Mobile office anyone.....

[FuglybusII]

My credentials for anyone interested

www.vyonyx.com

This is my business for the last 6 years, that I want to take mobile!

Chris & Claire

 

[Wissel]

I think you may struggle getting a PC running effectively in a van on 12v power alone that can run the software your running well.

To give you an idea my PC runs on 17w during normal office use. To get the amps used you divide the watts by voltage so in my case 17/12.5 = about 1.5a of draw on the batteries per hour. If I have the PC on for 10 hours it will use 15a. This is just the PC, the monitor draws about the same.

The graphics card you are running is actually quite a low power draw compared to most high end cards but it can still draw 75w at full throttle. You would also benefit from a faster processor than in my machine, probably a Haswell i5 low TDP chip like a 4670S which runs at a maximum of 65w.

Allowing for other power draws in the PC this could draw a maximum of about 170w or 15a per hour (if working the system hard with rendered graphics). Over 10 hours this "could" pull 150a from the batteries, although in practise I doubt you could use half this power in a single day. So say this system is using 60a in a day plus the monitor say 75a in total.

To run just this PC over say 3 days (without charging) you would probably consume around 225a of power. Leisure batteries should only be discharged to around 50% (as a generalisation) so you could need 450a of batteries before you even switch a light on.

Solar, whilst great, will not realistically keep up with this draw. Not even if you cover the roof of your van (maybe on a nice summers day with a lot of panels).

I think if I were buying a system with these power requirements I would go for a high end laptop. This will still use quite a bit of power but probably not as much as the above system.

Having said that, the new Haswell processors are very good and also have great built in graphics that will probably run your software quite well apart from large animated renders which I would imagine would take a little time and not be brilliantly smooth to watch. They are also great at managing how much power they use and I would think you could get a very fast PC running at around 35w in normal office use, 70w ish when rendering and about 15-20w idle.

So if you had this PC on for 10 hours of which 3 hours was spent using office and writing emails, maybe an hour of intense graphics work and the rest of the time idle just monitoring emails you would probably be using about 25a, plus your monitor say a total of 40a in a day. This is doable in a van as long as you are charging the batteries at least once a week.

It really depends on if your software will run at a standard that you find acceptable without a massive graphics card.

My best guess is the system without the graphics card and using the Haswell chip, with fast green memory and SSD's would be absolutely fine. Adobe Premiere also has a very high spec requirement (according to Adobe and most dedicated forums) but I find even my little van PC can render high-def video quite happily. I just wouldn't want to tell you it will definitely be okay as I cant be sure.

Sorry if this waffles on a bit

 

[Melchior]

www.vyonyx.com

This is my business for the last 6 years, that I want to take mobile!

Chris & Claire

INCREDIBLE images on that site! Are they a mix of photograph and rendering? Very impressive indeed. :thumb:

Sorry for the o/t post but I had to express my amazement!

 

[FuglybusII]

A lot to consider....

Glad you like my work, yeap photography and rendering make up the bulk of our work...

Always on deadlines and always tired so really need some time off...

Perhaps i'll just take a sabatical instead of trying to work as well as travel...:Cool:

Wissel, you really know your stuff....I'm going to have to re-think what is practical for the trip..but interesting to know how much potential power I might need before even switching on the lights!

Cheers and thanks again for your input.

Chris & Claire

 

[Gromett]

Everything Wissel said but I would add one more thing.

The latest laptop have a nice feature where it has a dedicated graphics card as well as the one built into the processor.

Get a Haswell laptop with the dual graphics capability and it can switch to the high end graphics card only when it needs it thus reducing your power usage massively. The tech that springs to mind is Nvidia's Optimus which works on windows without issue.
It recently came to Linux and I had a play with it a while back and it was nice.

