GraphiteDriver
Advanced Member
This is my third go around with upgrading the DC side of this camper. New, stock was the standard single 12volt lead acid battery. That worked well enough for about two years. The first upgrade was adding a 1500 watt modified sine wave inverter on the front wall of the forward storage compartment. I added an outlet to the back of the trailer that plugged into that invertor. Pretty simple setup; basically, plugging the camper into the inverter. At the breaker panel, I shut off the converter, so that it didn’t try to charge the battery from the battery while boondocking. I quickly learned that this setup with insufficient to do anything but power a TV. No microwave, no coffee pot, no hair dryer. One battery was not enough, and the inverter was too small.
I designed an upgrade, taking guidance from an article in Trailer Life Magazine, (now called RV magazine and a worthless rag of a publication) detailing how to add a subpanel in an RV to power specific circuits from an inverter. It’s very similar to adding a subpanel to your house to power specific circuits from a standby generator. It wasn’t super complicated, just a fair amount of work. In the subpanel, I moved over interior outlets (which was only one 15-amp breaker) and the microwave (20 amp breaker). On the tongue, I removed the single 12 volt battery and added four, 6 volt golf cart batteries wired in series-parallel (12 volts @ 300 amp hrs total). Our trailer has a tray behind the LP tanks that accommodated the batteries. I also two 100 watt solar panels and a charge controller, taking advantage of the “pre wired for solar” set-up of our RV. For the new inverter, I bought a Xantrex Freedom 2000 watt pure sine wave inverter and mounted it where I had the previous inverter. I also bought the optional wired remote display/controller and mounted it inside. This system worked well for maybe five years. Last year the batteries really started to show their age, didn’t hold a charge and led to my inverter going kaput while using the microwave. This was a real bummer, because I really liked the inverter, and it was a high quality unit.
My solution for the last (and final!) DC upgrade is one I haven’t seen before but is really the simplest. I did a 12 / 48 volt split. I got rid of the four 6 volt batteries, all of the 4/0 gauge wire and Xantrex inverter. I added back a single 12 volt battery on the tongue, and hooked it up as it was when the trailer was new. Super simple. The battery I sourced was a 100 amp hr. LifePo4 battery from LifeBlue. I went with this battery because it was the only one I found that was a drop in replacement. No need to change the converter, solar charge controller, or do anything special with the truck. It also has Bluetooth and a self-heater. The downside is that it was the most expensive. It has performed better than expected, and it’s neat to see how many amps the truck and/or solar panels are charging the battery. Nothing else is drawing from the 12-volt side, only the stock 12-volt loads.
For the 48-volt side… This time I went with a Victron inverter- 48-volt DC / 120 volt AC / 30 amps. Victron isn’t as plug and play as Xantrex, so I had to get the Cerbo, Linx distributor, and touch screen. Figuring that out and getting the correct settings established was admittedly frustrating. For the batteries, I went with two LifePo4 server rack batteries @ 100 Amp hrs each, from Epoch. Going with 48 volts DC to power AC loads has several advantages. First, you can use much smaller conductors. Most of the components cost less and weigh less because you’re dealing with fewer Amps and less copper. Also, every home solar or battery system uses 48 volts for a reason. Trying to power AC loads with 12 volts would require massive Amps and thumb sized cables. My 48 volt system is completely isolated from the 12 volt side. It can only be charged by plugging in the trailer. This has not been a problem. Trying to add enough solar to charge the 48 volt side isn’t worth it for me. For the fun of it, I also added one of the air conditioners to the sub panel. How long we can run the air conditioner before the batteries die largely depends on the weather. If we’re parked in the sun and it’s 95 degrees outside, it’ll be dead in about 4 or 5 hours. If it’s in the low to mid 80’s and we’re in the shade, maybe two days. The main purpose of doing this though, isn’t to run the air conditioner, but to power the rest of the trailer while we’re overnighting in a parking lot somewhere during a 12+ hour trip.
It's been up and running for about a year and has been completely awesome. The Victron is a beast and hasn’t struggled to start any load we’ve put on it. Also, if we’re at a spot with only 30 amps, it will supplement any loads beyond that, from the batteries. You could plug the tailer into a 15 amp outlet and the Victron would either provide supplemental power if you’re using more than 15 amps, or cap its draw at 15 amps when charging the batteries. Loads that were not transferred to the subpanel were the second air conditioner, water heater, and converter charger. Technically, since those loads don’t pass through the Victron inverter, it isn’t aware of them. I keep that in mind and don’t run the second AC if we’re at a spot with limited amps. So, if the Victron displays that we’re using 14 amps, and I run that second AC, the actual load would be more like 25 amps.
I probably over explained my system, but I like to give detail. The downside of this setup is that the 48 volt batteries had to go in my front cargo compartment. The Victron inverter is also significantly bigger than the Xantrex. All the crap that was in there is now in totes in the garage and will have to go in the back of the truck when we camp. As far as weight goes, fortunately this trailer, 2016 Jayco Eagle 324BHTS, has 2000 lbs of cargo capacity and when fully loaded we’re around 15% of the gross on the tongue. I pull with a 3500 and try to keep things well balanced.
