Custom Lithium Battery Generators for Pizza Food Truck - Brick Oven Bus
For over a year we've been collaborating with the Brick Oven Bus replace their noisy, smelly and unreliable gas generators with lithium battery based generators.
The Need
In early 2021 Brick Oven Bus came to us looking for a solution to a big problem - replacing their gas generators with a battery based replacement. It might not be common knowledge to most of us, but food trucks' power reliability is a real problem. Most of them run generators during working hours, sometimes 18 hours or more a day. Very quickly on going maintenance and reliability can play havoc with trying to run the business of a food truck. A lost day at a festival or other event cancellation not only costs lost revenue on the day but future opportunities as well.
The Challeneges
Together we worked through the options available on the market which included many All-In-One solutions such as Bluetti , Jackery, etc. In the end none of those solutions fit for the use case or budget. Some of the key specifications for a solution are:
Maintainable
Being able to replace a battery cell, or or otherwise service the system as a whole is critical when time is money.
Reliable
Overbuilt and designed for the rigors of daily food truck use is a must.
Monitoring
Data is everything, whatever the system was it had to log data such as state of charge, loads, temperature and more.
Replaceable
It had to be a drop in solution, something that if need be could be swapped out in a few hours if there was a major problem.
As you'd imagine, nearly everything on the market a black box that is never meant to be opened and at best used as supplemental power while camping or other light use.
The Solution
Paris - Owner at Brick Oven Bus - got out the welder and made an amazing case design. Made from tube steel, painted and handles for install or removal from bus / food truck.
We provided consulting on build specifications such as cell compression, layout, monitoring and programming.
System Specs
- Battery
1400ah of battery power from 20x 3.2v 280ah lithium cells in a 5p4s configuration. 300a Daly BMS with UART ports for monitoring and programming . Heltec Active cell balancer.
- Inverter
Aims 4000w Inverter Charger for providing AC power
- Monitoring
Victron BMV 712 Smart Shunt - For monitoring battery state of charge as well as battery health through mid-point tracking. Cerbo GX - Used for long term data logging and configuration along with central dashboard through Victron VRM portal.
- Run time
30-35 hours maximum run time without recharging
- Recharge time
14 hours for 100% recharge - with typical cycling 5-8 hours
More on Monitoring
Leveraging the free Victron VRM portal Brick Oven Bus we can sell all data over time. We can tell the health of battery pack by the differences in minimum and maximum cell voltages at top of charge.
As the winters in MN get very cold and the Brick Oven Bus operates in any weather, tracking the battery temp is critial for long term health.
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Need help with your food truck power needs?
If you're ready to ditch the noise and uncertainty of your food truck generator and would rather enjoy the peace, quite and reliabilty of an electric generator, contact us.
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