Yep, use it as my office working from home. 8-5 m-f.
It’s been really nice.  Pretty much peaks at 80* all summer with a nice breeze.  Been low 50s a lot of mornings.  Heck last week I went back to wearing pants and a jacket instead of shorts.  In august.  

Freakin bear walked across my panel.  Looks like he walked up the right side across the top and ran down the left as best I can tell

Got a game cam pic of him on the porch lol.  Hes pretty young which is good.  I don’t think those panels are rated for full grown bears.  


Got starlink up there now too so should have some better cameras soon

it's possible.   someone was telling me about micro cracks in the panels that i can't see but may have now.   who knows.   at the moment, they're still producing full power though so i'm not super worried

TRIGGER WARNING: if you’re a carpenter just don’t look

Seriously I’m by far the worst carpenter in the world

But I finally got around to building a cabinet for my tools with a 2x6 workbench top and shelves and t&g sides.  I’m trying to use the small cabin space efficiently.  So I made it where the sliding ladder stowes beside it.  I’m going to continue behind the ladder along the wall with an L shaped reloading bench that is sloped to match the ladder but sticks out into the room a bit more.





Taking some time with the reloading bench because I’m thinking about how to design in custom spots for the Dillon 1050, co-ax and various gadgets like AMP annealer and giraud case trimmer.  I’d like to design it with workflow in mind this time instead of just bolting everything to a bench like I did when I had massive room.

Glad I found this!

Reloading bench complete!
And already a mess



Thinking I may take the recipe whiteboard down and put some small shelves up on the wall above the bench with a light strip underneath

also, haven't mounted the co-ax press yet

I have an old Franfert arsenal stand with my small RCBS press and my Lyman lead bullet swagger on interchangeable heads. I don’t think they make it anymore. But it’s nice to have a portable press. Before that I used a craftsman portable work clamp. I don’t have any pictures of it. That was before digital photos.

well, storm got me pretty good.  we had a wind warning about gusts up to 85 mph "and higher in the mountains" for 36 solid hours.   I suspect we had >100mph winds up on top but I wasn't standing around holding the kestrel.   we've had a LOT of high winds up there past 3 months but this was crazy.

3 of 6 solar panels trashed.  outdoor sink knocked over and 10' away from where it's supposed to be.   gutter downspout ripped off.  diesel heater duct ripped off.  pile of lumber and a vibratory tumbler full of media that was on the deck distributed around the yard.  ham antenna down.   weboost mast sideways.   insulation ripped off water cistern.    

lot of weird stuff makes me think the wind was coming from all directions.  the sink landed on the other side of the chimney so it had to move in a J-shape.  one of the solar panels was jammed up against the opposite side of a tree from it's mount, and almost folded in half.

so, I'm going to be redoing a lot of stuff and trying to figure out how to fortify it against hurricane winds.

i'm also upgrading my battery by almost 600%.

Yeah it was tough here in NC. About 10 miles from cabin a twister hit and 1 person died

Heading up Friday to see if we have any damage. Some of our trees are iffy at best near cabin 🫤

New solar panel mount. With breakers. Will bury the pv wires in conduit when I get around to it.

looks sturdy!

So as I’ve mentioned I’m in the middle of a massive upgrade in electrical systems.  Tomorrow I should finish top balancing 80x eve 280k cells and will put them together with 10 bms to make a 72kw 12v battery, upgrading from my current 12kw battery.
As I’m also doubling the solar panels, I’m doubling the victron mppt chargers (from 2 to 4) and upgrading some wiring.  (I know everyone else would do 48v with inverter, I know).   I’m not increasing the load, I just want to go two weeks without sun instead of two days.  

While top balancing I check the batteries with my pas23 thermal monocular just to make sure nothings super wrong. I decided to peek into my electrical shed with it and post some pics I thought were interesting.  

Before anyone freaks out, the difference in “hot” and “not so hot” in these pics is prob only a few degrees.  Nothing is hot to the touch although much is warm. But ambient is 85 or so and it’s hot in the shed from bright sun.  

