My proposed electrical plan for my expedition camper. Comments would be appreciated

[Fatboyz]

Here is my planned set up. I tried smartdraw but I'm not super tech savy when it comes to this stuff. In general my plan is to have 2 6 volt GC-2 in series for my battery bank. These will power my camper 12 volt system through a Blue Sea MRBF terminal mount fuse block to a 12 fuse buss block. I will be running 3-100 Watt solar panels in series through a Victron 100/30 smartsolar Mppt charger. Solar charger will go directly to the batteries. House batteries will connect to road batteries through Bluesea Si ACR. (intent is for solar to maintain both road and house batteries, and alternator to charge both banks when engine running. I will have shore power run through a Xantrex freedom HS inverter charger. The inverter charger will be hooked to the house batteries to charge them when plugged to shore power, and also to draw from them to provide AC power. Inverter charger will feed a small AC breaker box. Any comments suggestions or improvements are welcome.

 

[dwh]

No time to check over the drawing but the description is bang on. Only thing I see that you left out is the inverter/charger will charge both engine and aux through the ACR.

Cheers.

 

[shade]

What's a good free schematic program or site?

 

[dreadlocks]

draw.io

 

[shade]

draw.io

Thanks. I'll take a look later.

 

[Alloy]

Are the fuses and disconnects omitted from the drawing?

A mega or AMI fuse bolted directly to the battery terminal with the wire lug bolted to the fuse will save $

It will work but if the 110V loads are close to the max for the inverter and if the duration is long it won't do +/-200Ah batteries any good.

Suggest using a bus bar for the Neg. Makes it easy to add a shunt later on.

I don't like running solar directly to the batteries.

You may find that 5 wires connected to the pos. battery terminal is too many. The most I like to have is 3

Why not go all Victron?

 

[Fatboyz]

No time to check over the drawing but the description is bang on. Only thing I see that you left out is the inverter/charger will charge both engine and aux through the ACR.

Cheers.

Is that an issue or it should be OK then? added lines to the drawing to reflect that.

 

[Fatboyz]

Are the fuses and disconnects omitted from the drawing?

A mega or AMI fuse bolted directly to the battery terminal with the wire lug bolted to the fuse will save $

It will work but if the 110V loads are close to the max for the inverter and if the duration is long it won't do +/-200Ah batteries any good.

Suggest using a bus bar for the Neg. Makes it easy to add a shunt later on.

I don't like running solar directly to the batteries.

You may find that 5 wires connected to the pos. battery terminal is too many. The most I like to have is 3

Why not go all Victron?

Yes I plan to have a fused block on the terminal. I only chose Bluesea because I didn't know Victron made ACR and the other pieces. Blue sea ACR and fuse block are available on Amazon, not so sure about the other components other than the smartsolar.
How do you suggest to hook in the solar?

 

[dreadlocks]

a disconnect switch is advisable, for all energy sources that cant be easily unplugged (battery, fixed solar).. that way you can work on electrical system without it being energized.. or storing it long term w/out monitoring.

This also lets you plug in and disconnect those energized sources w/out sparking.. without a disconnect switch if you replace batteries you'll get a spark when you hook cables back up, and then cycle on/of whatevers powered real fast while you tighten up the lugs.. dropping all loads before dealing with live wiring is generally safer for the loads, the source and you.. with Solar you typically want to hook up in a certain order so your not screwing down bare live wires.

 

[Fatboyz]

Here is a great resource wiring diagrams from explorist.life

Your Forms Here

 

[dwh]

Is that an issue or it should be OK then? added lines to the drawing to reflect that.

The solar will do the same. The only issue is making sure the charge voltage settings of the solar and inverter/charger - set for the GC batteries - won't harm the engine battery.

 

[Alloy]

How do you suggest to hook in the solar?

What dreadlocks said is excellent......and adding a battery monitor is easier.

Take a look at a Victron BMV712.

Fuses (prefer switching breakers myself) protect wires. In "theory" every wire should be protected by a fuse.

I'd suggest a bus bar for both neg and pos then a single (heavy) wire to the battery. If more battery capacity is added the wire from the bus bar to each battery bank can be the same (resistance) length.

Depending on the location a battery temp sensor on the charging devices is useful.

 

[Alloy]

The solar will do the same. The only issue is making sure the charge voltage settings of the solar and inverter/charger - set for the GC batteries - won't harm the engine battery.

Was thinking the same but in the other direction.

Favoring the engine battery may harm the GC batteries.
Ideally all the batteries are the same age / same charge profile.
Another thought depending on engine size is to make the GC the engine battery.

 

[Fatboyz]

I was thinking that since I'm running the golf cart batteries as a 12 volt set up that I would charge them as a 12 volt system the same as the engine?

 

[Alloy]

I was thinking that since I'm running the golf cart batteries as a 12 volt set up that I would charge them as a 12 volt system the same as the engine?

Each battery manufacture has charging parameters for their batteries. The numbers maybe different from one manufacturer to another or from one type of FLA (flooded lead acid) to another. In your case there is starting and deep cycle.

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