Electrical Dilemma

Life on the Road Electrical: Batteries, Generators, Solar, etc...
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Hello everyone! We have finished our van build and are so excited with how it turned out. BUT we are having trouble with our electrical system. We are newbies when it comes to electrical and have done it ourselves. It seems that we keep on adding more components to our electrical system and the more we add, the more complicated it becomes. We already had one set of lithium batteries die (thankfully they were under warranty) and we really do not want to kill another pair. Currently we have one 12V 200Ah Lithium battery hooked up to our DC side which is only charged via the Renogy alternator charger. Then we have our two 12V 200Ah lithium batteries running our AC outlets which are charged via solar through our inverter. Ideally we would like to be able to run all AC/DC through all three batteries instead of having a split system but we do not know how to do this or if it is even possible. If someone has any advice or could even draw us a diagram based off of what we already have, that would be so helpful! Here are the components that we already have:

  • 4 x 200W Monocrystalline Solar Panels 12V
  • 2400 Pure Sine All-In-One Inverter Charger 24VDC/120V Output (MPPLV2424 is the unit)
  • 2 x 12V 200Ah SOK LiFePo4 Batteries
  • 1 x 12V 200Ah AmpereTime LiFePo4 Battery
  • AC Distribution Box that runs 3 outlets
  • DC Distribution Box (MaxxAir Fan, Dometic RTX AC, water pump, puck lights)
  • Renogy 12V 60A DC to DC Battery Charger

Thanks for any help in advance :slight_smile:

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Hey, So a couple quick questions. When you say the two batteries are charged by solar through your inverter, do you not have a solar charge controller? Generally, the inverter/charger combo is used to provide shore power hookups(the charger part) and converting power to AC from the battery bank DC.
There really shouldn’t be any reason to have your system separated for AC use and DC use, or the method of charging. It seems as though you should be able to connect all your batteries together (might want to get all of same type) and run your dc/dc charger right to the bank, and the solar input (assuming you have a solar charge controller) right to the same battery bank. Then the only output would be for the inverter (AC) and the 12vDC fuse panel/control box.

Im doing a pretty similar setup and just finished my wiring diagram that I will post for you. I hope this helps!

wire diagram
wire diagram612×792 80.2 KB

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