The Haswell laptop I borrowed for a week pulled just over 2Amps (average) at full steam using the integrated gfx. My old core 2 duo pulled 5+ amps when the battery was fully charged and a lot more when the battery was not full. I did some video transcoding, answering support tickets, skype, SSH, emails and web browsing. I monitored the usage using a nasa battery monitor and had the solar panels disconnected for 4 hours while I did the test.

The difference between a 2nd generation i series processor and a 4th generation is pretty big as Intel have been concentrating on gfx performance and power usage.

The core2 duo was built on a 65nm process, the 2nd generation (Ivy Bridge) core i7 was built on a 32nm process. The 4th Generation (Haswell) is built on a 22nm process. The M versions of the processor are even more power efficient.

I think if you could find a Haswell laptop with Nvidia Optimus enabled graphics you could do a full days work on one battery charge or you could do what I do and keep it plugged in via a DC/DC converter. I think your power usage would be within the capabilities of 4 x 100AH batteries for a week providing you didn't hammer the system with big things like running on an inverter.

I don't think you would find a projector much use in a motorhome. You would have to close all the blinds to use it and hopefully you will be parked somewhere with a great view which you wouldn't want to shut out

It does take a bit of getting used to working on a laptop but it is worth persevering with. I now have a laptop like keyboard for my main computer to save me having to get readjusted each time I swap over. I went from a 32" screen down to 17" laptop screen. It felt a bit pokey at first but I soon got used to it. They were both at the same 1920x1200 resolution so I wasn't actually losing any screen real estate.

I am guessing that with 2 of you in the van you would need to pitch up to a campsite every 3-4 days to empty your cassette so you could book in once or twice a week to a CL to recharge, empty tanks and fill fresh water.? If you knew you had a big job coming in you could stop at a CL for the duration and get a hookup for your main computer. That's what I do.

Anyway, if you have any questions it looks like you have a couple of people willing to advise now :thumb:

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[Gromett]

Wissel,

As I'm sat at my desk now I'm running the following:

PC Standard workstation case
Windows 7 pro
Intel (R) Core(TM) i7 - 2700K CPU @ 3.50GHz
32.0 GB Ram
64 bit OS
AMD Firepro V5900 (ATI FireGL) Graphics Card
WACOM digital tablet
24" Dell monitor
6 x USB ports
CD read write drive

Main Software requirements:
[HI]Sketchup
AutoCAD
Rhino
3D Studio MAX 2013
Adobe CS6 suite
Skype
Filezilla
Microsoft office Suite[/HI]


Couple of things to note:
I intend to run a mini projector when working on projects instead of the 24" Dell monitor. So the toss up is between running a powerfull enough PC versus a Powerfull laptop.

I hope this helps you identify a selfbuild PC that would be suitable for my needs..

Cheers,

Chris & Claire

Found this article.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2040...ignificantly-better-graphics-performance.html

Intel claims that the Iris Graphics 5100 and Iris Pro Graphics 5200 GPUs integrated into some of its Haswell SKUs deliver as much as twice the 3D performance of its existing integrated graphics processors. Intel is claiming 3D performance on par with Nvidia’s GeForce GT 650M, a discrete mobile GPU found in high-end notebooks with credible (not high end) gaming performance.



[HI]Iris and Iris Pro GPUs support advanced APIs, including DirectX 11.1, OpenCL[/HI], and OpenGL 4.0. DirectX 11.1 is very important for delivering all the best visual effects in modern games. Photo- and video-editing programs, such as Adobe’s Photoshop and Sony’s Vegas Pro, use OpenCL to tap a graphics processor so they can render images faster. And engineering, design, modeling, and animation programs such as Autodesk’s 3DS Max rely on OpenGL to talk to the GPU.

From this I think work may be possible although to what level of speed I don't with the built in Iris gfx on a Haswell CPU.

 

[Wissel]

I haven't seen the dual graphics Haswell laptops - that's a great solution.

2a is incredible running a graphics card, was this running the DC-DC regulator?

