Rewiring a Truck Camper; Advice and Opinions sought

[Freep]

I've got a truck camper with

• 2 150 Watt panels
• 271 ah LFP
• Victron 100/30 smart solar
• Victron Orion TR 30 amp

I'll be expanding and rewiring the battery compartment, adding an inverter, adding two more panels and potentially moving one or both of the listed chargers to the expanded space.

I'm thinking about the project after this one where I will be building a solar generator. I will need that to power laptops, monitors and a fan for a tent office. I will also want to be able to charge the 271 ah camper battery when needed.

What would I need to do to be able to plug the solar generator into my camper system and charge the camper batter without accidentally charging the portable battery?

I'd also like to have the flexibility of using the portable panels to assist the 4 panels in charging the camper battery.

What I'm thinking about is an Anderson port or some other suitable connector that can take either panel input or portable battery input. But I'm unsure how to wire that up.

 

[chrisski]

I am adding solar to my RV now. I am putting 100 watt panels on top that will be permanently mounted. These will be wired 3 series 2 parallel with each of the two parallel string being 36 VDC. Both of the two parallel strings are getting sent to the combiner which is a few feet from the battery compartment.

I am also kicking around the idea of having an additional three panels in series that are portable that I will set up on the ground that I will hook to the side of the RV. I will choose three hundred watt panels that are very close to what each of the parallel panels are rated at. This will be fed as third string into the combiner, making it 3S3P, so in my case I need the solar panel ratings to be nearly identical. As to what I'm using, it will either be an 50 amp Anderson Plug with a waterproof cap when not in use, or an SAE adapter.

If I do go 3S3P by adding this third string of panels, my 100/50 charge controller will be at its limits.

I think this is what you are asking.

 

[MisterSandals]

What would I need to do to be able to plug the solar generator into my camper system and charge the camper batter without accidentally charging the portable battery?

You are talking about a couple different things here.
By plugging your solar generator into your camper system, this sounds like hooking dissimilar batteries up in parallel. This is no good as one battery will cannibalize the other.
To charge your camper battery from your solar generator, you would need your solar generator output to feed a DC-DC charge controller that charges your camper battery.
Is the portable battery the same as the solar generator? Or is that a third system?

 

[Freep]

You are talking about a couple different things here.
By plugging your solar generator into your camper system, this sounds like hooking dissimilar batteries up in parallel. This is no good as one battery will cannibalize the other.

Yeah that's what it seems like to me. The idea here is to make sure the camper battery is the one that's being fed.

To charge your camper battery from your solar generator, you would need your solar generator output to feed a DC-DC charge controller that charges your camper battery.
Is the portable battery the same as the solar generator? Or is that a third system?

I haven't built the portable battery yet. I'm just thinking about what I should do to support the future project of building the solar generator/battery. So in my mind the portable battery is a separate item, probably using a toolbox as the case. I want it to be flexible so I can plug the portable panels straight into the camper or into the portable battery. I'd also like to be able to charge the camper battery from the portable and now that I think about it, I might want to be able to charge the portable battery from the camper battery.

If I have to use a DC/DC charger, I may want to wire it in such a way that I can control which way the current is flowing.

At a conceptual level I could have a switch that in one position sends the current this way:

Camper ---> Portable battery

And the other direction

Portable battery --> camper

I need to start making some diagrams. I'll do that tonight.