'House Battery' for Truck Camper - Options?

I swear this is one of the most complicated subjects I've ever researched. I come from a pretty technical background. Even some experience in power plants. Why is this so hard for me to grasp? Well, for one, I have never worked on vehicle electrical systems. Just some basic home switches and plugs.

I know what I want. But there are so many things I don't understand... You don't have to dig too deep into people's camper electrical setups to run into questions about 'which diode to replace' and other things I don't understand.

I want to go on extended camping trips. Perhaps up to 3 weeks at the extreme. I'll need to be able to:

• charge light DC loads (the usual: laptop, phone, etc.)
• LED lighting in camper
• fridge/cooler (the coolers seem great but damn they're so much more expensive. more to learn),
• computer display(for work/productivity. still considering: projector vs. single ultrawide vs. multiple smaller)
• 120V AC outlet (because I gotta. for real, I can't go this far and not get a regular power outlet)
• $55 Submersible water pump 12V | 12V water pump | small and portable water pump made in Germany | 12 Volt battery powered water pump for RV, trailer, boat
  Water pump (12v DC; this system needs an upgrade too. This should just be a utility pump)
• Kitchen appliance (designing for one of microwave/blender/tea kettle/etc.)
• Charge e-bike (52V/300W Charger)

None of that is very demanding as long as I'm mindful of how I space out my power usage. So before I even go into building something into my truck; why not just buy one of these portable generator type things? This EcoFlow DELTA really seems like a bargain. The DC charge from the truck would definitely be slower. Seems like solar will keep me running indefinitely if I'm smart.

Upsides: It's so easy. Looks like a good value (any of the products, not just the ecoflow one). But maybe I don't understand these systems well enough to see the flaws.

Downsides:

• don't get to build something cool
• built-in hard-wired power is definitely way cooler
• A/C power is reported to underperform. I don't really know why.
• 800 lifetime charges (review reported degradation after only 500)
  • Need to do the math on what that works out to per night...

I'll follow up in a bit with what I think my built-in system would look like.

 

Well…. There’s a ton of info on this subject over on the overlanding forums.

Use a LiFePO battery as the house battery. Expensive up front, but cheaper in the long run. 800 lifetime charges could easily be less than two years life versus 10 years plus for lithium. Battleborn batteries are the easiest to wire up and come with a ten year warranty, but there are cheaper options out there.

If you have a smart alternator, (I’m not sure about 2016), you’ll need a DC/DC charger. Victron is highly recommended. They are cheap enough now there’s no reason not to use one. It takes energy from your truck battery/alternator and charges up the house battery and also isolates your house system from running down your truck battery. Victron has Bluetooth so you can always see what’s going on. Use 4awg to run from truck battery to DC/DC to house battery. Put a big fuse, or better yet circuit breaker, at each battery.

If you want to run solar, get a Victron Charge Controller and solar panel of your choice. Use the heaviest wire you can, like 10 awg or bigger. Blue Sea has a great chart on which gauge of wire to use based on amperage. Get a MPPT charger.

Renogy makes decent hard panels for the money. Soft flex panels will degrade quickly and not be charging very well after about a year.

Redarc also makes a good system that has both the DC/DC charger and charge controller in one unit, but it doesn’t have Bluetooth, though you can add that separately.

Use plenty of fuses and circuit breakers and bus bars.

For not that much more than the Ecoflow system you link to above, you can have a killer set up that is expandable and will last you at least a decade.

I can provide WAY more information if you’re interested.

 

Yep lipo or deep cycle house battery and a dc dc charger with solar option seems like best bet for all of this

 

I definitely want more info. Your reply definitely helped me simplify this down to a few major components and questions I still have. I'm really grateful you helped put some perspective on that ecoflow power bank. Not good for the money. Cheap and easy = cheap and easy lol.

Battleborn has these kits. Battle Born Energy Truck Camper 200Ah GC2 Kit

They want about $3,500 for everything put together. 200Ah is probably overkill. If I piece all of this together WITH ONLY 100Ah on my own (through battleborn) it comes up to about $3,071.05. In this situation my inverter is oversized, but that's not a terrible thing giving flexibility down the road. All that said, for only $500 more I could have the complete kit and double the Ah? Or I could probably get the price down to about $2,500 with only 100Ah.

• for the enclosure can you recommend any products or do you think I should just put it all on plywood and build a little enclosure around that?
• I recently came across a product that is slipping my mind right now... In my head it was like a busbar with digital controls or something. I'm thinking of it as like a distribution node almost? I don't know if I'd need something like this but my goal is simplicity. This seems easier to me than making a distribution bus bar.

