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RV Update / Upgrade Thread

I had mentioned on one of my threads (Purchasing 46.5 Acres Near Kingman, AZ) that I had the inverter/charger fail on the RV while camping. Its a Prosine 2.0 made by Xantrex and lasted about 15 years so I can't complain. I purchased a new unit from Xantrex and its being shipped. Most of the camping I do is dry or boondocking. RV has 600 watt solar system along with the inverter so it does very well for extended stays off grid. I pulled the old unit out and don't like the way the batteries are wired, so I think that's going to be a redo and relocation of half of them. RV is a 35' Class A that is a very well maintained 18 years old.
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The batteries for the system are 4 GS2 group size or golf cart batteries. I am upgrading to AGM's because they last twice as long, charge faster, discharge slower and have no maintenance. They are still heavy mothers though, about 65 pounds each. The current set up which was not installed by me has the inverter/charger in the storage compartment directly in front of the entry door, where most of the electronics are located. Good protected spot. There are two batteries in the entry step well, along with the chassis battery. There are two more in the storage compartment directly behind the step well. What I don't like about that is all the weight of the batteries is all in one spot, on one side. I also don't like how it was wired. I am going to relocate the batteries in the storage compartment to the driver side storage compartment directly across from the step well. It will even out the weight distribution, and free up valuable storage real estate since that is one of the few compartments you can easily access with the slides out. That part should be relatively simple; get a new battery box that is in line instead of side by side, mount it and install the batteries.

The wiring should be simple as well. The current set up has one in line 300 amp fuse that is located in the step well. The batteries in the step well connect to that fuse lug with a very short length of 4/0 welding wire, all good. The batteries in the storage compartment connect to that same lug with about a 4-5' length of same type/gauge wire that runs along with the main wiring harness for the coach. Not so good as there is nothing to protect that section of wire from shorting. From the 300 amp fuse is another 5-6' length of same type/gauge wire that goes to the inverter. Also not so good as there is nothing to protect that section of wire from shorting and frying the inverter. To make it much safer, there should be two more 300 amp in line fuses, one at the other set of batteries and one just before the inverter. The wiring from both battery locations should meet at that fuse with a short length of wire to the inverter. The relocated batteries will have the wiring inside the storage area, since its a full width pass through type compartment. I can use the existing wiring from the step well battery location that already goes to the inverter location for that half.

I found everything on eBay, can't believe how much wire has gone up in the past few months. $4 a foot for 4/0.
 



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I have these on each battery pack positive post, with a 150amp fuse per battery.


If you don't have access to a hydraulic crimper, find or borrow one. Mine looks this:


Makes it really easy to crimp 2/0 and 4/0 wire, and you get really good crimps.

Soldering is not recommend.

I use one of these to isolate the batteries:


with


That relay is mechanical, in that it draws power only when it switches.
 






My research also says that the larger the fuse, the more you should use a t-class fuse.

Something like this:


Something about when it blows, the cheaper fuses don't blow, they explode.
 






Some of the cheaper fuses absolutely explode when they blow.

Agree that a solid crimper is the only way to go.
 






My research also says that the larger the fuse, the more you should use a t-class fuse.

Something like this:


Something about when it blows, the cheaper fuses don't blow, they explode.
I have almost that exact same fuse block, but it says "Xantrex RV" on it. Had one already, got two more to isolate the other end of wires if one of them shorts. I looked for the same fuse block because I found a couple spare fuses in the RV. I figured out today that its almost the same length wire needed to go from the step well to the inverter and the opposite storage bay to the inverter. Ordered a new end to end battery box that is not as tall with the top fitting over the top of the batteries, which will make them much easier to remove or install than the current box. Current box is about 2.5" taller than the batteries so you have to lift 65 pound batteries up so they are almost touching the ceiling of the compartment while hunched over into the thing. The new box also mounts to the floor from the outside so I can unscrew it and slide it to the edge of the compartment if I need to service the batteries. I think tomorrow I am going to pull stuff out of the storage bays and remove the old wiring, maybe cover the holes the installers drilled into the compartment walls. My Buddy Mike is coming down for the weekend from Idaho and we are going to help another buddy build a metal garage so I don't think I will get to this before next week.
 






