Goal: to Minimize the Need to Move the Beds while Camping

[jd1923]

Ever since we bought our Oliver, I thought "Why is everything under the beds?

First step was to replace the manual water valves with motorized ball valves and high-end water pump. We refill the FWT often when boondocking and like to drain the FWT at times. Wrote up a mod thread on this in Jan. Fixed the furnace ducting this June. One last task is to move the fuse for the water pump so it is accessible.

[jd1923]

Notice in the first picture, the 3 fuses for the stabilizer jacks, breakers from the solar charger and to the B+ bus. This was all moved under the rear dinette seat.

Still wanted a small bus though fused at the main bus under the dinette. I cut the center out of the original bus to create a low amperage spilt bus. Only new HW, the Victron SmartShunt, VE.bus and the Beech Lane cooling fans are now powered here.

It amazed me that the wiring for the stabilizer jacks and all other wires on this bus, started from the front (even power to the jack that is 1 ft away). I removed 6' of wire and two butt connectors on all of these wires, added one new connector.

I contacted Ryan Gurin at Sun Forge LLC and he verified that I could effectively turn off the Blue Sky SC by tripping the breaker to the battery. So, I moved the breaker but did not take the time to move the Blue Sea switch, to be left in the ON position.

The blue colored device top of second picture is the Victron VE.Bus with Bluetooth, connected by the yellow ethernet cable to the Victron MP2 Inverter/Charger, app used instead of a display. The SmartShunt is also below on the main ground (not pictured). All of the Victron equipment can be programmed by ethernet-USB device (under dinette) and/or by the app.

Edited September 4 by jd1923

[jd1923]

Our inverter upgrade placed the new MP2 Inverter under the streetside bed (turn ON/OFF via Bluetooth), which created a lot of room under the rear dinette seat.

Both buses in the picture are B+ positive (I just purchased the two-color set and decided to use both). Look closely at the RHS of the upper bus to see the 4/0 cable coming from the inverter & batteries. This is the 400A main bus, with 400A ANL fuse from the batteries. The two solar chargers, and soon a DC-DC Charger (white space top-right), all feed into this bus. Two breakers in the picture are from the solar chargers. The third breaker (bottom center) creates a 40A sub-bus for most connections (lower bus with black cover). New home for the stabilizer jack and other fuses.

Edited September 4 by jd1923

[jd1923]

Don't forget the B- Ground Bus! Mine was full, not an open slot. Also, OTT glued and screwed two short busses together, the connecting jumper wire took two slots, and I needed to add several grounds for new chargers, etc.

Found a Siemens 30 slot bus, nice! SIEMENS EC3GB30 Ground Bar Kit with 30 Terminal Positions - Wall Dimmer Switches - Amazon.com

I could not get the old one off (OTT can glue to hold), so I removed all the original screws and used a pair of bolts to connect new to old, then a pair of long thin wood screws to hold it to the board.

Cut off all the old wire ends and stripped clean news. There was only one 6 AWG wire to battery ground, so I added a second 6 AWG ground.

[jd1923]

Hoping everything we need while traveling is now more accessible. I've had the beds in the house for 2-3 months while working on it. Hope when we get them back in there and made, they can stay put. 😂

[jd1923]

btw, this is a real bus! rated at 400A, 5/16” of tinned plated copper. You want copper vs. brass and 1/4”+ for high amperage. The OEM bus I relegated to a low amp split bus is brass plated and <1/8”.

https://a.co/d/2fpogyT

[Gliddenwoods]

Impressive!

Do you hire out...?

[jd1923]

5 hours ago, Gliddenwoods said:

Impressive! Do you hire out...?

Thank you, but the old body is too sore, and our to-do list is never-ending! 🤣