IS YOUR CARAVAN WEIGHING YOU DOWN?
Attention all caravaners! If you were randomly pulled over by the state road authorities to be weighed, how confident would you be that you were within legal limitations? Not knowing is no excuse, as every time you pull out on the road with your caravan it is expected that you do so safely and within the scope of the law. A recent blitz in January of this year saw almost 60% of caravans that were pulled over by Victoria Police as part of Operation Roadhouse to be overweight. With many of the drivers claiming they were simply unaware. Now legal implications aside, the first priority of most drivers is to ensure the safety of their loved ones. So lets talk about how DCS can help you to do that.
Below is a caravan by Bush Trackers, designed for off road 4WD conditions and is about 15 years old. When it was brought into Paul at DCS it was equipped with the following:
- 4 x 120Ah AGM batteries, weighing 42kgs each, 42kgs x 4 = 168kgs
These were replaced with,
- 3 x 100Ah 12V DCS batteries, weighing 14kgs each, 14kgs x 3 = 42kgs
This gave a total weight saving of 126kgs.
In addition to the weight savings, the amount of usable storage energy was increased from 240Ah to 280Ah. Goes to show, sometimes you really do get more for less!
Paul also updated the chargers.
- Enerdrive DC2DC 30A charger for charging the batteries via the vehicle when driving (12V)
- Enerdrive ePower 40A mains charger for charging the batteries when connected to mains power (240V)
The existing TriStar MPPT solar regulator which is connected to 3 x 120W solar panels, was reconfigured for the DCS lithium batteries.
It’s also worth remembering that DCS 12V batteries can be paralleled as long as the battery capacities are kept the same, in this case 3 x DCS 12V 100Ah batteries have been used to provide 12V 300Ah of lithium ion storage.