Spent the day removing wiring, running new wires and installing the inverter remote, removing the old battery box and patching three holes in the storage compartment. With the remote, of course its about half the size of the one I removed so I had to fashion a plate to cover half of the hole left by the old remote. I ended up using a piece of 2" wide faux wood blinds painted black. Came out alright, might change it at a later date, or paint it more of a gun metal gray to match the new remote. Found a bunch of messed up wiring behind the remote location, and somehow I broke the connection of the RV alarm's blinking light that is mounted inside the clear door handle.

I used another piece of the old blind to cover one hole, the inside of the vent for the old battery box to cover another, and a piece of 1" wood dowel along with some RTV for the hole in the floor where they had installed a drain.


This is the hole left after removing the old remote. The cleaned up top part is from me with a hand file for the new remote. You can see some of the screwed up wiring in my booze cabinet through the hole.
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More spaghetti wiring
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More in the storage cabinet I had to run the remote cable through (I think this is where I must have broke the connection with the alarm light wire). That big taped up mess has a wire nut on the end of it and was shoved up in the access hole. I am not sure what its for, will clean it up later.
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New remote and cover plate. I'm going to get some wood fill for the screw holes later. Might have to put something in that panel so it looks like it has a purpose.
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Old battery box. They still make this same box, sells for about $70. Might see if I can get $40 for it on CL.
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Covered holes in cabinet. Hey, it just has to keep the bugs out, not look pretty. That wire is the remote cable that I need to secure after I mount the inverter/charger. That's supposed to show up on Saturday, along with most of the stuff I ordered.
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I feel better about putting heavy stuff in those compartments after seeing the walls and floors were made with 1/8" plate with 1" foam core structural panels on top of the floor plates. The compartments are all welded so they must have used constructive adhesive to attach the foam core panels, probably to add rigidity and reduce noise.
 






That big taped up mess with the wire nut holding 4, 12 gauge wires together was actually the feed for the house battery disconnect solenoid. We all know that you never use wire nuts with 12 volt automotive applications, but I guess this doesn't qualify as far as National RV is concerned. I replaced the wire nut with a solder seal wire connector.

I also figured out that the alarm blinking light feed is connected to the house batteries, which are not there, so it makes sense that the light is not blinking when the alarm is activated. Batteries should be here any minute and I am planning on hooking up one bank of two so everything should work except the outlets controlled by the inverter/charger. Its just as easy to store them in their permanent location than anywhere else, and I can make sure everything works before I clean up and secure the wiring.
 






You might find a diagram on this site...

 






I have wiring diagrams, but not diagrams for what other people did after the RV was built. The diagrams for the RV from the manufacture are not accurate as they seemed to disregard the diagrams and just randomly hook stuff to other stuff.

Expedition Portal has turned into one big advertisement over the years so its pretty much worthless. They really don't have anything there for Class A RV's in any case.
 






Apologize for the goose chase then.
 






No problem.

I got everything I can do without the battery box and the 4/0 copper lugs I ordered. They should be here tomorrow. I cleaned up a bunch of wiring, ran the leads for the batter temp sensor and inverter remote, placed the inverter where I want it to go, installed the fuse at the inverter end, and ran some wiring to where I think it will end up. I didn't mount the inverter as I think I need to move it to secure the cable from the other battery bank as its tight in there. Also cleaned up some crappy cuts made in the back of the storage area that holds the electronics. The back wall is very tight expanded metal to allow venting, but when Camping World cut it up to get the inverter to fit, they did a hack job and did not cover the edges with anything. I used some rubber door molding as edging.

I also called Xantrex tech support one more time. The inverter/charger has a control panel on the top of the box, towards what will be the rear. With limited head room I don't think it will be readable where I want it mounted. They said that the remote is a mirror of the control panel on top of the box so I don't need to be able to see the readout. All I need to see is two green lights anyway to know its connected and functioning properly.
 






