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Old 02-19-2022, 12:57 PM   #1
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Join Date: Sep 2021
Location: Queen Creek
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Electrical and Solar Question and help needed

I am hoping someone on here might have an answer that might help me out on this. I am swapping out my power center so that it will charge lithium batteries. I have run across an interesting situation and unfortunately WFCO, who has great support, is closed today.

My current power center is the WF-8735 and I am replacing it with a WF-8740Lis. The initial tech I talked with said its a simple direct swap so I went ahead and purchased it. I might just be over thinking this as well but wanted to make sure first as I just cant figure out what or why they are doing this and why the new power center does not have this...

On the current one there are 8 wires, and the new has 7. The current has an extra that is Orange and it is wired directly to a hot black wire coming in from what appears to be the solar controller. According to my fuse bank the sol controller should be on fuse 6 (bottom blue fuse in pic) however it clearly is not. This wires in on the PCB board where it says bat. It also has a 40amp fuse right there. It is the reverse polarity fuse.

To ensure that it was totally safe to start disconnecting everything I took out the battery disconnect. I also disconnected the battery positive terminal.

When I went back inside the trailer the main lights were still on and the JayCommand is still powered (however not enough power to move the slide).

When probing the wires that black/orange combo is still powered up. The solar panel is putting out 2.9amps and roughly 10.9-11.3 volts. Only the bottom 40amp fuse has power and both battery solder points (BAT and VCC). All other 12v circuits have no power to their fuses on either side. Not sure how or where the lights are powered from as both sides of all other fuses have no voltage... At the front of the trailer the breaker that connects the battery has voltage as well. Also the tongue jack will sort of work. I think this is just a feed for charging the batteries and a passthrough but not sure it all seems a bit hokey to me.

Its almost like there is another power center somewhere (I Know there is not though). There are however auto-reset breakers that are in a little panel under the bed where the tongue jack connects (this is the new jack fuse as they removed them on newer trailers).

Soo. Here is my question.

With the new power center there is only a single battery connection, it is red (on the current power center that red connection is dead now with nothing connected to it, unlike the orange/black combo).

Would it be safe to wire the black wire in with the red knowing hot is hot... Of course it would still be in the same situation I am in now where even with the battery disconnected it still has power. So Im not sure if its unsafe or any change from what it sees now.. Or should I just put a 40amp fuse in there as a temp solution? I just dont see what this is doing on the power center. I even RTFM and nothing mentioned looking at other sites now to see if anyone else has run across this but it may be a OEM mod to the power center.

Thoughts?

My future state will have a circuit breaker off the solar panels before the new charge controller so those will be able to be isolated in the future. I am only concerned/questioning the current situation.

Here are some pics for anyone to see...
Attached Thumbnails
PowerCent1.jpg   PowerCent2.jpg   PowerCent4.jpg   IMG_0761.jpg   Solar 1.jpg  

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Old 02-19-2022, 04:02 PM   #2
EJH
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Hey TomC_AZ,

Here is what I think it going on, and how you can wire the new power center up.
(YMMV as this is my best guess based on our messages and looking at my (slightly different wiring).

* The Micros have the solar charger controller (SCC) at the rear of the trailer. Rather than connect the output to the battery in the front of the trailer, Jayco is feeding it into the 12V system via the power center.
* You SCC output is going into the power center PCB via the orange wire (connected to the BAT solder point. This looks like a custom wire job by Jayco/WFCO
*** This battery solder point could be used if the fuse board was used w/o a converter/charger, IE the battery was connected to the BAT and the other 6 fuses were outputs. Ignore that it says BAT and just think of it as a PCB connection to the 12V pos +
* The SCC output in your trailer is connected to the same point of the circuit as the 12V pos + from the converter/charger and the battery. All three are connected to the trailers 12V pos + system. That is why you have some power with the battery and converter/charger disconnected (at least ~2.9 amps worth)


The problem I see with Jayco's current setup is that is limits power to the batteries from the SCC and converter/charger to a combined 30 amps. That is probably ok with a single lead acid and a single 190W stock panel. But, with lithium batteries, and more panels/MPPT, your SCC (and when also on shore power) could easily send more than 30 amps to the power hungry lithium battery bank. I would want the SCC output to be closer to the battery, and not go via the power center.


To make the new power center work, I'd do this:
* Add a disconnect between the solar panels and the SCC (looks like that is in your plans)
* Connect the SCC output to the same wire as fuse #6 (charger) which should be connected to your battery. That means three wires here. You may need a bus bar to accommodate all three wires. Electrically this is exactly the same as the original Jayco WFCO wiring.
* Connect all other wires and breakers as original.

