Wiring in camper battery

Recently picked up a 2006 FWC Eagle. It has an inverter and the IOTA distribution panel. The original owner I learned did not use a camper battery but drew power directly from his truck battery. I would like to add a camper battery with seperator. I had assumed the distribution panel would supply a fuse location for this however I am wrong.

My question is best way to wire in my battery (I need to also wire my truck).

After I wire in the seperator, the leads that then go to the camper would I assume be wired into the female that I install on the bed of the truck.

From this point I'm a bit confused as to where that cable goes.

There is no fuse labelled battery. If the male plug and wire of the camper goes to the panel (as it must) - I assume it is the 12V input wire. Given that, do I just splice this wire to add my battery? This leaves no fuse between the 2nd battery and the first. I could splice and add an inline fuse. Or I could use the "not used" first fuse spot to add the battery. What size fuse - 50Amp? Currently there is only lights, fan, and fridge.

What is the usual setup? Thanx in advance

Oh and what size isolator are people using? Single camper battery system. Thanx

The Bluesea SI-ACR is perfect for this job (and what FWC installs now). You will need to add an inline fuse or breaker between the ACR and the battery to protect the wiring to the truck, and you will also want a fuse/breaker at the other end near the truck battery as well. This fuse we likely be bigger than what is available in ATO fuses, which is why you can't use the fuse panel. Size the fuse based on the smallest gauge wire in the circuit:
http://bdfuses.com/fusesnwires.php

You may get different opinions on this, but I prefer to run both power and ground cables for charging the camper battery(ies) with the alternator. This keeps the voltage drop to a minimum, which makes the circuit more effective. I see no reason to ground the camper to the truck anywhere else except at the starting battery.

There are advantages to fuses, but I prefer breakers for this particular use. Specifically I buy manual re-set breakers because they can be used as a switch should you need to do something in that part of the system.

If the camper will come off periodically or even occasionally you can use an Anderson connector (search here, these have been mentioned often) to make disconnecting the camper from the truck simple and easy. The trailer light connector on your truck probably does have a battery connection. You can not use a big enough wire in it to do much good.

It's been described here before, and rando, Thom (and others like ckent323 and PaulT - and OMG, who am I going to forget to mention here... apologies in advace!!!) are two of the brightest folks on list forum regarding electrical bits, so I will just add a bit to what they've already said.

- Yes to Anderson Power Poles
- Yes to breakers vs fuses. I used Blue Sea 285 series breakers, one at each battery (camper and truck)
- Yes to big wires. I used 2g (Welding cable) to limit voltage drop to 3% at 80A
- Yes to running both Positive and Ground wires vs using chassis ground. I need 50' to do the round trip. Copper is pricey.
- Yes to Blue Sea ML-ACR 7622 - PKYS is a great source for this stuff

Check out the More Power Scotty thread and this one:

http://www.wanderthewest.com/forum/topic/11861-automatic-charge-relay-how-to-improve-your-battery-isolator/?view=findpost&p=192911&hl=%2Bmore+%2Bpower+%2Bscotty

Here's the schematic for my '04 Hawk as I received it ( 3 previous owners).
I always figured I'd clean this up before posting, but here it is warts and all.





Lot's o' chicken scratches . . . But it's probably the similar to your Eagle.
Note the frequent swapping of White/Black +/-, very confusing to work on, at least for me.
The surepower isolator was mounted just forward of the Iota IDP-30 distribution center.

Iota Distribution Panel




The Norcold compressor fridge was connected directly to the battery (Red/Black wires), no fuse at battery end (Bad!). There were no fuses anywhere on the solar stuff (Black/Blue wires) which proved unfortunate, story here.

Eventually, I removed the Iota panel (replaced with a blue sea panel), along with most of the AC circuitry as I prepared for a some other mods, someday I'll get to them. Everything is now fused at the battery (As it should be) by a blue sea kit.

Wuck - OMG! That mix of black and white, I can't imagine. Now I'm going to have to verify my own connections.

Thanx everyone for your input.

How big a breaker or fuse are people using between charging battery or alternator and camper battery? 50amp? I guess if people are using 2awg then they must be using 100-150amp fuse/breaker? The installation kit FWC gave me which included wire I don't even think is a 6awg - mabye an 8awg? I'll have to check. Given the alternator can only produce 110a/h (I don't know idle vs non-idle, just a quick read on what is suppose to be in my truck via replacement part lookup and it only mentioned the one value) 100a/h would be max but I think a 50amp fuse/breaker would be better. I get the voltage drop via long runs of copper so a bigger gauge wire is good.

On my 2014 Hawk, FWC installed 30 amp automotive automatically resetting circuit breaker. 30 amp breaker is appropriate for the 10 ga wire they ran from truck battery to camper battery.
See http://bdfuses.com/fusesnwires.php. for some insight.

Many of us have switched to larger wire from the truck to the truck bed socket, but should also change the camper plug to
camper wiring also if the desire is more than 30 amps charging current from truck.

Paul

thewwkayaker said:

Wuck - OMG! That mix of black and white, I can't imagine. Now I'm going to have to verify my own connections.

Thanx everyone for your input.

How big a breaker or fuse are people using between charging battery or alternator and camper battery? 50amp? I guess if people are using 2awg then they must be using 100-150amp fuse/breaker? The installation kit FWC gave me which included wire I don't even think is a 6awg - mabye an 8awg? I'll have to check. Given the alternator can only produce 110a/h (I don't know idle vs non-idle, just a quick read on what is suppose to be in my truck via replacement part lookup and it only mentioned the one value) 100a/h would be max but I think a 50amp fuse/breaker would be better. I get the voltage drop via long runs of copper so a bigger gauge wire is good.

