Mounting Hardware and electrical hookup

captainphx

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 4, 2012
Messages
305
Location
Cave Creek, AZ
I know FWC sells a mounting kit, but I am thinking most of it can be purchased at HomeDepot or Ace. But I would still need the wiring, the fuse, and the female end of the electrical plug. Anyone have any suggestions on where to get this stuff? What gauge wire? Suggestions for the eye bolts and plates? Called one local camper parts store, and he said their kit was $430. I don't think we were on the same page.
 
As far as mounts you can get the forged eye bolts at Ace. Make you own backing plates.
For elec hook up this is the plug that came with my Hawk West Marine Plug
When it broke I replaced with a standard 110V twist lock style and put a covered water tight cover in the bed of my Tundra.
You will still need wire (10 gauge min) and a battery isolater, cheap solenoid will work, electronic better but more $$. Depending on which you chose you will still save money over kit from 4WC.

I purchased used and the seller gave me the wiring that he got from 4WC. Solenoid and 10 gauge wire. Works for me.
 
As far as mounts you can get the forged eye bolts at Ace. Make you own backing plates.
For elec hook up this is the plug that came with my Hawk West Marine Plug
When it broke I replaced with a standard 110V twist lock style and put a covered water tight cover in the bed of my Tundra.
You will still need wire (10 gauge min) and a battery isolater, cheap solenoid will work, electronic better but more $. Depending on which you chose you will still save money over kit from 4WC.

I purchased used and the seller gave me the wiring that he got from 4WC. Solenoid and 10 gauge wire. Works for me.


What did you make the backing plate out of? The battery isolator is already installed in the battery compartment of the camper.

This is what my old backing plate looked like. Looks like aluminum. Installed by FWC.

IMG_0902.jpg


And here is what my old wiring looked like. I believe that is a 30 amp fuse mounted on the firewall? Can you get this at an auto parts store?

IMG_0912.jpg
 
A marine supply is where you can get these?


McMaster-Carr has everything you could need. It can be a bit tricky to learn how to find things. If you do not feel like finding the eye bolt you need among their 490,000 items give me the specs and I will pull it up for you.

Edit.

Sorry, thought you were talking about the eye bolt. The plugs are Atwood trolling motor plugs, I think.
 
Backing plates are usually 1/4" thick aluminum. I'm using 3/8" stainless carriage bolts with my backing plates which are 5x6", still using the threaded eyes that FWC uses. FWC's turnbuckles are identical to those I've seen at Home Depot. I am using those now but plan to replace with stainless steel safety wired ones.

On electrical FWC bases their hookup only on the 30 amp system they have installed in the camper, ie it's based on the load from the appliances. The plugs are ones from marine trolling motor hookups, they have used at least two brands over the years, The Marinco is the older one, they seem to be using Attwood now. But if you are trying to get better charging of the House Battery Bank in the camper then you can feed more amps off the alternator of the truck using other choices and designs.

My Ranger has a 170 amp alternator, just the standard size for the 3 liter 4x4 Ranger in 2000. Because of wiring sizes and so on in the ranger I don't figure the alternator can feed anything like that amps to the ranger's own battery let alone out through the camper connection to the house battery. So I'm using 60 amp circuit breakers feeding 8 gauge wire out to the camper, breakers must be at both ends as there are batteries at both ends and the system starts direct from the heavy battery connections. The hookup connectors FWC uses are marine connectors designed for hooking up trolling motors. But only designed to attach 10 gauge wire. Various brands of those connectors are available for various gauge wire. So the connectors I'm using for the hookup are another company, Sierra WH10530 on the 8 gauge cable from the camper side, WH10520 is the truck side plug. That's all 8 gauge throughout and less than 15' of run, which with the distance involved the wire should handle 70 amps safely, thus the 60 amp breakers primarily to protect the wire. Isolation in my system is provided by a BEP marine 710-125A Single Sense Voltage Sensitive Relay which can handle 125 amps, and automatically hooks the camper feed up when the Ranger's voltage reaches charging level. (it would also be possible to jump past the VSR to help start the Ranger if needed, though 8 guage would limit that to brief assist only) My House battery bank is two Northstar NSB-100 FT batteries, totaling 200 amp hours, capable of handling far greater charge rates than I can supply, so the bigger the rate the less charging time involved. I do have the same 30 amp converter from 110 that can also charge the battery bank, but having a greater charge current than that provides is an advantage. And I'm putting in monitoring which will fully keep track of charge levels directly. All my parts for the setup came off Ebay

