Texota
New Member
Hello! Long time lurker, I thought I would share the upgrades I've done to my Bobcat's electrical system as this info could be useful to someone else.
I purchased an All Terrain Bobcat Shell model last year and had it installed on my 2015 Chevy Colorado at the ATC shop in Reno in September. It was a very pleasant experience and we have been enjoying our camper tremendously!
Our shell model was equipped with a furnace and a fan-tastic roof fan as well as a couple USB charging ports. This was it for electrical draw. To power these items the camper came with a 74Ah Deka AGM battery that was connected to my truck through a simple battery isolator and 10 awg wire. This was good enough until this year when we decided we'd like to install a Truckfridge refrigerator for convenience over the cooler we had been using. I measured and thought that the TruckFridge TF-65 would fit perfectly in the Bobcat Shell underneath the pullout bed, and it did fit perfectly with a very simple mounting solution consisting of a couple 2x4's.
Unfortunately with the fridge, furnace, and vent running overnight it would lead to discharging the house battery well beyond what I thought was comfortable so I started down the path of looking into upgrading the battery to something that would be able to keep up with our demands even if parked for more than a day. This lead my obsessive personality to reading these forums and many others way too long until I decided I had came up with the perfect plan. The downside of this is I uninstalled the battery, battery isolator, and wiring, that came installed in our camper. That's basically money down the drain except for a little bit I was able to recoup by selling used.
I wanted my new electrical system to perform flawlessly without hiccup for a very long time without needing to be upgraded further. I justified going with some very nice pieces of equipment and ended up installing a 100 Ah LifePo4 battery powered by a DC-DC charger connected to the truck as well as a 200 Watt solar panel on the roof.
The new components I installed are:
Battery: 100 Ah Battle Born LifePo4
DC-DC Charger: Redarc BCDC1240D
Fridge: TruckFridge TF-65
Battery Monitor: Victron BMV-712
Solar Panel: HighTec Solar 200 + 25% watt solar panel
I have completed a write up of everything I've installed including pictures on my blog which you can see at: https://overthelandwego.com/2019/05/24/all-terrain-camper-electrical-install-dual-battery-setup/
To me this is the perfect setup and I hope putting all the components of the system into one post and the reasoning why is helpful to someone. I try to do my best to explain why I think the components I chose are the best for my application. If anyone has any feedback or would like me to explain further why I chose something I did then please leave a reply and I will gladly respond!
I purchased an All Terrain Bobcat Shell model last year and had it installed on my 2015 Chevy Colorado at the ATC shop in Reno in September. It was a very pleasant experience and we have been enjoying our camper tremendously!
Our shell model was equipped with a furnace and a fan-tastic roof fan as well as a couple USB charging ports. This was it for electrical draw. To power these items the camper came with a 74Ah Deka AGM battery that was connected to my truck through a simple battery isolator and 10 awg wire. This was good enough until this year when we decided we'd like to install a Truckfridge refrigerator for convenience over the cooler we had been using. I measured and thought that the TruckFridge TF-65 would fit perfectly in the Bobcat Shell underneath the pullout bed, and it did fit perfectly with a very simple mounting solution consisting of a couple 2x4's.
Unfortunately with the fridge, furnace, and vent running overnight it would lead to discharging the house battery well beyond what I thought was comfortable so I started down the path of looking into upgrading the battery to something that would be able to keep up with our demands even if parked for more than a day. This lead my obsessive personality to reading these forums and many others way too long until I decided I had came up with the perfect plan. The downside of this is I uninstalled the battery, battery isolator, and wiring, that came installed in our camper. That's basically money down the drain except for a little bit I was able to recoup by selling used.
I wanted my new electrical system to perform flawlessly without hiccup for a very long time without needing to be upgraded further. I justified going with some very nice pieces of equipment and ended up installing a 100 Ah LifePo4 battery powered by a DC-DC charger connected to the truck as well as a 200 Watt solar panel on the roof.
The new components I installed are:
Battery: 100 Ah Battle Born LifePo4
DC-DC Charger: Redarc BCDC1240D
Fridge: TruckFridge TF-65
Battery Monitor: Victron BMV-712
Solar Panel: HighTec Solar 200 + 25% watt solar panel
I have completed a write up of everything I've installed including pictures on my blog which you can see at: https://overthelandwego.com/2019/05/24/all-terrain-camper-electrical-install-dual-battery-setup/
To me this is the perfect setup and I hope putting all the components of the system into one post and the reasoning why is helpful to someone. I try to do my best to explain why I think the components I chose are the best for my application. If anyone has any feedback or would like me to explain further why I chose something I did then please leave a reply and I will gladly respond!