[Guide] Clayton LPS II 2500 - 1kWh (leisure battery + Inverter) -- How I Done It --

[Dellmassive]

As a thought if you have a number of your power boxes you don't need to have all the power in one place and distribute it at 12v the way you do 240v, you can have small zones around a power box.

That may make more efficient use of the stored charge.

This is the way I run the event PA, each amp point has an 18l Really Useful Box with 40Ah or so of SLA in on Andersons

we have done something similar before, at summer camp. . .



the main van + Tent was setup with.

twin 100ah battery boxes, 400w solar and the Anker 757.



.




we had some interesting Inverter efficientcy numbers to tried some smaller mini inverters. . . like the cracking little 300w Bestek.




.


then we had the DiscoTent powered off another two battery boxes. .

and another 400w solar

and a EF River Pro for mains. . .



.


we was running 1000w JBL PRX PA speaker up,

with some LED DMX lights,

and a couple of MINI Moving heads,

plus the love island style lights.

and, and , and , and. . . . . . . .






.



..


even with all this, we still had to use the vans dc-dc charger to try and recharge some of the boxes. . . during the day.






....


even with 800w solar,

and 600ah lithium . .


we still run out of power. . . . .LOL.

 

[Dellmassive]

we have done something similar before, at summer camp. . .



the main van + Tent was setup with.

twin 100ah battery boxes, 400w solar and the Anker 757.

View attachment 228486

.

View attachment 228487


we had some interesting Inverter efficientcy numbers to tried some smaller mini inverters. . . like the cracking little 300w Bestek.

View attachment 228488


.


then we had the DiscoTent powered off another two battery boxes. .

and another 400w solar

and a EF River Pro for mains. . .


View attachment 228491View attachment 228492
.


we was running 1000w JBL PRX PA speaker up,

with some LED DMX lights,

and a couple of MINI Moving heads,

plus the love island style lights.

and, and , and , and. . . . . . . .


View attachment 228494



.

View attachment 228493

..


even with all this, we still had to use the vans dc-dc charger to try and recharge some of the boxes. . . during the day.


View attachment 228489



....


even with 800w solar,

and 600ah lithium . .


we still run out of power. . . . .LOL.



View attachment 228495View attachment 228496

the downside to all this is space in the van. . . .


the more kit you bring the more space you need.



now we have the BUS for your camping trips,

we have less space than ever.. . .




thankfully we have some Stella members that offer to help out and split the load.


so the Forum Gazebos are shared around @Jollyvan @Mick @czmate1999 @Dellmassive


this year will be the first full year with us in the BUS and not the VAN.

so i don't know how its going to go yet. . . . .





fingers crossed that we can fit it all in. . .

 

[Dellmassive]

-- NEW BT APP --


had a reply from Clayton - and its not good news. (unless you want to buy a new unit)

no BT remote or retro-fit will be offered.

the new units have a HW version Bump.



...


"Apologies for the delayed response.

The bluetooth function comes with a new hardware version of the LPS. We are expecting it to come out around April time but a date hasn’t yet been confirmed. Unfortunately, it won’t be possible to plug in a separate module fo the same functionality.

As for the batteries, we are currently in the process of fulfilling some customer orders and once we have completed these, there will be stock available for sale. I expect this to again be around April.

Thanks

Kind Regards"


...

++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

[Dellmassive]

On the plus side the LPSII REMOTE arrived today.

so ill show that shortly.

 

[Dellmassive]

Final test numbers are in . . .

+++++++++++++++

i shut off the test at 12% because that's low enough for me. . . and running lithium's very low is not great for there health.

so 100% to 12% in a day and a half - exactly as the numbers and estimate worked out.

this box will drain itself flat in that time with the 240vac on.



so you need to:

just use 240ac as and when,

move over to 12vdc,

or recharge some % often. (at least every day)

or use a seperate inverter off the 12vdc side (this seems a bit daft - but I've done it before, using a small 300w inverter with much better efficiency, will last way longer ( just to run a couple of fridges - but wont run a kettle etc.)

