2023 400 with the 400 ah Lithium mod. Victron Inverter.

pthomas745

Owners on FB showing their new 400's with the 4 Battleborn lithiums.  The new Victron Multiplus inverter.  Victron Smart Shunt.

In the lower left of the photo, looks like the Gloso and battery disconnect.  Not sure what the black box is on the wall of the left side comparment.  Solar controller?

The Victron Multiplus inverter.  Shunt on the left.  At the top of the photo, the VE Bus "Smart Dongle".  Apparently, the inverter is controlled through the app on the phone.

This is the display from the VE Smart Dongle that controls the inverter.  Not sure exactly how this works.

dsfdogs

In the top photo, the left cubby area is actually the outside storage access, so you are looking at the black door. There is a screwed down board that covers this area.

dsfdogs

As a comparison, here are photos of the standard one BB battery (heated) and inverter in the 2023 model.
The first pic shows the new underbed drawer closed, second pic it's open and you can see the wires, hot/cold pipes that run underneath it.

Denny16

@dsfdogs, I believe Thomas is referring to the little black box on the middle divider (back of storage locker) in center top of the photo.  Not sure what it is.  The Victron solar controller is behind the locker cubby on the floor, under the fridge.  It is also blue in color, not black.  

The inverter is also the charger for the Battleborn batteries, not the WaCo, and notice the large ventilation opening between the Alde compartment and the inverter compartment to allow lots of air circulation, to cool the 3K-watt inverter/charger.

The solar panel wires come in from the roof, behind the fridge also, and run down to the Victron Blue MPPT controller, which is then routed through the Alde compartment (black ad white wire by the Alde AC outlet) through the bulkhead along the front under the drawer space, to the battery distribution block inside the doubled wall divider between the batteries and rear storage locker.  

Interesting, the battery trays and space is the same for one, two or four batteries, no extra space in the drawer unit.  Notice the battery trays are 3/4 ply, with 3/4 ply runners under the trays, to spread the weight out along the floor.  Nice design.

Cheers 

klenger

Thanks for posting this.  I'm very interested in the 400 with the full lithium mod.  

Given the dedicated space for the four BattleBorn batteries, it would be pretty easy to add 1 or more batteries to the standard model w/o changing out the inverter.  

One other Victron device I would consider adding is a DC to DC converter to better charge the Lithium batteries from the tow vehicle.  From my experience with my previous camper with BattleBorn batteries, charging from the tow vehicle doesn't do squat because the alternator voltage is too low.

I'm also interested to know the GVW with the Boondock, Lithium, and microwave options.

@Denny16:  I'm interested in your experience towing a TaB 400 with the Gladiator.  PM me if you want to take that discussion away from this thread. 

manyman297

In reading other threads it sounds like this battery bank would provide about 4 hours of running the air conditioning? Does that sound correct?

RMo

manyman297 said:

In reading other threads it sounds like this battery bank would provide about 4 hours of running the air conditioning? Does that sound correct?

That should be about right.  I added 400ah to our 2019 T@B and by my real-world calculations 4 hours would not completely deplete the battery. 

dragonsdofly

@manyman297 yes, about right for a/c usage. We have a large solar system (1.4 kw on roof, 600 ah battery bank) on our 30 ft Keystone Laredo travel trailer. Best estimates from the installation experts are about 6/7 hrs of a 13,500 btu a/c operation before battery bank depletion (and planned shut down). Of course that is just running on the batteries alone. With the amount of panels on our roof, on a sunny, unobstructed sky day, we can actually run the entire day without tapping the battery bank. As the a/c cycles, we recharge any draw out. It is only after the sun almost sets that we begin to use the reserve in the battery bank. As it was explained to me a rough calculation is about an hour of a/c operation (cycling) per 80-100 ah of unreplenished battery power. I would think that you might actually fare a bit better than the rough estimate as I think you are not powering a 13,500-15,000 btu cooling unit in a t@b 400, so you might run the a/c a bit longer than the guesstimate.

