Battery Compartment Wiring

You said magic words "Anderson Connectors"
http://www.westmountainradio.com/rigrunner.php
http://www.westmountainradio.com/product_info.php?products_id=ppl-1

Though I could not find them they make multiple connectors for Power Poles,4,6,8,more all ganged or stacked or starred or ... Well in parallel.

DIY copper bus bars in 4" all-weather box. I have three of these bus bar boxes (two (+) phase, one (-) phase) for two battery banks:



You can see that I fused the (+) phase bars for inverter, solar controller, and converter. All is connected with 4AWG welding cable except for the connection to the farthest bank where I used 1/0 welding cable. The copper is 1/4". I drilled and tapped the terminal holes. The bars are secured to the boxes with screws and epoxy, using HDPE standoffs.

My MH uses a #2 wire, about 3' long, from the battery to a terminal where all the wires pick up the 12v. I have a generator that draws about 60A to start so you could probably get by with #4 if you don't have a generator. If you have a big inverter you may need to use bigger wire.

The whole wire size thing is based on the current and the voltage drop. The positive and negative wires would be the same size.

From the land of never ending winter, thanks, guys!

Hi, neighbor!

The cable size to the bus bar depends on the current flowing through the cable and the length of the cable. Figure those out and choose a cable size appropriate to the situation. The main purpose of fuses is to protect wires etc. from overheating and causing a fire in the event of a short circuit or overload. With that in mind, the connection from the battery to the bus bar should be protected, as it's not beyond the realm of possibility for the bus bar to get shorted to ground (it's comparatively exposed). Every connection to the bus bar should typically also have a fuse or other overcurrent protection because generally the wire for that connection wouldn't be heavy enough to carry the full current that could flow through the battery and bus bar connection. (This is, of course, only pertinent to the positive side. Shorting the negative to ground isn't a concern.) I would also suggest figuring some way of enclosing the bus bar to prevent accidental shorts. This doesn't need to be anything terribly fancy or exotic; a sturdy plastic or wooden box would be fine in my opinion.

There's no inherent reason why you couldn't connect the converter or an inverter to the bus bar system rather than directly to the battery assuming everything is properly sized to minimize voltage drop to an acceptable level. There are some definite advantages to having only one connection to the battery; it's easier to avoid messing up when making connections, for one.

The negative side does need to connect to the chassis ground somehow. If you use a negative bus bar, that could reasonably be two heavy-duty connections to it (one to the battery, one to ground). There are other acceptable variations.

I use BLUE SEA 12VDC PRODUCTS for all of my 12VDC BATTERY projects. My wiring game plan is to use BLUE SEA PRODUCTS that accept ring terminal connections. Then I make up my own cables using bulk spools from ANCOR Marine wiring cable and 8-ton hand crimper making all connections neat with ring terminal connections every where I can do it. All ring terminal connection use adhesive heat shrink sleeves to protect from weather elements as my battery banks are outside. Being in the business in my working days I also add heat shrink LABELS identifying all cables used. You can purchase all of these installation items from AMAZON.

You can check the BLUE SEA PRODUCTS out at their web pages. I get the part numbers from the web site and then order them from AMAZON for a free shipping deal and very quick delivery for me...

Your SOLAR PANELS should all connect to a SOLAR CONTROLLER BOARD. Then the SOLAR CONTROL has two wires connection going to the battery system hookup... The SOLAR PANEL CONTROLLER will charge your batteries the same way your on-board CONVERTER/CHARGER does using smart mode technology. My batteries have minimum wiring on them and are fed with multiple BLUE SEA BATTERY SELECTOR switches... I use BLUE SEA BUS BARS and FUSE BAR TERMINALS everywhere.

Might want to look on-line and view some of the solar hookups diagrams... Just type RV SOLAR ELECTRICAL into google search and when it loads up select IMAGES...

Connecting SOLAR PANELS direct to the batteries without going through a SOLAR CONTROLLER would not be a good idea.

LOTS of info available on-line about RV solar panels and larger BATTERY BANKS.

I watch my BATTERY SYSTEM MONITOR PANEL all the time when camping off the power grid. Learned along time ago you can't let your batteries get below 50% charge state (Around 12.0VDC on the meter panel) otherwise you will be losing battery performance and eventually replacing those high dollar items.

When my batteries get below 12.0VDC when camping off the power gird I STOP using them until I can get them re-charged again back up to at least 90% charge state... This is all very important to me but others may not worry as much as I do. I can't afford to keep replacing batteries...

I did all of my camping off the power grid in baby steps and beefed up my trailer first with a bigger battery bank and other battery savings things such as LED lights etc... Been doing this since 2009 and have learned very well what I can do and what to expect from the batteries. My battery bank is 255AHs available DC Power. My game is to do all of the 120VAC appliances we want to run from an inverter and all of the 12VDC items direct connected to the battery system setup that we can use in a one day/night run off the batteries. Our biggest drain is from 6PM to 11PM each day before going to bed.

Then at 8AM the next morning when we are allowed to run our generator will re-charge the battery bank back up to their 90% charge state. Now we can do it all over again for the next day/night run off the batteries.

Adding solar panels for us is to aid the charging of the batteries and perhaps not have to run the generator so long each day. It takes alot of solar panels to just live off them them - A typical solar panel will only give you around 5-6AMPS of usable DC CURRENT. The best solution for us is use the 2KW Generator for the first hour of high current battery charging and then let the solar panel finish the battery charging while in the high sun. When there is not enough HIGH SUN available the 2KW generator will re-charge our battery to its 90% charge state in just three hours of run time.

Bigger Battery System first, then learn how to live off the smaller generator re-charging each morning when allowed to run the generator, then use solar to keep the batteries topped off during the day when in high sun...

I don't hurt my battery bank at all and can stay out many days here on the East side of the US in off the power grid locations... I am just now thinking of going SOLAR PANELS and plan on installing two 120WATT Panels on the front part of my off-road POPUP roof and one larger maybe 240WATTS larger solar panel on the rear of my POPUP roof.

This is my game plan at any rate... I'm sure others do it differently but this is what works for us and camping off the power grid is second nature for us now.

Just my thoughts here...
Roy Ken