Atwood Plug & Lithium upgrade

[MTCruiser]

First time poster and I’ve read so many of the Lithium threads but still don’t understand what to do about the running lights on the camper. I have a 2021 Hawk and it only has the Atwood trolling motor plug (currently) that is in the drivers side corner of the truck. I know that when I go to DC to DC I will be using Anderson connections, but I dont understand the delete of the current plug?

Do I also remove the relay that is in the camper?

Do I just cut the positive and negative from the Atwood plug and leave the other wire to send signal to the running lights?

I have all the materials to complete install just trying to figure out this piece. I searched and didn’t find a clear answer on here.

Does anyone have photos of what they have done?

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

I don’t know enough about the relay to provide meaningful information, but from a simplistic view, I would just disconnect the positive from the Atwood connector where it is attached to the bus. Leaving the 12VDC clearance lights power, and the ground intact.

 

[MTCruiser]

I don’t know enough about the relay to provide meaningful information, but from a simplistic view, I would just disconnect the positive from the Atwood connector where it is attached to the bus. Leaving the 12VDC clearance lights power, and the ground intact.

Got ya, so I would still plug it in when connected to the truck? I can take pics in the morning to show a what I have.

 

[Vic Harder]

+1 to what WS said. The DCDC replaces any isolators in the rig. If you replacing the wiring with heavier gauge wire, you bring that wire all the way from the starting battery to the bed of the truck where your anderson plug will be. If you can open up the camper enough, you replace the wires in the camper too, up until a breaker. From the breaker you can run a shorter length of 6 AWG (biggest size the Victron accepts) to the DCDC.

I'm not sure how your running lights are powered. Perhaps someone else can chime in....

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

The Atwood pin for clearance lights is probably spliced/wired to a truck taillight.

 

[Jon R]

Which Hawk interior layout do you have? If it’s the front dinette, they run the campers wires along the exterior of the camper back to a hole that goes up into the cabinet immediately forward of the battery compartment, making it very easy to replace the whole run back to your dc to dc charger you will install. If it is a front dinette, my 2021 Grandby is almost identical and I could walk you through what I did when I installed my lithium battery, chargers, and monitor into my new camper.

 

[Outnabout]

I have a Blueseas ACR. I went lithium and don’t use truck to charge, only solar. I simply disconnected the ground on the ACR. I have running lights but battery systems are now totally separated.

 

[Dirtroadsavant]

I gave the running lights wire its own single pin weatherproof connector and zip tied it next to the Anderson. The connector was cheap and readily available at the auto parts store.

 

[DesertDave]

As mentioned above, the running lights were tapped into from your rear brakelight, if the install was done by 4WheelCampers. I decided to run 6 ga. wire throughout and just replaced the Atwood plug with this item.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y5XQQNV

Used the new 6 ga wires to replace the the factory 10 ga on both sides, and the original running light wire on both sides.

 

[MTCruiser]

Which Hawk interior layout do you have? If it’s the front dinette, they run the campers wires along the exterior of the camper back to a hole that goes up into the cabinet immediately forward of the battery compartment, making it very easy to replace the whole run back to your dc to dc charger you will install. If it is a front dinette, my 2021 Grandby is almost identical and I could walk you through what I did when I installed my lithium battery, chargers, and monitor into my new camper.

I have a side dinette wire comes in one of the storage areas front drivers side corner

 

[MTCruiser]

I have a Blueseas ACR. I went lithium and don’t use truck to charge, only solar. I simply disconnected the ground on the ACR. I have running lights but battery systems are now totally separated.

Is this the ACR?

 

[MTCruiser]

Pics:

 

[Vic Harder]

I've not seen that brand before, but yes, that is your isolator/VSR.

 

[Outnabout]

Is this the ACR?

I believe so. Haven’t seen one of those before.

 

[Vic Harder]

Automatic Charge Relay (ACR) is similar to a Voltage Sensitive Relay (VSR). Each model will have different features, even within the Blue Sea line of ACR's they have different capabilities.