* FWIW, in the future, do not disconnect the battery from the system without also disconnecting the SCC input from the panel. Jayco and others really need to have a disconnect on the SCC inputs from the panels.
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Old 02-19-2022, 04:27 PM   #3
EJH
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Update: you mentioned in a message that the output of fuse #6 (red) wire is connected to 2 other wires. I am curious what the additional wire is (one is the fuse #6 output, from the PCB, one goes to the battery.). What is the other? Are you sure the SCC output goes to the orange wire? Is it possible the SCC output is the third wire connected to the fuse #6 bundle? That would make sense also, but then leave the orange wire as a question mark. Could the additional red wire be going to the slide? That would also make sense, as none of the fuses in your center are marked for the slide (and it would have a large amperage fuse, greater than 15 A)

Update. Rereading your original post, the solar charge controller output must be going to the orange wire, as that's the only one that has any voltage now that you've disconnected the battery.

I would be curious to connect the battery back, but remove the second red wire from the bundle of three, and see if you lose your slide. Be very careful if you do this to not shock yourself. You may have to experiment to see which one of the two red wires from the two goes to the battery. Most likely the largest wire of the three goes to the battery, the other one may be the slide?
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Old 02-20-2022, 10:03 PM   #4
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I have had some fun today tracing out all the wires and have some interesting finding.

Coming to and from the OEM solar charge controller all the wires are white and red. The white wire (neg) goes to the front of the trailer in the junction box in the tongue area and to the frame ground. The red wire (pos) goes to the "hand made" buss bar (in pic red square) by the battery disconnect and water heater (under the bed closest to the couch).

From the tongue area the battery starts as a red and black wire and the black is terminated right there to the frame ground. The red wire connects to a auto reset breaker and then continues on as a black wire that directly connects to the battery disconnect switch (in pic orange square). On the disconnect switch it has a red wire (in pic teal square) that continues on to the power center and is the connection made to fuse #6, or the pink/red wire from the power center. (The other red wire in my previous pic does go directly to the slide) When the battery disconnect is turned off these wires have not power.

On battery disconnect (battery side) it has another short black wire that connects to the "hand made" buss bar (will see in pic below) (in pic connects orange and red squares). This connects up to three auto reset breakers. Starting closest to the far wall, its tongue jack (in pic green square), I forget what the middle is but believe it powers the JayCommand (however it gets powered by a green wire so not sure where that transition takes place wasn't worried about it so no color square on this one, it is not the same size wire that connects to orange power center wire), Solar controller red wire in the closest to camera (as mentioned above in pic red square). The black wire at the far wall (in pic purple square) is what connects back to the powercenter and the orange wire. Now... What is interesting is it is not clear why this was done or needed. It is not fusing off the solar in any way. It might help with battery charging but not sure. I have sent in a request to Jayco for explanation of this as it is totally non standard and well something that could not just be replaced with off the shelf parts from any store.

I will be contacting WFCO as well in the morning. So stay tuned.

Here I thought, putting more solar and an inverter and battery would be simple! hahahahaha So far I have found anyone else who has this setup. Nor any documentation or pictures of this configuration anywhere.
Attached Thumbnails
Jayco made buss bar 1.jpg  
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Old 02-21-2022, 06:35 PM   #5
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Here are the final updates:
The middle auto reset breaker is in fact for the JayCommand system. It requires power all the time as it plays a role with the Jay Smart LED lights for driving.

Jayco did confirm that this orange wire is only there to allow for battery charging when you have the 12v system disconnected. Now... the only reason I believe the built this in is so that you can store the trailer and disable everything but if you plug it in it will keep the battery tendered. That is the only logical use I can come up with, if anyone else has any better please let me know. I will also accept illogical uses for this as its just odd.

I did also confirm this with WFCO, I also learned that our little trailer is the only one along with Airstream that they customize this option for... So I feel a bit aluminum now.

In the end, if anyone wants to replace their power center and has this option they will lose the ability to charge when the battery switch is disconnected. Otherwise all other functionality remains due to the way they wire the rest in. So feel free to swap out for a lithium compatible power center. You will end up with a high quality 8 AWG wire that is hot and can be used to power whatever your heart desires. I can also say that this mod is REALLY rare, even WFCO said so, and I cannot find anything about it on any other site etc.. (have not poked around on Airstream sites).

If anyone has any wiring questions I know WAY too much about the 166FBS now and am willing to share.
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