+++++++++++++++

[Guide] Clayton LPS II 2500 - 1kWh (leisure battery + Inverter) -- How I Done It --

On mine it just looked like a wire from the Clayton with a piggy back fuse in the fuse box for an ignition feed. Took the fuse out and it stops the ignition feed to the Clayton allowing it to operate freely. I can just put the fuse back in if I want the ignition cutting it off again. Thanks...

www.t6forum.com

.

 

[Dellmassive]

LPSII REMOTE


so here its is. . . nice box well packaged.




you get a fair lenghth of cable. . . was it 5m?

attached to the remote,

with separate plug and mount bracket.





nothing much to see of the rear of the remote - a handy colour code guide. . .



there is only 3wires that connect to the LPSII,

so the grey/brown must be an output to switch something?

don't remember seeing anything about that before?

the plug terminals are super tiny flat head . .




plug wise . . .





just 3 wires to the LPSII




job done. . .




...


i plugged it in the REMOTE port at the rear.

pressing the 12v button woke the unit up.

12v LED and SoC bar graph.



turning of the 240v as well we got more LED. . . . .





plugging in the BATTERY BOX to charge the LPSII.

we get a top 12v charge light that blinks. . . and the 12v ON/OFF blinks



disconnecting the charge source, we get back to a blank remote with all lights OFF.






FYI - I've disabled the JUMPSTART in the settings, as i dint want the unit to back feed into the lithium at any point....


but


in a standard install you press-hold the button to activate the feature. . . the unit will then dump a load of power into your starter battery - allowing you to jump start your own van. (assuming the unit has enough power)

how cool is that.

+++++++++++++++


its a shame they cant produce a new remote that adds BT + App, but if they say i cant be done, then we have to believe them.

but im sure there are some cleaver people that could reverse engineer something.

and make up a BT remote?

if the remote can have buttons and a SoC graph over a data link (CAN Bus i think)

when why cant we get some cleaver bods to data sniff the lines and get some code?

then write a simple BT APP Homebrew style?


maybe its already been done?

ClaytonPower LPSII hacking?


whos up for the challenge?


+++++++++++++++

 

[denz1968]

in a standard install you press-hold the button to activate the feature. . . the unit will then dump a load of power into your starter battery - allowing you to jump start your own van. (assuming the unit has enough power)

how cool is that.

I have used that in mine. I inadvertently left the lights on when working on the van one day. Clayton jump start to the rescue. Took between 4-5 minutes to give enough power to start the van

 

[Dellmassive]

more testing. . .

and it seems that the LPSII will cut out its charging when the IN voltage dropes below around 11.50v,


and wont restart charging till the voltage rises above 12.0v.




you also get a nice alarm message on the remote warning you that your effective starter battery is running flat.


run the battery box down to cut-out . . . . . .








and an interesting warning on the screen. . .







connecting a charger to the supply battery restores all the errors. . .






...

 

[Qnapper]

Very interesting read and thank you for it. My God do you carry a load of kit......

Looks like the way ahead if your starting from scratch in a new vcan conversion, but for now I will keep using the 180amp LifePO battery under the seat and the 200 watt solar, works great in Spain (but that could change come April whilst we are in UK for 3/4 months.

 

[Dellmassive]

For Sale . . .

For Sale - Clayton LPS II 2500 - 1kWh (leisure battery + Inverter)

Clayton LPS II 2500 - 1kWh (leisure battery + Inverter) as new condition, less than 10x cycles. £2250 collected / plus shipping. +++++++++++++++++++++ see it in action here: https://www.t6forum.com/threads/guide-clayton-lps-ii-2500-1kwh-leisure-battery-inverter-how-i-done-it.47215/...

www.t6forum.com

.

 

[Dellmassive]

anyone looking for a Clayton?

For Sale - Clayton LPS II 2500 - 1kWh (leisure battery + Inverter)

Clayton LPS II 2500 - 1kWh (leisure battery + Inverter) as new condition, less than 10x cycles. £2250 collected / plus shipping. +++++++++++++++++++++ see it in action here: https://www.t6forum.com/threads/guide-clayton-lps-ii-2500-1kwh-leisure-battery-inverter-how-i-done-it.47215/...

www.t6forum.com

.

