Added a proper
battery monitor to the trailer yesterday, along with a pair of GC2 batteries (a la ExtraSlow; H/T for the recommendation). Our tired Group 24 with 65Ah rated wasnt enough for three nights "offshore".
For $60 it seems like a cheap way to truly understand how much power you're using and help you treat your lead acids kindly. I opted for the "350A" shunt thinking that I might add a 2000W inverter at some point; it's frigging huge and kind of annoying as it's so thick you cannot mount it directly on the post of a battery. Ended up brazing/soldering a bunch of short leads to hook it all together, time consuming PITA. In hindsight I'd probably just go for the 100A shunt next time around as it can handle up to something like 150A (100A is what they call "typical" load.)
A bargain versus a $300 Victron unit.
The biggest pain of the whole process was definitely running the lead from the battery boxes to the cabin of the trailer, which surprised me. Had to cut an access hatch in the corrugated floor sheathing and couldn't fish the wire into the wall next to the factory-installed battery/tank unit as they run wires then install grey/black tanks making it impossible to follow that route.
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Another repair/improvement made last night (probably my favourite thus far). Our Dometic fridge's incandescent festoon bulb was burnt out. I shopped around for a while looking at LED festoon replacements but was never very excited about spending $20 on a bulb I wasn't convinced would last with all the condensation/temperature fluctuations in the fridge.
After reading about it from someone else online, I scrounged up a 12" chunk of under-cabinet LED lighting from my junk drawer and soldered a wire directly to the festoon bulb base. amazing light; feels like a brand new fridge. Will post a pic later of my shitty rusty old fridge with beyond baller lighting.
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Originally Posted by Yolobimmer
