opnspaces wrote:
And Gdetrailer, the relocation of the charger is intriguing. My current load center is near the back of my 30 foot trailer. What would be involved if I was to move the charger up front closer to the batteries? Would I be extending the wires from my shore power cord where it terminates at the load center? I'm assuming since I'm extending 120v AC wiring it would be a smaller gauge than 12v DC wiring of the same distance. Are we talking something like 6awg or is that too thick and 8awg would suffice?
Deck chargers like PD92XX and even the Iota series I linked are in their own case. Those cases are designed to mount anywhere you have some space open.
You do not have to relocate the shore cord.
The internal converter was designed to connect the 120V input directly from the breaker inside the breaker panel.
The external deck converter is designed to simply plug into a wall outlet. This means you can place the deck converter near any outlet or if the place you choose does not have an outlet, you could add one in the location you picked, run new 12Ga 0r 14Ga Romex wire back to the breaker panel and connect to the breaker that the internal converter was connected to. The advantage is 12Ga or 14ga Romex is one heck of a lot cheaper than using 6Ga or heavier wire for 12V.
You can leave the existing 12V wiring that goes from the battery to the fuse panel in place and not have to change that by moving the deck converter much closer to the batteries.
Locating the deck converter close as possible to the batteries means you can now use much less wire (in your case 30Ft+ down to say 8ft-10ft) for the 12V side and will have much less voltage drop for the given wire size you choose. Less voltage drop can often improve the performance of any multistage converter. Converters like WFCO versions placed so far away from the batteries can cause the converter to never go into bulk mode or never go into storage mode.
Assuming your batteries are on the tongue, if you have a compartment, lower cabinet or space under something (couch, bed, cabinet) in the front near the tongue those are good places to consider. Some trailers have a "pass through" storage compartment in the front, some of those even have a 120V outlet already existing.