Anyways…I thought I’d share so people can see that cable size makes a difference.


First pic is 4 cells and a bms charging.  The cable to left of batteries is negative going to bms.  Then negative from bms to mppt can be seen returning to right at bottom of pic.  Cable from right rear of battery going right is positive.  
There are two 450w panels prob putting about 600-700w in.  These are completely separate from cabin system.  So 40a or so on a 280ah battery is about .15C.


Pic 31 is interesting because it’s the cabin system.  6x 490w panels are putting about 2300w in, and the mppt are turning that into about 150a at 14v to charge the cabin batteries.  You can see some fairly large wire is warm and the round item in upper right is the blue sea main switch.   Inverter is long hot box in back and one mppt is visible as hot box on right.  At the time the only AC load was charging a laptop and starlink router so the inverter is just idling at maybe 200w.  It’s definitely not “hot” despite what it looks like in pic.    Two smaller hot cables are negative going from mppt to main bus bar, while the larger hot cable below is positive going through main switch.  


Pic 32 shows the hot cable on bottom going back to positive bus carrying the 150a.  Above it you can see the smartshunt which aggregates all the negative wires, including two from mppts. It also shows the 4/0 cable to inverter (where the neg is much hotter than positive)

Anyways, when I install the new batteries, I’m going to be adding a second main switch because they’re only rated to 350a and the four mppt could theoretically put out 400a. I’m also doubling the size of those cables.  I’ve had the wire laying on the floor ready to go for 3 months.  Just waiting on top balancing.  


Unfortunately, now that it’s warming up, I have to fight hordes of wasps while doing the work.

Excellent work and plan, better to have it and not need it and all that.

One thing I don't know is how that will impact the life of the batteries. Any insight there?

Well when I’m done I’ll have a max of 400a of charging from solar.  And 5600ah of batteries.  So my max charge rate is .07C (rated for 1C continuous charge) which is almost like a trickle charge and less than 1/10th of max. It’ll be great for battery longevity.  

And most days my consumption is maybe 400ah but let’s say 500ah to be conservative. That means I’m not even discharging 10%. But the cells are rated for 8000 cycles (at 8000 they should still hold 80% of the rated capacity, not that they’re just completely unusable.)
So net I’m really not cycling them much.  They should last a long friggin time.  

In theory one full cycle per day at 8000 cycles is 22 years.  

On top of that I’m not going to charge them to 100% or allow them to discharge to 0%.  I’ll prob try to take 5-10% off either end.  Which again will be good for longevity

Wow! Very impressed OP.

22 years is impressive. Hell, 15 years would be impressive. Batteries aren't cheap obviously but I'd imagine they'd pay for themselves years before they're needing replacement.

Keep up the great work!

of course that's my high level theoretical based on their specs.   i don't have experience measuring the cells over long periods of time.  who knows how long they will really last?

i imagine that over time the chemistry may change slightly affecting internal resistance and causing cells to go out of balance and reduce available capacity of the battery.  it wouldn't surprise me at all if say, 5 years from now or 10 years from now, i need to tear the whole thing apart and top balance all the cells again to regain 20-30% of total capacity.   but hopefully after "maintenance" like that, they're pretty close to new again

With the new Pulse Charge showing promise over conventional Constant Current charging you might get longer than you calculated.

Well it’s taking me forever to get around to it but this is 6 of the 10 batteries, balanced and staged and ready to install.  Four more will be done shortly then I can make the swap.  

These six are nominally 280ah cells but I have two cells in parallel and then 4 pairs in series to make “a 12.8v battery”  then ten batteries in parallel to get a total of 5600ah.   And the cells are testing over 300ah capacity so theoretically I have a bit of leeway in there.

Each battery is 8 cells and has its own BMS (one shown in low left of pic connected by a pair of black 2awg cables and also all the thin bms leads which control balancing.  The positive side will be a post fuse and 2/0 red cable going back to bus bar.  Each pair of cells is held together with gaffers tape. And thermal sensor will be attached with  kapton tape.

