Help on Wiring project

[ole fart]

Help in finding, figuring, what would work best for this situation, I want a plug an forget, with protection built in. where do I begin looking for answers on what to use an where to hook up what that goes where?
I got a small old FWC, remodeling it for my fishin trips. removed the paneling an insulation and started new.pulled all the wiring out it was a mess.
I removed the 3way cooler and have a Engel 60 to put in its place, wanting dual T105 6-volt batteries for power, along with the fridge a couple led lites with a couple outlets for plug-ins, and want outlets at front and rear hitches for a small portable 1500lbs winch.
I would like to charge batteries through the truck engine, have a 45 watt solar panel , and old old 110 power,charger/inverter? Who knows, here I may even use wind power. what ever will work best for a week or so at a time.
I can't carry enough ice so going the Engel way.
Thanks for pointin an ole fart in the rite direction if ya can.

 

[dwh]

You can rig a standard "split-charge relay" to feed power back to the the camper to charge the batteries from the engine. It's just a solenoid that connects the engine battery and the camper battery (bank) while the ignition is turned on and the alternator will charge them both together.

http://www.amazon.com/SOLENOID-GOLF...0?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1332304107&sr=1-10


The basic wiring setup is at the bottom of this page:

http://www.powerstream.com/battery-isolator.htm



For your solar, you'll want a decent charge controller. Anything by Morningstar will be good quality. SunSaver Duo is designed to charge both the engine battery and the house battery. You might find that 45w of solar may not keep up with your demand.


As for your old inverter/charger - IS it an inverter/charger? Most campers came with a converter which is not the same thing. A "CONverter" takes 120v AC input and converts it to 12v to both supply 12v loads and feed some power to the battery to charge it up.

An "INverter" takes 12v from the battery and makes 120v.

There are "inverter/chargers" but few older campers ever had them.

If what you have is an old "Magnetek" converter - they have a horrible reputation and are pretty much just used for target practice these days.


As for wind. That's pretty much a "fugedaboudit". There is very little energy in wind to begin with, and it takes either a good strong wind, or a large swept area (prop) to harvest anything worthwhile. General rule of thumb is if you don't have AT LEAST 10mph AVERAGE wind speed, then the site is no good for a small wind genny. (If you aren't buying chapstick by the pound, then forget it.)

Even then, you usually have to get the genny up to 60' or more to clear ground turbulence. Too much ground turbulence and it'll spend more time hunting back and forth than it will making useful power.