I hate when people explain things with no photos, so I’ll add those soon. Just wanted to write this up while I had the time. Maybe someone will find it helpful.
I designed an upgrade, taking guidance from an article in Trailer Life Magazine, (now called RV magazine and a worthless rag of a publication) detailing how to add a subpanel in an RV to power specific circuits from an inverter. It’s very similar to adding a subpanel to your house to power specific circuits from a standby generator. It wasn’t super complicated, just a fair amount of work. In the subpanel, I moved over interior outlets (which was only one 15-amp breaker) and the microwave (20 amp breaker). On the tongue, I removed the single 12 volt battery and added four, 6 volt golf cart batteries wired in series-parallel (12 volts @ 300 amp hrs total). Our trailer has a tray behind the LP tanks that accommodated the batteries. I also two 100 watt solar panels and a charge controller, taking advantage of the “pre wired for solar” set-up of our RV. For the new inverter, I bought a Xantrex Freedom 2000 watt pure sine wave inverter and mounted it where I had the previous inverter. I also bought the optional wired remote display/controller and mounted it inside. This system worked well for maybe five years. Last year the batteries really started to show their age, didn’t hold a charge and led to my inverter going kaput while using the microwave. This was a real bummer, because I really liked the inverter, and it was a high quality unit.
My solution for the last (and final!) DC upgrade is one I haven’t seen before but is really the simplest. I did a 12 / 48 volt split. I got rid of the four 6 volt batteries, all of the 4/0 gauge wire and Xantrex inverter. I added back a single 12 volt battery on the tongue, and hooked it up as it was when the trailer was new. Super simple. The battery I sourced was a 100 amp hr. LifePo4 battery from LifeBlue. I went with this battery because it was the only one I found that was a drop in replacement. No need to change the converter, solar charge controller, or do anything special with the truck. It also has Bluetooth and a self-heater. The downside is that it was the most expensive. It has performed better than expected, and it’s neat to see how many amps the truck and/or solar panels are charging the battery. Nothing else is drawing from the 12-volt side, only the stock 12-volt loads.
For the 48-volt side… This time I went with a Victron inverter- 48-volt DC / 120 volt AC / 30 amps. Victron isn’t as plug and play as Xantrex, so I had to get the Cerbo, Linx distributor, and touch screen. Figuring that out and getting the correct settings established was admittedly frustrating. For the batteries, I went with two LifePo4 server rack batteries @ 100 Amp hrs each, from Epoch. Going with 48 volts DC to power AC loads has several advantages. First, you can use much smaller conductors. Most of the components cost less and weigh less because you’re dealing with fewer Amps and less copper. Also, every home solar or battery system uses 48 volts for a reason. Trying to power AC loads with 12 volts would require massive Amps and thumb sized cables. My 48 volt system is completely isolated from the 12 volt side. It can only be charged by plugging in the trailer. This has not been a problem. Trying to add enough solar to charge the 48 volt side isn’t worth it for me. For the fun of it, I also added one of the air conditioners to the sub panel. How long we can run the air conditioner before the batteries die largely depends on the weather. If we’re parked in the sun and it’s 95 degrees outside, it’ll be dead in about 4 or 5 hours. If it’s in the low to mid 80’s and we’re in the shade, maybe two days. The main purpose of doing this though, isn’t to run the air conditioner, but to power the rest of the trailer while we’re overnighting in a parking lot somewhere during a 12+ hour trip.
It's been up and running for about a year and has been completely awesome. The Victron is a beast and hasn’t struggled to start any load we’ve put on it. Also, if we’re at a spot with only 30 amps, it will supplement any loads beyond that, from the batteries. You could plug the tailer into a 15 amp outlet and the Victron would either provide supplemental power if you’re using more than 15 amps, or cap its draw at 15 amps when charging the batteries. Loads that were not transferred to the subpanel were the second air conditioner, water heater, and converter charger. Technically, since those loads don’t pass through the Victron inverter, it isn’t aware of them. I keep that in mind and don’t run the second AC if we’re at a spot with limited amps. So, if the Victron displays that we’re using 14 amps, and I run that second AC, the actual load would be more like 25 amps.
I probably over explained my system, but I like to give detail. The downside of this setup is that the 48 volt batteries had to go in my front cargo compartment. The Victron inverter is also significantly bigger than the Xantrex. All the crap that was in there is now in totes in the garage and will have to go in the back of the truck when we camp. As far as weight goes, fortunately this trailer, 2016 Jayco Eagle 324BHTS, has 2000 lbs of cargo capacity and when fully loaded we’re around 15% of the gross on the tongue. I pull with a 3500 and try to keep things well balanced.
I hate when people explain things with no photos, so I’ll add those soon. Just wanted to write this up while I had the time. Maybe someone will find it helpful.
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