I currently own a 1988 Bigfoot C-11.5 that I upgraded the electrical system in about 7 years ago with much help from this forum. RedDog was VERY helpful as were others and I greatly appreciate it.I will be picking up a new to me 2000 Bigfoot 10.6B in a week or two. I've been in this camper a few times but I'm not very familiar with what electrical components are located where. The original battery boiler converter is still there and works when it wants to. It currently has an Onan 2500 that I plan to keep for now. A new converter is mandatory. A Parallax converter from Best Converter is the rough draft. In reading other posts I've seen suggestions for a high amp converter to allow fast charging the batteries from the generator. That's appealing. I'm interested in input as I know technology has probably improved in 7 years. Clean voltage for electronics is a must but I think all the quality converters meet that.I am hoping to stick with Lifeline AGM Group 31XT 125a/h batteries. A single one has served me well in the 88 Bigfoot. I'm hoping someone has the dimensions on the 10.6B battery compartment. I believe the E model came out in 2002 and I'm not sure if the compartment/opening is the same. 2000 was the first year of the radius corner doors. It seems that 2000 and 2001 models would be identical and 2002-up is unknown. My understanding is that 2 Group 27 batteries were standard. The Group 31XT is slightly taller so I'm not 100% sure they will fit. It is 12.9" x 6.75" x 9.27" per Lifeline. I picked a random Group 27 Interstate Deep Cycle and they show 12.75" x 6.75" x 9.5". Unless the height is super critical it seems this will work. I looked at lithium batteries but at $1300 each I've ruled that out. Solar is very much on the wish list. I have basic solar knowledge. My preference is two thin stick on panels about 100w each. My reasoning is they can conform to the curvature of the roof, some appear to be shade tolerant, they do not stick up to A)trip me, B) add more air drag/turbulence, C) less holes in the roof is always better. My understanding is they may not last as long as other types. My current thought is that is acceptable. Has anyone used the panels from Sunflare Solar? At least one RV company, Vistabule, is using that as a factory option. I have not tried to source them yet but they seem interesting.I'm not clear on what electronics I need to process the solar. I believe an inverter is required as is a controller from someone like Zamp. Does the controller also duplicate the functions of a TriMetric? I have one on the current camper and it was nice to have until some uninvited electric gremlin fried it. I guess I should mention how I use my camper if that changes opinions on the design. It is used 30-40 days/year for vacation/activities. When traveling in cool months we will often overnight or camp with no hookups. With the family along the limiting factor (2-3 days) has been holding tanks not electricity. With the new camper we should double time between dump stations. In warmer weather we use hookups. The most limiting thing for us right now is not being to stay out 4-5 days without hookups. We'd like to be able to stay in the Hayden Valley area campgrounds at Yellowstone in the future rather than being tethered to Fishing Bridge. Some years the camper may also be used on job sites or at trade shows but that almost always involves full hookups.I'm sure there are some questions I either don't know to ask or have forgotten. My friend who will help with the install is an electrical engineer but he does no know much about solar either. Thanks for any advice!

Here is a solar "primer" to help:https://freecampsites.net/adding-solar/I don't think thin film are a good choice. There is still a problem with them "cupping" from heat and then holding rain. When the water evaporates, it leaves a film on the cells--which cuts into the production of current.Then there is the issue of heating. Thin film glued down may underperform more traditional panels.

Because you have a Bigfoot with a fiberglass roof, you can mount solar panels without drilling holes in your roof. I installed my panels with 3M VHB (Very High Bonding) tape in 2010. They are still firmly attached.

Thanks Paradox123, that's very helpful information!I picked up the camper last weekend and it looks like the 31XT batteries will fit. It looks like there is adequate room and pretty good access to upsize the battery wires and run everything around to the converter. Also good access around the dinette. Still considering components before ordering. After some thought I think I'll skip the inverter for now. I can run computers off 12v and that is more efficient anyway. If I want to run the A/C it really needs to be off shore power or generator anyway as it's such a hard load. If my wife really wants to use the microwave we can always turn the generator on for a few minutes. We haven't had a microwave for the last 12 years of RVing so I think we can survive.One other question to the board involves adding a Marinco shore power adapter. On my 88 this was no problem as the factory power cord came through a small opening and the Marinco adapter just needed slightly more trimming for a tight fit. The 2000 has a 4-6" door that swings open so the opening is way too big unless I fiberglass in around it. The reasons I like this set is it seals tight, it insulates better, it is easy to replace a damaged cord and in bad weather it is faster to remove/store. My fiberglass skills are functional but not pretty and I don't know how well a gel coat repair would look. Unlike the 88 camper the 2000 has nice shine to it now.

