This customer reached out to me as I was passing through town. He has a 2007 Arctic Fox 5th Wheel with custom interior. He wanted a solution to make his trailer more boondocking capable, even sustainable without AC demands.
The Problem With Their Old Setup
The flooded lead acid batteries were never getting charged. The design of the stock Arctic Fox was flawed with the issues of 25′ of wire between the converter that would never fully charge them and the battery. He started on his own but quickly realized 200w of solar, a pair of T105s and 2000w modified sine wave inverter was not going to run his RV.
My Solution
A pair of BattleBorn batteries, Victron Multiplus 3000 watt hybrid inverter would allow for silent, Air Conditioning, microwave and TV off battery at any time of day or night. The AC could run for 1.5 hours.
I was able to fit two 350 watt panels on the roof for a total of 700w to help charge and offset inverter usage. The Victron 100/50 solar charge controller will handle the 700 watts safely when connected to the MidNight circuit breakers.
I installed a Victron Mutiplus 3,000 watt hybrid-inverter to run the entire trailer from battery power. Customer opted for the onboard display of the Digital Multi 200 GX which is great control for inverter including the throttle control.
The job started out as my 700 watts solar package and grew as I worked. This didn’t allow me to tidy up the wires like normal. Without an all aluminum trailer there needs to be chassis grounds and buss bars for proper wiring.
Technical Information
There is redundancy for temp and voltage for the BattleBorn lithium battery including inverter charging and solar charging. Once Shore/Solar/Generator power is supplied the batteries will charge and the system comes back online. The Converter can power the 12v side of trailer and is operational but retired. The charger section of the inverter can put 100A into the battery from generator/shore power.