And of course then that leaves me with ~$200-500 in fuses, wire, expendables.

I have most of the tools for this install already. How many hours of labor do you think I'll be in before it's all said and done? I could easily see 20-40 hours of labor installing everything.

You definitely touched on something that makes me nervous about this regarding the fuses, breakers, and bus bars. I know what all those are and generally their purpose. In a lot of the schematics I've been looking at I can't make out the pattern though. I don't know where I would install the various breakers, fuses, and bus boards. I think it mostly comes down to the tribal knowledge stuff I don't have. I'm sure there's a rule of them on where to install breakers. When you need a bus bar. And where. Should I make a separate fuse box or use the one on the vehicle?

 

Wooof that’s a lot of money

 

I'm in the process of installing a similar system. For now, my needs are just weekend trips, however in the summer I am planning on doing some longer multi week road trips. I'm powering a diesel heater, camper lights, fan, and charging phones, laptop, cameras etc. I have a 700w pure sine inverter, and various 12v outputs coming off of a blue sea fuse block.

I skipped the DC-DC charger for now as 100ah is enough for me to make it through the weekend, but in the spring I'm planning on installing a redarc BC-DC charger (I've heard bad things about renogy) and some solar.

I built my system into a plywood box. I'm not too concerned about weatherproofing as it will always be under the truck topper, or in the house. I'm about $1k into my build. however the BC-DC charger and the larger wires I will need to hook it up will increase the cost quite a bit. Labour wise, maybe 10-15hrs so far if you include some research time.

 

You could easily get by with just the Victron DC/DC charger, the 100/30 solar charger, a cheaper 500 watt Victron sine wave inverter and one or two batteries. That’s like $265 + $230 + $150 + $800 = $1,450 +/- Add another $205 if you want the Victron BMV monitor.

I like my BMV battery monitor, but is not mission critical. If you use Victron components with built in Bluetooth, you can get 80% of the same info on your phone without the BMV.

You’ll still need a solar panel or two. Renogy 100 watt panel is $100.

And yes, the wire and terminals add up quick. I use marine wire, like Ancor from Amazon, but welding wire works fine. I also use marine busbars and terminals, but it’s probably overkill. Though we overland into some pretty remote locations and I want stuff to be bulletproof.

But you could easily put together a great system for under $1,800. As long as you have all the parts, you should be able to easily install all of that in a weekend.

Do some basic calculations on how many watts your various devices draw and how long you’ll run them each day. Multiply those two together and you’ll have watt hours per day. Amps x Voltage = Watts Divide by 12 volts and you’ll have amp hours and then you can decide if you need one 100 ah battery or two. e.g. Fridge 30 watts x 12 hours since it kicks off and on all day = 360 watt hours. 360 wh/12 volts = 30 amp hours

Similarly, figure out how many watts your panels will provide and figure them in. 100 watt panel x 4 hours = 400 watt hours. Multiply that by 75% to account for inefficiency 400 wh x .75 = 300 watt hours. 300 wh/12 volts = 25 amp hours

The Victron 30 amp DC/DC charger actually provides more than 30 amps in my experience, but estimate how many hours you’ll drive daily. One hour driving = 30 amp hours.


You can decide how much overkill you want, but it’s pretty easy to add another battery, more panels, or even a second DC/DC charger if you really don’t have enough capacity. Depends on where you live as well. Northwest will need more solar panels and/or battery back up than the Southwest.

I’ve used plywood to mount charge controllers, etc. in a weather protected area, like inside the cab or a camper. DC/DC chargers get pretty warm and just need some air.

 

After doing lots of reading on diy I bought a bluetti 150ah. One big benefit was not having anything permanent so it can be used anywhere. Checks most of your boxes I believe.

 

I've gone both routes. I enjoy playing with this stuff and installs and projects too, so I've built a couple of budget dual battery systems using Automatic Charging Relays (ACR's) and AGM batteries with stand alone solar charge controllers. They could easily be adapted with smaller primary wiring, DC/DC chargers (with integrated solar/shore power), and lithium battery(s) at a higher price point.

I also bought a bluetti box for additional options either piggy backed onto a dual battery system or as our only power source which came in handy after I sold our camping rig and camped like normal people in a tent again.