 

[Ian’s stuff]

On mine it just looked like a wire from the Clayton with a piggy back fuse in the fuse box for an ignition feed. Took the fuse out and it stops the ignition feed to the Clayton allowing it to operate freely. I can just put the fuse back in if I want the ignition cutting it off again.

Hi, I’m struggling to identify which fuse to use for the piggyback connection , do you have a photograph of the piggyback. Please
Regards, Ian

 

[Bundy88]

Hi, I’m struggling to identify which fuse to use for the piggyback connection , do you have a photograph of the piggyback. Please
Regards, Ian

Hi Ian,
Had a gander but I think they must have taken the piggyback connector out and put the original fuse back in as I have no spare piggyback plugged in now...just ones for the dashcam.
Presumably it was just off one that is an ignition live only....?
Cheers
Al

 

[Adam H]

Excellent thread, we used our clayton 2500 for the first time over the week on a proper campout, wife used her GHD's for the first time ever while camping so she's already won over.

However, we managed to go from 100% charge when getting to the campsite at 5pm, with a few hours of sun hitting the 160w solar panel. And by 6am everything had died.

Is there a way on the clayton to show draw of a particular device ? We had a fair bit running through the evening but nothing really anymore than we would on a 130ah AGM we had previously and that would typically run for a day and a half, maybe 2 days with zero solar.

So im thinking there is a draw somewhere, especially as on the second night we only consumed 60% of the battery by morning.

On the first night we had the following, ( forgive me im not electrically minded so i have no idea what all these things take powerwise )

1. Alpicool(adventurer draw compressor fridge/coolbox )
2. Apicool console fridge/coolbox. ( On all night, but obviously only using power when temp needed topping up, both set to 3 degrees )
3. Led lights, 2 bars in poptop roof, probbly around 6 sets of strip lights in the kitchen area and walls etc. ( these were off by midnight, so approx on for 5 hours )
4. Under glow lights under the van ( Forgot to switch these off so they were on all night )
5. Wireless phone charger and a few USBs charging phones.
6. Auto term Diesel heater. It was cold so this needed to be on for a few hours i guess on and off through the night .

That day just to get some juice back in first thing, I ran the engine for 15 mins and got 25% of the battery back in it, the the sun took over and it was back to 100% by around 4pm that afternoon.

That night we made sure all the LED's were only on when we were in the van, rather than when we were all sat around the campfire. And the under lights were turned off before bed. The heater only got used for say 30 mins before bed and then wasnt needed after that. Waking up the next day there was still 40% left and solar then started topping it up again.

So im unsure if we just abused it the first night and its just not capable of running all lights for a lot of the night, or if the heater took alot out of it and the combination of the two killed us off. Or if one thing in particular has a large draw, so my thought was to turn everything off, put one thing on at a time and get a draw reading from the clayton if possible ? And find whats causing the biggest loss.

Rest of the weekend it was absolutely fine, wife switched on the 240w for her GHD's for about 5 mins but bearly put a dent in usage. Looks such a good unit, just surprised me at the total loss on the first night.

 

[Adam H]

Ok found how to check the DC outputs. So just incase anyone else finds this useful and if anyone knows how to roughly calculate how usage/time scales, this is what roughly our usage is and devices.

Under Bed Coolbox/fridge ( virtually zero when at temperature ) 3A ( 47w ) when compressor is on.
Console Coolbox/fridage ( virtually zero when at temperature ) 2.4A ( 34 w ) when compressor is on.

Two fridges compressing at same time 5.1A ( not sure why it would be different than both added together above )

Primay lights x1 ( 1.4a 19w )
Primary Lights x2 (2.5a 34w ) Again not sure why its different overall when both are on at the same time, rather than individually but most of the time, both will be on rather than indvidually.

Splashback strip lights, basically 4 strips ( 3.9a 53w )
Rear quarter recess, basically 2 strip lights ( 0.8a 11w )

Autoterm heater on start up around 3-5mins (7.2a 100w)
Autoterm heater once warm ( 1.8a 24w )

Wireless Phone charger ( 1a 13w )
Phone charging off USB ( 0.7a 9w )
Phone charging off Poptop USB ( 1.1a 16w )

Under van glow lights ( 1.8a 24w )

I think the first night where we lost power by 6am from 100% charge at say 6pm, might have just been a combination of over doing it, all lights on for 5-6 hours, heater on for a good 2-3 hours, while the heater was on id imagine the van was hot, causing the fridges compressors to kick in to maintain temp more often, underglow lights on all night and 3-4 phones/devices charging.

