Electrical Help? Battery to 12V panel?

[DanielB]

My trailer is gutted, but all of the wires and lights are still in there.
There is also a 12v distribution panel with the right colors coming out of it (according to the service manual diagram).

Can I hook a battery up to the 12v panel to test the 12v wiring? I have a deep cell battery.

This is a picture of the panel. Where would I hook the pos and neg from the battery to this thing?

Thanks

ps the big white wire is hooked onto the bottom then splits. One of the spits goes up into the wall and the other I am holding up beside the panel.

[TG Twinkie]

I would use a battery charger if you have one. It looks like the negative lead of the charger would connect to the common/ground buss on the bottom of the panel where the white wire is connected and the positive lead of the charger would connect to the lugs where the red wires are on the right side of the photo.
Using a battery charger to test things would be much safer than a battery since the charger has a limited current capacity.
Usually this type of distribution panel has fused protection on the wires that supply power to the panel. Some are built in and others are separate, this panel appears to need separate protection.
Using the charger to test your panel would give you the protection you need to at least check things out.
Are those 50 amp fuses in the distribution panel? If so they are way too big for the wire sizes coming off the left side. When I blow the photo up things get to blurry to see the size of the fuses.

[DanielB]

Awesome. We have lights!

There are 3 settings on the charger: 6v 6a, 12v 2a, and 12v 6a I think that is correct.
So on the first setting lights come on.. very dim.
Second setting, lights brighten up
Third setting, lights are brightest.

I can hear the charger humming.
On the second and third settings after about 20 seconds or so something trips in the charger and all of the lights go off. I unhook the charger from the panel, the charger clicks again after a minute, then I hook the charger back to the panel and same thing over again.

Does this indicate a short or something?

[DanielB]

bump for results edit.

[wasagachris]

Originally Posted by DanielB

Awesome. We have lights!

There are 3 settings on the charger: 6v 6a, 12v 2a, and 12v 6a I think that is correct.
So on the first setting lights come on.. very dim.
Second setting, lights brighten up
Third setting, lights are brightest.

I can hear the charger humming.
On the second and third settings after about 20 seconds or so something trips in the charger and all of the lights go off. I unhook the charger from the panel, the charger clicks again after a minute, then I hook the charger back to the panel and same thing over again.

Does this indicate a short or something?

Daniel how many lights are on when the charger shuts down. It seems to be overloading and the internal safety is shutting it down. Do you have a battery installed and if not are the terminals wrapped in electrical tape so they don't ground out?

[TG Twinkie]

I agree with wasagachris; your charger is only capable of 6 amps at 12 volts and it sounds like you are exceeding that and the charger is crowbaring ( shutting down). Each of the bulbs draws about 1.5 amps, so if you have more bulbs than four on the charger will shut down. That's bulbs not 4 fixtures, some have more than 1 bulb.
You can test everything out but you will have to turn off the ones you know work and test others.

[DanielB]

No battery, just the charger hooked to the 12v panel.

I see. I had 3 fixtures at 6 bulbs each fixture on.
That makes sense. When I first started I only had 4 on and the charger didn't shut down. Then I figured out that the fixtures had 3 way switches on them and then all of the lights came on.
Thank you much.

[TG Twinkie]

I would not connect a battery to your system without the proper inline fuse protection, probably 30 amps in your case. If you don't have the protection and want to know how to install it. Come back to this thread. I will assume that down the road you will want to wire in a converter etc. Plenty of people here can guide you thru the installation process.

[DanielB]

Cool. I can use this charger setup to track and verify all of the wires. This keeps me in motion..
Thanks!

[TG Twinkie]

Yes you can use the charger to check all systems. You might have to do them one at a time; the furnace blower will draw some power. If you need help, we are here.

[Splitrock]

When I set up my 7-way and fixed up my running lights, I ran them all with a 2 amp charger. That never tripped that charger. I didn't try running the interior lights with the charger because the converter is in place and working. The converter is one of the few things that works in addition to the door and windows. It even had the fuse panel left in place.

I tend to work ahead of myself with a jumper and a multi-meter. I'm not one to power something up without testing it first. Interesting, but I think all of my interior lights did work too.

[DanielB]

I got this converter today and I would like to hook it up myself without blowing anything up or burning anything down.

Progressive Dynamics Intelipower 9245

The Diagram looks like the pic below.

Questions:
1) What gauge wire should I use? The brochure says "from 2 to 14 Ga copper wire". Not terribly helpful.

2) The devil pitchfork things on the drawing.. ground to shell?

3) 50A fuse where a)smiley face is, or 2) where flower is. or 3) somewhere else?

4) I can plug the converter into an extension cord from the house, right?

Thanks!

[Splitrock]

Mine I can plug into a cord from the house (barn).

I might ask the guy I got it from about the wire size, or I might look at a chart.

Does this help?

Wire Gauge Tables

For the rest I'd look at the original setup or look at the service manual.

[DanielB]

The barn info and chart helps. Thanks.
Looks like 12ga. should do it.

Weird. The service manual shows the 50a fuse on the negative wire.. none on the positive wires. The other hookups to the univolt look entirely different than the drawing that came with the converter.

[Splitrock]

The hot to the 7-way on mine is a 10. My hot wire is fused after the converter. Lemme look at my pictures. If I find a pic of it, I'll post it.

[Splitrock]

This is the only pic I have. It shows the hot from the battery fused and the hot from the converter fused . . . I think.



Let me know if you want better pictures. I can get them during daylight hours.

Gary

[DanielB]

That is helpful. Thanks. Very interesting.

[TG Twinkie]

Here is the way I wired my converter.

[DanielB]

Thank you very much.

[DanielB]

Here is where I'm at now. I may have an unconventional item or two. Still have questions about this..

I started with this junk that I got today..

-Pic1 - Wire, I think it is 8GA. I got it from Seels outboard. They cut it out back for me in the shop. I didn't notice until I was hooking it up that it is not copper. It is silver colored. I may need to change this out to copper?

-Pic2 - Again from the outboard place. Instead of fuses I thought that I could use 50A breakers. Ok?

-Pic3 - Hot wire put into 12V dist box

-Pic4 - Dry run for the hookups. Not that good of a pic. but..
- Pos runs from battery into one side of breaker. Other side of breaker splits one to 12V panel and one to converter.
- Neg runs battery to breaker to converter.
- There is no neg from anything here to the 12v panel. Is this ok?
- Also need to have the neg grounded to the shell, correct? And this can be smaller wire, doesn't need to be a big wire, right?

I have to get the connectors for the wire to the breakers and battery, then I'll be ready to hook this bad boy up.

Thanks in advance for any pointers.