Trimetric 2030 wiring with 2nd battery and HD charge wire.

[pirlbeck]

I installed a Trimetric 2030 in my single battery truck camper a couple of weeks ago and once I charged the battery it seemed to be working fine as far as I could tell......at least the % full indicator read out OK and it seemed to add & subtract amps.

I have the Trimetric P1 set at 14.2, the P2 set at 02.0 and the P3 set at 260, which I think should be correct for my 2 new group 31 Crown deep cycle batteries.

Now, since I added a second battery I can't get the % full to read anything but three dashes and I am starting to rethink how I wired the second battery up and if it is going to work how I now have it. I am not sure the Trimetric problem is related to how I have it wired, but after rethinking this I don't think the Trimetric is going to record amps in and out from the truck correctly they way it is now wired. After watching the Trimetric voltmeter some when the camper is plugged in, I think the charge voltage may not be getting to the 14.2 volts required to reset the % full and this may be why the Trimetric is not resetting to full%.

This would be a lot simpler if I knew how to draw a diagram and post it here, but I don't know how to do that so I will try to explain it as best I can. I added the second battery inside of the box of my truck ahead of the fender well in the front corner. I have 2 ga. pos. and neg. cables coming off of one of the truck batteries with the + going to a 60A circuit breaker and then to 100 amp rated relay controlled by an ign. wire. The positive and negative cables run back and both are connected to the added battery through a HD 200 amp plug mounted to the bed side. Then from this battery I have a pos and neg running back to the camper battery. The positive cable from the added battery is connected to the positive post on the camper battery. I tried connecting the negative cable to both sides of the Trimetric shunt and neither ways seems to work. After thinking about it, I am starting to think that I am going to have to bring the neg charge cable from the truck directly to the load side of the Trimetric shunt, completely bypassing the added battery and connect the two batteries together by themselves. I think the way I have it now any charge amps from the truck is going to be going directly to the battery without being recorded by the Trimetric.

Does this make any sense and sound correct?

Thanks!

[BFL13]

Yes, you can use the truck bed battery set as "downstream" batteries in parallel with the camper set and run the rig's load/charging wires from/ to the camper set via the Tri shunt. It is not ideal but not a big deal. Not worth the huge bother doing it "right" for the amount of benefit. ( I have the same situation with extra batts in the bed and more batts in the TC. BTDT)

You can still make the truck bed set itself balanced, running the pos and neg links from that bank to the other bank from opposite batteries in the bed.

[azrving]

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[pirlbeck]

Can the need for balanced cabling be somewhat negated by using oversize cables? It is not going to be very easy to get the cable connected/routed like in the examples shown above due to where the extra battery is located. I will be able to get the positive and negative charge cable from the truck feed into opposite ends of the banks, but the on-board charge converter and loads will not be.

I am using 2 ga welder cable for all of my added wiring connecting the batteries.

[pirlbeck]

rjxj wrote:
Since it's a TC I assume all these batteries are AGM. Some times AGM will want 14.4 volts but some only want 14.3. Find out what Crown wants for your model battery or you will probably want to use profile 18 in table 4 on page 16 of the users manual.

Add up the total amp hour rating of all 3 batteries and set P3 to that number.

In profile 18 (generic AGM with NO high voltage finish) you will see that P15 is set at 15 volts. That number only applies when using the sc2030 solar controller.

The batteries are FLA Interstates made by Crown, the Crown model number is 31DC130. I have 2 of these, 130AH each and both are new. The info I find for these batteries is absorpion 14.5V equalize 15.5V and float 13.5V. As of now I have P1 set at 14.2 P2 at 2.0 and P3 at 260. Does this sound correct?

Why did I have to force the converter into boost mode to get it to get the voltage high enough to reset the AH % back to 100? With the 120V shore power un-plugged, I left all of the 12V lighs(led inside, std bulbs outside), range fan, etc. on last night for several hours and then when I plugged it into the shore power it still did not kick the converter into boost mode.... would this be normal? Did I just not use enough power for it to charge at a high rate?

Thanks!

[BFL13]

After you get the wiring all sorted out----

Your batteries need 14.8 but the converter only does 14.4 and then you set the Tri at 14.2 so it is a bit less than the converter's voltage as per the Tri manual.

You need that 14.4 as being closer to 14.8, so you have to set the Tri a better way, or just use the AH counter.

I don't set any of those P1 etc things on mine. I just use the volts , amps, and AH counter. The Tri's way of showing "full" is no use IMO.

When you get solar set that to 14.8. With solar use the Tri setting for stopping the auto reset of the AH counter like it says in the manual.

[pirlbeck]

OK, I got ride of the dashes on the 2030 by using the charge pendent to put the converter into boost mode. It is now reading 100% charged.

[azrving]

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[azrving]

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[azrving]

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[RoyB]

I typed in 'Trimetric 2030 wiring' in google search and when it loaded up selected images...

See lots of different wiring diagrams etc...

Roy Ken