Chassis Ground on a Bigfoot truck camper????

[GULFMAN]

Hello all!!
I am trying to wire in a Victron BMV 712 battery monitor.
The instructions say after relocating all existing negative wires to the load side of the shunt to run a new (thick) wire to chassis ground. Would a truck camper have a chassis ground and if so what would it be. Note I do have a Green wire from some that is clamped to the propane line in the back of the refrigerator access cover..
if someone could help me out I greatly appreciate it.

Thanks ??

[GULFMAN]

I would subscribe to Delta bravo’s YouTube channel.
It may answer some of your questions.

A.m. solar. com has some good DIY instructions..

[time2roll]

That green wire to the propane is about as good as it gets. The purpose is to have the chassis grounded even during a fault or during service when the other grounds might get disconnected. This prevents you from becoming the ground connection. As you know there is no real metal frame for you to create a ground except maybe to the appliances.

[deltabravo]

Bradymydog wrote:
... (2) BB Li batteries, Victron BMV 712, Victron Multiplus 12 2000 80/50 converter/charger. For charging from the truck, Victron Orion TR Smart 12/12/30 DC to DC charger. .

Same system I installed.

[Bradymydog]

I was also wondering about the chassis ground. I am getting all my components together now for my bigfoot TC. (2) BB Li batteries, Victron BMV 712, Victron Multiplus 12 2000 80/50 converter/charger. For charging from the truck, Victron Orion TR Smart 12/12/30 DC to DC charger. Solar charging to be added later this summer. I do have a question as to where to attach the case ground(s) - for the new inverter charger for example.

[noteven]

Just subscribed to Delta Bravo 🙂

Sounds like you have a nice setup going there Gulfman

[GULFMAN]

Thanks for all the reply’s!!!!
All I am trying to do is a have a real basic solar charging system.
I have installed 2 Battle Born 100 amp hour batteries
Added 300 watts of Zamp Solar
VICTON charge controller and shunt
Replaced my original factor converter with a Progressive dynamics lithium replacement
and that’s it . I have a Honda 2000 generator for everything else..
I would have liked to had a more robust system but this was Challenging enough for this 69 year old mind. I would like to give a big thank you to Delta bravo for his help through YouTube comments and his rv.net comments. If you all would like to watch some very Intuitive videos go to Delta bravo YouTube channel. This man’s knowledge on RVs inside and out is amazing.
Thank you again!!!! ( RV. Net and all its followers are awesome)
Gary

[bigfootford]

TxGearhead wrote:
I've got 2 or 3 grounds bolted to the camper tie down ring on the front drivers side. I assume they would ground through the tiedowns to the truck frame. I am the 2nd owner but I'm pretty sure it came from the factory like that.

That ground is for grounding the camper to earth when the jack foot is touching the ground.

My 2000 BF's main grounding point for the battery negative and AC ground is attached to the propane copper tubing that is located under the bed step, where the converter is.

Jim

[deltabravo]

I took the BMV-712 out of my AF 811 and am working on installing it in my 992.

In this video I talk about the shunt and the associated wiring to it.

[deltabravo]

deltabravo wrote:
Sounds like the same question posted to one of my videos

Here's the video: BMV-712 in my AF 811

[deltabravo]

Back in the 90s I worked for Heart Interface. We had 4 different amp hour meters - very similar to the BMV-712.

I wrote a lot of tech documents about installing them. I also was on the phone all day helping people with questions on inverters / amp hour meter installation.

I always remember the "chassis ground" aspect of the installation instructions throwing everyone for a loop, because they had no idea where the "chassis ground" was, hence the reason I described it like I did above with regard to "there only being ONE cable on the battery negative post, and that cable goes to the shunt"

Once you have accomplished that, from a "chassis grounding standpoint", you're bases are covered, because essentially everything is connected the same as before, it's just that you now have a shunt inline.

[deltabravo]

GULFMAN wrote:
Hello all!!
I am trying to wire in a Victron BMV 712 battery monitor.

Sounds like the same question posted to one of my videos,

Here's my answer / explanation:

From an "electrical" standpoint, there isn't a chassis ground that acts as a current carrying conductor on a truck camper. There is a "safety ground" as you have found on the propane line. There's probably also a ground wire from the negative bus of the DC panel and the AC panel to the same "ground" point where the propane line is grounded. Ignore all of that.

A simpler way of describing the connections with the shunt and the battery bank is this:

Take all the wires off the battery negative that feed to the camper, connect them to the "load" side of the shunt. Take a new wire/cable and run it from the battery side of the shunt to the negative battery terminal.

There should only be one cable at the negative post of the battery - the cable that goes to the battery side of the shunt.

In a multi-battery system you'd also have a cable from one battery to the next.

The main key here is that everything that "was" connected to the B- (other than a battery interconnect cable in a multi battery system) is moved to the load (ground) side of the shunt and then a new cable is installed from the battery side of the shunt to the B- of your battery bank.

[TxGearhead]

I've got 2 or 3 grounds bolted to the camper tie down ring on the front drivers side. I assume they would ground through the tiedowns to the truck frame. I am the 2nd owner but I'm pretty sure it came from the factory like that.