Jay Feather Micro 171BH

[DonBr]

Obviously I'm not Tom, but I will tell you what I know since Tom and I both have the 166. In the 166, the bed is immediately above the passthrough. Simply pulling the plywood of under the mattress exposes the wooden crossmembers, so no guesses on where supports might be.

On all of the Micros, the solar ground wire connects to the chassis somewhere, I know not where, but the hot wire runs to a bus bar. That bar is fed from the batteries, from the converter, and in turn feeds out to always-on things like 12V refrigerators. Near the power disconnect is a schematic as you can see below that documents what is where. I have no idea if yours has anything similar.

I disconnected the solar wire from the bus and ran it to the input on my MPPT controller. The PWM controller was removed, and the input and output wiring was spliced together.

I did not run the output from the MPPT to that original bus, but rather to a much more substantial bus from which the tongue battery cables were connected, along with the batteries themselves, the output from a Victron charger, and the input for the inverter, and the control wire for a battery monitor shunt.

[TomC_AZ]

Ditto to what Don said about the supports under the bed. Basically when you lift the mattress on our 166's you see the plywood. It is screwed down, if you unscrew it and lift you see the supports and then can align from the finished ceiling of the passthrough.

If you want to make things as close to factory as possible, meaning as little cutting or drilling as possible. Then I highly recommend just starting to take things off and peak under them. Such as the plastic bottom of the trailers, anything like under your bed or areas where you might put or pull wire etc.. In my case I added two runs of 10/3 marine stranded wire for the 120/30amp runs to/from the inverter. I also added some 8awg to extend the solar out, and I ran some cat 5 and a remote wire for the inverter console (installed in old home of the PWM solar controller).

In all I only drilled two holes, one inside the trailer and the other in the floor (small single wire hole). I used existing holes for everything else.

In our trailer the bed is a east to west (side to side) with a small headboard at one end. Under that on the driver side is the hot water heater. During my inspection I was able to figure out almost all of the wiring that the factory did. The hot water heater location was one of the main routing points. There is also a opening right from there into the passthrough from the space created by the headboard. I ran all my wires through that space. So looking for things like this will make the job much easier.

I did also solicit the help of my youngest son (26) who could fit much easier in the passthrough for final assembly and tightening of things. But my biggest goal was to have the ability to take it all back to stock/oem setup if needed. It probably would take me about 1hr to put everything out and put it back and even test it. As for battery wires on the front I just coiled up and capped the ends with shrink tubing and electrical tape, and check it from time to time to make sure its still covered. I did add a grounding bus bar for all of the new solar etc. that is then extended (single wire) to the ground at the front of the trailer.

[ELong37]

I’m looking to move my battery under the bed (moving to a LiFePo4 with 100A BMS). Can I just take the cables off the existing battery and move those into the storage space under the bed if they are long enough? The only boondocking I’ll do is 2 nights in Yosemite next year… otherwise, mostly on shore power, so I don’t anticipate needing to expand my power needs. Any help appreciated.

[ITguy86]

Yes it very doable. I relocated the ground cable to the frame just under that part of the floor and I have an inverter running in the passthru which is why you see the positive cable going out to the right. I extended the postive cable connection at the front of the hitch (junction box) and ran that inside.I managed to fit two 100ah lithiums. I'll post the pic shortly when I'm on my pc.

[TomC_AZ]

@Elong37
Does your trailer have the battery cutoff switch in the pass through right next to the water heater?

If it does I would suggest one thing.

Move the batteries into the pass through. Then from the water heater space extend off of the back of the batter switch for the positive. Run your own new wire from there to the batteries. Then run your own new neg wire back through there as well and through one of the existing holes they drilled for the water heater. Run that to the main chassis ground in the front. These wires can be routed under the headboard space as it enters right into the water heater and pass through areas.

Then you can leave the stock battery cables in place and wrap them good for protection. This way any future person can use the front battery location.

This also sets you up in a better way if you ever expand solar or need an inverter.

[RogerR]

In my 195RB I simply took the old battery cable that went to a tray on the tongue and pulled them through a hole I drilled right behind the tongue and placed the battery in the center of the pass through. I had run the solar wires down the inside corner so I placed my MPPT and solar cut off switch in the same area. As the battery and MPPT are Renogy and have bluetooth I rarely need to access them except for turning off the solar input to the MPPT and disconnecting the battery for storage.

No re-wiring was required, just drill a hole than caulk it shut to keep vermin and water out.

[ELong37]

Thanks! When you say main chassis ground, is there a specific place? Sorry to seem naive. I get the concept, but really struggling to visualize since the camper is currently in storage! This seems so easy!

[ELong37]

This is also really easy! Thank you!

[RogerR]

I traced my main chassis ground on my 195RB and it was directly below the converter/fuse/breaker box. In the process I found the ground bar behind converter had wires inserted into it with the screws holding the wires never tightened which led to random flickering lights, etc. Actual screw into frame was rusted. Replaced screw with stainless, cleaned all and covered with grease.