Good luck. As with anything, it takes some work to achieve a balance.

manyman297

@dragonsdofly Great insight. I believe the 400’s cool cat is 10k btu or so. At max it pulls about 1100 watts. It’ll be interesting to hear what people are able to run with the new lithium option. I would love to run the AC on battery but the investment right now is too much to justify. But I also hate running a generator.

klenger

4 hours run time is about right IF the AC compressor is running 100% of the time.  In more moderate weather, or setting the temp higher, you might be able to double that.

Denny16

I had worked out a typical cycle time of the CoolCat running in a TaB400,with outdoor temps in the 80s would be about 6hrs, on 400 amp.hr. Lithium battery bank, using a 3K inverter, like the Victron. 

Cheers 

schwartzki

Of course they add this option a year after I buy our tab...been pricing out lithium setup + 3000 victron inverter. Wonder if I can buy the pre-cut wood materials as a adaptation kit to convert a 2022 model.

Denny16

Possible, contact your local TaB, nüCamp dealer to see if they can order the wood parts.  If not, not hard to make from some Birch shop plywood, and have it cut to size at a cabinet shop, if you do not have the tools or woodworking skills.  

Cheers 

pthomas745

More info from a few FB posts this morning on what the area inside the storage door on the far left contains.  The picture below shows what we are seeing: the battery switch, and the Gloso circuit breaker. Not exactly sure what the orange connectors coming off the Gloso are, if anyone could explain that to me.  The owner who showed me the picture says the "black box" that we could not make out in the above pictures is the Progressive EMS.

dsfdogs

Those orange things are called WAGO connectors which is new for 2023. It's a spiffy way to connect wires. The dealer letter I have also indicates the converter was upgraded to 55 amp to support WAGO.

JCB001

We just purchased our Tab400 2032 and are new to the Tab community.  We downsized from a motorhome and are not looking back.  When we sold our motorhome we kept our lithium batteries (2x DragonFly 100ah), which wanted to utilize in the trailer.  Once we discovered that DragonFly and BattleBorn are the same company, and the batteries are identical to the ones used in the upgrade, we realized we had 3 of the 4 batteries required inspiring us to perform the upgrade.

Using this post as a guide was a huge help for us to perform the Lithium upgrade ourselves, this was the only photo I could find of the upgrade.  I also had great support from Battleborn and Victron.  

In summary, it took quite some time and was a little pricey, but was not complicated.    We had to purchase one additional battery, the inverter, shunt, dongle, and cables.  All of these cost us just under $3,500, which includes the tools to fabricate the battery cables.  The system is identical to the factory upgrade and works great.

The only change we made, from the factory configuration, is we added a separate BEP switch to disconnect the solar panels from the system.  This allows us to turn off the trailer load, with the main switch, and trickle-charge the batteries when the solar switch is on.  By turning off the panels, we are able to completely isolate the battery bank for winter storage, which is recommended by BattleBorn.

Here are the before and after photos, enjoy.  (Note: I took this photo before adding the cover to the fuse)

dsfdogs

@JCB001where is the solar switch to isolate? I like that idea. I'm having a company install my second BB plus inverter, Smart shunt, DC-DC charger, the dongle and the A/C easy start and would like to add that switch like you did. 

I'm always impressed when folks know how to do this work, good job!

JCB001

Thank you for the feedback.   The switch is right next to the main disconnect (the yellow one). I added a photo. We used the same BEP switch, as the main switch, along with their joiner bar, which acts as a bus bar, for battery and solar line  in connections.   The yellow switch disconnects line power from the solar panel, the red switch disconnects load from the power center and Victron inverter.   

elbolillo

JCB001 said:

We just purchased our Tab400 2032 and are new to the Tab community.  We downsized from a motorhome and are not looking back.  When we sold our motorhome we kept our lithium batteries (2x DragonFly 100ah), which wanted to utilize in the trailer.  Once we discovered that DragonFly and BattleBorn are the same company, and the batteries are identical to the ones used in the upgrade, we realized we had 3 of the 4 batteries required inspiring us to perform the upgrade.