Visit the lithium setup again. If you're sizing 2 agm batteries @$380ea, that's about 1 $950 lithium. The solar charge rate is better since you can basically bulk charge to 99%. Look at usable amp hours of the battery and realistically what you'll harvest with solar. Victron energy has some nice tools to use for that.

toddb: I'm about $850 for 250a/h of AGM Lifeline 31XT batteries. Where are you pricing the $950 lithium and what are the a/h and size? I'm also curious on yours and others thoughts on the fire risk. I realize there are different chemistries. I believe it was the Airbus A380 that has fires early on due to lithium battery issues and Texas Motor Speedway recently banned all electric vehicles from drag racing due to fire risk and not having proper fire gear to deal with it. https://www.thedrive.com/news/29192/tesla-cars-and-other-evs-banned-from-texas-drag-strip-due-to-battery-firesI will study the Victron Energy website.The biggest problem I see for lithium batteries is that are killed if they freeze. Do they freeze at 32 degrees like a conventional battery? We often use the camper throughout the winter as we are TX based. Driving through 15-20 degree weather seems like it would potentially freeze & kill them. In storage at the house we can see several days in a row with lows in the low 20s. It is likely I will forget to take them out or be traveling when a front comes through and won't be able to remove them. That's a huge plus for solar on the roof is that I will not kill batteries when not in use as they always get charged.

2000 Bigfoot 10.6 Electrical Upgrade/Solar Advice

VehicleTrader94
Explorer
Sep 19, 2020
Adamis:

Thanks for the info. I'm not clear on what you mean with the windows and insulation. Could you explain more and/or add a picture?
adamis
Nomad II
Sep 18, 2020
In regards to powering your AC off the solar / batteries, it is possible, indeed, you are most of the way there. I have not done it personally but others on here have. With you having 2 100ah Battle Born batteries you are most of the way there. The bigfoot will easily take 400w of solar on the roof, possibly a little more if you got fancy. You need an efficient AC and a soft start capacitor and it can be done. This isn't something super high on my prority list but if I was to be full time, I could seriously see going that route. I've had more than a few times of stopping for lunch and it is so dang hot in the camper. The generator sucks gas and poops out when it gets too hot as well. Being able to run the AC on battery for 30 minutes to 60 minutes on battery is perfect for a quick lunch stop.

In regards to the thick cables in the truck, you can do it but I'm not sure it is really worth it. My DC to DC charger is only 20 amps but that is 10 amps more than my 200w of solar. I would have to measure the thickness of the cable but I know it isn't as heavy as welding cables. Higher amperage DC to DC converters are available but remember that you would have to you make yourself a custom 7 pin connector to the camper and rewire the connector in the camper to benefit from all of that. I don't know how much that is worth the effor though. With my 20 amp DC to DC charger, I am using the current cables without issue. In theory it would take about ~5 to 6 hours of driving to charge the battery up from complete dead on the rare occaision that happened. Most of the time after a day of use I'm more like at 60% so a good 3 hours of driving would top that off well enough. That is assuming solar wasn't even available.

The rot situation raised my eyebrows but I think it's very minimal from what I can tell. One thing you should do though is replace all of the exterior screws with stainless steel. Bigfoot used regular screws up until ~2001. My camper was purchased from someone who lived on the coast and he stored it outside. Unfortently, that meant a lot of cold condensation on those screws which meant that over time, the rusted completely out. The majority of screws I pulled from the various cargo hatch frames had no threads on them. Also note that these screws are threaded into pretty much just the fiberglass and possibly some foam insulation. You can't tighten them down tight without stripping the fiberglass. I'm looking at adding a then strip of aluminum or wood as a backing to get more bite when I redo the hatches.

Last thing... Did you have the insulation sucking to the center of your sliding windows? Apparently it was an issue on these campers. I have it really bad and need to get them repaired. Just haven't had the time or money to get to it.

Posting image link is here:

http://photoposting.is-great.net/?i=1
VehicleTrader94
Explorer
Sep 18, 2020
adamis

We postponed the inverter to pay for the 2nd battery. It is shipping now so not in yet. My measurements show it will fit fine. On the inverter our use case was for my wife to occasionally use the microwave (I'd prefer to remove it as it's weight in a high CG area and takes up storage space) and my computer. I also thought about running the A/C off of it. After doing some math and my EE friend looking at me like I was more nuts than usual it was determined that was not a feasible plan without pulling a battery trailer. With the solar and the 12v powered 4.8amp USBs and 25 amp power points I can run the computer(s) that way. We have the now working Onan if we need 120v. In your use case that microwave is critical equipment!

I put the Trimetric just above the dinette outlet. It was not hard to pull the wires over there. Like you it seemed like a good place to do the monitoring. On our 88 it was not viewable from the dinette. You had to sit on the bunk step to play with it.

