, 12:14 AM by sternwake.)
2 KW Inverter browsing.
Huge price ranges.
Lots of unknown brand names.
Good luck convincing oneself the cheapest is 'just fine'. I can imagine feeding a cedar 2x4 into a tablesaw to make 3.5 inch wide planks in the middle of 20% RH nowhere, and the inverter going up in smoke.
My intended 2KW inverter location, a tape measure, and the relative sizes available for a 2KW inverter, are not making me jump with joy.
The drivers seat, i still want it to be able to slide all the way back, even though I usually go one notch forward of all the way back and tilt the backrest a bit more, but long drives and I switch it up.
DS Seat slid all the way back and inverter mounted on exterior cabinet wall leads to inverter body as a bump stop.
Not acceptable.
Much rather have inverter inside ventilated cabinet behind Drivers seat, rather than under/behind drivers seat.
Electric wall inside cabinet is quite stuffed, unless I modify a bunch of storage. I already lost some storage because of the new hatch cover and am not thrilled.
Cabinet wall, was not designed for easy modification, and modifying it might make it so I cannot swivel the drivers seat sideways, even though I have not done that in a decade.
The 4 wires 10-2 and 8-2 awg, into solar controller from panels, was a major curse fest in 2012, last I touched them.
Don't want to touch them now.
Don't want to modify cabinet with controller in place though. Saw vibrations and a 14 year old solar controller.....
Not happy with any of the potential solutions/compromises.
Kind of want to just take everything off and rebuild cabinet wall to but up against seat as far back as it will go including teh angle of the backrest, but that could be a days long project and require I have everything I could possibly need on hand while still needing to power everything at night.
How much more detrimental to an electric motor is MSW compared to PSW?
The 2KW inverter might get tabled until I actually need it.
By that benchmark, I can just quit now though, I did not even need the Deka's, and the second alternator, has yet to be needed in the 6+ months it has been mounted..
--------
The 190 AH of Deka GC-2s perform slightly worse than 100 AH of Northstar TPPL AGM, in terms of voltage retention under load for amp hours removed, for the first ~55 amp hours removed, at which point the 190 Ah of Dekas start retaining higher voltage. I've gone only as low as 62AH from full overnight with them, and did not record morning voltage, before sun hit panel
The Dekas seem to have improved after 3 nights of cycling in this regard, getting full by each afternoon.
A couple 40 amp meanwell assists in the late morning to hit Absorption faster, revealed very similar amperage acceptance rates as Northstar if it were discharged the same amount of AH and held at the same voltage.
In the afternoon I would parallel the Northstar, then turn on headlamps and fog lights until controller went back into absorb, holding all batteries at 14.7v
.
It would have been nice to easily see how much of the solar amperage was going into Dekas vs Northstar at that point.
The Dekas spec 14.1 to 14.4v absorption@77f and 14.6v is called an 'Equalization' voltage.
The old be careful what you wish for isn’t just for those dusty lamps. Lol.
As for inverters I’ve personally only had two. A magnum MS2000 something non hybrid. Lived on my boat for years. Under the downstairs piloting station across from the head. It was humid in that location. Lost a couple of solar charge controllers in same location. I think moisture was the cause. Used that thing to run TV, hair dryers, and odd, need to fix old boat tools. It was still working when I sold her and four years later. The other was a cheap 2000watt non pure that gave up the magic powering a Weller soldering iron. I thought it had just tripped, the batteries were low, but nope it was a brick. It was an Aims. Odd as I’ve seen loads of vids on AIM inverters and they say they are good. But... the one I had smoked...
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