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Old 03-04-2014, 06:06 PM   #21
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Crabber50 -- Just out of curiosity, what gauge wiring did Jayco use for your trailer? If I understand the setup correctly, Jayco designers put the power panel at the rear of the trailer -- about 30ft downstream from the battery bank -- and attached to the power panel or located nearby is the converter. Is that correct? If so, I would love to know the gauge wiring used.

My thoughts about your electrical project: yes, you can run romex wiring from your power panel up to a junction box in the vicinity the new converter (unlike the link you provided that gave you the idea of an additional converter, I would not cut the pigtail of the new converter and wire to the romex. why? by doing so you'll void your converter warranty). Assuming that there is an empty circuit breaker in your power panel, you could install a new 15amp breaker that would be dedicated solely for the new converter. This assumes that you have easy access to the power panel, in which case, you would simply flip the breaker "on" when you want to charge the batteries, and "off" when charging is not needed.

With respect to the wiring for your DC voltage circuit: yes, you can use 4 AWG wiring for the new converter circuit -- and as I understand it, you're looking at a circuit of 12ft in length (6ft each way). The positive wire should be connected directly to the battery post. You can run the negative wire to (1) trailer frame assuming that there is another negative wire from the frame to the negative post; or (2) run the negative wiring directly to the negative post.

I also recommend that you install a fuse in the positive wire for the new converter -- as close as possible to the positive battery post. Normally, the fuse size is based upon the wire gauge. In this case, a 125 amp fuse is properly sized with 4AWG wiring. However, since you're only using the 4 AWG to minimize your voltage drop, where you're only going to be using a 55-70amp charger, you could use a smaller fuse such as a 80amp fuse. Using a smaller fuse than what is recommended (ie, fuse sized to wire size) is acceptable. Remember, the fuse is used to protect the wiring.

Hope this helps.
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Old 03-05-2014, 06:09 PM   #22
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WI Badger, You are correct that the Converter and Power Panel are one unit or attached. The wire to it as installed by Jayco is only 8ga.

Thanks for all your help!
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Old 03-09-2014, 12:07 PM   #23
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I'm doing the same thing, my Progressive Dynamics PD9260 just showed up. Now I need 30 feet of 4 AWG wire so I can upgrade the 8 gauge running from the tongue to the back of my 29FBS. The new converter is going in the front pass through close to the batts and the the Iota load center converter will be abandoned in place (available to use as a back up).
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Old 03-10-2014, 12:08 PM   #24
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Crabber50 and Big78ford -- One thing that you both might want to consider when doing your project is to include a 8AWG wire with your romex wire run. You wouldn't attached the 8AWG wire to anything at this time, but in the event your current converter were to fail, it would be easy to attached the un-used 8AWG wire to your new converter and the power panel, thereby allowing you to have DC power. Obviously, with the 8AWG wire, that would be a temporary fix. In any event, thought I would make that suggestion before you began your project.
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Old 03-11-2014, 04:57 PM   #25
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Big78ford and WIBadger,

Tell me if you think I have the wrong idea here - I plan on leaving the existing 30 foot 8ga wire from the batteries to panel connected, then ALSO connecting the new 4ga from batteries to the new charger 5 feet away. So the TT could run off of either charger the stock one or the new one. Since 12 volt loads are low I have been thinking that I do not need to upgrade the wire from the panel to the batteries, just from the new charger to the batteries to keep charge voltage high.

Thanks for all the great help
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