IT'S ALIVE!!
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Spent the day getting it wired and installing the new battery box in its new location. Took me a few hours to finally decide on this spot. Its easy to get to the batteries and fuse, I can still store stuff forward of the box, and its within a few feet of being directly across from the other battery bank. I need to clean everything up, seal up the hole I made for the ground wire to get to the frame, and put everything back in the storage compartment.
Box and fuse location. I can unbolt the box, unhook the cables and slide the box over to the edge of the storage compartment. I can even tip it over to remove the batteries since they are AGM.
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I first mounted all the wiring, then installed the fuses to make the wires live. The remote panel immediately came alive, and I had a successful inverter test. I then plugged in the shore power and it immediately started charging the batteries. It has a 20 second delay where it "reads" the incoming current before allowing it into the coach. All good. I set the battery function to AGM and decided to not mess with anything else. Haven't tried the blue tooth option yet, will do that tomorrow. It was still charging the batteries when I closed up the RV for the night with the two fans going full tilt. It really pushes a lot of air through that pass through storage area.

I actually installed it backwards to the way the old unit was in because this one has every attachment on one side. The only thing on the other side is a 20 amp breaker that I can reach and the two pusher fans. This way all the connectors are accessible without moving the box. I ran the cable from the driver side battery bank through a piece of conduit and its double wrapped with flexible loom to make sure its protected. Still need to notch the fuse protective covers so they fit with the way I ran the cables.
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This unit is much more user friendly than the Prosine 2.0. It has a much smaller manual and lots of pre-set functions so you don't have to program the entire unit. That Prosine manual was several hundred 8x12 pages, designed for and by a electrical engineer and was very confusing. This one is about 75 4x6 pages total with lots of simple diagrams for morons like me.

One thing I do not like about it is the way the AC romex wiring mounts. It has this flip up levers, you push the wires into slots and lock them down with the levers. Its all mounted on circuit board and I could see it flexing when I was attempting to shove 3 solid copper wires into the slots while holding up spring loaded levers. The DC wires are also mounted to a separate circuit board, but at least that has a big piece of what appears to be aluminum for the lugs to bolt onto.
 






IT'S ALIVE!!
View attachment 332246
Spent the day getting it wired and installing the new battery box in its new location. Took me a few hours to finally decide on this spot. Its easy to get to the batteries and fuse, I can still store stuff forward of the box, and its within a few feet of being directly across from the other battery bank. I need to clean everything up, seal up the hole I made for the ground wire to get to the frame, and put everything back in the storage compartment.
Box and fuse location. I can unbolt the box, unhook the cables and slide the box over to the edge of the storage compartment. I can even tip it over to remove the batteries since they are AGM.
View attachment 332248
I first mounted all the wiring, then installed the fuses to make the wires live. The remote panel immediately came alive, and I had a successful inverter test. I then plugged in the shore power and it immediately started charging the batteries. It has a 20 second delay where it "reads" the incoming current before allowing it into the coach. All good. I set the battery function to AGM and decided to not mess with anything else. Haven't tried the blue tooth option yet, will do that tomorrow. It was still charging the batteries when I closed up the RV for the night with the two fans going full tilt. It really pushes a lot of air through that pass through storage area.

I actually installed it backwards to the way the old unit was in because this one has every attachment on one side. The only thing on the other side is a 20 amp breaker that I can reach and the two pusher fans. This way all the connectors are accessible without moving the box. I ran the cable from the driver side battery bank through a piece of conduit and its double wrapped with flexible loom to make sure its protected. Still need to notch the fuse protective covers so they fit with the way I ran the cables.
View attachment 332247


This unit is much more user friendly than the Prosine 2.0. It has a much smaller manual and lots of pre-set functions so you don't have to program the entire unit. That Prosine manual was several hundred 8x12 pages, designed for and by a electrical engineer and was very confusing. This one is about 75 4x6 pages total with lots of simple diagrams for morons like me.

One thing I do not like about it is the way the AC romex wiring mounts. It has this flip up levers, you push the wires into slots and lock them down with the levers. Its all mounted on circuit board and I could see it flexing when I was attempting to shove 3 solid copper wires into the slots while holding up spring loaded levers. The DC wires are also mounted to a separate circuit board, but at least that has a big piece of what appears to be aluminum for the lugs to bolt onto.
Nice job!!
 






I think the fans ran most of the night. I had the fridge on to check function and it was charging the batteries for a long time in "absorption" mode. Time to get to work cleaning everything up.
 






Cleaned up the mess this morning.

