Inverter/golf cart batteries/battery switch mod

by Mopar_Earl on 5/8/2010, 1:35 pm

This is my inverter setup. I added a pair of golf cart batteries in addition to the factory group-24. I also added the battery selector switch so I can pull from either the OEM battery or the golf cart batteries or kill all the battery power for storage or repair work. I mounted the inverter on the basement ceiling out of the way. This inverter is a pure sine wave (600 watt) that I use to run my HD TV and the Hide-A-Bed air mattress.

If I run my golf cart batteries low I still have the OEM battery I can switch to and operate the slide and landing gear when it's time to break camp.

To charge the batteries while on shoreline, I just select both batteries on the switch and they will charge equally. Before hitching up, I switch back over to the golf cart batteries.

The battery box is for 6V batteries from PPL Motorhomes.com

The selector switch is Perko from a local RV dealer

The inverter is a WFCO from Best Converter.com as well as the Fuse for the Inverter

Earl

by bsmall2800 on 5/8/2010, 5:19 pm

Nice job Earl, I Love it!

by Pedy6Pak on 5/9/2010, 3:50 am

I like that set up too. How long can you run your TV off those when you are dry camping?

by Mopar_Earl on 5/9/2010, 9:20 pm

Pedy6Pak wrote:I like that set up too. How long can you run your TV off those when you are dry camping?

Not sure but I have gone 3 days (includes running the landing gear and slide on setup) on the golf cart batteries with 4 to 6 hours of tv watching (DVD's on the Concertone) per day and normal use of the rest of the trailer. I do limit how long I keep lights on and such though. The furnace and refer heater (for condensation) would eat up battery power the most. The 3 days didn't include the refer heater or the furnace.

Interstate Battery specs:
U2000
Reserve Capacity @ 25amp=474
AH Capacity @ 20HR=216

Ratings is per battery but since they're wired in series to make 12V you only double voltage not RC or AH. To double your RC and AH you'd need 4 batteries. Each pair in series and than each pair together in parallel. But very heavy as each battery weighs 57 pounds.

Earl

by moo2613 on 5/10/2010, 8:34 am

Very nice set-up!!

by MountainMan on 5/10/2010, 9:52 am

Very nice upgrade Earl.

I see a 120volt cord plug. Is your inverter also a battery charger?

by Mopar_Earl on 5/10/2010, 4:28 pm

MountainMan wrote:Very nice upgrade Earl.

I see a 120volt cord plug. Is your inverter also a battery charger?

No the inverter doesn't have a charger. It has a AC transfer switch built into it to automatically transfer between shoreline and the inverter itself. I don't use it, I always run it off the batteries even if I have shore power.

Earl

by robertz675 on 5/12/2010, 7:48 pm

Real nice, clean set up Earl. Don't the new batteries have to be vented to the outside? I have just ordered a complete solar kit from http://www.rvsolarelectric.com/ and one of my concerns is the battery boxes. I am going to put on 4 golf cart batteries probably and was concerned with the venting of them. hey do have a battery cap, that I ordered that combines the hydrogen and oxygen gas back to water and puts it back in the battery.

by Mopar_Earl on 5/13/2010, 4:42 pm

robertz675 wrote:Don't the new batteries have to be vented to the outside?

When I was planning the install I was worried about venting them. I was going to seal off all the holes/unused wire openings in the battery box and tee it into my OEM vent hose and than add a hole to the bottom of the battery box through the steel compartment floor. I said the heck with it. I don't equalize my batteries and I have a 3 stage battery charger/converter so my batteries don't gas much. My 1st travel trailer (1970 Lancer Knight) came with the battery inside the trailer under the dinette bench and vented into the trailer next to the furnace and refer and never had any booms. Also batteries are under hoods of all our cars and never blow and that's intense heat and plenty of ignition sources.

So anyways, I'm not worried about mine not being vented to the outside. The size of the basement and the fact its far from being air tight I think it would take a lot of batteries doing a lot of gassing to make a boom condition happen. I'm no expert and may die next month on a trip from the batteries going boom. lol If you can hear/smell your batteries cooking, I could see it happening. Get a real multistage converter/charger BTW!!

BTW, this is the second season on my set-up and I ran the same set-up for 3 years in my old 5th wheel.

When I have more time, I'll be posting my multistage converter/charger mod on the forum.

Earl

by Mopar_Earl on 5/13/2010, 4:46 pm

robertz675 wrote:hey do have a battery cap, that I ordered that combines the hydrogen and oxygen gas back to water and puts it back in the battery.

Those caps sound interesting! Any info on them such as a web site or the company that makes them? Thanks!

