00:00Off they go, bags in tow, Matt and Chrissie hit the road, maps unfold, stories told, adventures never getting old.
00:10Matt and Chrissie roam so free, through the city, past the sea, finding joy in every mile.
00:17G'day, it's Matt from Couple of Cities here again, and we are at the next stage with what we're doing in van.
00:24At this point in time, we've had a conversation with an auto-electrician who does the fit-outs for a lot of the off-grid solar setups,
00:32and he's recommending that we go for two 300-amp-hour batteries instead of three 200-amp-hour batteries,
00:40although the conversations that we've had with some of the other people have been along the lines of,
00:46you get more amp-hours at the moment with the battery pricings that they've got for the 200-amp-hours.
00:52So three of those will get you more amp-hours to the dollar than two 300s,
00:57which I suppose that makes sense because we are talking with someone who's going to be able to give us close to wholesale prices,
01:06and the guy we're speaking with today, his top-end retail pricing is, it's pretty intense.
01:15So, as an example, the equipment that we've mapped out, and I'll show you the floor plan here in a minute for the conversation from last night,
01:24was largely based on what we thought was a pretty reasonable quote,
01:30it was about seven and a half, eight grand for everything that we would need,
01:34and that's including two 350-watt panels to be able to pull in and keep three 200-amp-hour batteries set up with a decent inverter.
01:46It's a multi-pass that they're recommending, and yeah, I think that's definitely leaning in a much better quality direction than the King's equipment that we're looking at.
01:58Price point for a lot of people, I suppose, that's going to be a challenge, and you've got to figure out what works for your budget and what doesn't,
02:04but we're looking at how do we put a bit of value into this, so that we get a good quality outcome, number one.
02:12But if we do choose to sell down the track, which is highly likely that we will, that whoever's buying this is getting a decent setup.
02:18They're not getting something that we've tried to cut corners with as far as the quality of the materials goes.
02:25So, I'm going to quickly show you what it is that we've done.
02:28So, that footprint that you can see there is a void that would fit behind the two drawer assemblies that we've got.
02:36Chris has opted to go for two 500 by 500 drawers instead of the 700s,
02:43and that will effectively mean that what we can do is bring this line back to about here.
02:51So, it's going to give us a heck of a lot more space in that void in the middle.
02:56That could potentially mean that we'll get two, possibly even three, batteries in there.
03:04And then we've got space here that's allocated on that side for the multi-pass,
03:11and then the DC to DC and the controller in that space there,
03:15and another footprint there for another battery.
03:18So, we'll figure out what's going to work and what's not going to work.
03:23The main thing I've got to consider at this point in time is our little inspection hatch there,
03:29or access hatch for the spare tire, and the fridge slider.
03:34So, that's the 100-litre fridge slider from King's and 4WD Supercenter.
03:40And I need to figure out whether or not that is going to fit what we've got there,
03:47or do I need to change anything along the side.
03:50So, let's check it out. I'm going to whip this thing open.
03:53Okay, so what I was hoping for here was that with where this fridge slider needs to go,
04:03is that the hole in the middle of it, I was hoping that when it was fully extended,
04:08that that hole in the middle would be something that would line up nicely with the access hatch for our spare.
04:18So, it's just sitting along the line there that we've got here.
04:23That's roughly where it's going to go.
04:26But you can see here, there's the access hatch just there.
04:32And if I come up, you can see based on the line there,
04:36that this part of the plate sits directly over the top of that access hatch.
04:41Now, that's not too much of an issue because what we can do is extend the slider all the way out
04:47and access that little hatch to be able to deal with the spare.
04:51So, based on that, I think we're on a winner as far as the placement goes.
04:57The next thing I need to do is make sure that I've got the markings on the edges of the panels
05:03and up the ends there so I can string line and get these things back into being square.
05:11I'm going to be doing this on my own because Chrissy is down in Victoria for the next four weeks
05:15looking after a couple of dashions.
05:17She's down there for a birthday party and the people who had offered her a place to stay
05:21based on one of our previous house sits had said,
05:24look, can you extend your three-day weekend to four weeks so we can go away
05:29and you can look after Miles and Luna.
05:31So, that's where she is down there at the moment.
05:34And all this hard work is going to be left up to me.
05:37So, anyhow, it'll be good fun.
05:39So, I'm going to get to marking things out and we'll see where we end up next.
05:54We'll see you next time.
05:55Bye.
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