AUX BATTERY SET UP FOR CAMPING

[RVRCON]

Impressive setup if you need all that power. I figure if I'm out camping I'm wheeling and will need gas more often than ice so I've never felt the need for upgrading my power system but we all have different needs. I appreciate these overlanding type builds from an ingenuity and electrical design perspective all the same. It's also impossible to find a beer quite as refreshing as one that has been super cooled sloshing around in the ice all day while wheeling in my opinion. I can drink beers from a fridge at home and it's just not the same.

Fridge set at 28 degrees for the beer, pop them open and almost frozen. I had the same thought but the ice cream on the trail on top of the dutch oven cobbler is to die for with a almost frozen beer.

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[wibornz]

Nice write up and nice execution of the battery set up. When out camping and wheeling, there is few things better than not having to worry about battery power. There are a lot of compromises made to go camp off road for weeks and months on end. Spending the time and resources to ensure that you are not killing the Jeep battery and ensuring that you have to power to enjoy some of the more better things in life like coffee, cold beer and ice cream becomes a necessity to enjoy the down time around camp. Not a big deal it you are just gone for a couple days, it becomes a bigger deal when you are gone weeks and months on end.

I pull a small 12 ft. camper and we use a bunch of power. Our main power draw is the coffee maker. Our coffee maker pulls 850 watts while making coffee. My wife and I are both coffee kind of snobs. We enjoy good coffee. We are not billing water and using a percolator coffee pot. We carry a regular home use drip coffee maker. Our next biggest power draw is an electric blanket. Mind you we do not really use it until it is in the mid twenty degree temps.

The way we manage our power is the camper has a 206 ah lithium battery 1000 watt inverter, 100 watts of solar on top of the camper, 200 additional watts of solar that can be plugged into the camper from the Jackery portable solar panels plus we have a DC to DC solar controller charger that can charge the camper battery at 30 amps. Then a bluetooth shunt to monitor our power for the camper. We have a Jackery 1000. The Jackery get the most use as it is portable. We put the Jackery on a table with the coffee maker.

We do run an ARB fridge in the Jeep on the stock Jeep battery power. I have found that the fridge will run for about three days on the Jeep battery with out starting the Jeep. The fridge will turn its self off before it kills the Jeep battery. Our Jeep never sits for three days. We use the Jeep to charge the Jackery. We will plug it into the Jeep as we go wheeling for the day to top it back off.

We are out usually for months on end and we never run out of power. I have only used the DC to DC charging for the camper two time in three years.

Picture of our coffee set up.

 

[abelreji]

This is awesome. If/when you install solar, how easy would it be to integrate the panels into your current setup? Also, what was the total cost for this setup?

 

[darylm74]

I am going to go out on a limb and say look at some of the Van Dweller's posts on Reddit. There are some really interesting posts there, both from a standpoint of so many people staying mobile to interesting builds considering sleeping arrangements and electrical issues. Even though I was a camper, with a trailer and F250, I always looked at some of their builds for ideas as I like the mobility aspect as I have backpacked for years but wanted the idea of camping out of my Wrangler.

 

[GATORB8]

This is awesome. If/when you install solar, how easy would it be to integrate the panels into your current setup? Also, what was the total cost for this setup?

Looks like the Renogy DC-DC w/ MPPT, which can serve as a solar charge controller too. Would just be the two solar array connections to the charge controller.

 

[ParadigmDawg]

Very impressive

 

[RVRCON]

This is awesome. If/when you install solar, how easy would it be to integrate the panels into your current setup? Also, what was the total cost for this setup?

Two wires to hook up that is it.

 

[RVRCON]

This is awesome. If/when you install solar, how easy would it be to integrate the panels into your current setup? Also, what was the total cost for this setup?

With everything and top quality copper cables less than a 1000 watt jackery.

 

[ChuckQue]

This is really nicely done. Thanks for posting this up for others to utilize!

 

[phageghost]

Awesome setup and very clean work!

Next time I take my cargo platform off I'll have to post some pictures of my current setup. I used the AAL battery tray as a starting point -- would have liked to get 2 x 50 AH batteries in there but with the additional components I needed/wanted it was a non-starter. Ended up making some additional bracketry out of 1/8 aluminum and it was a tight fit but working well so far and all the magic smoke has stayed inside where it belongs. Briefly:

• 50 AH Eco-power LiFePo4 battery
• RedArc DUAL INPUT 25A IN-VEHICLE DC BATTERY CHARGER ignition-switched to charge the aux battery from the alternator or solar inputs.
• RedArc 20A IN-VEHICLE DC BATTERY CHARGER (IGNITION CONTROL) to charge the starter battery from the aux battery (as 3rd method of recovering from a flat starter battery after the jumper cables and Noco Boost pack, as well as in conjunction with the AC/DC charger to keep the battery topped off between trips).
• RedArc 400W PURE SINE WAVE INVERTER to run laptops and other electronics that exceed the capacity of the 110 W built-in inverter, and also to do it from the aux battery rather than the starter.
• Victron Blue Smart IP22 Charger to charge the aux battery from AC shore power. In conjunction with the 20A DC-DC charger above and the AC plug on the side of the jeep, this allows me to run an extension cord from the jeep to 110V outlet either at home or at a developed camp site and keep both aux and starter batteries topped off while running the fridge.
• Victron bluetooth smart shunt to monitor battery charge and power flow (can also monitor the AC/DC charger with the same app to get a fuller picture of what's going on)
• Noco 110V port with cover and 2X Anderson connectors with cover on the rear passenger quarter panel. I'll see your riv-nut anxiety and raise you a hole-saw, lol.
• Internal 110V outlet with circuit breaker wired to both the external port and the inverter, with a relay to switch between them (so can use "shore power" inside the jeep when it's hooked up, and inverter when not).
• Internal 12V ARB power port for fridge wired to aux battery.
• 4 Ga trunk cable along the passenger frame rail for bidirectional power flow between the vehicle system and the aux system.
• Relays, switches, circuit breakers and fuses to make it all play nicely (and safely!) together.

So far it's working well for my needs and I have the ability to easily add some external solar panels in the future if we ever plan to be at the same site for more than a few days -- generally we're on the move again long before battery capacity becomes an issue.

 

[GATORB8]

The vendor I got my camper batteries from recently released a "mini" 100 AH. 5.25" wide, so may be a good option for similar space:
https://www.litime.com/products/lit...XsTO-InjL7TrAf1YojnsVHejqtYEMtHBoCN4oQAvD_BwE

 

[RVRCON]

The vendor I got my camper batteries from recently released a "mini" 100 AH. 5.25" wide, so may be a good option for similar space:
https://www.litime.com/products/lit...XsTO-InjL7TrAf1YojnsVHejqtYEMtHBoCN4oQAvD_BwE

They must of just released that thing. i looked everywhere for a single 100ah battery with a thin dimension and could not find it. Thanks for sharing. Really opens up some options for other equipment back there.

 

[Cabojunkie]

Do you have a schematic and a parts list? I would love to build the exact same setup!!!

 

[USNvet]

Of interest to some of you might be these super durable, even bullet resistant, solar panels. Yes, they are pricey, but should last many years out camping, and they are very lightweight. The grommet version could be added to a hardtop or soft top without the need for a roof rack. Check it out here, and do note that the YT author has many more video reviews of other solar goodies, including Jackery battery gizmos and the many cheaper clones:

 

[RVRCON]

This is awesome. If/when you install solar, how easy would it be to integrate the panels into your current setup? Also, what was the total cost for this setup?

2 10 gauge wires with mc4 plugs to plug in and your done.

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