Beginner Help Required

[bueller44]

Hello everyone,
I currently have a Taxa Outdoors Woolly Bear trailer and I am looking to expand my electrical but I am a bit lost on where to start.
Currently, it has 3 LED light strips (one in each compartment) and a undertrailer light wired to a 3 switches in the galley - as well as 2 USB ports in the galley.
It has a 7-pin connection to the Jeep.

What I would like to do is add:
An Inverter
Some LED lighting up in the Roof Top Tent with the ability to turn on and off in the tent.
Two USB outlets in the tent for charging phones
And possibly a cigarette type outlet in the tent as I have an electric blanket for my wife when she comes along on trips.

I would also like the ability to plug in a Espresso machine - which I know I could plug into the inverter, but would be nice to put some outlets on the tongue box on the galley side.

Lastly, I want to add a 100W solar panel.

I know there are lots of threads about this, but there is almost too much to ready and some things described are like a foreign language to me.So I am starting my own thread. Here is what I have collected so far.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[bueller44]

Here’s a few pics


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[VerMonsterRV]

Hi Mike, your starting point needs to be you figuring out your "electrical budget". Take all the consumers (this case the espresso,blanket and lights plus anything you will charge via the socket) and add up the required amps needed. Then figure out how large of a battery bank will be needed (it looks like you may have just a single battery which is ok for led lighting but most likely not up to the task of a 2000watt inverter). Then once the storage requirement is figured out then what the charging system needs to be to keep up. My guess is skip the electric blanket and get your wife a high quality down sleeping bag (simpler an likely money better spent). The espresso, maybe just get a butane camp stove one?

We are currently on a sailboat with 6 6v golf cart batteries for our "house" bank. It works for us and we make coffee via an inverter but it is not cheap, easy or light to get to that point.

 

[SameGuy]

Depending on your espresso machine, that alone could be pulling more power than all of your lights would use in a week. Might try to figure out a different way to get your morning cup of coffee. (aero press, stove top expresso maker, pour over coffee filter, camping percolator, etc.)

The 12 volt electric blankets I have seen pull so much current you would maybe get one to two nights out of your single battery. Others with more experience with specific models may tell a different story.

Depending on how your tow vehicle wiring is set up you could charge your house battery from your alternator when driving, but unless you had it installed for that purpose, the wiring is probably not there or may not be large enough to do the job. Care also has to be taken so your house battery doesn't drain your starting battery overnight. This can be done with a solenoid setup as outlined in another thread here, a switch or some type of ACR. (automatic charging relay)

Inverters are very power hungry and heavy so finding 12 volt options for common needs is less expensive, complicated, and lighter than rigging up a whole electrical system just to run one power hungry appliance. If you are stuck on using the inverter, plan on getting a minimum of one more deep cycle battery if not two.

On the solar front, you again need to know how much charging capacity you will need, as in how many batteries you will have. A 100 watt panel will put out 5.5 amps under ideal conditions, full sun, no clouds, perfect orientation. All panels and controllers are not 100% efficient so real world numbers are going to be less than that, I'd safely say 3.5 to 4.5 amps during peak sun hours with a good panel and an MMPT controller. Say you have a single 100AH deep cycle battery and run it down 40% over the night. You need to pump 40AH back into it to recharge it completely. A 100 watt panel in ideal conditions would take 10 hours to do that, but most places don't have 10 hours of ideal conditions in a day. Plan on 6 hours of sun on a good day and you are down to putting 20-24 amps back into your battery. DO this a few days in a row and you have depleted your battery to the point where it begins to damage it. (common thought is not to let a lead acid battery go below 50% charge, AGM, Lithium chemistries, gel and high quality deep cycle batteries can go lower without damage)

The math gets worse and the costs go up the more power you use. In my setups I try to use as little power as possible, be as efficient as I can be and keep everything as simple as I can.

If I were in your shoes, I would ditch the inverter, espresso machine and electric blanket. Now your trailer battery has WAY less work to do. I'd install a 100 watt solar panel with a MMPT controller, and wire up the extra LED lights and chargers you mentioned. With that setup, you can park indefinitely.