During the day time, solar maintained the fridges just fine while also charging the battery back to 100% again even though the day time was very very hot.

Second night, fridges obviously on as normal, turned most lights off while not in the van around the camp fire, underglow lights only on for about 3 hours. This resulted in only 50-60% usage instead of 100% usage.

So i guess we've just got to be a bit more mindful of not having everything under the sun on

Pic of inside for referrance of lights.

 

[roadtripper]

So by your figures you've got about 120w of lighting?

So that's 10 amps ( 120/12 )

Not sure what size your battery is but that is 10aH of capacity per hour, so a standard 100ah battery would be at recharge level in 5 hours and drained in 10. If you have the base battery of 100aH and the Clayton cuts off at 80% then you have 8 hours of runtime at that load.

If you factor in steady state heater (24w) and maybe a 1/4 duty cycle for your fridges then your load was ~20w for fridges, add in some phone charging you're looking at 180w, 15 amps.

That's 15aH of capacity loss per hour, or about 5.5 hours to 80% of an 100aH battery.

 

[Adam H]

Thanks for working that out, I think we absolutely over done it on the first night then We've got the base 100ah battery in it I believe and while during daylight hours the solar put in enough to maintain and charge, it obviously suffered with everything still running for a large part of the evening and night.

I'm absolutely certain all lights were on much of that first night as we was outside until about 2am taking photos of arora and the van lights were all on from the time the evening got a little dusky lol

Obviously don't know for sure how many times the fridges turned on the compressors, but im certain the heater was on for 3 hours or so.

 

[roadtripper]

Compressor fridges I work to a rule of thumb of about 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 duty cycle (so compressor runs for 15mins or 20mins every hour)

Anyway hope a few examples showed you how to run the numbers to figure out what works for you.

Those LED strips are nice but power hungry - do you have any dimmers on them to throttle back a bit?

 

[30 Year Dream]

I have the LPS II 3000 in mine...Knights conversion
So far so good and does pretty much all we need.
Linked to the hook up for on-site charging (rarely needed) and 3 x 100w solar on the roof
Hoping that when they finally sort the app they have a bluetooth attachment if it's not built in the older ones. Mines in a cupboard and very hard to access the screen, so it'd be nice to see what it's up to and what's left as the 5 leds on the remote don't tell you a great deal!

Hi Bundy88

We’ve just bought a second hand Knights conversion that sounds like yours (maybe the 2500W though).
It has an induction hob and a combi oven/grill/microwave that both work off 230V from the Clayton.
I am wondering how much we will be able to use at the same time?
Have you tried using the hob, the oven and boiling a kettle using 230V at the same time?
Will it handle that? Will it just say ‘no’? Will it blow up?!

(I don’t understand the wattage, amps, amp hours, duty cycles etc!)

Thanks for any pointers

 

[Bundy88]

Hi Bundy88

We’ve just bought a second hand Knights conversion that sounds like yours (maybe the 2500W though).
It has an induction hob and a combi oven/grill/microwave that both work off 230V from the Clayton.
I am wondering how much we will be able to use at the same time?
Have you tried using the hob, the oven and boiling a kettle using 230V at the same time?
Will it handle that? Will it just say ‘no’? Will it blow up?!

(I don’t understand the wattage, amps, amp hours, duty cycles etc!)

Thanks for any pointers

Hi,
I don't have the combi oven, just a double ring induction hob....
I've never tried boiling a kettle at the same time as using the hob to be honest.
I would have thought the Clayton will just not provide to one of them if it's too much or cut out...my hob is plugged in the front of the unit and the sockets run off the back so I guess it deals with each separately?! Not sure to be fair, so guess try it!
One thing it will do is run down fast if you try running all that at once...the hob uses a fair chunk of power if you run it for a while.
If you know the wattages of each item it will give you an idea of what it can cope with.
Enjoy the van!
Cheers
Al