Critique proposed solar battery upgrade

[phemens]

Currently have a Jayco hybrid (Jayfeather 26L) but moving to a Denali 5th wheel in the spring (2012 DE324LBS).
Currently have 4 Trojan T125’s with 600 watts of solar, with a Kisae 2000 watt pure sine inverter, we primarily dry camp.
Plan for ‘new’ trailer is to upgrade batteries and solar. Batteries are 5yrs old, serviceable but nearing end of life. Would like to go with 1000 watts solar, and possibly 6 x Crown 6CRV 220 AH AGM batteries. I’ve heard that AGM handle heavy loads better than FLAs. Typical use of inverter now is coffee maker morning and evening, plus TV and occasional limited use of microwave. My end goal is to have enough capacity to run the inverter pretty much any time (i.e. not switch on/off all and ideally run the fridge on 120 during the day to reduce LP use and leverage excess solar during the day.
Inverter is wired to batteries with 4/0, plan for solar is either a single 60A converter with 24v panels or 2x 30 (already have them, but willing to upgrade that too, one is MPPT, the other isn’t.
Got time to plan, so thoughts?

[phemens]

With the existing layout, the converter is already very close to where the batteries will be (less than 2 feet), and I have fairly easy access to run heavier gauge wire to the batteries. I lucked out with this trailer for that at least. Batteries, charger and inverter all in close proximity, and I can reuse all my existing 4/0 cables. Running the wiring from the solar array on the other hand will take a bit of doing....

[BFL13]

Leave the negs as is. There are other items that are "grounded" to the frame and get from there to the battery (7-pin, jacks, slides, etc) so you don't want to by-pass those. You can reduce your overall R by having another neg path, in parallel with the frame, battery to converter, but leave the originals there.

I had one of those Temp Assure type converters and it worked just fine. A big issue was that the Temp Assure wire has to go from the converter to the battery and finding a route for that can be difficult. It very much depends on the layout of the trailer.

Once again, a good reason to just leave the existing converter in place and mount the new one up close to the batts where it is easy to route the TempAssure wire and get a decently short run of wire charger-batt. All you need then, is to run a 120v wire close enough to plug in the new converter/charger.

I had a receptacle low down on the front wall of the living room in the 5er near the steps that go up to the front. It turned out that on the other side of that wall low down is the big cargo area up front. Ta da! I ran a 120v wire from the back of that receptacle up through the cargo bay to where the deck mount converter was put up front by the batts. Problem solved. You can find other routes too, maybe down from the bedroom or bathroom up there.

[phemens]

So while waiting for my hitch to be installed at the dealer (went with the Andersen hitch), I decided to go take a look at a few things on the trailer.
As i suspected, the converter and panel is WFCO. I will replace the separate converter/charger box (probably with the Parallax Power mentioned above, looks like a good unit), any reason to replace the panel? Only change there I want to make is to add a separate breaker to turn the charger off when using the inverter.
For placement of batteries, there is a well that can accommodate 2 GC-2 next to the passsenger landing gear, then what looks like a tool area under a hinged door. If I go with 3 or 4 of the AGMs I want (Lifeline DC-215 12v), they’re 139 lbs each. Ok to put them there or am I better to try and load further back against the rear wall of the basement? Pin weight of the 5er is 1430 dry, my truck max payload is 3000. Cargo capacity is 2500 lbs.
Looking at the wiring, the battery negative is grounded to the frame, then seems to be picked up a few inches further and routed to the panel and elsewhere. Any reason not to just put in a post and hook up all my wiring to that instead? Should I keep a negative feed from the negative post back to the frame just in case it gets picked up somewhere I can’t see?

[BFL13]

pianotuna wrote:
Hi BFL13,

I meant having a temperature probe on the battery bank so that on days (like today) where it is going to go from 12 c to 2 c (52 f to 35 f) that the voltage would "follow".

Here you go:

http://www.parallaxpower.com/5490tc-deckmount-converter-5490tc

Got temp comp, PF correction, and 90 amps. Specifies 20a circuit/plug in (American code), but IMO it will run on 15a ok. Whatever. Last time I looked these things cost quite a bit. I haven't looked today to see what they sell for now.

