Robin Hillier
New Member
I am forced to enter a life of fulltime RV boondocking by failing health and finances. That means everything will be DIY. I have a travel trailer which I will be covering the roof with solar panels and building LiFePO4 batteries. Due to charging the battery bank from the truck during driving and the fact that the loads in the trailer are all 12 volts DC or 120 volt AC my thought is to make the system simpler by building multiple 12 volt batteries. As the rig may be in partial shade at times, I want to make it easier to add external ground placed solar panels (suitcase solar) also. The plan is to have all the panels in parallel to avoid shading issues, all feeding a roof mounted weathertight junction box. That will feed the charge controller(s) down near the tongue through heavy copper cables. That is also where the batteries, DC to DC converter, and inverter will reside. I plan to build a wind turbine in the future, so a charge controller to do all, or separate charge controllers are options. I know I have just opened a lot of topics, so building the batteries is my first concern. I have pretty much settled on 4,12 volt batteries built using EVE LF280K cells which I am ready to order. The BMS topic is where I am now gathering info and opinions. The batteries will give me an 1120 amp hour bank. The 4 batteries will be individually fused and switched before feeding a bus bar where the DC to DC converter will connect. That will then feed the inverter. If anyone has any thoughts on any or all of these topics, I will be glad to hear them. Thank you for reading my long winded intro.