Earl

by robertz675 on 5/13/2010, 11:22 pm

Earl

You can get them at http://www.rvsolarelectric.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=29&product_id=59 There isn't a picture on the site. I have found them very helpful and can't wait for my solar system to get here.

Bob

by Specktout on 5/14/2010, 1:26 am

From the fuse I noticed you have one + lead going to the Perko switch and one + lead going somewhere near the front of the trailer. What does that lead do?

by Mopar_Earl on 5/14/2010, 4:36 am

Thanks for the info Bob!

Earl

by Mopar_Earl on 5/14/2010, 4:42 am

Specktout wrote:From the fuse I noticed you have one + lead going to the Perko switch and one + lead going somewhere near the front of the trailer. What does that lead do?

The other lead goes to the inverter. The OEM battery connects to the Perko as well. Than a lead from the perko connects to the OEM circuit breaker to feed the trailer. The inverter always has power from the golf cart batteries no matter what setting the Perko is on. I can't draw but will try to draw up a diagram of my system and post it.

Earl

by Mopar_Earl on 5/14/2010, 4:36 pm

Here's my crappy drawing but should give you the idea of how I wired everything.

Earl

by Specktout on 5/15/2010, 1:42 am

Thanks Earl, I'm going to wire mine the same way.

by ScottandGrace on 5/16/2010, 3:28 pm

It looks like the inverter is wired to only one of the 6V battery's?
It seems like it should be wired to the ground (or neg) side of one battery and to the pos side of the other.
Am I looking at it wrong?

by Mopar_Earl on 5/16/2010, 4:53 pm

ScottandGrace wrote:It looks like the inverter is wired to only one of the 6V battery's?
It seems like it should be wired to the ground (or neg) side of one battery and to the pos side of the other.
Am I looking at it wrong?

You're right, I made a mistake on my drawing. I corrected and reposted. The old drawing would only make 6v.

Earl

by ScottandGrace on 5/17/2010, 2:51 am

That is a really nice box that your 6v's are in, where did you find it?

by Mopar_Earl on 5/18/2010, 5:34 pm

ScottandGrace wrote:That is a really nice box that your 6v's are in, where did you find it?

Box is well made.
I bought mine from pplmotorhomes.com They offer two types, a side by side which is what I have and a end to end as well. They're on sale right now. Here's the link to the battery boxes http://www.pplmotorhomes.com/parts/rv-converters/dual-battery-box.htm

Earl

by jtizzle on 5/25/2010, 12:28 pm

Earl,

I have some Universal Power supply batteries (UPS) that I came across that are brand new. I have charged them up and I have a 1500W true sine wave converter. I want to put these in my 29 BHP but am stuggling with where to put them as they are very heavy as you have noted in one of your posts about the 6V golf cart batts. Have you heard of anyone mounting them in the aft storage? I want to set my inverter up so that it powers only TV/DVD/Direct TV rcvrs. I am working on mounting a 32" TV in the LR and I will have a TV in the aft bunks and a TV in the master. No TVs will be on when the 32" is on, but may run a couple of small TV simultaneously. I want to wire the batts in parallel, but am worried about excessive weight aft if I put them all back there. Can the forward compartment handle 6 batteries? (I have two up forward for my OEM batts -they are paralleled. Am I thinking overkill? The UPS batts are 57lbs each. Thanks!

jt

by Mopar_Earl on 5/25/2010, 5:36 pm

jtizzle wrote:Earl,

I have some Universal Power supply batteries (UPS) that I came across that are brand new. I have charged them up and I have a 1500W true sine wave converter. I want to put these in my 29 BHP but am stuggling with where to put them as they are very heavy as you have noted in one of your posts about the 6V golf cart batts. Have you heard of anyone mounting them in the aft storage? I want to set my inverter up so that it powers only TV/DVD/Direct TV rcvrs. I am working on mounting a 32" TV in the LR and I will have a TV in the aft bunks and a TV in the master. No TVs will be on when the 32" is on, but may run a couple of small TV simultaneously. I want to wire the batts in parallel, but am worried about excessive weight aft if I put them all back there. Can the forward compartment handle 6 batteries? (I have two up forward for my OEM batts -they are paralleled. Am I thinking overkill? The UPS batts are 57lbs each. Thanks!

jt

Do you mean uninterruptable power supply? 1500 watter is a lot of inverter. The batteries are 12V correct? They're probably AGM as well. Check your TV, it should draw less than 100 watts. My 26" HD widescreen is 26 or 32 watts. I would think 6 batteries is major overkill. What are the specs on the UPS batteries? I use to service Best Power UPS systems for a few years. They all used 12V and used two to 12 depending on the size. Once the battery specs are known and you know how much wattage you'll pull it'll be a lot easier to figure the size of your battery bank. Also how long do you plan to run such items and how long between recharges? Also check your inverter manual and see if they give you a scale or formula to convert inverter wattage output to amp draw from the battery bank.

