Hello all!
I've been lurking here for months trying to absorb everything I can regarding electrical/solar information. I'm so grateful for all the threads and have elevated my knowledge from a 0 to maybe a 2... and hope to continue learning.
A bit of history on my current setup. I have a 2018 FWC Hawk on my 2005 F150. I have a dual 6V 190 AH AGMs with 200w Renogy flexible solar panels on the roof. I have a Renogy solar controller and battery shunt for monitoring my battery levels. I bought the camper used and I think the guy maybe used it twice, and put it in storage for the last 4 years. The actual camper is immaculate, but I don't think he maintained the 6V AGMs well. After a night of fridge and light heater use I am usually in the range of 12.3-12.4 volts on my batteries and showing around 30-40% of my usable AH left on my battery monitor. It's not a huge deal currently as I'm in Colorado and we get lots of sun in the summer, but I would like to move my system toward a more robust setup that I can use for a few days in the winter/colder months when sunlight is harder to come by.
I just bought a new truck to haul my camper (2019 F150 with the heavy duty payload package). I'm eventually planning on going lithium (I'm looking at the SOK 204 AH LIFEPO4 mainly for the form factor and where I need to fit the battery into my camper.) I know that I'll need a DC/DC charger for my truck to properly charge the lithium batteries, the rest of my system is already lithium capable as long as I get the lithium dongle for my Iota shore power charger. I'm probably going to go with Renogy again for the DC/DC as their products are economical and have worked well in my system thus far.
Here is where I need the help. I'm not the best when it comes to electrical knowledge, but I want to learn more and do the install myself. I'm fairly handy (I managed to install the FWC on my current truck and even wire it up using the recommended FWC method). I know from research that the usual 10G wire won't cut it for the DC/DC charger to work efficiently. I want to install the DC/DC charger in the camper with my battery system. Is this a problem? I can run 2 or 4 gauge wire to the bed of the truck but everything after that is the stock 10G wire FWC uses to wire their campers. Will I need to replace some of the camper wiring with larger gauge wiring to make this work? I was hoping to just remove the blue sea ACR that FWC uses and drop the DC/DC charger in it's place. This would make my future lithium upgrade a simple drop in installation (i think). I'm willing to go lithium now if needed but was hoping to eek a little more life out of the AGMs and go lithium this winter.
Sorry for the long post, thanks for any insight for the electrical novice!
I've been lurking here for months trying to absorb everything I can regarding electrical/solar information. I'm so grateful for all the threads and have elevated my knowledge from a 0 to maybe a 2... and hope to continue learning.
A bit of history on my current setup. I have a 2018 FWC Hawk on my 2005 F150. I have a dual 6V 190 AH AGMs with 200w Renogy flexible solar panels on the roof. I have a Renogy solar controller and battery shunt for monitoring my battery levels. I bought the camper used and I think the guy maybe used it twice, and put it in storage for the last 4 years. The actual camper is immaculate, but I don't think he maintained the 6V AGMs well. After a night of fridge and light heater use I am usually in the range of 12.3-12.4 volts on my batteries and showing around 30-40% of my usable AH left on my battery monitor. It's not a huge deal currently as I'm in Colorado and we get lots of sun in the summer, but I would like to move my system toward a more robust setup that I can use for a few days in the winter/colder months when sunlight is harder to come by.
I just bought a new truck to haul my camper (2019 F150 with the heavy duty payload package). I'm eventually planning on going lithium (I'm looking at the SOK 204 AH LIFEPO4 mainly for the form factor and where I need to fit the battery into my camper.) I know that I'll need a DC/DC charger for my truck to properly charge the lithium batteries, the rest of my system is already lithium capable as long as I get the lithium dongle for my Iota shore power charger. I'm probably going to go with Renogy again for the DC/DC as their products are economical and have worked well in my system thus far.
Here is where I need the help. I'm not the best when it comes to electrical knowledge, but I want to learn more and do the install myself. I'm fairly handy (I managed to install the FWC on my current truck and even wire it up using the recommended FWC method). I know from research that the usual 10G wire won't cut it for the DC/DC charger to work efficiently. I want to install the DC/DC charger in the camper with my battery system. Is this a problem? I can run 2 or 4 gauge wire to the bed of the truck but everything after that is the stock 10G wire FWC uses to wire their campers. Will I need to replace some of the camper wiring with larger gauge wiring to make this work? I was hoping to just remove the blue sea ACR that FWC uses and drop the DC/DC charger in it's place. This would make my future lithium upgrade a simple drop in installation (i think). I'm willing to go lithium now if needed but was hoping to eek a little more life out of the AGMs and go lithium this winter.
Sorry for the long post, thanks for any insight for the electrical novice!