Solar is still the coolest part to me, "free" power from the sky while just sitting here running loads infinitely as long as there's another day. Keeps the truck starting battery topped off too.

Here's a writeup with a bunch of calculations on sizing of batteries, wires, fuses, etc. specific to AGM but can be adapted to lithium ion or LiFePO4 for your uses.
https://frugalfill.com/the-ultimate...system-with-solar-simple-cheap-and-effective/

 

Just a note that ACR automatic charging relays are AWESOME with older vehicles, but have some troubles with newer “smart” alternators.

Good info at frugalfill.

I learned a LOT from DIY Solar with Will Prowse on YouTube. Plus he reviews lots of equipment.

 

I'm running a Redarc Manager 30 with an inverter. Redarc makes a aussie inverter that integrates into this system but I haven't seen plans yet for us models.

I use it with 2 100w solar panels and a diy battery I built from 4 matched lithium cells in a group 14 battery box. Good advice here on locations for diy info. I can plug the truck in to "shore" power and it does have Bluetooth. You can add in load controls (like spod) and tank volume monitoring with a separate module from redarc.

https://redarcelectronics.com/products/the-manager30-with-color-screen

Check out the rough county fridge /freezer. I have an old style arb I run every day that cost 3x as much that looks fairly similar to the model rc just released.

 

Very cool. Thanks for the info. Keep us updated on your build.

How did you settle on the inverter signing? That's one of the biggest question marks I still have.

Also... Any tips on finding all the components at good prices?

 

This is awesome thank you. I feel like I have all the details I need on the big stuff now. Just need to get into the fine details now.... I feel like I'm going to end up buying everything and trying to piece it together in my house so I can figure out all the other doo-dads I forgot to buy.

 

Oh I'll definitely be following that build guide. Thanks so much.

 

Wow. This is amazing. I definitely don't understand everything it can do.... Seems like an all-in-one and then some. Very very expensive though! So one option I have is to buy redarc manager 30 + inverter + batteries and voila - I'm set! Right?

 

Yup. Plus wire and terminals and fuses/circuit breakers and… it’s always a good excuse to buy a couple new tools! Lol

Redarc Manager is awesome. But it IS pricey!

 

Yea on the tools part make sure you have a good crimper for those big lugs for 8 gauge and up wire. The hammer style crimpers are fine if you know exactly how long to make it and can fit the lugs in whatever hole you have but inevitably you will need to crimp after running the wire. You don’t want to try hammering a crimp in while it’s on your truck….

 

TLDR: for my dual battery/house battery, i'm leaning towards the yeti 1500x and a dc to dc charger to charge off my truck's alternator. my dc to dc options: the yeti vehicle link, redarc, or victron. redarc or victron would not pigeonhole me into the yeti lineup so i'm leaning that way. it is also pretty hard to find the yeti vehicle link.

Hey y'all, I am in a very applicable situation. sorry in advance for the enormous brain-dump/reply, but i think it is a good synopsis of my research. I am about to add house battery capacity to my tacoma(don't pick on me too much, i know this is a tundra forum). I also tow a tigermoth travel trailer with a 20 amp renogy mppt and a deep cycle agm. I have been researching endlessly for the past couple weeks and this is my current state of thinking:


Go custom: Victron or Redarc components and 2 battle born lithium batteries ($1800-$3500 depending on # of batteries and components). Many of you have been discussing this option. its a really good choice.
Pros: i'd learn a lot about the system, be able to fix anything that goes wrong, endlessly custom and expandable
Cons: labor intensive. expensive compared to bang for your buck battery capacity. system is stuck in the truck.


Off the shelf power station: I've narrowed it down to Yeti and Ecoflow. Both have good solar charging performance with their integrated mppt's. both of the following examples are roughly equivalent to a 100 amp hour lithium battery with all the inverters and controllers etc in one neat box. One of these would be appealing for the times we want to take the unit out of the truck and station it in our 10x12 canvas tent.

Ecoflow Delta Max ($2k) is cheaper per watt hour and has incredible charging capabilities off AC power. it can charge in 1.5 hours: 1600 watts max off a 120v, 15 amp circuit. thing is, i mostly want to charge off solar and an alternator. my family will rely on free campsites and my goal is to stay off grid. fast charge is a really nice feature to have though. It would be really nice to know if I could charge it with a redarc dc to dc or victron orion. I called customer service and the person that answered the phone started a ticket for me. i suspect that you would need to get a mc4 to anderson converter, plug that into the dc to dc off the alternator, and plug the other end into the solar input on the ecoflow. I think the downside is that you would need to choose whether you were charging off the alternator or solar. plugging it into the car's cigarette lighter is useless. it would take 12 hours + for a full charge.