I'll help you as best I can. Dig up all the specs and we'll try to estimate your needed battery bank size. Once you know that than you know how many batteries you'll need and than worry with placement.

TV's may or may not tell you the wattage and or amp draw on the back. You may have to go to the spec section of the owners manual.

Earl

by jtizzle on 5/25/2010, 7:25 pm

Earl,
Thanks for the reply. The batteries are 12V and you are correct -I had the acronym wrong! Here I am trying to sound like I know what I am talking about... Ha. I have looked up the specs on them and have a spec sheet. I brought all four of them up to full charge with an interacter brand multistage charger. I basically took apart a UPS power block that consisted of 4x GPL 12750 batteries. They are brand new and 75Ah. I have all the quick connect cabling and have wired 2 of them up for parallel operation with the inverter which I already own.
Never really thought about it being overkill to run what I needed -just that it would be plenty big enough! I do have the tendancy to overbuild things.
Do you mean to say that my inverter will draw too much power unnecessarily?
I don't plan on using 6 batts for the inverter set up. I am reluctant to put any batts up forward for fear of pin weight. I have a 2003 wildcat 29BPH and a Dodge Cummings HD 2500, but I do like to carry a lot.
I have a honda eu2000i for recharge, but I only plan on an upcoming trip of about 3 days.
The daughter really likes to watch TV though and loves to fall asleep watching it. I will have a small 19" TV and Sat reciever running a few hours a night there and possibly another small 19" running simultaneously if the wife and I want to watch a movie before bed. Other than this, we may have the large screen on for movies and or football outside, but all three TVs wont be on at once!
I am trying to learn and get up to speed in building a system that will eventually have a solar panel as well.
Sorry for the long post, but so much to say! I was going to put up to 4 batts in the aft storage so that I could keep this power totally separate from the two batts providing normal 12 power to the cat. Does this sound totally wacked out? Should I just integrate my inverter set up with my trailer as you do? With your wiring, do you power the whole cat with 115 off your inverter? -including the charger which ultimately charges the oem battery?

by Eric on 5/26/2010, 3:43 pm

I just finished putting solar in my wildcat. I purchased everything from rv solarelectric. One 130 watt kyrocera panel and a 2500 watt carmana inverter. My battery bank consists of six six volt batteries located in the front compartment next to the hydraulics. My camper is a 2009. I see that other people have had problems with the weight, causing problems with the front hatch. I just dont see the problem. My floor in the front compartment is 1/8" steel. I built a battery box out of plywood, and there is not a hint of sagging. I cant even push the foor to make it flex. I have drivin about 200 miles so far with the set upand no problems. I love the set up I purchased. I can run everything in the camper but the ac, with no problems. My wife can also use the hair dryer. You have to disable the campers charging system when plugged in though. If you leave it active you will drain your batteries when using the inverter. It takes more juice to charge the batteries than the batteries can put out. We mostly dry camp on the beach so this was a must for us. Pictures to follw

by bsmall2800 on 5/26/2010, 4:31 pm

Eric, I hope you took pleanty of pictures of the installation process for us. Solar and inverter will be my next major mod for my wildcat...

by jtizzle on 5/26/2010, 4:56 pm

I second the pics request! Really would like to see how you wired stuff up... I am working on my set up as I write! I have 4 12v 75Ah batts from a UPS that I am working on getting in the Cat. I have been working on an underbelly solution with a pelican case that fits the bats perfectly. I was thinking of mounting my inverter under the kitchen sink as this will be the shortest distance and there is an existing penetration that I can use for the 2AWG wire coming from the bank. I want to keep everything separate from the main batts in the camper. I plan on splitting select 110 plugs in the camper for 110 power. Half to work on inverter and half to work on shore power when full hook up is available. We will be doing some dry camping at the beach as well. I want to eventually get smart enough to learn about solar and and continue with the install to this point. For now I am working on how to wire and connect the batts in the simplest manner to allow charging them individually since I don't have a multi batt charger yet. I think interacter makes one but I am sure its expensive!

by Mopar_Earl on 5/26/2010, 5:55 pm

jtizzle wrote:I second the pics request! Really would like to see how you wired stuff up... I am working on my set up as I write! I have 4 12v 75Ah batts from a UPS that I am working on getting in the Cat. I have been working on an underbelly solution with a pelican case that fits the bats perfectly. I was thinking of mounting my inverter under the kitchen sink as this will be the shortest distance and there is an existing penetration that I can use for the 2AWG wire coming from the bank. I want to keep everything separate from the main batts in the camper. I plan on splitting select 110 plugs in the camper for 110 power. Half to work on inverter and half to work on shore power when full hook up is available. We will be doing some dry camping at the beach as well. I want to eventually get smart enough to learn about solar and and continue with the install to this point. For now I am working on how to wire and connect the batts in the simplest manner to allow charging them individually since I don't have a multi batt charger yet. I think interacter makes one but I am sure its expensive!

