BattleBorns arrived - delivery of 310GKR 2 April - dealer install?

[ajg617]

Do you have a Home Depot (or similar) near you? Home Depot will sell aluminum angle and even a lot of the wire/cable. I've seen all the way up to solid copper 2/0.

Auto parts stores (Auto Zone) should have a lot of the terminal connector.

Bus bars and some specific components will be more difficult. The best bet is e-commerce (Amazon.com is where I sourced 80% of my components).

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Have both Lowes and Home Depot - went to Lowes and they had the aluminum angle. My son is cutting it in the shop tonight. I made the mistake of calling Home Depot from work - they sell the cable but don't have the ability to crimp 2/0 - and the one closest was out of 3/8 lugs. Auto Zone had nothing - depleted stock.

There is an auto electric repair facility near that will make the cables for me - completely forgot about them - they rebuild alternators, starters, anything electric.

Just ordered the rest on Amazon......longest lead item is the disconnect switch - but at least I'll get the cabling squared away once I figure how to route everything - 5 connections to each bus bar and GD didn't skimp on length of cable to the inverter and generator. Most arriving Wed.

[orbsah]

May I ask where you sourced some of your parts

Yes, Home Depot or Lowes for the aluminum, fasteners, eye bolts (for the hold down straps). I found cables at the auto parts store but I also got a crimping tool on Amazon to optimize the lengths.

[ajg617]

Would like to thank everyone for all of their help and knowledge sharing. I did learn a great deal of what's behind the cupboard. A couple of tweaks left but I'm happy with the result and things seem to be working. Actually a good confidence building experience in knowing what goes where.
Thanks again!

[Bivitar]

I ended up moving my LFP batteries to the space under the stairs behind the aft pass through wall. This will help in the colder months to keep them above freezing and hides them from a quick theft if someone crowbars my front storage bay.

I did have to cut the 1x2 vertical wood legs of the stairs and reframe the lower section in 2x4 to make enough room for the two lower batteries. They are secured with 1x2 blocks and straps attached to the blocks. The wire between batteries is 2/0 gauge wires from Harbor Freight. In my testing 200AH of LFP battery ran my residential frig for 30 hours (to 10% charge). Since I had room above I added the third battery for more margin. They will be wired up to a Victron MPPT 100/50 charge controller and 720w of solar.



I added a DC bus bar for both terminals in the front bay. From the RV's stock wiring perspective, those are the batteries. In the picture the plastic cover over the factory positive bus bar is not in the photo but I did reinstall it to protect those contacts. If I need 12V power to run my Viair pump or macerator I just removed the plastic caps off the bus bars and connect to the posts like a battery.



I used the 4 gauge inverter wires that were already run from the front bay to the back to connect the battery array to the front, then ran new wires from the bus bars next to the batteries to the inverter. The breaker box above the bus bars is for the solar array.

Not shown is there are two holes in the front bay floor where the factory battery boxes had vent holes. To cover those I got some stainless steel screen and spray painted them black. then placed them over each hole and then placed magnet vent covers (from Home Depot) over each hole. I then cut a treadmill mat to size and placed it on the floor of that area. I also have a sheet of coroplast that I put against the back wall to add a buffer since I have storage totes in that space now.