Yeti 1500x ($2k) and higher models have anderson inputs and outputs as well as all the other inputs and outputs of the ecoflow. the company makes a vehicle link integration cable (https://www.goalzero.com/shop/yeti-accessories/yeti-link-vehicle-integration-kit/) that effectively turns it into a dual house battery, using the alternator (and solar in addition if you hook it up) to charge it. on top of this, there is a gent on youtube that used an orion dc to dc and the anderson input to charge off the alternator, so i know that is possible as well. both of those charging solutions can easily send 350 watts into the yeti and charge it up in a few hours. more time if you get the larger battery. heres the link for the dude who did it: https://youtu.be/sPYPrUmRi0s

The builder/diy side of me craves the custom setup. it is tried and true and expandable. but for the $, it isn't as neat of a package and i couldn't take it out and put it into my huge canvas tent. i'd need really long extension cords

i'm leaning towards the yeti 1500x and a dc to dc charger to charge off my truck's alternator. my dc to dc options: the yeti vehicle link, redarc, or victron. redarc or victron would not pigeonhole me into the yeti lineup so i'm leaning that way. it is also pretty hard to find the yeti vehicle link.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading my novel,
Kyle

 

If you look at my sig it will link to my build thread. This will show what I have done.
Right now the system is completely separate from the truck and is completely self sufficient for my power needs.
The 160w panel keeps the battle born batt pretty much always full. I went with lithium batt because you have full use of the 100 amp hours available if need be. I have never seen mine below 60%.
The fridge runs 24/7 on trips, I use a cpap to sleep, sometimes use a fan at night, 12v blanket in cold, and all the LEDs and charging of things while camping is also ran off this system.
If my power needs change I can always add another battery, a portable solar panel, or a dc to dc charger.
So far so good and don't have any need to spend more money at this time. Time will tell because I am switching up my camp system but so far I'm very happy with this setup.

 

Nice little mobile box!

 

a'men to that. My last electric project was building an ebike. I ditched the cheap crimping tools pretty quickly and got a pair from Klein. Time is scarce enough can't waste time fighting my tools.

 

I think I want to make my enclosure something that could look and function like a bench (multipurpose). I'd like to permanently install something like a junction box in the bed of the truck. I'll have the cables to connect the various appurtenances kind of like furniture whips for power and low voltage (singular connection to building power/data and internally routed cabling). The idea is I could easily disconnect 2-3 connections and bring the box out of the truck for whatever reason and it would still function like a portable battery bank.

The idea on the junction box is basically a permanent enclosure in my truck bed with a few outlets with a door/cover. These aren't the power outlets for my various electronics. This is where I integrate my house battery to my truck's electrical system. It would be cool to cut out a square into the bed and make it flush, but I don't know think that's worth the effort. I'll probably just surface mount. Thinking through the connections I'd want on my truck junction box...

• plug for DC/DC output - this is basically just a terminal connection to the alternator output. Probably do something like anderson connectors here, but I'm considering others as well (50A plug, XT90, other suggestions?) I need to draw up an illustration, but basically I'm trying to say this is basically just a female receptacle to supply current from the alternator. It will later feed into the DC/DC charger.
• connection to backfeed starter battery from solar or house (?) is this needed? I haven't read a clear answer on backcharging. Let's just say somehow I killed the starter battery but not the house battery. It would be nice to be able to charge in that direction too. Seems like I'd need another set of wires going from the junction box in the bed of my truck directly to the truck battery.
• How do I connect the ground? I know generally with these electrical systems you need to ground to the designated chassis mounting points. In this whole concept of making a junction box I can connect and disconnect to, would the ground be its own outlet/wire/whip?
• solar panel power input (i.e. from solar panels coming in to solar charge controller)

Over to my 'portable' battery back bench, naturally I would have corresponding outlets for all the things listed on the truck junction box. I think the way to do that is to make a dedicated wire that purely connects from the junction box permanently mounted in the truck over to the corresponding outlet on my enclosure. I hear these called 'whips' in terms of furniture. And when not in use I could store them inside the bench. Inside the enclosure I would (eventually) house:

• dc/dc charger
• solar charger controller
• pure sine wave inverter
• lifepo4 battery
• bus bar/fuse boxes/etc.
• etc. (will build it larger to expand as needed)

I would also include some 120VAC outlets and various 12V outlets (cig lighter, usb, etc.) on the exterior of portable power pack piece of furniture.