I guess the other advantages of using a laptop like Gromett suggests are being able to work (or at least monitor email) from sitting outside the van, plus if you did need a larger screen ever (or two screens) you could plug another straight into the laptop. In fact if you add a wireless keyboard and mouse it would be the same as a desktop so best of both worlds

 

[Gromett]

I haven't seen the dual graphics Haswell laptops - that's a great solution.

2a is incredible running a graphics card, was this running the DC-DC regulator?

I guess the other advantages of using a laptop like Gromett suggests are being able to work (or at least monitor email) from sitting outside the van, plus if you did need a larger screen ever (or two screens) you could plug another straight into the laptop. In fact if you add a wireless keyboard and mouse it would be the same as a desktop so best of both worlds

Yes the 2A was measured using a full laptop battery and connected to the DC/DC adapter. I ran it for 4 hours while I worked and watched the AH meter to see how much went out. At peak usage it went up to just under 3Amps when doing some transcoding. But this even nails my Quad core i5.

I did think about just using an external monitor on my laptop but to be honest a desktop CPU with quad core will always nail the hell out of a laptop cpu.. Plus you can fit a lot more hard drives in a desktop system. I currently have 3 HDD's in my server case and intend to add 3 more shortly.

It is nice when I go on hookup to use my 32" monitor on my server. But at the same time the laptop is very usable for real work. The laptop is capable of transcoding it just takes 4 times longer.

 

[motorhomelover]

I think you may struggle getting a PC running effectively in a van on 12v power alone that can run the software your running well.

To give you an idea my PC runs on 17w during normal office use. To get the amps used you divide the watts by voltage so in my case 17/12.5 = about 1.5a of draw on the batteries per hour. If I have the PC on for 10 hours it will use 15a. This is just the PC, the monitor draws about the same.

The graphics card you are running is actually quite a low power draw compared to most high end cards but it can still draw 75w at full throttle. You would also benefit from a faster processor than in my machine, probably a Haswell i5 low TDP chip like a 4670S which runs at a maximum of 65w.

Allowing for other power draws in the PC this could draw a maximum of about 170w or 15a per hour (if working the system hard with rendered graphics). Over 10 hours this "could" pull 150a from the batteries, although in practise I doubt you could use half this power in a single day. So say this system is using 60a in a day plus the monitor say 75a in total.

To run just this PC over say 3 days (without charging) you would probably consume around 225a of power. Leisure batteries should only be discharged to around 50% (as a generalisation) so you could need 450a of batteries before you even switch a light on.

Solar, whilst great, will not realistically keep up with this draw. Not even if you cover the roof of your van (maybe on a nice summers day with a lot of panels).

I think if I were buying a system with these power requirements I would go for a high end laptop. This will still use quite a bit of power but probably not as much as the above system.

Having said that, the new Haswell processors are very good and also have great built in graphics that will probably run your software quite well apart from large animated renders which I would imagine would take a little time and not be brilliantly smooth to watch. They are also great at managing how much power they use and I would think you could get a very fast PC running at around 35w in normal office use, 70w ish when rendering and about 15-20w idle.

So if you had this PC on for 10 hours of which 3 hours was spent using office and writing emails, maybe an hour of intense graphics work and the rest of the time idle just monitoring emails you would probably be using about 25a, plus your monitor say a total of 40a in a day. This is doable in a van as long as you are charging the batteries at least once a week.

It really depends on if your software will run at a standard that you find acceptable without a massive graphics card.

My best guess is the system without the graphics card and using the Haswell chip, with fast green memory and SSD's would be absolutely fine. Adobe Premiere also has a very high spec requirement (according to Adobe and most dedicated forums) but I find even my little van PC can render high-def video quite happily. I just wouldn't want to tell you it will definitely be okay as I cant be sure.

