Solar Plug - NEW 2023 Bambi

[atn]

I have a brand new 2023 Bambi 22FB and it has a solar plug located near the trailer tongue to allow adding external solar panels easily.

When I got the trailer home, I noticed that the cables coming out of the plug where not wired anywhere and where coiled under the Propane tanks (aluminum cover).

I recently mentioned this to the dealer and they fixed it by connecting these 2 cables to the battery.

I found this weird as I was expecting them to connect them to the Victron Solar management box (under the front bed).

Does anyone know where it should be located?

Thx

[jeffb831]

The external port is supposed to be connected directly to the batteries. You need to use panels with a controller for it to work. You may also need a polarity reverser because Zamp seems to be wired in reverse.

Only rooftop are connected through the Victron controller.

[waninae39]

you need to get a solar controller connected between the solar panel and the battery. direct connect will not work

look at the victron mppt controller. avoid the older inefficient PWM base unit. they are outdate tech

[PB_NB]

I ran my front plug into the trailer under the front bed near the hot water tank. I wired it into the solar controller. I was able to get better performance from the panel that way.

How it was wired also would depend on the type of panel and the battery. The portable panels have built in solar controllers so this is probably why they connected it to the battery. If you have a lithium battery, that would need a different charging profile than a AGM or Lead Acid battery. My portable panels predate the lithium battery revolution so I just disconnected the controller on the panel and ran the "HOT" voltage into my Victron controller. This allowed the performance of the older panel to increase and charge my lithium battery.

Since then, I added panels on the roof and disconnected the front plug. There is a 3 port connector box on the roof as jeffb831 stated that is prewired so now I have 3 panels up there and they feed my big lithium battery under the bed.

To change the wire from the front plug, just run the wire into the hole were the 7 pin connector wire is. There is a hole in the floor and the wire can pop up and be connected to the solar controller. While there, you can fill the hole, I used caulking to close that opening.

Is the Victron controller connected to anything and active of is it just there waiting for future use?

Out 22FB is a 2019 and it came as bare bones as possible so I added everything expect the prewires and the front charging connection that came with the trailer. It was a blank canvas which was great and super easy to change since there was nothing there to start with.

We bought our trailer on 2020 and have added to our power system:
360watts of roof mounted panels
250ah lithium battery
Victron MMPT controller
Victron 712 battery monitor
Gopower 1500watt pure sine inverter
Gopower shore switch
Gopower adjustable voltage convertor/charger
Gopower inverter remote

I wired the inverter into the shore switch so when I run the inverter, all the wall outlets are active.

The bluetooth connectivity is great to see what is going on with the system on the smartphone.

We camp at some spots where there is no plug ins and this will keep all our systems running .

[atn]

Thank you very much for all your precious answers.
Very clear for me.

[JeffKim]

A slight tweak to the comments. Since external plug-in panels rarely have the same solar exposure as the roof top panels, it is much more optimal to have them on a separate controller (our external panels did not come with a controller). With our dearly departed Bambi (and with our Globetrotter) I wired the Zamp to an additional Victron Smart MPPT controller (placed inside in the rat's nest). The 75|15 will get you to 300W or so of plug-in panels and isn't too expensive.

I also advocate for swapping out the standard issue rooftop Victron Blue 150|35 for a Victron Smart 100|30 so you get Bluetooth monitoring and VE.Smart Networking. Sell the 150|35 on eBay.

Also, if you do any boondocking, in my opinion, a Victron shunt (battery monitor) is almost essential otherwise it's like flying blind with the battery state of charge. The voltage reading is pretty useless.

BTW, congratulations on your Bambi! When we got ours in 2021 I knew nothing about solar and we thought whoo-hoo! We have solar! It came with a 90W panel but we found out it's ok to top off the batteries, but on a trip longer than a few days without plugging in, the batteries were essentially done (less than 50% with AGMs). The electric frig is the main culprit. Before we sold ours, we put in a shunt, another controller, 400W of external panels, and lithium batteries and with some sun we could camp unplugged for a week or more without too much worry. But it all depends on your camping style.