2016 Roadtrek CS Adventurous electrical and solar rebuild

[TomofBend]

Another user thought I should post about my electrical rebuild on my 2016 Roadtrek. Long story but I bought it used a year ago and was told it had brand new AGM 12v batteries. I checked and verified everything else but that. Turns out they were 6v lead acid batteries. They ended up cooked shortly after I purchased it after our first long trip. After a ton of research and months of contemplation, I decided to rebuild the electrical system and pulled out most of the wiring, and components, and the outlets, including the 12v cigarette type outlets. Ran all new wire from the alternator and pulled the old batteries out. Moved all components to the rear under the bed. Bought all Victron components and a 460 AH Epoch battery. Pictures attached. The new system is actually amazing and have now been on several trips with no issues. I also redid the solar panel system. It was wired in series limiting everything to the smallest panel, 35 W. Kept two 75W panels and added two 100W panels. Wired each of those in series to each other and then parallel for 200W and 150W coming into my solar controller. Way better charging to the battery covering less roof space. I did all the work myself but had it inspected before I turned it all on. Very happy with it, and all in I spent about $5k. Happy to answer any questions and hopefully useful to some of you.

 

[Alan19067]

Looks great. I had replaced my inverter and batteries on my 2016 CS. Unfortunately this was done on an emergency basis with essentially in kind KS2 equipment. Did you consider adding ventilation, I have the inverter under the my rear seat/bed could likely use better heat removal.

 

[TomofBend]

I did add ventilation fans, not just for heat removal but better circulation. It’s made a huge difference in heating and cooling efficiency as well. I added 7 fans in total with variable speed control. I also added a curtain at the foot of the bed. In the winter it really helps keep the heat in the sleeping area. Used it in -14 degrees and we were snug as a bug.

 

[Alan19067]

Thank you for the info and the posts, I saw your fan add post after this one. Will be trying the fans and lights - great upgrades.

 

[K6GHL]

Another user thought I should post about my electrical rebuild on my 2016 Roadtrek. Long story but I bought it used a year ago and was told it had brand new AGM 12v batteries. I checked and verified everything else but that. Turns out they were 6v lead acid batteries. They ended up cooked shortly after I purchased it after our first long trip. After a ton of research and months of contemplation, I decided to rebuild the electrical system and pulled out most of the wiring, and components, and the outlets, including the 12v cigarette type outlets. Ran all new wire from the alternator and pulled the old batteries out. Moved all components to the rear under the bed. Bought all Victron components and a 460 AH Epoch battery. Pictures attached. The new system is actually amazing and have now been on several trips with no issues. I also redid the solar panel system. It was wired in series limiting everything to the smallest panel, 35 W. Kept two 75W panels and added two 100W panels. Wired each of those in series to each other and then parallel for 200W and 150W coming into my solar controller. Way better charging to the battery covering less roof space. I did all the work myself but had it inspected before I turned it all on. Very happy with it, and all in I spent about $5k. Happy to answer any questions and hopefully useful to some of you.

I have a 2014 CS Adveurous and have been thinking that I wanted to do the same thing. If possible can you post the Victron components that you used. Did you replace the extra engine alternator or use a DC-DC Charger to charge batteries went driving?

 

[TomofBend]

I have a 2014 CS Adveurous and have been thinking that I wanted to do the same thing. If possible can you post the Victron components that you used. Did you replace the extra engine alternator or use a DC-DC Charger to charge batteries went driving?

Multiplus 12/3000/120/50 120v, Orion 12/12 50 A DC to DC battery charger, MPPT 150/45 Solar Controller, Smart Shunt 500A/50Mv, Lynx Distributor, Cerbo GX MK 2, EPOCH 12v 460 AH battery, and a GX Touch 50 were all the major components, all Victron except for the battery. The engine generator alternator was smoked. A new one from Nations was $1600, which just seemed crazy to me. After a lot of research I decided to just come off the engine alternator and that has worked fine. My MPPT is a little overkill but in cold weather I don’t get over voltage alarms. There were also several switches, fuses, and wiring. I love the setup. It really is trouble free.

 

[MarCorpsMustang]

I have a 2014 CS Adveurous and have been thinking that I wanted to do the same thing. If possible can you post the Victron components that you used. Did you replace the extra engine alternator or use a DC-DC Charger to charge batteries went driving?

Ditto. I also have a 2014 CS Adventurous and would love to do something similar in my unit.

 

[RUNINAWY]

I have a 2010 RS Adventurous, before they were doing solar, and I'm planning to add my own solar setup. TomofBend, yours is a fantastic example I'd like to emulate. As far as relocating everything to the rear, that sounds like a fairly large wiring overhaul. I'm curious logistically how much of the finished interior you needed remove to be able to perform the relocate?

 

[TomofBend]

Good question. I first hand traced and did continuity checks to determine what I was going to need to do. It turned out that was the major effort. I spent about two weeks under the van in total pulling out old wiring and installing new. As far as the back end went it was not too bad. I pulled out the rear seat and the rear heating radiator under the rear seat. I had raise the rear seat by about an inch so I had to get new spacers and bolts. I also pulled out both interior side panels. It was not terribly difficult. I also pulled out the front driver seat. The nest of wires under there is poorly marked and I only did it to add a breaker that I can now access on the base of the seat between the alternator and the dc to dc charge controller. Overall I am very pleased with how it turned out. The only thing I would change is getting 600 watts of solar on the roof. I may still do that but too busy out using the rig right now.