Sorry if this waffles on a bit

It is refreshing to read a well constructed,informative article, that says just what I was trying to say in a clear consise way

Put in a heating system as in original post
makes grommets arguments stand point on to rather rocky ground

I still say it is impossible to do what the poster originally requested,information as to how to do it on solar power

I just hope he doesn't go in to the expensive exercise of trying to do it on solar the cost would scare me

 

[Gromett]

It is refreshing to read a well constructed,informative article, that says just what I was trying to say in a clear consise way

Put in a heating system as in original post
[HI]makes grommets arguments stand point on to rather rocky ground [/HI]

I still say it is impossible to do what the poster originally requested,information as to how to do it on solar power

I just hope he doesn't go in to the expensive exercise of trying to do it on solar the cost would scare me

Huh?????

I never said heating on solar. Please re-read my posts.
I don't see where there are any holes in my suggestions and the fact I have been doing this for 4+ years suggests I may be getting something right? I advised against an inverter. At no point did I say solar was suitable for heating etc....

Please tell me where my rocky ground isoh: As I think reality needs a poke in the nose to tell it how wrong it is

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[Gromett]

Just to make it clear what I mean and the setup I would recommend.

Heating or anything else that creates heat for cooking etc should be done off Gas generally. 240V heating, microwaves etc should only be used when on hookup. 12V batteries should only ever be used for low power stuff. I wouldn't bother with a microwave myself and haven't had one in 3+ years. I don't miss it.

LED lighting is an essential if you are looking to survive on solar and still have enough power left for your mobile office.

Gasit refillable gas cylinders are strongly recommended. 2x11KG is great as this will last around 2 weeks in the winter in a small van and 10 days in a medium sized van. A better option would be an underslung tank but this is dependent on space available underneath and cost. As a fulltimer you will very quickly recover your costs over the period of one winter.

I would recommend having a main computer for when you are on hookup and need major computing power for big jobs. Only to be used when on hookup. I would then recommend two laptops. The first one a full fat laptop for doing serious work on when not on hookup. the second a small netbook for answering emails and quick browsing... The smaller one means you can let the solar put as much into the battery as possible. If you can get by on a tablet for email and browsing then no need for a netbook

On the power front. Get as much battery and Solar as you can afford and fit within your payload. I have 500AH and this gives me 1 week off hookup when no sun is present. Although because I have 240Watts of solar I have managed almost 6 months without a hookup this year. During the winter I prefer not to drive as there are too many dick heads on the road who don't drive to the conditions. I therefore camp up during the winter and only move on dry days to a new site/location. I always look for hookups in the winter. If there are no jobs that come with parking spot and hookup I use the CL network usually around £10 a night.

To charge the 12V batteries I would recommend as big a mains charger as you can afford. This cuts down the time you will need to run the generator if you are using that method. I would look for one that is capable of at least 1/10th the capacity of the batteries. For me 500AH/10 mean 50 Amp charger as an example.

If you are going to be driving regularly then a B2B charger is very useful.

I carry a generator but as previously stated it has been a year since I last used it. We had a good summer this year :thumb: I wouldn't be without it as I do need to have access to my main computer in an emergency or to charge batteries if the solar isn't up to the job.

When it comes to batteries. If you are reliant on them for your income then don't get el cheapos. Get good quality branded traction batteries. They are worth their weight in gold if you fulltime and run a business from your van.

Back to heating again while I remember. When I had a big van I carried an oil filled radiator for the back of the van and a 1/2KW blown air heater for the front. These only got used in the winter when on hookup to reduce the gas usage to a tolerable level.

I only use devices that will work off 12V system apart from

• Electric toothbrush (x2) (Manual toothbrush as a fallback)
• Electric water pick (dental floss as a fall back)
• Head and beard trimmer. (visit to barbers as a fallback)

These do require charging on 240V but I usually get a month out of each of these. I have them on charge when I hit sites usually once a month when I am not on jobs.