Sounds like you have your system planned out. I checked your battery specs and if you want them to last as long as possible follow these specs from factory. Float charge 13.5v to 13.6v, Charge voltage 14.4, Max charge amperage is 22.5a. If you draw the batteries down 50% (12.2v) you'll get 520 cycles and if drawn down to 30% you'll get 1200 cycles.

Make sure you use a 125a fuse as close to the battery connection as possible for your inverter as per spec.

It'll take 3 of those UPS batteries to equal a pair of 6v golf cart batteries. So I'd run at least 3 of them and since you're going with 4 it should be plenty for what you're wanting to do.

Your inverter spec states it's no load draw is <1.4 amps. You'll want to turn it off when it's not needed or it will pull your batteries down over time.

Your inverter size doesn't mean it'll pull more power versus a smaller one. It'll pull in proportion to the load your running.

I didn't wire my inverter into my 120v system. I hardwired it to the two outlets that I need 120v @ with no shoreline. That's for my HD tv and the air mattress in the Hide-A-Bed couch.

Earl

by Mopar_Earl on 5/26/2010, 6:07 pm

Eric wrote:I see that other people have had problems with the weight, causing problems with the front hatch. I just dont see the problem. My floor in the front compartment is 1/8" steel. I built a battery box out of plywood, and there is not a hint of sagging. I cant even push the foor to make it flex. I have drivin about 200 miles so far with the set upand no problems.

I had the problem you mentioned. It's not due to weight and it's not an issue with the hatch. The issue is where the steel flooring attaches to the front panel. The factory needed a filler between the two but they didn't and choose to force the steel to the front panel with screws. This adds lots of stress to the tiny screws they used and they back out and than strip over time. All I did was add 1/2 plywood as the filler between the two and everything fits nice and tight and I put the screws back in. If you look closely I'm sure yours is the same way. They filled the gaps on the sides with expanding foam. My steel floor didn't sag either before or after the repair.

This issue may only be on the East Coast models

Earl

by jtizzle on 5/26/2010, 8:17 pm

Thanks Earl for answering my questions. I checked on those Trojan 6V batts and you are not kidding -I thought with these AGM Batteries I would be getting a lot of AmpHours from them but the 6Vs are definitely more bang for the buck -and weight factor. They are heavy suckers though. I guess the plates are really thick like they say. I have been doing some reading -thank you again for helping me out.
Did you mean to say that if I pull the batteries down further (down to 30% charge) that I will get more cycles? I may be reading you wrong -iow.... If I maintain 70% charge and only draw the batts down 30% I will get 1200 cycles. I tried to get this from the spec sheet, but that thing kicks my butt.

by Mopar_Earl on 5/27/2010, 4:53 am

jtizzle wrote:Thanks Earl for answering my questions. I checked on those Trojan 6V batts and you are not kidding -I thought with these AGM Batteries I would be getting a lot of AmpHours from them but the 6Vs are definitely more bang for the buck -and weight factor. They are heavy suckers though. I guess the plates are really thick like they say. I have been doing some reading -thank you again for helping me out.
Did you mean to say that if I pull the batteries down further (down to 30% charge) that I will get more cycles? I may be reading you wrong -iow.... If I maintain 70% charge and only draw the batts down 30% I will get 1200 cycles. I tried to get this from the spec sheet, but that thing kicks my butt.

No prob, 30% discharge (70% charged) will give you the 1200 cycles. Info comes from the Cycle service Life chart on the second page middle right. 6v batteries have large thick plates to take the abuse of cycling and for longer AH and RC that golf carts need. The problem is when you wire them in series to make 12v, you don't multiply AH and RC. You only double voltage unlike paralleling 12v where you are multiplying AH and RC as you add more batteries.
Trojans are nice batteries but not always available in some locations. For me its an 1.5 drive to the closest dealer. I use Interstate U2000 batteries that you can get just about anywhere. Lots of RV dealers stock them as well.

Earl

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Inverter/golf cart batteries/battery switch mod

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