Charging with Blue Sea inline or not?

XJINTX

Explorer
Quick question for you gurus. I want to charge m battery off the 7 Pin trailer connector from Alternator and also the controller from my solar. I have installed a Blue Sea fuse box. I am running only a set of lights through the block right now.

Can or should I run the Solar charging wires and the alternator Positive through the block? All I've seen is run direct to battery Positive and ground. THANKS!!!
 

Herbie

Rendezvous Conspirator
Yep, totally reasonable. The bus in the Blue sea is electrically equivalent to anything it's connected to, including the + terminal on the battery.

I do this same thing for my solar "input" from the charge controller - way more convenient that having an inline fuse from there when I have unused tabs on the fuse block.
 

Phxdsrtrat

Observer
Ideally you should be fused as close to the battery as possible so it matters where your Blue Sea block is located. If you feed your Blue Sea block with a fused line that is fused at the battery that is adequate for the job also. I actually use the Blue Sea block that attaches directly to the battery (4 fused circuits max) and run my TV charge line (through a DC to DC charger), my solar and my shore (AC powered) charger to the block.

-Curtiss
 

Roaddude

Long time off-grid vanlife adventurist
A lot of folding panels, most I dare say, have an inline fuse in the cord before it hits the charge controller, so it wouldn't need to go through a fuse block, but it ain't gonna hurt. Fixed mount panels might be different.
 

flipmachine

Adventurer
I would go to the battery reason being, you want to make sure you have a fuse/breaker close to the battery on the positive side on the wire going to your blue sea, as well If you go straight to your box your trailer will always be live.
 

Herbie

Rendezvous Conspirator
Ideally you should be fused as close to the battery as possible so it matters where your Blue Sea block is located.

I will add to this and say that ideally you should be fused as close as possible to *all* voltage sources.

Think about what happens if you have a long cable from solar charge controller to battery and pinch it in the middle. If the fuse is close to the battery, it'll blow, saving the battery. If there's no fuse on the end near the controller, that's still a dead-short and it'll likely kill the controller, if not worse. Now, for a typical "simple" solar installation, the charge controller is often located very close to the battery (since the charge controller wants to "see" the same temperature as the battery so it can properly compensate). In this instance, a single fuse is likely fine. If, however, you have a suitcase rig with the controller mounted on the panel and a 20' cord running to the battery, I'd highly recommend a fuse at each end specifically for the case above.

The same goes for running cables from your starter battery/charging relay to any aux/house battery. If you have a long run, you'll want to put a fuse or breaker at both ends.
 

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