Each also weighs 100lbs.  So yeah, half ton of lifepo4.   Each cell is 12lb and then about 4 lbs in wood and cables and bms etc.  I don’t want to assemble them in the box so I cut some 2x6 wood sleds to carry them.  That way if I need to pull a battery for maintenance I can just slide it out.  The orange bus bars are flexible and definitely not  structural load bearing.



Each bms has a bluetooth connector and thermal sensors.  And will be attached to a bar that runs across the top which will allow me to put a sheet of  electrical insulator over the top and then 2” insulation board around all of it with an rv tank heater inside.

Major upgrade pretty much complete.  Went from 12kwh to 69kwh and made significant upgrades to solar wiring.

But it started with an epic battle against the wasps.  When it was over I’d removed 9 nests from the box in the pics.  

On the wiring side I had some 4awg that I upgraded to 2awg, and some 2awg that I upgraded to 2/0.  And in anticipation of  doubling solar (building a solar carport) I added another main switch.  And added post fuses to each. Unfortunately I cut the hole a little large so it doesn’t look great but it works.  

I’ve been prepping the batteries and planning for 5 months.  Finally installed today and yesterday, so two days without power.  Pretty big job for me.  320 screws just in the batteries. 900 lbs of lifepo4. (Should have been 1000; see mistake 2).   Removing the 1000ah of 2yp lifepo4 batteries and completely taking the old wiring apart and putting it all back together.

I made 3 pretty major mistakes and one sparktacular wrench drop but it all turned out ok.

Mistake 1 was buying overkill bms.  It’s a high quality product and I like it a lot but it doesn’t balance as much as I need.  I can live with it though.

Mistake 2 was miscalculating space needed on the left side.  My insulation was just a bit thicker and so I lacked about 1/2” being able to insert the 6th battery in that side.  That means where I had 10 batteries (8 cells, 560ah nominal at 12.8v each) I can only fit 9 in the box which drops me from 5600ah to 5040ah total.  I say nominal because the 280ah cells are testing at over 300ah actual capacity.  In any event I have another 560ah battery I have no idea what to do with now.  (Plus the 10x 100ah batteries I removed). Prob upgrade the camper.  

Mistake 3 was putting my furring strips straight.  I am using tank heaters to keep the batteries warm inside a box of 2” foam board insulation.  I don’t want the tank heater pads to touch the batteries or to be squished by them so I put furring strips on either side and then have a 2x6 sled on top that I use to transport the cells. I’d intended to angle the furring strips and forgot until I had about 700 lbs of batteries resting on them when I realized all that weight was concentrated on just two slats in the floor which were bending a bit.  Not sure what I’ll do about it.  Pretty sure those two slats will warp an inch or so until the sleds contact the other floor slats.  

Other improvements include adding lexan over all the batteries.  And foam board above that (not shown on top and front but you can see it on back and sides). Also building my own batteries with bms means each of the 9 batteries has its own bluetooth connection and is controlled by an app.  So I can monitor the voltage  and temp of each of the  72 cells and have a great deal of control over settings.   It’s particularly nice that I can turn on/off both charging and discharging independently on each battery.  

Of course that’s a lot of BT now since there’s also 4x victron mppt, 2x victron smartsense, and a victron smartshunt that are all BT so like 16 devices running BT on that box.  In fact the only thing NOT running BT is the AIMS inverter.

Tomorrow I’m going to put some load on it and check everything out with the thermal camera. Then I’ll tidy up some wiring and insulation.    

Pics show various stages of assembly.  








My initial opinions about the EVE lf280k cells (v3 I think) are very positive, but the “bus bars” kinda suck. The orange insulation  is in the way and easily prevent a solid connection.  They’re also bendable but idk if that changes resistance and they continue to exert some spring pressure on the terminals which I don’t like.  
I also have a very high opinion of overkill bms despite it not balancing enough.