Question.
This might be the heaviest battery I've ever had, but it's the largest battery I've ever had too.
This is an.
EPOCH lithium iron phosphate four hundred and sixty amp hour battery four hundred and sixty ampowers. It's got a Victron system built into it for monitoring and managing the BMS, and it's got these canvas ports on the side of it. The canbas CANbus is a controller area network bus. It's a port on the EPAC batteries that is used for communication between the battery management system, the BMS, and external
devices like inverters, chargers, or monitoring systems. It allows the battery to transmit data such as the state of charge, sc voltage, current, temperature, and other critical parameters in real time, facilitating in real time, facilitating better integration with compatible systems,
particularly like Victron, which often use canvas communications. In summary, Victron components work well with EPOCH batteries to provide efficient power conversion, detailed monitoring, smart management, and more safe operations. This is the system that's gonna go in the back of my truck. We're gonna install this today. This has
kind of been a long time coming. I've been working on this for about I don't know, month and a half, maybe two months, something like that, but I got delayed a bunch because of travel out of town and also because of weather. If it's out here and it's thirty degrees, I don't feel like working on it. And if it's out here and it's raining, I can't work on it. But this is where the Epoch four hundred and sixty empower batteries going. It's going in here. This box here
is a box made by Douha now Doha. While they're not real popular, I've been using this box for a while. I was using it with a three hundred empower battery which is right.
There. It's buried right now.
But they make Doha makes boxes that they called hump store boxes and they go over the hump. They mount to the rail to the side rail of the truck and they go over the hump of the wheelwell hump and then they sit there and you can access them from the outside.
Come around here and open the lid, that kind of thing.
But those boxes were not the correct dimensions for the battery I had. That's what I wanted. I wanted to use that, so they were up and out of way. This was before installed the deck slide here. I've got this rack and the decked and a few other things.
This ice COO.
I've got videos about that on my unplugged channel. But today we're talking about the battery system that's going to run all of the things in the back of the truck and it's going to enable me to have a completely mobile off grid communications vehicle.
So this is going through real quick.
Here. This is a red Arc DC to DC controller. This connects to It runs one positive lead to my starter battery in the truck, my main battery in the truck, and then it comes back here and it connects to several different places and it will charge my secondary battery that's going to go in here when the truck is running. It also has a forty amp it's a forty amp charger.
It also has a built in MPPT solar charge controller, so I can charge this charge my battery through this via solar or via just the engine running in the truck. This is the Victron links shunt, which operates as a shunt. This is basically where the secondary battery gets connected to right here, and this is the links distributor which acts as a bus bar, both the positive and negative bus bar for the system. So let me take these cases, and of course I have my rig Runner four thousand
and five right there as well. Now this will run, so my ice code fridge will plug in here. And then this one comes to an external port here. One of these is the solar input and one of these is the is just an extra port that I can plug in something external if I want to. I chose these SAE connectors because they are waterproof and they have this cover over them, so that's what that's for. And then this is the power coming in from the links
distributor to the rig Runner. And let's take the covers off of here and I'll show you guys what this looks like. This is the shunt and the distributor with the removable covers taken off. These just unbolt. There's a Phillip said screw on either end. Just unbolting, lift off really cleanly, really easily. This is a two hundred amp fuse that connects the external battery to the rest of the system over here. So there's the two hundred amp
fuze there and then these are individually fused. This and I believe these are fifty amp fuses, is what these are here. So we've got four fuse circuits fifty times forwards two hundred. That's why this is a two hundred here. Now this is a four hundred and sixty amp system, and the rig runner itself has forty amp fuses in it, so there's multiple fuses running through the system. I'm not
really worried about it much happening to it. And there's no way I'm going to be pulling two hundred amps through this all at one time, even if everything was running, because these fifty amp fuses are not gonna victron fuses. You can get them in I think thirty forty fifty, one hundred, two hundred amps. You can get them in all kinds of sizes there. They might come as low
as twenty five amps. I don't remember, but you know, if I'm keyed down on HF for an extended period of time, maybe with FT eight or something, I might be pulling twenty five or thirty amps. So I need something that is at least that big. And of course you could put these different sizes if you want to, but this is the line coming off the rig runner
powering the rig runner going in here. You've got a positive line there and this is fused to the positive bus bar that runs to the shunt and to the external battery underneath this, which I'm not gonna pull that one up, but I'll pull this one up here. Underneath this is where the negative bus bar connects to. So you've got your positive bus bar, your negative bus bar on the bottom. This goes over the top of it, which is what this part is right here, and your
positive connection goes here. I don't have anything in this spot because I only have three connections right now. So this is the rig runner. This is going to be the rig run, the second rig runner that have mounted behind the seat in my truck which runs on my radios. And this right here is the red arc DC to d C charger. So I've got all of these running through the links distributor and they will be read by the link shunt, so I'll be able to monitor everything
coming into and going out of the battery. And if I want to, you say, see how these these come as two separate pieces, and you take the bolts off and you connect them right there. You can connect a second one of these right here and it would be that much longer. In fact, you can connect these kind of indefinitely. These links distributors have ports on both sides to connect to one another, so you can daisy chain them, you know, for as long as a long as you want,
as much room as you have. And probably what I might do in the future is expand this. I wasn't able to find an actual box that was this is the best box I could find. Now. This box works fine, but it's obviously limited in space, and you'll see that when the video when I get everything installed. But I wouldn't mind finding a box this, maybe a little bit taller or something like that, with a little bit more room, so I could eventually add a second links distributor and
put a few more things on it. But for now, this is gonna be enough. It's gonna run everything we've got. It's gonna run my entire rig runner in the truck, and it's gonna retire. It's gonna run everything in the back, which is the which is the ice coat, fridge, and the starlink and several other things.
