I rewired my solar power battery bank in the off grid RV. When I put the battery bank together I used the materials I had on hand at the time. Now its time to improve the wiring for best performanc…
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This is my First set of 6 12v betterys. hook up to a change controller, a inverter, 2 capacitor wire to the connection to 2 12v solar panel.
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26 comments
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Steve Vest says:
April 6, 2015 at 12:33 am (UTC 0)
I seriously doubt this helped at all, and it may have actually hurt. The
bus bars likely have less resistance than the wire you used to extend to
the other end. If you add more resistance to the circuit, you lose
efficiency. The bus bar resistance should be negligible.
Chris Brocksmith says:
April 6, 2015 at 1:00 am (UTC 0)
Path of least resistance. Makes sense.
las6560 says:
April 6, 2015 at 1:54 am (UTC 0)
Why cant you use the fridge from the old camper that ran off of gas??
2012solarful says:
April 6, 2015 at 2:51 am (UTC 0)
Great job! Hopefully that help you out. That’s how I have my battery bank
wired.
MotherOfManyHorses says:
April 6, 2015 at 3:00 am (UTC 0)
To help your frig run more efficiently and not have to run as often, FILL
it. Even if you only fill it with bottles of water. All that cold mass will
retain the cold better and it won’t have to run as often. And, if it’s
already cold when you put it in there, all the better.
Chris Brocksmith says:
April 6, 2015 at 3:26 am (UTC 0)
Insulate the fridge with a blanket cover.
Jerry Densmore says:
April 6, 2015 at 4:20 am (UTC 0)
I’m confused as what and why you just did that. I thought the idea with the
buss bar was you could snag power for other DC items that you wanted to
hook up. The charge controller and inverter wires should not be hooked to
the bus bar all. Those should be hooked straight to the post of the battery
and on opposite ends. The bus bar can be hooked to any location of the
bank. I don’t think you accomplished what you were planning by hooking to
the bus bar. Your head is in the right place just don’t use the bus for the
controller and inverter. Section off the front half of trailer and run the
air to keep the temp on batteries down so they can take a full charge.
TimeDrawsNigh says:
April 6, 2015 at 4:33 am (UTC 0)
Hey Troy, consider removing the battery box “bus bars” and use 0 gauge
interconnects from bank to bank in the box. Then wire the charge
controller to batteries 1 & 2 and wire the inverter to batteries 5 & 6, or
vice-versa. Many reasons to do this but it’s beyond the scope of this
message. Second, if your battery bank is hooked in any way to the RV DC
load center, consider disconnecting that and building a DC load bus bar to
connect all of the DC loads that “you are currently using”. This will
insure that you are not feeding a phantom DC load that you didn’t know
existed.
RadicalRC says:
April 6, 2015 at 5:14 am (UTC 0)
By the way, I give you a thumbs up to do my part in countering the 10 or so
negatives you get from the exceedingly kind and friendly Pennsylvania
bunker.
HellBoundWizard says:
April 6, 2015 at 5:54 am (UTC 0)
It will help to equalize the charge and discharge. But you are going to
have to expand the overall capacity of the bank as there is no workaround.
I know you are on a shoe string budget but we are fighting with
mathematics. If you can find 2 more batteries then you will add another
200RC. Again, you have to get at least that 300w windmill back up. Troy, I
know am a bit of a pest on this. On the switches, yes it seems to be
redundant but you aren’t looking at it in the correct light. Ease of
maintenance and safety. You could use two blue sea switches. One for the
power charger and the other for the power inverter.
r3x2b0 says:
April 6, 2015 at 6:04 am (UTC 0)
Good idea but I still think you need more batteries.
RadicalRC says:
April 6, 2015 at 7:04 am (UTC 0)
The inverter did not snap because you didn’t have it disconnected long
enough for the input capacitors to discharge. You can make a light weight
lead with a resister in it that you connect to touch off for a minute
before putting on the regular cable. This lets the caps charge up slowly
without any escaping blue light. ;-)
SONofZEUS says:
April 6, 2015 at 7:40 am (UTC 0)
Is it true that up to $2500 in solar purchased a year is a tax right off
for private citizens and that number is unlimited for a business?
Bill'Rosa Ouroffgridsolarcabin says:
April 6, 2015 at 8:35 am (UTC 0)
The charge control needs to be connected directly to batteries. The other
items can run off buss bar. Copper buss bar is the best. Aluminum is a
efficient as copper for DC voltage. Just trying to help since you know we
live totally off grid. Take care.
Terry Teague says:
April 6, 2015 at 9:10 am (UTC 0)
i draw the line at melted ice cream.
7734lg says:
April 6, 2015 at 9:11 am (UTC 0)
Hey Troy, You can try everything……I will promise you that your battery
bank is to small.
Neil Shubert says:
April 6, 2015 at 10:05 am (UTC 0)
You are soooo right. Most people dont realize this and they waste the
potential power of most of their batteries!
Randy Panco says:
April 6, 2015 at 10:26 am (UTC 0)
I hope that will work for you Troy. What I have read that should work for
you.
herminio nieves says:
April 6, 2015 at 11:15 am (UTC 0)
connect the wires directly on the opposite batteries one on the positive
the other on the opposite end negative moving the wires on the bus bar does
not effect the equalizing charge
RadicalRC says:
April 6, 2015 at 11:32 am (UTC 0)
I think it was an over complicated and not as organized to put all 4
negative wires under the same bolt. It would have been fine and looked
more organized a couple of bolt holes away. Also, another idea. If you
have some extra cables, you could daisy chain from bolt to bolt along the
rail. This would in effect give you a parallel copper path to lower the
overall resistance of the non-standard buss bar. Still, I think your buss
bar is probably OK, but sure, it could be better. Don’t beat yourself up
too much over that. It would be more imporant to double up the longest
leads if you acquire any more #2 wire.
Cisco Isoffthegrid says:
April 6, 2015 at 11:50 am (UTC 0)
Good explanation on how to wire the charge controller and inverter to the
batteries. I know your’e on a tight budget and choose not to include safety
features, but you should have advised on the need to install fuses and
battery disconnect switch. A good disconnect switch will hide the initial
spark caused by the inverter’s capacitors when they take charge.
At what voltage does your inverter’s low voltage alarm sound? Shouldn’t it
be 11 volt triggers alarm and 10.5 shuts down?
All of those issues you talked about having with your system; buss bar,
heavy gauge cable requirement and the need to run + & – connections from
opposite ends of buss bar were eliminated when I wired my system at 48
Volts. I use 8 batteries like yours but all in series.
Pat Quick says:
April 6, 2015 at 12:15 pm (UTC 0)
Time to start doing things the right way the first time. You should have
disconnects. I thought you said you were going to finish enclosing that
battery box (another project never completed)
Walter Bodine says:
April 6, 2015 at 12:56 pm (UTC 0)
also have you consider moving to another location that you might find more
tolerable since everything is at risk as far as your inability to work
outdoors in the summer?
The Do It Yourself World says:
April 6, 2015 at 1:23 pm (UTC 0)
Rewiring my off grid RV solar battery bank for better performance
Solar & Wind Australia says:
April 6, 2015 at 1:54 pm (UTC 0)
I don’t know if you have tried this but a couple of jugs of water help the
fridge work less. Also you could try a timer with one hour on 30 min off.
to see how well that work’s. Also check the temp of your cables now because
you made them longer meaning there will be higher resistance. Thanks for
sharing.
David Pedder says:
April 6, 2015 at 2:39 pm (UTC 0)
Those Chinese batteries work well, but to many wires in such a small set
up!!!!!