This is how I installed a Victron 500 Bluetooth battery monitor along with Zamp solar connectors for two 180W portable solar panels to our 22 year-old Airstream.
My goal is to have a simple solar system with reliable battery monitor that can simplify our boondocking experience (we do a lot of it). Just want to keep lights, fans, and pumps running without having to fire up the Honda every day. At this point, I'm not yet interested in roof-mounted - maybe when I retire.
While my mechanical skills are pretty good, my understanding of anything electric is marginal at best. I’m also a solar newbie.
If I did something wrong, please comment gently. Helpful and constructive tips for me and others with similar rigs will be appreciated.
Rig: 1999 Airstream Classic with two batteries in separate port/starboard compartments under the forward gaucho. These have external access doors (back from the days of lead-acid batteries that had to be vented outside).
Batteries: Two Optima AGM 75 AH
Monitor: Victron 500A SmartShunt (Bluetooth).
I chose this because I didn’t want to have a wall-mounted monitor – mostly because I didn’t want to run all the extra wiring, and also because I’m trying to not be so obsessive about things and if it was displayed on the wall I would obsess over it.
Extra stuff to buy: 6G wire (about 3 feet), 6G copper battery terminal connectors (Napa auto parts has them), a crimper for the connectors if you don’t already have one.
After installation, everything seems to be working well although I only had a brief period to test it. With shore power shut down, I could see the SmartShunt app display showing a very slow draw on the batteries when I had all the lights on. I could see the Power (Watts) and Current (Amps) change with each light or appliance I turned off or on. The state of charge declined very slightly during the 30-minute test. When I connected the two Zamp solar panels, their separate monitors each behaved seemingly appropriately, and the SmartShunt app showed the batteries charging again.
Anyway, here’s the step by step process I followed.
In the steps below, #1 thru #10 deal with connecting the Victron SmartShunt.
Steps #11 to #13 are how I wired in the two portable Zamp solar panels.
Most of the effort is pulling wiring through difficult access points. A lot of time was spent watching YouTube videos and trying to understand what I needed to do.
I started by removing the four lag bolts holding the gaucho to the floor and pulling it out of the way.
1. (Arrow #1) From the 12-volt panel, loosen the screws on the busbar that hold the two black 6G wires that come from the negative grounds of the battery terminals. On mine, this was the two bottom slots.
2. (Arrow #2) From the bottom of each battery box, pull the wire out from behind the wall. This isn’t that difficult, but does require some pretty strong pulling.
(Tip: I realized later I needed to come back to that busbar with another 6G wire. I should have pulled a string through the wall as I pulled the wire out.)
3. (Arrow #3) When I saw how long the 6G wires were, that told me where I could install the SmartShunt. There was a horizontal line along the wall where the gaucho pressed slightly into the mouse-fur lining, so I wanted to keep everything below that (basically, the top of the battery boxes). So, I installed the SmartShunt on the wall midway between the batteries … I could have trimmed off about 12+ inches of each battery wire but instead I just stuffed the extra under each box.
4. (Arrow #4) I crimped two 6G copper battery terminal connectors onto the battery wires and connect them to the battery-minus terminal on the SmartShunt.
Note that the small red power-supply going to the top of the SmartShunt was installed only as a final step, not at this point.
At this point, as I understand the directions, I need to for all of the other loads in the 12-volt panel busbar to attach to the System Minus part of the SmartShunt. Also, any other loads that might be grounded someplace else (the only one I could find was the ground for the hydraulic disc brakes). And – the negative for the two Zamp 180 watt suitcase solar panels (see steps 11-13).
[Question: do the 12-volt power supplies located throughout the trailer ground through the busbar??? I’m hoping they do otherwise I’m missing a major part of our power usage!]
5. These are the “Loads” in the original 12-volt panel that connect into the System Minus side of the SmartShunt (Arrow 5). There’s more wires on the left side behind the door frame.
Rather than pull these wires out of the wall or otherwise try to figure out how to re-route them, I decided to connect this busbar to a new busbar installed next to the Smartshunt
6. (Arrow 6) I installed this aftermarket busbar.
7. (Arrows 7) The new busbar is connected to the System Minus terminal on the SmartShunt via new 6G wire I purchase, and one of the copper 6G battery connectors.
8. (Arrow #8) I pulled more 6G wire from the new busbar to the original busbar. I drilled a small hole in the wall, and using a fish-wire I pulled it up to the panel. I put a rubber grommet at the entry point just ‘cause I had one available. (the red line is the part of the new 6G wire behind the wall) You can see where it comes out of the wall and connects to the new busbar more clearly in the previous picture.
9. (Arrow #9) This is the new 6G wire coming into the 12-volt panel – same place the battery wire came out of.
10. (Arrow #10) Install the power supply wire provided by Victron for the SmartShunt. I connected this to the positive busbar that has the positive line from the battery charger and the two positive battery cable wires.
Once powered up, I opened the Victron app on my phone and connected to the SmartShunt.
Had more to do, so other than a cursory review that seemed to show everything was working OK, I reserved in-depth research for a later time.
A last-minute edit: I also pulled the ground wire from the hydraulic pump for my disc brakes and connected it to the new busbar. See Arrow #13 below. It had been wired directly to the frame under the trailer.
ZAMP Solar Panels installation. The Zamp folks told me that to use two of these, they need to be each connected separately to the batteries because they each have their own controller and can’t be ‘daisy-chained’ (probably obvious to the solar experts here, but I’m new to this game).
Here’s how I handled this. I don’t have pictures of everything.
The A-frame of my trailer has a steel box that currently houses the hydraulic pump for my disc brakes. There’s plenty of room in there, so I installed the two Zamp bracketed side ports inside and ran the wires through a hole I drilled (and protected with a rubber grommet). The Zamp wires are only 3’ long.
11. (Arrow #11) I ran the wires under the front frame and up through a hole in the floor through which a large bundle of other wires already run.
This was difficult as there is a rubbery caulk compound that has to be pushed aside. Bashfulness will not get this done.
12. (Arrow #12) I connected the positive end of the Zamp power port to the positive busbar referenced earlier, which has the charger and batteries (positive) connected.
This seems logical to me because this is the same terminal that the charger comes into… power comes in the center of the bar and gets distributed evenly to each battery (which are connected to the left and right sides of the busbar)
13. (Arrow #13) The negative wires from the Zamp power port were connected to the new busbar.
I did this because I saw one guy on YouTube caution that EVERYTHING has to be connected to the System Minus side of the SmartShunt, including solar panels. I hope this is right. Seems to work because the solar panels did charge during a brief test.
ALSO, PER MY COMMENT ABOVE, THE NEGATIVE WIRE FROM THE HYDRAULIC DISC BRAKE PUMP IS CONNECTED HERE (Arrow #13).
That’s it… put away tools, push the gaucho back in place, bolt it back down.
Hope nothing melts…
Installing Victron battery monitor and 2 Zamp portable panels in 1999 Airstream Class
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