So let's put all this together.
The first part of that video was about three months ago. It was towards the end of December. Part one of the video was about a month before that November. Part two of the video that you saw where I went through the Victron stuff, was in late December. In January, I put everything together that you saw there, and I let it run for about, I don't know, a couple of weeks on this battery. Now, this battery worked fine. Obviously, it's one hundre damp power. It is not going to
last as long as the other one. But I wanted to put it together because that four to sixty is so heavy.
I didn't want to put it all.
Together and then drive it around for a while and be like something I didn't hook up something right or something's not working correctly, and have to plug that sucker.
Out of there again. I'll show you how I mounted it in there.
But I ran it on that and that battery would last almost two days running my entire system. Now, when the truck is idle like it is now, it's not beaconing APRS. There is a radio one in there on received, but I'm not transmitting obviously. And the temperatures outside over the last two or three months have been fairly cool
to cold. We had a couple of fifteen degree days in February, so the fridge doesn't work that the fridge is plugged up twenty four to seven, but the fridge isn't working that hard because the ambient temperature outside is not that high, so that battery would last it for about two days, but about a week before Orlandohimkash of twenty twenty four, which was not quite a month ago at the time of this recording, the time of this last piece, right here, I put in my four hundred
and sixty AM power battery and let me tell you guys something. I can't kill this thing.
I can't kill it. I will drive the.
Truck and it's at one hundred percent because that red art thing.
Keeps it topped off pretty well.
So that red art piece keeps it topped off pretty well while it's running. And again, it hadn't really gotten hot yet. And I'm gonna be interested to see how it performs this coming summer when it's you know, ninety five hundred hundred and five degrees outside in Texas and the fridge raider is gone is having to run a little bit more often than it is running. Right now, I've got this in here as a as kind of like a brace to keep it from falling over. Just
this is this is temporary. This is not one hundred percent done yet, but it's it's done. It's been I've been running it like this for about a month. You see that I put some l brackets in here to keep the battery from sliding back or sliding this way. There's another one down there. So that's the whole thing. That's the four hundred and sixty amp hour. And every time I parked the truck, I parked the truck for
let's see, I arrived in Orlando on Wednesday. We went to Poda on Thursday, and I parked the truck Thursday night, and I don't think I moved the truck until Sunday.
I might have moved it.
I might have started it and kind of parked it somewhere else, but I don't think I left the park all day Friday Saturday until Sunday. So I let it sit for about four days. We got back on Thursday afternoon. Thursday to Friday Friday is Saturday Saturday to Sunday, about three days, like three days. And the battery was like above, it as like eighty one or eighty two percent. And of course as soon as I start the truck up and start driving home, it charges back up forty amps
per hour. You know, it'll charge the entire battery in about ten hours, about about eleven hours, a little bit less than twelve hours. I say, if I could do math, I would have said twelve hours, a little bit less than twelve hours. Forty amps an hour times twelve is four hundred and eighty.
So and then it's a four hundred and sixty Empire battery.
But I've had this running since again, that was almost not quite a month ago. I've had this running since then. I don't drive my truck every day. I work from home making videos.
That's what I do. You guys know that. And so I'll come out here to the truck after it's.
Been sitting for a couple of days and the batteries at like ninety five percent, okay.
I had the truck in the shop.