I have an electric toaster, and a george forman grill. These are also only used when on hookup. I prefer the grill to frying as it stops spits of fat getting on my beddingoh: If I don't have a hookup and the weather is nice I will cook outside on a camping stove instead.
Toast is done with a blow torch when not on hookup. Fast:thumb:

I have used cable of a high enough rating between my B2B charger and the leisure batteries. This means I can disconnect the B2B charger and directly connect the leisure batteries to my vehicle battery should I have a flat battery and need to start the engine.
In a worst case scenario where both are flat (never happened) I would start the generator up with the battery link in place but the leisure battery disconnected. This would charge the vehicle battery up quick enough so that I could get her started within half an hour or so.

I don't have an inverter anymore. I found they encouraged me to use more power than was actually necessary. I now only use stuff on 240V if I have a hookup otherwise I go without.

With the above setup I can live comfortably for 6 months on solar only during the summer...

I disagree with those who say solar is useless. If it is done right it is perfectly practical.

 

[TheCaller]

12v Power - I did a massive amount of research on this. In the end I went with 2 x 100w solar panels, 4 x 100ah batteries and a CTEK D250S Dual with Smartpass. Again I have a blog post here if your interested: .
David

David

I had a look at your blog - all very well thought out. I would endorse your choice of the CTEK combination - I haven't seen anything else that does the job as well & with such simplicity.

I was about to buy a UK conversion & my own researches led me to specify the same set up. For a variety of non-related reasons, I'm now getting a continental van which is ready fitted with a Schault EBL99, which goes a long way towards achieving the same objective - far enough to make it silly to strip it all out & start again.

There is only one area where I reach a different conclusion to you. In your video review of the CTEKs, you suggest that in a leisure vehicle, there is little point in separating the critical & non-critical consumer loads & suggest that everything should just be run direct from the leisure battery. That misses one of the advantages of the non-critical outlet.

The leisure battery is being charged by the CTEC smart charger. Whether the source of the charging power is mains, solar or alternator, a feature of the smart charge system is that it will raise the charging voltage to 14.4V or higher (varies slightly depending on battery type). This is what enables it to do the fast & complete charge. However, while that is going on, it maintains the voltage at the non-critical output at 13.6V. Some of the things you might have connected may be sensitive to over voltage - LED lights are particularly sensitive & can have their life dramatically shortened if you run them at over 14V.

I think that if you look at the charging pattern of your mains charger, the voltage may go higher still if it has a 'battery reviver' program.

So I would reverse your plan - connect everything you can to what CTEK describe as the non-critical outlet. Only connect something that should never be switched off (like an alarm) directly to the battery.

This will a) protect your very expensive battery bank from being damaged by being over-discharged, b) stop anything being damaged by over-voltage while charging is taking place & c) ensure that non-critical items are not allowed to completely flatten the leisure batteries, thus stopping any critical items from functioning.

 

[Wissel]

Hi, and cheers TheCaller.

The problem with connecting everything to the non-critical terminal on the CTEK D250S is that (this is from memory so could be wrong) the terminal has an output maximum of 10a. With a 10a supply I could have fitted some items if I wanted to but definitely not everything. Having said that I have four USB charge points going into my van that I may wire direct to the unit.

Your right on what you say about voltage regulation for sensitive electronics. To combat this I have a number of regulators being fitted - just haven't blogged on them yet.

I have 2 12v regulators for the LED lights. One supplies the main ceiling lights and the outside light and the other supplies all the under lights and floor night lights. The VanPC has a buck-boost regulator that can take higher and lower voltage and regulates it to 12v. Finally the 24" LED screen has a 12v - 19v regulated supply. I also have a 600w sine wave inverter if needed.

Another thing I didn't mention in my review was the 12v output for a 3-way fridge. From a lot of the CTEK articles it looks like this should be connected to the non-critical terminal. This will flatten leisure batteries. The 12v fridge outlet needs to still be connected to a VSR from the starter battery.

