Revamped battery box and wiring

[philpom]

When I originally added my battery it was a large lead acid deep cycle I happened to have laying around. It was of course HEAVY so I centered it in the tongue box as this made sense to me. Nothing fancy, I just hooked up the main leads, had a 30 amp breaker and that was it. Then I started to add leads for chargers, inverters, power ports etc and it became a mess plus my storage was split in the box and a bit limited.

Recently I upgraded to a 100 ah liepo4 and decided to completely revamp the entire box. I separated the box in to sections and got to work.

Changes:
250 amp nickel plated brass bus bars
Aili 350 amp shunt and gauge
ciggy power port
Shore power battery charger/maintainer
750 watt continuous power inverter
150 amp main fuse (on the way)

Wiring:
4 AWG battery leads to the bus bar (shunt wired in line)
6 AWG leads from bus to the inverter
10 AWG leads from main bus bars to the bus bars in the cabin (30 amp breaker in line)
12 AWG leads from the cabin bus bars out to each fixture/port/fan etc
1 SAE lead for charge controller (shore or solar) 14 guage

All wire is THHN stranded copper

Once I got it together it was pretty tight and didn't look as tidy as I wanted but looks great to me. Represent my version of a simple electrical system. The monitor works perfectly!

Full view










Once the main fuse arrives I'll put it on the terminal for the battery directly.

Hopefully my choice in wire size works out fine for any future enhancements I might want.

[featherliteCT1]

Nice upgrade!

However, the type of inline breaker you have is notorious for failures. I would mount a MRBF fuse on the pos battery post and mount a Blue Sea resettable breaker where your existing inline breaker is located. The breaker will let you conveniently disconnect power for maintenance purposes.

PS: Avoid tripping a DC breaker under load.

[philpom]

Nice upgrade!

However, the type of inline breaker you have is notorious for failures. I would mount a MRBF fuse on the pos battery post and mount a Blue Sea resettable breaker where your existing inline breaker is located. The breaker will let you conveniently disconnect power for maintenance purposes.

PS: Avoid tripping a DC breaker under load.

Thanks for the insights, the MRBF should show up one day soon. I've had that inline breaker going on 2 years now, I know the documentation was very loud abut not using the lever to throw it and only use the button. I wonder if this is the main cause - people flipping the lever. On the other hand, going bad on a trip would be bad for sure. I looked at the Blue Sea ones, wow, they want over $50 for one of those. For the $11 I spent on the one I have, I might just grab another for a spare and toss it in the box for insurance.

[featherliteCT1]

Picture1.jpg (25.06 KiB) Viewed 933 times

Melted fuse block. Your mileage may vary.

[Wolfgang92025]

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Melted fuse block. Your mileage may vary.

That looks scary.....

[philpom]

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Melted fuse block. Your mileage may vary.

No Bueno!

Curious, I see this is a 50amp version. Do you know how many amps were going through it when it melted? This definitely points to a flaw. I'm using a 30amp version but based on load testing I'm thinking the maximum that would potentially pass through would be 15 and that's a stretch. The highest draw device is 4 USB ports, the lights are all less than .03 amps and the fan on high is less than 1 Amp.

There are a few ciggy ports that could draw up to 10 amps each for shot periods.

[featherliteCT1]

I do not remember the amps being drawn but it was less than 50Ah. Many people who are very knowledgeable on diysolarforum.com say that it is extremely dangerous to use those breakers. Given the level of risk of harm to person and property, I would spend the $50 for a reputable brand.