Solar wiring on Eagle Shell - Help!

[strotman]

Hello, I purchased a 80W portable solar panel and I would like to be able to plug it directly into the solar port at the back of my camper. My question is what do I need to do with the wires in the camper. I have wires in my battery box as well as under the bench.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Cheers

 

[Beach]

If your panel has the controller built in, and the wires coiled in the battery compartment are connected to the solar port, then crimp on some ring lugs. Plug in the panel output to the solar port. As a precaution I would check the polarity prior to making the battery connection, if all is good, connect to the battery.

 

[strotman]

Was looking for more of a definitive set of instructions.

 

[rando]

The first question would be does your panel have a charge controller built in or not? Without knowing that we can't really give you more definitive instructions.

 

[strotman]

Yes, controller built into the panel, the wire goes from the controller strait to my plug on the back of the camper, wondering what I need to do to get it working.

 

[rando]

1. Plug the panel into the outside connector.
2. Take your multimeter and see which wires have voltage (probably the ones by the battery, but I don't have an eagle shell so I can't be sure) and verify the polarity (red = +).
2.5 Disconnect the panel.
3. Cut off the butt splices on the wires, crimp on a ring terminal to the negative wire.
4. Splice in an inline fuse on the positive wire with a 10A fuse:
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Sea-Systems-Waterproof-Holder/dp/B004ZIUA62/ref=pd_sbs_263_4?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B004ZIUA62&pd_rd_r=5ZJGA9SZ5TPE6J9BSEHX&pd_rd_w=gfaop&pd_rd_wg=psav9&psc=1&refRID=5ZJGA9SZ5TPE6J9BSEHX
5. Crimp on a ring terminal on the other end of the fuse holder and attach it to your battery.
6. Reconnect the panel and see if your battery is charging.

If it turns out it is the wires under the couch, you can crimp on two spade terminals and connect positive to an unused position on your fuse block (and insert a 10A fuse) and the negative to the negative bus.

 

[Squatch]

In an Eagle Shell the solar plug wire go under the bench and are coiled up. At least they were in mine. Then another set goes from there to the battery box and are coiled up at each end. Like Rando said test them with a meter. Then just crimp some large ring terminals on the wires in the battery box so they will fasten to the battery terminals. The wires Under the bench can be butt spliced together to send the incoming power from the panel connector through the bench location to the battery. Check everything with a meter before hooking anything to the battery. Don't cross Pos + Neg.