Glad you like my blog and thanks for the comments,
David

 

[TheCaller]

The problem with connecting everything to the non-critical terminal on the CTEK D250S is that (this is from memory so could be wrong) the terminal has an output maximum of 10a.

From the SMARTPASS manual
CONNECTING CONSUMERS
INSTALLATION SHEET 7
SITUATION
Connection of consumers to the system.
PROBLEM
Many batteries die prematurely if they are discharged too much. Too little power might be delivered to critical consumers, like navigation, radio and emergency lights.
SOLUTION
Critical consumers are connected directly to the battery.
Others, such as refrigerator, main light and heating are connected to the Smart Pass.
When the Service battery is down to a critical level, then the Smart Pass disconnects these noncritical consumers.
TIP 7
High current consumers (>80A) should be connected directly to the Service or Starter battery.

By refrigerator, I imagine they mean a compressor type fridge, or even the control circuit of an absorption fridge. I agree, the power side of an absorption fridge should never be connected to the leisure batteries. I also assume they mean heating control circuits, rather than heating itself. That manual is a model of brevity!

The manual seems to indicate that you should be ok with anything up to 80 amps on that terminal - which may be ok for the unit, but wouldn't do the batteries much good if you left it on for long!

Your right on what you say about voltage regulation for sensitive electronics. To combat this I have a number of regulators being fitted - just haven't blogged on them yet.

I have 2 12v regulators for the LED lights. One supplies the main ceiling lights and the outside light and the other supplies all the under lights and floor night lights. The VanPC has a buck-boost regulator that can take higher and lower voltage and regulates it to 12v. Finally the 24" LED screen has a 12v - 19v regulated supply.

That will solve the over-voltage problem, but I wonder if the SMARTPASS isn't doing that already.

The other thing it seems to do, which isn't altogether obvious at first, is remove the need for a solar panel regulator, as it appears to have one built in.

 

[Wissel]

Hi again. The D250S Dual does have a built in MPPT solar regulator.

With regard to the 10a thing, here is a video on YouTube that mentions it 1.14 in:
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN6oF-wj9XQ"]D250S and SmartPass installation and operation 091209 - YouTube[/ame]

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[TheCaller]

My reading of that video was that all the current figures quoted were just examples of typical figures.

10A is a reasonable figure for a sustainable consumer load for many people - a few lights & a TV, the blown air heating fan maybe. It is a good figure to illustrate the unit in normal use.

It would seem a very low maximum for a unit that can happily pass in excess of 100A in total while charging (although that is spread between the two units.

(I can see this thread is going to cost me that tenner sooner than expected!)

 

[Wissel]

Hi again

10a would be fine as you say for running the bits you list, but if you then run the water pump then I think this could easily take you over.

I've done a bit of searching this morning and have found quite a few references to the consumer terminal being rated at 10a. Again though, as you say, the manual does seem to suggest 80a.

So I sent a quick email to CTEK who emailed me back 5 minutes later that it is 80a. The trouble is the emails are usually answered by their sales team and I've had wrong info before from them.

I have a fairly high up contact at CTEK who I phoned a few minutes ago to ask. He wasn't sure himself so has forwarded the question on to a guy called Daniel Sundkvistwill who I gather is one of the designers of the Smartpass. As soon as I get an answer back from Daniel I'll post it in this thread. I would like to know for sure myself.

So yes, I guess a tenner is leaving your account soon
But then Fun is a great forum so money well spent.

 

[Wissel]

Just had a reply back.

80A is maximum for the Consumer output.

Regards
Daniel


So I was wrong on the 10a thing
I'm a little surprised that this point hasn't been clarified before tbh, there are so many references online to this terminal being 10a and it's not been questioned or corrected by anyone.

That is until you asked

Cheers,
David

 

[barearse]

Van pc

Wissel,I take my hat off to you sir, a terrific job. If/when I look to installing an on board pc (methinks some time next year),I know who I will consult for advice!:thumb: