diy solar

diy solar

Orion Tr Smart 12/12 18A isolated and 7-way trailer connector

sunrise

New Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2020
Messages
206
Hello,

On my Orion Tr 18A dc-dc smart charger, there 2 separate negative connector on both input and output. I am about to install it on my travel trailer and I need some help with wiring from the 7-way connector - there are 2 10awg wires, white (ground) and black(starter batt/alternator). which way should I connect the ground wires

1. 7-way white -> Orion input negative, Orion output negative -> trailer 12v ground bus bar (Batt)

2. 7-way white -> trailer 12v ground bus bar(Batt) -> orion input negative/orion output negative.

Actually I am not very confident about either of these 2 ways. For 1, there are other wires for brakes, lights - if the ground is 'isolated' buy Orion, I am not sure if these wire would provide proper voltage for them to work. For 2, not sure if I am supposed to connect the 2 neg connectors on Orion directly.



Thanks in advance!

Screen Shot 2021-02-22 at 3.20.22 PM.png
 
Generally the black wire, double check for your trailer harness.
Always, always meter it out with a multimeter.
I've seen some voltage drop on mine, so I may actually add a dedicated anderson to feed my DC/DC charger. (240w 12/24 on mine)
Some people find corrosion in the 7pin on the tow vehicle.

I was actually testing mine this week, and it kept saying remote input disconnected - turned out to be the power feed (I was testing with jumper cables to my car) Once I got the connection sorted, it worked fine.
 
@willo thanks, I am fairly sure the white one is ground wire and the black is 12v, but I will double-check it with multi-meter.
Anyways, let's have this thread stay focused on how to wire the DC/DC charger ground.
 
@sunrise, what did you decide? For me, I wired both negatives to the negative buss bar, but I'm having issues with not seeing the DC-DC actually charge the battery.
 
@revilo o I had to play with my settings a bit to get mine charging.

I was seeing this:
Charger starts
Voltage drops from charger load
Charger trips below minimum voltage threshold and stops charging.
With my truck, I think I need to go through the connector and clean the corrosion.
Testing with jumper cables, I was able to get it to charge just fine (but on my land cruiser I had to reduce the low voltage setting.)
Cheers. (And clean those ground points - on mine they just screwed into the frame...)
 
@revilo o I had to play with my settings a bit to get mine charging.

I was seeing this:
Charger starts
Voltage drops from charger load
Charger trips below minimum voltage threshold and stops charging.
With my truck, I think I need to go through the connector and clean the corrosion.
Testing with jumper cables, I was able to get it to charge just fine (but on my land cruiser I had to reduce the low voltage setting.)
Cheers. (And clean those ground points - on mine they just screwed into the frame...)
Thanks @willo , will certainly try to clean the 7 pin connectors. How about wiring?
 
Thanks @willo , will certainly try to clean the 7 pin connectors. How about wiring?
Mine was easy, I pulled up the RV manufacturer trailer pinout and verified. The harness goes to the common ground point of my chassis in my electrical bay and positive was simple to access.

My keystone has a black positive wire of all things. Go figure.
 
Back
Top