The Initial Test!
Kung Fu Chicken’s adventures begin and with some drama to boot.
Well, it’s been a mixed bag starting our RV journey with the FLX. It hasn’t been bad but like all new things, and new tech, there are learning curves and bugs to work out.
First off, we love the Micro Minnie FLX. It’s compact but very usable for our needs. Yes, it has some warts that need to be removed but all in all she’s a great little camper and the Truma systems seem to do great… once you know how they want to be handled.
Our struggles, if you want to call them that, are for the most part minor to potentially major annoyances. The minor ones are things you’d find in any new camper. Such as your bare foot finding more construction debris that has dislodged while the trailer was bouncing down potholed and piss poorly patched Midwest roads. At least it was nothing needing a tetanus shot.
The Truma AquaGo water heater is freaking awesome if not quirky. Not quirky as in that eccentric friend who has their own style and doesn’t care. Quirky as in you need to be careful how you talk to it or you're going to upset it. It can be moody if you don’t fire it up in the right way but as I found out, as long as there is gas and water actually going to the unit, just go outside and cycle the power to calm it down. Basically just give it a timeout vs slapping the sh$t out of it. Showering with it is great and it gives you hot water fast in the Comfort mode. I didn’t push it because I didn’t want to burn through propane but I’m sure you could essentially do a normal shower with this thing vs a Navy shower.
My biggest concern is more around how Winnebago REALLY tested their claim of “up to 5 days” off grid. Clearly it isn’t what I would consider real world testing as in under 24 hours of disconnecting we were hooking back up to shore power to bring the battery back up. Granted we did fire up the AC at 87% and ran the sucker for almost 9 hours. Following that we used our small Keurig to brew up a couple of coffees before using the microwave for 4 minutes. You could actually see the expected remaining charge drop to an estimated 18 minutes before the microwave stopped. And yes, I know running the AC for 9 hours on battery power is a LOT but if you’re in some seriously warm weather it definitely factors in to a comfortable nights sleep. As for those 9 hours, it wasn’t even with the compressor on that much once it was cooled down. The fan only draws about 130 watts vs close to 900 with the compressor running. Once I finally pulled the pin and hooked up electrical we were on the verge of 10% left in the battery and solar wasn’t doing much to recharge it fast enough for our comfort. Especially facing another 80 degree day.
The other thing that I will be sorting out post haste is the disconnect between the Lithionics’ battery and the Xantrex/GO Power battery meters (*See the follow up below). I’m not talking about a few percentage points. I’m talking as in near empty vs 100% readings. Yep, you read that right. If I didn’t have the Lithionics’ app to check, we would have thought we were at full charge! That is a serious disconnect between the different components.
I know some of these quirks will be worked out in time but if we find that running the AC for more than a few hours a day will be more than the system can handle and maintain a usable charge for a few days, I’m going to be more than ticked off. Clearly I’m going to have to make sure we have a generator, something we were hoping to avoid as much as possible, if we even THINK of boon docking. The thing is, if you don’t use the AC, Microwave, or any other big hitters this thing could go on for a loooong time powering the other appliances with no issue.
To be continued… but here’s a little info for ya
Wattage hits according to the Xantrex app.
Appliance/ wattage hit
AC/ 110-150 fan only
1000 (or less) w/compressor
Microwave/ 1550
Kuerig/ 1400 peak (Only during the heating cycle, which is short)
TV/ 20-30
So in essence, an 1800 peak watt generator “could” be used to help offset big battery hits if you use it while running the big 3… one at a time mind you. I still need to sort out my overload when I tested it with the AC running the second time. You do feel the compressor kick in when you’re in the Minnie so if it has a really hard wattage hit when it cycles it may be too much for 1800 watts to consistently handle. I guess I could always fire the 5000 watt generator up and really piss off the neighbors if I’m too warm.
*I haven’t heard from Lithionic’s as of this posting but I did have a great discussion with Xantrex who was a great help. To keep it as simple as possible, because this is a lithium battery with completely different characteristics from a typical battery, the Xantrex and GoPower solar can not give an accurate reading on battery charge. So in short, the battery status display on the Xantrex control panel is worthless. You have to monitor the battery status with the Lithionic’s app or you will really be rueing the day.
Now please, don’t consider this a dig or a failure on Xantrex and GoPower. It is the nature of the best with Lithium batteries vs the more common lead acid/AGM style batteries everyone is used to. Lithium batteries have their own battery management system that a “normal” system can not accurately read.
As far as the Truma systems go, we LOVE them. I mean as in “why the hell hasn’t the RV market in the US brought this to their builds before now?” kind of love. All around their systems absolutely rock, especially the Truma AquaGo.