[ems437]

Originally Posted by RogerR

I traced my main chassis ground on my 195RB and it was directly below the converter/fuse/breaker box. In the process I found the ground bar behind converter had wires inserted into it with the screws holding the wires never tightened which led to random flickering lights, etc. Actual screw into frame was rusted. Replaced screw with stainless, cleaned all and covered with grease.

Same here. I replaced the self tapping screw they used to attach the ground to the frame cleaned it up, covered it with dielectric grease so it had no airspace and then completely surrounded the bolt and and end of the ground wire with a blob of silicone to keep any future moisture out of the connection. The dielectric grease keeps the silicone from getting in the wire connection or ground contact. I also covered both ends of the screw where it is drilled through the frame with the silicone blob so it is air tight/water tight on both sides of the hole through the frame beam. It is completely solid and moisture tight now which should keep any future rust and corrosion out of it.

The ground bar behind my converter was also loose. So I tightened all of those connections up as well.

Definitely something anyone should check out if you are looking in there for any reason.

[ELong37]

I think I have the battery situation under control. Not sure which approach I'm going to take yet, but the two options suggested are both great and fairly easy.

With regard to inverter, I've done a lot of reading and just want to make sure I really understand my options. I'd like to get a 1000W inverter and wire it using the prewired loop in the water heater storage area. I understand how to wire it and what it will power. I've seen a lot of good reviews for the Renogy product, and would like to get that as long as I don't need an automatic transfer switch. The comments in many message boards are pretty confusing. My main question is when things need to be off/on. The way I understand this is that it should be as simple as just turning the inverter off when I am on shore power. However, a number of message board posts talk about needing to turn off the converter. I'm not sure I understand why this would be necessary, or if it even is.

To summarize, if I install the Renogy inverter, Do I just turn it off when on shore power or when I don't need it, then just turn it on when I need the outlets powered by the battery? If it is more complicated than this, then my understanding would be that I should have an automatic transfer switch. Any additional help appreciated!

[ems437]

Originally Posted by ELong37

To summarize, if I install the Renogy inverter, Do I just turn it off when on shore power or when I don't need it, then just turn it on when I need the outlets powered by the battery? If it is more complicated than this, then my understanding would be that I should have an automatic transfer switch. Any additional help appreciated!

That is correct. You would not need to run the inverter when you are on shore power. So if oh are on shore power, leave the inverter off and the shore power will power your ac outlets through the power center.

The converter issue should not apply to the Renogy inverter as I believe the model you are looking at does not have a charger built into it like the GoPower IC-3000 does. The IC-3000 can create a power loop where the inverter is running off batteries and also powering the converter which also tries to charge the batteries with the electricity it is receiving from the inverter, which is running off batteries, because you wire the IC-3000 to power the whole power center directly instead of putting it into the prewired loop to the outlets that Jayco provides. So you basically need to turn off or disconnect the converter and use the charger that is built in to the IC-3000 instead.

With your Renogy install plan and using the Jayco loop, your inverter will only supply the power to the outlets directly, not to the whole power center (which contains the converter device). So you should be completely good with the Renogy and prewired loop setup.

Good luck and have fun with it! I love tinkering with this kind of stuff in my trailer!

[ELong37]

I got my camper home and took a quick look at the wiring. I'm not sure this could be any easier, but I want to make sure I'm looking at what I think I'm looking at.... The red wire from the battery exits the sleeve and connects to what I believe is the fuse. Under this, the black negative battery cable grounds right behind the metal wire box under the camper. From the fuse, the black wire goes under the camper, then connects to what I presume is the shutoff. Obviously the wire color is immaterial. Not sure why they used a black wire from the fuse, but this is pretty clearly the positive wire from the battery through the fuse, correct? If this is the case, I think what I'll do is just use that black wire as my negative cable for the battery and connect a much shorter red wire to an appropriate fuse, then to the cutoff. If I'm missing something, let me know!

For a battery with a 100A BMS, what size fuse?

Thanks again for all the help! This is so much fun! Wish I had done all this when physics was fresh in my mind 20+ years ago!

[ELong37]

Good thing I didn’t do what I said I was going to do in the above post. Located the actual shutoff down and to the left. Oops!

[DesertRoads]

I just watched a video on this trailer. It's like a much better upgrade over my '22 JayFlight 174BHW.

[ELong37]

Finally finished the battery install (200 Ah 100 A BMS LiFePo4). As previously discussed, I removed the hot wire from battery to the battery disconnect. I then used this wire as my negative wire and moved the end outside the camper to the ground connection behind the junction box. I ran a 2 ft wire from the battery disconnect to a fuse, then a 1 ft wire from the fuse to the battery. Switched the PWM to the LiFePo4 setting. Reads 13.1 V, which is consistent with the amount of charge I expected this battery to have. Thanks for the help and advice. Here are pics some pics