Using this post as a guide was a huge help for us to perform the Lithium upgrade ourselves, this was the only photo I could find of the upgrade.  I also had great support from Battleborn and Victron.  

In summary, it took quite some time and was a little pricey, but was not complicated.    We had to purchase one additional battery, the inverter, shunt, dongle, and cables.  All of these cost us just under $3,500, which includes the tools to fabricate the battery cables.  The system is identical to the factory upgrade and works great.

The only change we made, from the factory configuration, is we added a separate BEP switch to disconnect the solar panels from the system.  This allows us to turn off the trailer load, with the main switch, and trickle-charge the batteries when the solar switch is on.  By turning off the panels, we are able to completely isolate the battery bank for winter storage, which is recommended by BattleBorn.

Here are the before and after photos, enjoy.  (Note: I took this photo before adding the cover to the fuse)

I would be interested in knowing how you routed the positive cable coming out from the inverter.

JCB001

We routed it in the same manner as the previous cable.   There is a channel under the 2x4 that leads to the compartment with the switch.  The cover to the channel is removable making it fully accessible      We used cable clamps to support the cable in the channel.  

elbolillo

JCB001 said:

We routed it in the same manner as the previous cable.   There is a channel under the 2x4 that leads to the compartment with the switch.  The cover to the channel is removable making it fully accessible      We used cable clamps to support the cable in the channel.  

So you ran the positive out of the inverter over to a bus bar or directly over to the battery disconnect?

JCB001

Inverter output is wired directly to the battery disconnect.

elbolillo

JCB001 said:

Inverter output is wired directly to the battery disconnect.

Got it. I did mine differently, with the positive going out to the fuse holder first and then to a bus bar. Then from the bus bar to the disconnect.

schwartzki

JCB001 said:

Inverter output is wired directly to the battery disconnect.

Do you have a list of parts? This is on my DIY todo list for my 2022.

JCB001

elbollio, that is a great-looking install, nice work.   

schwartzki, here is the parts list that was used for planning.

Denny16

Whilst adding a solar panel disconnect switch to prevent solar charging looks like a good idea, it is redundant.  The Victron Solar Controller has a software controlled switch to stop solar charging.  Just use the utilities menu in the Fixtron Smart Phone app to stop solar charging.  No additional switch is required or needed. 
 cheers 

JCB001

Denny16,  Good Point.  The switch could be deemed redundant, I was concerned about parasitic current draw from the solar controller when I wanted to put the trailer in storage mode.   A hard disconnect made me feel certain that the batteries were truly isolated.

pthomas745

In the Victron solar controller manuals, they list the "self consumption" of the controllers as:

12V: 20Ma    24V 10Ma

The math wrecks my head, sorry to say.

2/100th of an amp?  2/1000ths of an amp?

At a 20Ma draw, how long would it take for the controller to use 1 amp? 

RTWCTS

pthomas745 said:

In the Victron solar controller manuals, they list the "self consumption" of the controllers as:

12V: 20Ma    24V 10Ma

The math wrecks my head, sorry to say.

2/100th of an amp?  2/1000ths of an amp?

At a 20Ma draw, how long would it take for the controller to use 1 amp? 

20mA  = .02A (2/100A). 

It would take 50 hours x .02A to equal 1 amp hour.

pthomas745

Thank you very much.

pthomas745

Ok, new question for the new 400 battery setups.

How are the solar controllers wired to the battery? Are they wired to the battery distribution studs? 

I can see the little distribution box in the 1 battery setup, but I can't seem to spot it in the 4 battery setup.

I see some smaller red wires on the closeup of the 4 battery setup, but I'm guessing those are the power cables for the shunt and the Mulitplus dongle.

Owners on the FB page are asking about where to add a solar port for portable panels, and it would seem to me the easiest spot would be in the passenger side compartment where the battery switch is.  (Whatever connector they might like to use).  But: where would the wiring for the solar connector go?