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Truck Camper Common Ground

futureproof

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Aug 13, 2021
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This is a simple question about understanding grounding with a Truck Camper. I have to get this out of the way and ask...

A Truck Camper is NOT sharing a ground with the truck it sits on, right? Is there anything about this setup that somehow grounds the two together, or are they isolated completely?

If they are isolated, can I ground my camper to the truck chassis using an Anderson connect as part of my truck camper mounting process, and would there be anything to gain by that?

I am trying to take advantage of a non-isolated DC-DC charger I may be able to get for dirt cheap if it works for my setup. I just want to find a way to hook it up safely if these systems are indeed isolated. So just wondering if I can still find a way to just make all the ground connections to the chassis (from the starter battery, the storage battery, and the DC-DC charger negative port)? Seems like one solution is just to ensure all the connections are ground by way of anderson hookups that are maintained while the camper sits on the truck.

Or should I just suck it up and buy the isolated version?
 
The chassis is commonly used as the negative to save in wiring costs in many vehicles, the vast majority of breakdowns are electrically related, many of which are attributed to a poor negative. Some like Toyota use a separate negative to all devices which improves overall reliability, so by the same logic keeping the DC - DC charger isolated by using separate a negative, will make it inherently more reliable.

Obviously I'm assuming that using the chassis as the negative was in question, also I avoid using the term "ground" intentionally, because it is isolated from earth ground.
 
so by the same logic keeping the DC - DC charger isolated by using separate a negative, will make it inherently more reliable.
Understood.

I'm really trying to figure out if the following attached diagram is safe in the long run. I know this could be better if just done with the Isolated version of the DC-DC charger, but I am wondering if what I am showing is safe for the potential of things going wrong on the vehicle starter/alternator side. My diagram is a modified version of what came from the Victron installation page. To be clear, this particular setup is working fine for me, and I get 20-25a typically coming in to the aux battery. Just not sure if this is safe for a short or negative break in the circuit on the starter side.

Untitled Diagram (1).png
 
A slide in camper may be ‘accidentally’ grounded to the truck by contact.

Or it may be grounded by the ‘towing’ circuit plugin.

A real question is: does your “not the recommended victron” turn off charging when the ignition is off.


A second question would be have you provided an adequate, sure neg(-) wire to the battery that is higher in capacity than the amp output of your charger [pos(+) should adequate too]

Third your diagram says alternator, the pic is a starter, and your text says, “starter” so I’m not sure what to say from here other than I’m an advocate of home-runs to the vehicle battery for both + and - and avoid use of the frame as a neg(-) point as all vehicles are not designed for the bigger loads RVers and offroaders apply to them- they are usually just enough for ‘expected’ loads.
 
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