 

[booster]

Good writeup and interesting configuration and choices of equipment (which are all very good parts).

It might be interesting to post what your use patterns are based on the equipment choices in relation to capacity. Things like how long off grid desired, how often and how far you drive, do avoid sun and park in the shade if possible, daily power use including high draw stuff like AC and microwwave, etc.

In many larger systems in lithium, the alternator would be prime recovery device, The OEM setup probably would charge at about 165 amps on average over time. You now probably have much less than this now, how much less depending on if you conform to the very conservative MB power sharing limitations that are, IIRC, in the 50 amps or less range. The shore charge is large and can charge at 100+ amps but you need shore power or a generator to do it. The solar at 310 watts will put out about 110ah total recovery in a day of good sun, plus or minus some.

This setup would work just fine for some users, but not have enough recharging for others based on the use pattern as mentioned, IMO. The low power recovery rates of the non shore power sources would be the prime reason if a user wanted a week offgrid of moderate amounts of use power. Perhaps this is why you are considering more solar, which is probably a good idea if you tend to have good sun most of the time in your camping and have been running close on power at times.

We have similar capacity of solar at 300watts, and shore power at 130 (but never used when camping and set at 50 amps at home), but have a second alternator that is set to charge at 120 amps. We do have 610ah of battery and are relatively low power users at 50-70ah per day most times. In good sun we can keep up almost all the time, and we tend to drive pretty often where we go to trialheads, dump station, food runs etc so the alternator can easily fill the gaps in a short time even in very cloudy, rainy, times when solar is barely doing much at all. Similarly, our system fits our camping style well, but would over or under kill for other folks.

One question I do have is why you would worry at all about an overvoltage from the solar (even though you haven't seen it)? As long as the controller is rated for the max open circuit voltage from the panels, which in you case is probably 40v or lower on the 24v wiring of the panels, there should never be any chance of overvoltaging anything if the controller is set correctly for charging.

 

[TomofBend]

Thanks for the questions.

As far as the equipment goes I have AC, microwave, fridge/freezer, and TV, for power draws. I do try to get shade spots when I can but they always get some sun for solar. We do a lot of rock climbing so shade is often a premium. I can run the AC for about 6 to 8 hours on a full charge but I rarely do that. I use it to cool it down before going to bed and then just night air. I’m off grid often for a few days at a time and have not had any problems. If I really need AC I go to a place I can connect shore power.

I do have an engine alternator that I wired a fuse switch that I access on the driver seat. I can charge 50A when I want so on a drive I use that to fully charge. I also have a second alternator specifically for charging but it went bad. I haven’t bothered to replace it because what I have is working well. I will replace it but they are expensive to replace (about $1600).

I will probably redo the solar panels in the future to get about 600W of solar. The 300 is really not enough for when I want to use AC.

As for the over voltage concerns, I was constantly getting over voltage alarms in the winter. We use it for ski trips in very cold weather and the larger solar controller fixed that issue.

So far I am really happy with the build. As I said before, I do want to replace the engine generator alternator with a wake speed controller to give me rapid charging. With that I probably would not need any more solar. But that is low on the priority list for now.

 

[booster]

Thanks for the reply. With the AC thrown in, I would certainly consider you a high power use per day user.

What is limiting the current to the batteries on the alternator? A lithium battery that size will accept many times 50 amps.

Totally agree on the solar and 600 watts in good sun with give 200 amps or so so will help but not keep up with much AC use.

The fact that the high voltage only happened in the winter would very strongly support the idea that the solar controller had the temperature compensation turned on or it was built so it couldn't be turned off. In the winter it would take the voltage way to high for lithium if it saw the cold temps. Be aware that the can't charge, but can use, lithium batteries at under 32*F, and many some cut off earlier than that and as high as 38* or 40* even. Are the batteries inside to keep them warm and the van heated while away skiing? If the old batteries were AGM, they probably had a temp sensor on them that might have still been connected to the solar controller until the updated controller put on. No temp compensation is ever used for lithium unless they reduce charge rate at lower temps to be easier on the battery when acceptance drops.

Getting rid of the Baldor regulator is good idea for alternator charging, IMO. they heat cycle the alternator way to much of an overtemp snap switch that fails and don't have a good lithium profile to use either. We have a Wakespeed on ours and they do have some worts and such, though. I have a long explanation and discussion on this forum about it all as there are things to look out for with them unless they have been fixed in the last 3 years since we got ours. You may also want to look at a Zeus regulator as they are mostly a copy of the Wakespeed but with better monitoring via Bluetooth and also claim to have addressed the problems of Wakespeeds. They both work off the shunt you have and allow you to limit alternator output to match the battery and keep the alternator within heat limits.

You might be able to get an alternator from DC Power Engineering that will be a drop in and might be less cost by quite a bit. That is what the Nations kits used back then, I am pretty sure. Any big alternator with same mounting and distance to the pulley would also work.

No question, IMO, more charging capacity and speed will much better match your use patterns.