I'm still working on the camper, so I've not yet put my meters on the feed to the camper to find out just how much of a charge rate I'll really have. (my original DC feed for trailers and 12volt use was 10 gauge and a 30 amp fuse, not good enough, though I'm still considering keeping it in supplying only the trailer hookup where it was plenty)

My solar setup is a dual morningstar controller, so it can charge the ranger's battery as well as the house batteries. It gives priority to the house batteries. But it will be a fairly small source, probably never put more than 200 watts of panels on, probably half that.

The thing to do in your setup is calculate the possible loads and charge sources and then decide on connectors. Feeding the camper's appliances may be the smaller of the currents to contend with. Solid state isolators will really limit your charging ability due to voltage loss. I've used VSRs on my boats and won't go back to the diode setups. And make sure and put circuit breakers or fuses on both the house and truck battery end.

Someone talked of using the AC plug systems used in campgrounds. I'd not do that unless one day you want someone in error to hook up 110 AC to your 12 volt system. Also note the ratings on 110 volt AC plugs don't relate to the ratings on 12 volt DC plugs. Stick with plugs made for and rated for 12 volt DC use.
 
Here is my electrical hookup. A marine supply is where you can get these?

View attachment 15864


From camper...

View attachment 15865



That looks like the Attwood Trolling Motor Connectors, the current one FWC seems to be using. (I've got a pair of new ones sitting in front of me here) Attwood number for the camper connector is 7648-7, the truck side receptacle is 7647-7 If it's not a copycat the lid of the receptacle will probably say Attwood. These are most commonly used to hook up trolling motors on bass boats and such. Marine supply, ebay or so on.

Note this is a three wire connector. For FWC use two connectors to supply 12 volts, the third is to power the running lights on your camper if it has running lights. It's designed for 10 gauge wire connections. I think, but am not sure that the black is ground, yellow power and blue for lights.
 
That looks like the Attwood Trolling Motor Connectors, the current one FWC seems to be using. (I've got a pair of new ones sitting in front of me here) Attwood number for the camper connector is 7648-7, the truck side receptacle is 7647-7 If it's not a copycat the lid of the receptacle will probably say Attwood. These are most commonly used to hook up trolling motors on bass boats and such. Marine supply, ebay or so on.

Note this is a three wire connector. For FWC use two connectors to supply 12 volts, the third is to power the running lights on your camper if it has running lights. It's designed for 10 gauge wire connections. I think, but am not sure that the black is ground, yellow power and blue for lights.


Walt, I thought you were a biologist? I think you were really an electrical engineer! Thanks for the info. I found this recently here on the forum. On the female receptacle, it shows the blue wire to the truck marker lights. This hooks up where?

View attachment Truck to Camper Wiring.PDF
 
You will neeed to locate any wire in the truck that is hot when the headlights are on. I tapped into the license plate wire on mine just because it was easy to reach. You can use smaller than ten gauge for this wire as it isn't carrying much load ,14 gauge is fine.

Dsrtrat

Walt, I thought you were a biologist? I think you were really an electrical engineer! Thanks for the info. I found this recently here on the forum. On the female receptacle, it shows the blue wire to the truck marker lights. This hooks up where?

View attachment 15868
 
You will neeed to locate any wire in the truck that is hot when the headlights are on. I tapped into the license plate wire on mine just because it was easy to reach. You can use smaller than ten gauge for this wire as it isn't carrying much load ,14 gauge is fine.

Dsrtrat




Thanks, that's helpful.
 
I should have worded this that you should find the headlight, tail light, or license plate light wiring and tap into that circuit. There are many other hot wires that are on when the headlights are on.
Dsrtrat



Thanks, that's helpful.
 
