Feedback/suggestions on minor wiring changes

[endorice]

I’m hoping to solicit feedback/suggestions from those with more wiring experience than I have on some minor changes I’m going to be making.

Background: I have a 2019 Escape 17A, I only dry-camp for 2-3 days at a time. I’m going to be taking longer trips, so I’m adding a battery monitor and a Renogy folding solar panel. My personal preference is to mount the battery monitor shunt inside my camper, and that’s what led me down the path of these suggested grounding changes

Current Factory Setup:

• I have (2) 6V Interstate batteries in series, rear bumper mounted, and they are grounded to the frame with 8 AWG.
• The WFCO ground lug is congested with multiple leads, including one 8 AWG going back to the frame
• While I don’t have a lot of electrical experience, it seems odd to me that the entire DC system relies on (2) external frame mounts exposed to the weather/elements.

Proposed Change (see attached image):

• Mount the battery monitor shunt by the current WFCO power converter
• Run 6 AWG directly from the battery only side of the shunt back to the batteries
• Install a simple bus bar. Run 8 AWG from the shunt to the bus bar
• Move the existing 8 AWG WFGO ground to fame over to the bus bar.
• Move as many leads from the WFCO to the bus bar as possible
• Run 8 AWG from the bus bar back to the WFCO Ground lug

Sanity check and suggestions?

Thanks!

[rubicon327]

Looks perfectly fine to me. Much better to have a continuous ground circuit not relying on the frame.

[Ron in BC]

Good decision. This was recently discussed on the first thread about a frame failure. Never made sense to me to run a battery negative to ground on the frame and then a short distance away have the converter ground go to the frame.

As you point out these connections are exposed and subject to corrosion.

Installing a bus bar to pick up the multiple grounds is preferable to having multiple ring terminals stacked one on the other.

Ron

[Perry Butler]

I rewired our Escape in 2021 for more solar, inverter, and use a buss bar to give a decent ground to the frame, instead of piling 8 ground wires on one post, plus other reasons. At night our shunt was always .2 volts higher than the Victron controllers, that were run to the frame instead of the battery. Once I ran the ground from the solar controller to the shunt the discrepancy to the batteries was corrected, the voltage readings were the same.

In addtion, in other areas I was not impressed with Escape's wiring schema.

Enjoy,

Perry

[endorice]

Thank you all for the sanity check; much appreciated!

Gerald

[CharlesinGA]

The bus bar is a very good move. Somewhere on here I saw a picture of a bunch of wires with terminals stuck on a stud on the back of the power center. Bad move. I terminated all of my ground wires with ferrules and neatened up the bus bar on my Sasquatch brand trailer ;>)

Charles

[fudge_brownie]

I have a Trimetric battery monitor and a Victron SmartSolar Controller that provides MMPT solar charging. The Trimetric is old technology but is accurate and uses a shunt. I do not care for it. If you use a Smart Phone, I recommend you consider replacing your solar controller with the above Victron and eliminate a battery monitor. Having a Bluetooth enabled device is a must. It allows battery monitoring inside and about 30 feet around the trailer. No need to worry about placement of a display.

The Victron battery monitor provides some additional monitoring, I have never felt the need for more information.

[endorice]

I appreciate the additional follow-up replies. I wanted to post my "lesson learned" from this project in case it helps someone else in the future.

I'm happy with the change I made and it makes for a nice clean install beside the WFCO. I was surprised how rusted the two frame mount screws were already, especially since I live in Colorado and it is so dry. I'm glad I proactively headed off this future problem.

My lesson learned - I had read multiple times about getting high quality, flexible cabling. Since I only needed 6 ft. of 6 AWG, I went into Home Depot and bought their product (Cerrowire SLiPWire). That wire is very rigid and hard to work with. That's my one regret and I would have happily paid more for a better product.

[wind bear]

Great timing on this thread. I’m about to do almost the exact same thing on my 2022 17A with dual 6 volt. Great tip on assessing the flexibility of the cables.

When I bought my Victron BMV712 from AM Solar, they recommended mounting it within 3 feet of the battery negative for best accuracy. On my 17A the “most negative” of my dual 6V is the passenger side and the wfco is under the driver’s side dinette bench. To shorten the run I was thinking of switching which battery is most negative and which is most positive and redoing the wiring accordingly -
Curious to know if someone here who knows more about electricity than I thinks this is a terrible idea or overkill.

Like OP I would prefer to have the shunt inside otherwise would just put it in a project box outside like many have done.

[Escape_19]

You'll do fine...plug er' in and git er' done

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by endorice

My lesson learned - I had read multiple times about getting high quality, flexible cabling. Since I only needed 6 ft. of 6 AWG, I went into Home Depot and bought their product (Cerrowire SLiPWire). That wire is very rigid and hard to work with. That's my one regret and I would have happily paid more for a better product.

SLiPWire is Cerrowire's brand name for their self-lubricating polymer covered product line, designed for fast and easy pulling in conduit. In comes in a few types of cable, but all are "building cable", like the AC wiring in the trailer, which generally have a relatively small number of large strands compared to flexible cable. It's not a matter of getting a "better" (meaning superior) product, but just one more suited to the requirements of this installation... or better for this use.

For example, I did a web search for 6 AWG welding cable", picked the first manufacturer I saw, and compared that 6 AWG welding cable from them to the same company's 6 AWG THHN building cable. The THHN cable has 19 strands of wire in it and is insulated by PVC and covered by a nylon jacket, while the welding cable has 260 strands of wire and a rubber cover.

I'm not saying that people should necessarily use welding cable, only that there are a range of cables available with different characteristics, and that it's not a quality issue. Strand count and cover material are the specifications most relevant to flexibility.

Home Depot is a great source in some ways (such as convenience and cost) but tends to have products more suitable for buildings than for vehicles. Industrial supply business are much harder to deal with, but in some cases have more suitable products.

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by endorice

My lesson learned - I had read multiple times about getting high quality, flexible cabling. Since I only needed 6 ft. of 6 AWG, I went into Home Depot and bought their product (Cerrowire SLiPWire). That wire is very rigid and hard to work with. That's my one regret and I would have happily paid more for a better product.

Many of us have used welding cable. High strand count and very flexible. I have ordered some really nice stuff from Powerwerx but to your point you need to order at least 25’.

[Vermilye]

I usually order pre made (wire size, length, color, termination & heat shrink color) from Custom Cable & Wire (used to be Genuine dealZ). Good prices, fast delivery, and excellent quality.