I don't think I mentioned this before, but the generator also quit working on that trip. It would run for about 10 minutes, surge and stall. I sprayed an entire can of carb cleaner through it and it didn't help. When I got home I ordered new plugs, and air and fuel filters. I figured I would give the carb one more chance at cleaning it out since they are not rebuildable. I got a 2 gallon gas can, dumped 12oz of carb cleaner/conditioner into it (which treats up to 40 gallons) and filled it 3/4 full with gas. I pulled the fuel line at the pump, hooked a piece of line to the pump and stuck it in the can. I ran it for 30 minutes with the circuit breakers off. There was so much carb cleaner in the gas is sputtered the entire time. I let it sit overnight. Ran it again for another 30 minutes in the morning with the breakers on and the AC on low, then let it set for a several days.

While I was under the RV at the rear, I figured out why the whenever I try to put gas in the RV when its pointed uphill it constantly shuts off the pump and only fills about 2/3 of the tank. The filler neck is at the rear of the coach towards the driver side, tank is about 10' away. The geniuses who built it ran the filler tube nearly level after the initial drop at the neck all the way back to the tank. One thing I noticed about Arizona is their gas hoses are very short, must be some type of regulation because I have to be in the exact right spot to reach, and that's only from the driver side. Most other states I have been in I can reach from both sides.

The vendor I ordered the plugs for the RV sent the wrong parts. I got the replacement plugs today and installed them. I ran the RV for an hour with the AC full blast and it didn't stall. At first it blew a bunch of smoke and crap out the exhaust, then smoothed out so I think I unclogged the carb, which is usually the issue with Onan gensets. Just for info, the back plug is a pain to install. Its at a weird angle and access is limited. I tried a bunch of different ways to get it to thread, then finally used the old piece of 3/8" fuel hose on the end of the plug to start it trick, which worked like is usually does.
 






I have been putting loads on the inverter on and off since I got it installed. Today I heated up some water in the microwave and it only dropped the batteries down to 12.7 volts after two minutes. Everything seems to be working fine.
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What should I put in this space below the remote? Its 2x4.5" of usable space. I was thinking of a volt meter, even though I have one at the main control center for the coach in the hallway. The inverter has to be on or the coach has to be hooked up to shore power for the remote panel to come on. Don't want to put some type of USB or plug charger just because there is no shelf or anything to set things on there.
Maybe a double volt meter so I can keep track of the coach and chassis batteries in one spot?? That would be easy to wire because the panel above has power to it from the chassis and coach batteries.
Something simple like this

I played around with the bluetooth function today and its through a app. If you close the app, you have to go over and manually reconnect it to your phone. Not really worth having, except for the settings feature is more user friendly with the app than the panel.
 






Red Lion makes a lot of meter type read outs that could be configured to show many things, such as peak and lowest voltage, and current amp load. They are very robust and you can often find them used for reasonable prices.
 






Thanks. The inverter remote panel does all that if I turn it on, or if its hooked to shore power. It can be configured a bunch of different ways. I am happy with the presets. Default has all the basics on it and you can page through five more readouts for battery and five more for shore power. I just want something that I can glance at to make sure the batteries are charged.

Edit: I ordered two of these. They look OK, will tell me the voltage at a glance and will be easy to mount/wire.
 






I didn't like the lag bolts holding down the battery box. I am sure they would have been fine but I found some long metric bolts that fit some body nuts I scavenged off the donor Explorer. Drilled out the holes for the lag bolts, used large fender washers on the bottoms and bolted them up. Much more secure. Also used RTV to seal the rear bolts and washers to the bottom of the floor. I can pull out the box and they will stay in place through the floor of the storage compartment. Used a little thread locker to hold it all together.
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I have a question; The installation book says to tin the solid copper wire ends for the 110 volt connections with silver solder. I didn't do that but now think I should. The only reasons I can come up with is that it would hold better to the goofy clip set up they use for those connections. Here is a stock photo of their connectors. It is not a large wiring bay as described. There is about a 2" wide opening when you remove the access cover to get fingers and wires into when you can't see them. The wires go into slots under the levers that are in line with the holes in the front panel. It takes a uncomfortable amount of pressure to hold all three levers up while feeding the wires, but since they are solid copper they don't flex much and that's the only way I could find to get them all into the slots evenly. Its uncomfortable because the connectors are mounted directly to a circuit board and you can see it flexing when working with the levers.
91QQ6djBBgL._AC_SL1500_.jpg

Should I pull the wires and tin them, or just leave it alone?
 






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