[pianotuna]

Hi BFL13,

I meant having a temperature probe on the battery bank so that on days (like today) where it is going to go from 12 c to 2 c (52 f to 35 f) that the voltage would "follow".

[MrWizard]

never meet ole Dan
but his brother Squire Boone lived across the river in Indiana, About 40 miles from my home town

been there, also too many famous landmarks in ol Kentuck

MY son and Daughter and grand kids live in kentucky

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Yup it's a battery charger.

Wait just a second, the average temperature here has dropped by 10 degrees F

(reaches and tweaks a knob) Elapsed time 10 seconds

> Tenth of a volt otter do'er. The Borg

The thermistor biasing pots should have arrived at the UPS Store. On the unit under construction it will allow me to adjust the temperature compensation on the critter.

All that was done by Trace Manufacturing in 1987 on their 2500SB 120 amp charger unit. I am not a pioneer of this most intelligent way to manage batteries.

"Oh look Maude! A shiftless car that has windows go up and down with buttons!"

Ask these genius designers the definition of BOONDOCK and you're likely to get an answer "Are you kidding me? Daniel Boone had a lakeside log cabin. Where would you think he parked his canoe?"

[BFL13]

Randy's 14.8 PD9280 is $247 plus shipping, needs a 20a circuit/plug in, and has no adjustable voltage.

http://www.bestconverter.com/PD-9280C-148-80-Amp-RV-ConverterCharger_p_620.html#.WdkKClKWxLM

This PowerMax 100 amper can be run on a 15a circuit/plug in, has adjustable voltage, and costs $287 free shipping.

http://www.boatandrvaccessories.com/products/powermax-pmbc-100adj-charger

AFAIK neither one can be run at 14.8v at full rated amps with a Honda 2000. Needs a bigger gen. There is a 75 amp version of the PowerMax that can be run with a Honda 2000, and a PD9270 too, but for fast charging reduced gen time you want at least 100 amps on that big a battery bank. I use 155 amps on my 450AH bank. (one PM100 and one PM55 together with a Honda 3000)

[brulaz]

pianotuna wrote:
BFL13, too bad the powermax doesn't do temperature compensation.

But if you only use it and your generator for bulk, and then use solar with temp compensation for absorb, all should be good.

Essentially that's what I do with the Meanwell (using the truck as a generator).

[BFL13]

pianotuna wrote:
BFL13, too bad the powermax doesn't do temperature compensation.

Yes it does. It has a knob on it that adjusts the voltage to whatever it is supposed to be at. All you need is a handy table of voltages vs temps, which was posted on here years ago by Mark, but is also on the internet somewhere. I made a paper copy from Mark's post back when. Very useful. Scroll down

http://forums.trailerlife.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/26669731.cfm

[pianotuna]

BFL13, too bad the powermax doesn't do temperature compensation.

[BFL13]

The charging specs on those is 14.7v bulk and absorb with 13.6 float. PD9200s can't do that except perhaps the ones modified by Randy at bestconverters.

http://www.fullriverbattery.com/product/batteries/DC215-12

You will want a high amp charger to keep your gen time down doing 50-90s. The high amp PDs are not PF corrected so they take a lot of VA.

You would do much better IMO with one of these, which has high amps, PF correction, and best of all--adjustable voltage. eg if it is 35F out, your 14.7 will really be 15.26 ish temp comp, so you can set that. You can't do that with even a 14.8v modified PD.

http://www.boatandrvaccessories.com/products/powermax-pmbc-100adj-charger

[phemens]

So, to try and put a pin in this choice for me, I think i’ve settled on getting 3 or 4 Fullriver AGM 215 amp-hr 12v batteries (DC215-12). To support this, would I be ok with a Progressive Dynamics 9200 séries converter/charger and a Morningstar MPPT solar controller (say the TS-MPPT-60) with 750 or 1000 watts of solar? I would probably add a Tri Star monitor as well.

[BFL13]

phemens wrote:
Ah, there’s nothing wrong with what I have, it works. The problem is, i’m moving to a ‘new’ rig and I just can’t resist adding some improvements while I’m up to my arms in alligators anyways 😉 I’m always tinkering, trying to fix what ain’t broke I guess.

Makes sense to me! Every time I go camping I see a new way I could do things and have to try it out, so it never stops. Not many of us get it right the first time and can just leave it be. 🙂