Just sort of brainstorming here. Input welcomed!

 

I was looking into the same options as OP. Save yourself a lot of time, call Jesse Asay at Battleborn he will build you a system for exactly what you want to do and not try to sell you on extras you don’t need . I was very impressed.

I saved some money on the battery’s went with AO Lithium 100AH 699 each Amazon. Look up you tube torture test these are well made.
And are blue tooth.
You need 100 Ah per 1000watts inverted power FYI as per Battlleborn.
I am going for the victron multiplus 2, inverter charger.around 1100$ And bluetooth dongle,
1-200$ plus solar control charger1-200.$ Everything will be controlled via cell phone. It is very expandable Dc to Dc etc… I will
Be in 2700 ish plus incidentals. This is a very stout system. Capable of running 25ft travel trailer. Lights, Referidgerator TV, etc… if you are smart about your power draws.
Cheers

 

This is a very cool plan I love that battery you've shared. I'll have to do some research!
What are you using for the solar charger? I can't tell if you're saying you'll spend between $1-200 or if you're talking about something else.

 

Here are the part numbers from Battle born
And current pricing .
ASS030537010 VE.Bus Smart Dongle 78.00$
CMP122200100 MultiPlus Compact 12/2000/80-50 120V VE.Bus 1200.00$
SCC110030210 SmartSolar MPPT 100/30 Charge Controller with Bluetooth 226.00$

I jut put round numbers in last post 100-200$ etc..
FYI
The multiPlus needs to be programmed for your specific battery’s by battleborn. Unless you are super techie like that and have the program to do it yourself, which I am not.
I am still learning as well, just sharing what I have found so far.

 

I have done some thing “similar” to what you are doing. I’m in San Diego so DM me if you want to discuss. It has a redarc dc dc that’s connected to engine and solar. I have an outlet for fridge and power pole connectors and is pretty much quick disconnect

 

@Grendel i like your set up, I thought about something similar but a rack mounted box will not work for me. If it is not too much trouble can you give us a basic parts list so we get an idea of how to set something like that up? I’m handicapped by a 57 year old brain which isn’t that old, but has some hard miles LOL.

 

@2021 Semi Pro Here is the list. I have the Redarc BCDC 1225 ( with this unit charges the battery from truck battery and solar) I bought a SOk 100 AH LifePo4 for around $500 from Amazon (probably not the best battery but it was cheaper) The socket on the side is an ARB/Dometic socket(they have special plugs on fridges that screw into socket) The rest of the components I bought from powerwerx.com I have 2 50 AMP Anderson connectors 1 Yellow (shown) for solar and 1 red (on bottom) for engine input. (The colored 50 amp anderson connectors only work with same color, so inputs can't be confused. There is a Panel pole 2 on the back this accepts the battery monitor for BCDC and other accessories as needed. I just used a simple square mounting panel for the gauge/usb/cigarette socket and a 25 amp fuse panel. I have a small usb fan for cooling on the inside and vent ports on both sides. My recommendations get a good crimper the $100 one from powerwerx with 7 heads is great it made things so much easier and a good wire stripper ( I bought one on amazon that you just squeeze the handle and it strips wire, it makes wiring so much nicer.

 

This is awesome. Love what you’ve made here. I would be so grateful for your help as things start to come in.

Alright… I ordered everything. I’m a little embarrassed because I know I’ve gone overboard. I kept saying I was going to do bare minimum. But then I started planning a big trip in May and said screw it let’s roll. Haha. So here’s what I’ve ordered…

I got a 12V 100ah battery from Battle Born.

For the inverter I kept things simple and got a relatively cheap 1000W option from Renogy. It probably won’t be too heavily used.

And this is where things got out of control… I decided I really wanted to get an arb fridge (thanks to all the jerks on tundras.com who swear by them). As I’m trying to find a good place to buy one I find myself back at the Redarc website. For better or worse I ended up checking out their bundles.

For everything else, I bought this kit! And lastly while I was at it, I picked up a 200W solar panel. I put a fair bit of effort into reading all their guides to make sure I bought the right mounting stuff. They don’t provide a diagram for the square 200W panel. I followed the mounting instructions for the largest rectangular panel they showed via diagram. Bought these guys. Think these will do the trick?

 

Nice! You should be enjoying ice cold beer in no time!