Before I drove it to Ohio to pick up my new travel trailer last week. And the truck was in the shop they were replacing the fuel pump. It sat there for two days before they ever looked at it. They pulled it into the bay, took the gas tank out, replaced the fuel pump, put it back in, drove it up. They drove it up the road down and back again. They drove it like maybe five maybe four or five miles,
so it wasn't running that long. And I come back to pick it up like three days later, and the batteries at like ninety two percent, so.
So it charged up a little bit while it was running.
But I mean, like the free I ran for like four days without the truck started at all. And again it's not that hot outside, so further testing this season will see. But my god, this battery is freaking rad It is freaking awesome. I tried to do a capacity test on the West Mountain Radio software and for whatever reason, the way the battery is built, one of the guys
at EPOK explained it to me. It was kind of over my head, but just the way the battery is built, it just the West Mountain Radio software won't read it correctly, so I can't get a real capacity test on it. But let me tell you something, working real world, actual hands on and doing the thing, it's awesome.
I just I absolutely love it. So I'm gonna show you.
What the app looks like now the next part of this build. So everything that's in the box now is the battery and all of the Victron stuff I showed you before. Apparently Victron doesn't put Bluetooth in some of their devices. I thought I thought Victron all had Bluetooth devices, or at least that link show. I thought it had Bluetooth. Apparently, the link Shun I got it's like three hundred bucks. They make a Bluetooth version it's like eleven hundred bucks.
So I didn't go that route.
But there is a thing called a SERBOGX that they make that I picked up recently.
I'm gonna add it to the system.
Not only does it have Bluetooth, it also has an Internet connection, and as you guys know, my truck has Wi Fi full time WiFi. In fact, I'm about to put Starlink in the truck.
I've just been waiting on to get a new.
Mount for Starlink to put it in the truck. But so anyway, either way, it has full time Internet in the truck, and the SERBOGX will not only connect via Bluetooth, so I'll be able to monitor it a little bit.
Better, but it will.
It will upload to the Victron cloud, so I'll be able to log in to the Victron cloud and look at my truck from anywhere where I have an Internet connection. So this is what the app for EPOC. This is the Epoch app, not the Victron app. I'm gonna be running the Victron app soon. I might take the SERBOGX has a monitor you can add to it.
That's HDUM. I might put that there and let it run full time.
I don't know yet, maybe maybe not here, but here's the Epoch app. I don't like the one thing I don't like about this app. It does not turn horizontal. It stays vertical. I email the guys at EPOK about this. I'm like, guys, can you update your app so that it you know, you can look at it on a tablet. That's not vertical because I keep my tablet right here in horizontal fashion, but you could see right there the batteries at ninety nine percent thirteen point.
I'll turn the camera.
How's that so you guys can see that better? Thirteen point three volts zero point zero amps are being drawn from it right now, which means the refrigerator's not running and the engine's not running, which obviously the engine is not running, and it's at four hundred and forty seven out of four hundred and sixty amps. And that's that's how I've been monitoring it since I don't have my Victron Bluetooth set up yet. But that is the next step. And like I said, I just I can't seem to
kill this battery. So special shout out to Epoch Battery. I had them on a livestream a couple of months ago. They make a fantastic product. I've got one of This is a four hundred and sixty empower. Like I said, I've got one of their three hundred empower batteries. I've done a little bit of testing on that. We're gonna finish that up soon. Awesome, awesome, very rough, very durable, very outdoors rough country batteries. And we're gonna see how it lasts the summer in Texas. My last battery last
the summer Texas is fine. In fact, you know what something I forgot during one of those fifteen degree days. I woke up in the morning fifteen degrees outside a couple like during the middle of February, shortly after hammcasion, I came out to the truck and I started my truck. My truck doesn't like to run when it's when it's cold any more than I like to run when it's cold.
And the truck started just fine. And I turn on this app and the batteries that like, I don't know, maybe ninety four to ninety five percent something like that. And I look at the monitor and there's zero amps coming into the back, so it has low temperature cut off. Low temperature charging cut off. So when the battery is cold, it wouldn't allow the red arc charger to charge it to save from because it's fifteen degrees out. Well, it's
fifteen degrees outside. I don't know what the temperature of the battery was, but it does say a temperature on this app here.
Boun't remember what it was, so low temperature cut off on top of all that.
So thank you to Epoch Batteries for sending this to me. I really enjoy this battery. We will make some more videos with it later. I will put any coupon codes that they have in the description of this video below. You guys go check them out if you want just a very durable long lasting, just excellent, excellent quality battery. Go check them out link in the description below. Seventy three and thanks for watching that