A trickle here and a trickle there
I won a Golden Ticket in Torklift's promotion last year. My interest was really in the PowerArmor Solar, but I wanted the largest box available to handle batteries I had sitting at home waiting for installation.
This PowerArmor box was planned for installation on my enclosed trailer.
Torklift redesigned this box and held off sending me the older model so I could try out the new one.
This was the first test fit of my batteries to the new PowerArmor. I was trying to decide whether fit six on end (since they are sealed) or stay with five leaving the posts up.
Since these batteries have screw in terminals, I decided to use something a little different for this setup instead of using crimped rings.
The disadvantage of using this setup was accessibility to the terminals if the batteries were on end, so I mocked up the wiring with the terminals up and fully charged the batteries on an external charger outside of the PowerArmor.
Now that electrical was addressed, it was time to fit and mount the PowerArmor to my enclosed trailer. In the photo bellow you can see two of the three beams that form the tongue on my trailer.
The self drilling screws worked well attaching the PowerArmor to my closed channel tongue, but I wanted some abrasion protection from the heads and added foam strips over these areas.
Straps are included that would normally be routed through the bottom slats to secure each battery. Due the non-standard size of my batteries, I skipped this step and laid the acid absorbing battery pad that was included with the PowerArmor over the bottom without straps.
Although hard to see, I strapped all five batteries together around their girth. There is some chance of the batteries bouncing upward, but it is doubtful with all of them strapped together.
Time to wire up the batteries one more time and add the solar panel connection. My first test will be to leave the batteries fully charged but unused for two weeks. If the single solar panel can maintain the charge, I will patch it into the enclosed trailer's umbilical cord. If I see a loss, the PowerArmor has provisions for a second solar panel that can be added to double maintenance charge.
The finished installation is well proportioned to my size of trailer. Beware that adding this many batteries so far forward on your trailer will increase your tongue weight. If you are close to your hitch or rear axle capacity, take this additional weight in to account. This larger PowerArmor could easily be attached to your front receiver or cargo basket for those of you with excess capacity on the front axle.
How will this all work? Once patched into the trailer wiring, it will provide constant a 12VDC power source inside the trailer instead of relying on the power coming through the trailer connection. That additional power can also be back fed through the trailer connection to the the truck camper. If the truck is running, the camper is on hookups or the generator is running, these batteries will also slowly get recharged as long as the trailer is plugged in. This project was all about the trickle.
What about the rest of batteries? Those are for two other projects which I am still collecting parts to complete. One project will get Rammed while the other will be sunned.
For those of you going to the truck camper rallies in Prosser or Colorado Springs, I will have my trailer with me so you can check out the PowerArmor Solar in person.
I won a Golden Ticket in Torklift's promotion last year. My interest was really in the PowerArmor Solar, but I wanted the largest box available to handle batteries I had sitting at home waiting for installation.
This PowerArmor box was planned for installation on my enclosed trailer.
Torklift redesigned this box and held off sending me the older model so I could try out the new one.
This was the first test fit of my batteries to the new PowerArmor. I was trying to decide whether fit six on end (since they are sealed) or stay with five leaving the posts up.
Since these batteries have screw in terminals, I decided to use something a little different for this setup instead of using crimped rings.
The disadvantage of using this setup was accessibility to the terminals if the batteries were on end, so I mocked up the wiring with the terminals up and fully charged the batteries on an external charger outside of the PowerArmor.
Now that electrical was addressed, it was time to fit and mount the PowerArmor to my enclosed trailer. In the photo bellow you can see two of the three beams that form the tongue on my trailer.
The self drilling screws worked well attaching the PowerArmor to my closed channel tongue, but I wanted some abrasion protection from the heads and added foam strips over these areas.
Straps are included that would normally be routed through the bottom slats to secure each battery. Due the non-standard size of my batteries, I skipped this step and laid the acid absorbing battery pad that was included with the PowerArmor over the bottom without straps.
Although hard to see, I strapped all five batteries together around their girth. There is some chance of the batteries bouncing upward, but it is doubtful with all of them strapped together.
Time to wire up the batteries one more time and add the solar panel connection. My first test will be to leave the batteries fully charged but unused for two weeks. If the single solar panel can maintain the charge, I will patch it into the enclosed trailer's umbilical cord. If I see a loss, the PowerArmor has provisions for a second solar panel that can be added to double maintenance charge.
The finished installation is well proportioned to my size of trailer. Beware that adding this many batteries so far forward on your trailer will increase your tongue weight. If you are close to your hitch or rear axle capacity, take this additional weight in to account. This larger PowerArmor could easily be attached to your front receiver or cargo basket for those of you with excess capacity on the front axle.
How will this all work? Once patched into the trailer wiring, it will provide constant a 12VDC power source inside the trailer instead of relying on the power coming through the trailer connection. That additional power can also be back fed through the trailer connection to the the truck camper. If the truck is running, the camper is on hookups or the generator is running, these batteries will also slowly get recharged as long as the trailer is plugged in. This project was all about the trickle.
What about the rest of batteries? Those are for two other projects which I am still collecting parts to complete. One project will get Rammed while the other will be sunned.
For those of you going to the truck camper rallies in Prosser or Colorado Springs, I will have my trailer with me so you can check out the PowerArmor Solar in person.