Click to expand...

Re: the breaker I linked to above - I used 100A. What kind of truck? 100A is plenty. What voltages does it put out? The critical bit is getting .5v more than the camper battery has at its current charge state. Worst case is when the batteries are fully discharged... thats when they will want the most current from your alternator.

Since 50% discharged on AGM is typically about 12.2V, you want 12.7v at the camper battery during bulk charging... and using my AGM battery spec sheet list as an example, I can do as .35 of the battery's AH capacity. during bulk charging. So, a 200AH battery can take up to 70A during bulk.

Next steps - measure your alternator's voltage output at idle and cruise, and calculate the voltage drop over 2g or 4g wire from your alternator to camper... and if you still have more than 12.7 at max current, then you are good to go.

I went at it a little differently. Started by looking at the voltage drop chart on the Ancor Marine resources page and decided that I wanted an 80 amp max charge rate capacity with less than 3% voltage drop. I guessed that with a roughly 100A alternator that this would be the most that I would ever get out of it.

I bought those same 285 series breakers in 80A ratings, and about 25' of 6 gauge marine duplex wire (batteries at front of camper). I liked the duplex wire for this use because it is routed down underneath the truck and the duplex sheath is that much more abrasion resistance. I think that I have less than a foot of it left.

There's a couple of us (maybe more) that have bought from bestboatwire.com and been happy with the price vs. quality. Prior to that I bought everything at West Marine, but they closed my local store ( ) and the next closest one is quite a ways out of the way of my going anywhere. I knew in buying from West that I was paying a premium over the marine premium, but the old store's convenience was hard to beat and I feel that deep water marine targeted product is the best way to avoid cheap RV stuff.

+1 ntsqd. That approach obviously works well too. And I really like that marine duplex wire!

wuck said:

Here's the schematic for my '04 Hawk as I received it ( 3 previous owners).
I always figured I'd clean this up before posting, but here it is warts and all.

HawkSchem-1r.jpg

HawkSchem-2r.jpg

Lot's o' chicken scratches . . . But it's probably the similar to your Eagle.
Note the frequent swapping of White/Black +/-, very confusing to work on, at least for me.
The surepower isolator was mounted just forward of the Iota IDP-30 distribution center.

Iota Distribution Panel

P1030826r.JPG

The Norcold compressor fridge was connected directly to the battery (Red/Black wires), no fuse at battery end (Bad!). There were no fuses anywhere on the solar stuff (Black/Blue wires) which proved unfortunate, story here.

Eventually, I removed the Iota panel (replaced with a blue sea panel), along with most of the AC circuitry as I prepared for a some other mods, someday I'll get to them. Everything is now fused at the battery (As it should be) by a blue sea kit.

P1050501r.JPG

Click to expand...

Hi wuck - Thanks for pulling together the wiring diagram, it's really helping me sort out the funky electrical in my 2005 Hawk. One thing I can't figure out,

wuck said:

Here's the schematic for my '04 Hawk as I received it ( 3 previous owners).
I always figured I'd clean this up before posting, but here it is warts and all.

HawkSchem-1r.jpg

HawkSchem-2r.jpg

Lot's o' chicken scratches . . . But it's probably the similar to your Eagle.
Note the frequent swapping of White/Black +/-, very confusing to work on, at least for me.
The surepower isolator was mounted just forward of the Iota IDP-30 distribution center.

Iota Distribution Panel

P1030826r.JPG

The Norcold compressor fridge was connected directly to the battery (Red/Black wires), no fuse at battery end (Bad!). There were no fuses anywhere on the solar stuff (Black/Blue wires) which proved unfortunate, story here.

Eventually, I removed the Iota panel (replaced with a blue sea panel), along with most of the AC circuitry as I prepared for a some other mods, someday I'll get to them. Everything is now fused at the battery (As it should be) by a blue sea kit.

P1050501r.JPG

Click to expand...

Hi wuck. Your "warts and all" schematic has been unbelievably helpful in my current Hawk electrical upgrade effort. Despite the help, I'll likely put my electrical ignorance on full display here. On my camper, I'm not seeing your "safety ground" between the bus near the isolator and the AC ground bus in the IDP-30. I'm also not seeing a ground wire to the frame from that bus near the isolator. Without a ground to frame there, it's not clear to me how the circuit is completed between the isolator/battery and the IDP-30. Should there also be a neg wire between the DC load bus and the near-isolator bus? Everything works fine...

wuck said:

Here's the schematic for my '04 Hawk as I received it ( 3 previous owners).
I always figured I'd clean this up before posting, but here it is warts and all.

HawkSchem-1r.jpg

HawkSchem-2r.jpg

Lot's o' chicken scratches . . . But it's probably the similar to your Eagle.
Note the frequent swapping of White/Black +/-, very confusing to work on, at least for me.
The surepower isolator was mounted just forward of the Iota IDP-30 distribution center.

Iota Distribution Panel

P1030826r.JPG

The Norcold compressor fridge was connected directly to the battery (Red/Black wires), no fuse at battery end (Bad!). There were no fuses anywhere on the solar stuff (Black/Blue wires) which proved unfortunate, story here.

Eventually, I removed the Iota panel (replaced with a blue sea panel), along with most of the AC circuitry as I prepared for a some other mods, someday I'll get to them. Everything is now fused at the battery (As it should be) by a blue sea kit.

P1050501r.JPG

Click to expand...

Thanks so much for the diagram! That's exactly what I needed!!

ntsqd, et al,

PKYS is also a good source for marine quality electronics and electrical supplies (e.g. Victron, Anchor, etc).

I have found their prices to be competitive and their customer service to be good.

https://shop.pkys.com/

+1 for PKYS!