I am definitely going to look into charging the truck batteries off the solar. This truck often sits a lot and I forget to put the charger on periodically. I'm also investigating switching to a dual alternator set up since it was a factory option. Also looking into running welding cable from the engine bay to the rear bumper of the truck with a winch connection and tying that to the camper to get a higher charge rate off the truck. If no solar and dead house batteries then the truck can charge the camper while on high idle. Just out of time for that project.

I also have no plans for 120 degree desert camping. Driving through places like that in the summer will happen. Parked in the back yard we often see 105-108 degree days in the summer.

Keep me posted on your rot situation. I have not noticed any except in the front wall over the bed. Seems to be very old and before my ownership. Appears a clearance light leaked, but all is sealed. New light are on the wish list.

I haven't posted pics on here in years. Do you still have to host them offsite and link to them?

If you have not inspected your interior and exterior shower hoses you might give it a good look. We pressurized the plumbing for the first time last weekend and blew holes in the two plastic fitting that screw the shower hose to the faucet. Gave me a nice shower even though I was not in the shower. We assume them to be 21yo originals (September 1999 manufacture date on the camper).

Do you have the Happijac system? Ours was mounted at the back of the closet which seemed to be an catastrophe waiting to happen when closet contents hit it. We moved it under the bottom shelf which is also where the solar controller is. We also ran higher gauge wire to the jacks.

srschang:
I have a breaker so I can cut out the batteries from the charging circuit. We currently are able to plug in at the house. With the solar we probably have no need to be plugged unless we need the A/C. I sometimes use the camper as a family free office or as a guest bedroom so A/C can be needed 9 months out of the year.

At the moment the solar is charging enough to do everything. We did cut the solar out to test the charger but that is about it. We'll know a lot more after being in Yellowstone with no hookups for a week. We decided to jettison the toad so we will have truck charging from driving around. It won't be much as we ran out of time to run a higher gauge wire through the tow harness to the alternator.
srschang
Nomad
Sep 18, 2020
You will enjoy the two Battle Born batteries. I installed them in our new Northstar camper which has just enough room for them. The nice part about the battery location in the Northstar is it's right below the dinette seat, so the batteries are always at inside camper temperatures.

I initially installed a Progressive Dynamics 45 amp lithium converter, but after some more research, and watching a YouTube with the CEO of Battle Born, decided that the way I use the camper doesn't work well with the Battle Borns and the PD converter that stays at 14.6v constantly. Yesterday I installed a different converter that better fits our usage. It's a WFCO 8950L2 50 amp converter. As we leave our camper plugged in sometimes for weeks or months to keep the refrigerator cold, the stereo set up the way I like it (Pet peeve on this camper), and to keep the batteries from running low due to parasitic loads, I didn't want the converter at a constant 14.6v.

The WFCO converter charges at 14.6V for up to 4 hours, then drops down to 13.6v indefinitely. Perfect fit for the Battle Borns and the way we use the camper.

One thing I noticed yesterday after I installed the new converter, when I fired it up, the batteries were down a bit, and the converter ramped up to 14.6v and 50 amps. After a half hour or so, the batteries were approaching full, and the converter started ramping down from 50 amps. It took 10 minutes to ramp down from 50 amps to 2 amps (full batteries, just running the lights & stuff I had on in the camper). I love it! My two Lifelines that I had before would charge to 90 some percent then take 8 hours(?) to get to full charge.
adamis
Nomad II
Sep 18, 2020
Looks like you are making some good progress. I have also wondered about the circuit breaker under the sink but not enough for me to move it at this point. I did add a 2000w sinewave inverter under the sink right next to that circuit and ran the power straight to the battery just below it. For our last trip we used that inverter constantly for bottle warmers (twin newborn babies) and a small coffee maker for the wife (I don't drink coffee). It was extremely nice to be able to just juse the inverter for a quick thing versus firing up the generator, especially when in RV Parks with neighbors close by.

For my Renogy panels, I just eternabonded them straight to the roof. I've not had an issue with cupping because the tape is secured all around the perimeter and some double sided tape in the center. . I've not worried about keeping the panels cool. Although I am sure it could be a factor in extreme conditions, I'm not planning on camping in the desert when it is 120+F anyway...

It is nice to see you went with two Battle Born batteries. I am curious how you managed to get them both to fit in the compartment. Looking forward to some pictures. One thing of note... I just started resealing my outer compartments and when I removed the hatch on the battery compartment, I discovered some dry rot. It is ironic that a fiberglass camper is still susceptible to water damage because of the interior structural wood used. At this point I haven't dealt with it since the LiFePo4 battery is 1/3rd the weight of an AGM, I think there is enough stregnth in the wood to hold for now but it is another thing on the todo list...