I should have worded this that you should find the headlight, tail light, or license plate light wiring and tap into that circuit. There are many other hot wires that are on when the headlights are on.
Dsrtrat






Understood
 
Walt, I thought you were a biologist? I think you were really an electrical engineer! Thanks for the info. I found this recently here on the forum. On the female receptacle, it shows the blue wire to the truck marker lights. This hooks up where?




68 years of living includes a lot of learning, especially if you are as curious about everything as I am. Yes I'm a field biologist and educator by official profession. Says so on my master's degree. I'm also the son of a Chemical Engineer (in WWII he was also one of the very rare Radar Officers)I sure tried to learn everything he knew before he died, but I know it was only a small part.

Way back when my last science fair project I designed a entire sonar system. Tube based, that was before solid state. Power supplies, pulse generators, sound beam output, receiving and displaying the returning pulse and so on I did it all from scratch from simple electronic parts and a huge amount of reading and experimenting. Also been involved in a lot of house wiring even though I'm not a electrical contractor. So, yes I've done quite a few of the sciences and technical things. And electricity is not a mystery to me.

The electric system for my Eagle bears a lot of resemblance to the new boat we bought last year in the circuits needed. Of course the 10hp outboard only puts out 12 amp for charging and the dual battery setup uses less capacity than the Eagle will. But there in the isolation setup between the batteries is essentially the same BEP Marine VSR, the trolling motor is hooked up with a similar trolling motor connector and so on. And that's only the most recent boat. I've done a lot of wiring design of a lot of things.

The electricity you want to hook up to is that which lights the running lights in your truck. marker lights, license plate lights and so on. Anything that lights up when you turn your lights to the park position should show you what you can use. Just remember there may also be other wires to some of those fixtures. Brake lights and turn signal lights for instance are a separate circuit.

Note those trolling motor connectors come in a huge variety of quality levels. The cheap stuff can have things like electrical parts that are steel with a thin copper coating, and not really waterproof, those can rust pretty quickly. A FWC is not a boat out wet all the time with salt water, but in reality for things like electricity and fasteners it's not far from it. And of course those capable of only carrying minimal current are cheaper than higher rated ones.
 
68 years of living includes a lot of learning, especially if you are as curious about everything as I am. Yes I'm a field biologist and educator by official profession. Says so on my master's degree. I'm also the son of a Chemical Engineer (in WWII he was also one of the very rare Radar Officers)I sure tried to learn everything he knew before he died, but I know it was only a small part.

Way back when my last science fair project I designed a entire sonar system. Tube based, that was before solid state. Power supplies, pulse generators, sound beam output, receiving and displaying the returning pulse and so on I did it all from scratch from simple electronic parts and a huge amount of reading and experimenting. Also been involved in a lot of house wiring even though I'm not a electrical contractor. So, yes I've done quite a few of the sciences and technical things. And electricity is not a mystery to me.

The electric system for my Eagle bears a lot of resemblance to the new boat we bought last year in the circuits needed. Of course the 10hp outboard only puts out 12 amp for charging and the dual battery setup uses less capacity than the Eagle will. But there in the isolation setup between the batteries is essentially the same BEP Marine VSR, the trolling motor is hooked up with a similar trolling motor connector and so on. And that's only the most recent boat. I've done a lot of wiring design of a lot of things.

The electricity you want to hook up to is that which lights the running lights in your truck. marker lights, license plate lights and so on. Anything that lights up when you turn your lights to the park position should show you what you can use. Just remember there may also be other wires to some of those fixtures. Brake lights and turn signal lights for instance are a separate circuit.

Note those trolling motor connectors come in a huge variety of quality levels. The cheap stuff can have things like electrical parts that are steel with a thin copper coating, and not really waterproof, those can rust pretty quickly. A FWC is not a boat out wet all the time with salt water, but in reality for things like electricity and fasteners it's not far from it. And of course those capable of only carrying minimal current are cheaper than higher rated ones.


Thanks Walt. I found all the parts I need and will be installing today.
 
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