In my setup, I ran my solar charger and battery monitoring next to the stero (see pic below). It did require running longer wires from the battery compartment up to this area but I like the convienence of being able to observe everything while seated at the dinnette. One thing you might also consider is that your solar charger might be capable of charging both a house bank and starter battery. If that is the case, connect your charger up to the 12v line coming in from the umbilical so that it will keep the truck charged up as well. You will have to keep these two circuits isolated so you would need a DC to DC charger if you wanted to also charge the battery from the truck while driving but not draing the batteries when parked. I am still working on this part to get it right, I have a DC to DC charger (from Renogy) installed in the compartment where the furnance is but I don't currently have the D+ signal wire hooked up because I need to either have a voltage sensative relay added or a manual switch so the charger doesn't run constantly. I posted in another thread about this issue a few days ago if your interested to know more about it.

At any rate, looking forward to the pics when you got them!
VehicleTrader94
Explorer
Sep 18, 2020
After 6+ months of study, research and tossing various ideas around before I started ordering items in May 2020 I am in the final stages of finishing up the project. I want to give a big thanks to everyone who replied.

I plan to do a more thorough writeup when I'm not pressing to get finished and on the road to Yellowstone next week.

I went with 3 Renogy panels suggested by Adamis. I could have done four but it would make waling on the roof for maintenance to be too crowded for my liking. I opted for the thin flat ones. Some suggested the life may be lower. I took that information into consideration when building my mounting system to allow for easy swap out of panels. I also considered if they fail in 3-5 years technology will likely have advanced enough that buying upgraded ones will make sense. I also considered the comments on lack of cooling for panels stuck directly on the roof. I have corrugated plastic under them to allow for cooling.

I used the VHB 3M tape that Parralax123 and others have suggested.

For the converter I went with a Boondocker 1260CL. Several sources including Battle Born highly recommended this. It charges at 60amps max.

I went with two Battle Born 100a Lithiums. Based on ToddB and other comments on charge rates I decided to do both of them now. I also kept the charge rate more reasonable. I'm not 100% I got this right. If it blows up I'll let you know!

Trimetric 2030RV and solar controller are being used.

We pulled a lot of old wires out and a lot of heavier gauge new ones in.

In the process we corrected some WTF wiring appearing to be from the factory. Someone decided a circuit breaker needed to be hidden under the sink when there was a open breaker available in the original converter box. On the 2000 Bigfoot 10.6B the dinette is at the front left, converter in the step up to bunk and sink on the right. The stereo is above the dinette seat in the wall to the bunk. Less that 3' away was the converter where the stereo could have been wired to and fused. They ran it past that, under the fridge to under the sink where an extra 3 blade fuse block was. Why? To make life difficult for the guy who blew a fuse some day? That was all integrated together.

The solar wires went down the refrigerator shaft as it seems most do.

Thanks again for everyone's advice and comments. More to come.
Siletzspey
Explorer
Dec 06, 2019
Hi VT94.

We seem to be pondering similar things, modulo I'm in a Northern Lite (a fiberglass cousin to your Big Foot), and have decided to jump to Lithium.

I posted my MS-Excel power calculator and tentative upgrade plans in this thread.

https://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/30007912.cfm

--tg
Siletzspey
Explorer
Dec 05, 2019
VehicleTrader94 wrote:
My future plan was to add a 2nd LiFePo4 ...

When adding a 2nd battery, and then naturally wanting to push twice the charging amps, what concerns are there that one battery's BMS might take that battery offline (e.g. it's own temp drops below 32), and the remaining current-greedy battery decides to absorb twice what it should?

It does seem like the "recommended" LiFePo4 charging rate is 0.5C, and the max-max charging rate is 1.0C, so if the dual charge rate is 0.5C, then worst case when a battery temporarily drops out, the remaining battery will be hit with 1.0C, which while more than recommended, is still supposed to be non-fatal.

--tg
TxGearhead
Explorer II
Dec 05, 2019
The Bigfoot Parallex install is moving up my "to do" list. So if I need about 2 inches of cable I'm thinking I'll buy 2 feet. Hopefully be able to coil up the extra rather than jam the extra wherever it will go.
What kind of cable do I need? I've seen battery cable, welding cable, etc. What description do I need to be looking for?? What size?
TxGearhead
Explorer II
Oct 16, 2019
I bought a Parallex from Best last Spring. I went to install it and didn't have enough of positive battery cable to make the connection. I put the project on the back burner hoping to do it when the weather cools. So, be thinking and prepared with what you will do if faced with a similar issue.I bought crimp butt connectors and a crimping tool. Also got a butt connector that uses allen head connections.
Hope to get back to it soon.

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2000 Bigfoot 10.6 Electrical Upgrade/Solar Advice

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