Electrical Schematic

[exminnesotaboy]

Anthony
As long as you do not desire to charge the battery or use the breakaway swithch then all should be OK. I like to charge the battery while I drive and after loosing a trailer once, I always have a breakaway switch.kai

Kai,
Cool! thanks to you and others putting this issue to rest for me. Now, if I end up setting up a circuit to charge my battery when driving, I will relook at my options.
Anthony

[Larwyn]

Hey yall, the more I read over this thread the more I feel I want to add my opinion.

I plan to groud the "house dc" to the frame as I plan to charge the td battery with the vehicle charging system. Even though I did not depend on the frame as a conductor when wireing the tailights etc. the ground wires which I ran to each light is also grounded to the frame. I feel the two DC systems need the same negative reference in this case, which will be chasis ground.

Grounding the ac to the chasis and aluminum siding is probably a good safety measure could prevent a bit of a shock in some instances. Checking the outlet before you plug in the trailer is also a good idea, at least you will know it was right before any grimlins came along. The little plug in outlet testers with the 3 lights is all that you need for that. If the ac ground were to become energized with 120 vac you would have an energized chasis, true. But there wouuld be no path for the ac to follow through your DC system. Electricity travels from the source, through the load, back to the source (and takes the path of least resistance to get there). There is no path back to the source through the DC system so it would not be harmed. If you feel the grimlins are out to get you, drop your safety chains on the ground when you unhook the trailer (that should provide a lower resistance back to the source than your body.

My plans are to ground both the AC and DC to the chasis, but not to bond neutral and ground in the trailer (that is done at the park power supply breaker box). If the ground wire is hot at the breaker box you will know as there will be much smoke and glowing copper before you plug in..... and your little tester will have informed you of the problem if not.

I do carry a very short (about 1 ft) extension cord with the hot and neutral reversed to make it easy to connect properly to imporperly wired campsites.

Do not take this as advise, I am not an engineer, I do have many years of experience working with high voltage transmission and distribution protection and controls so I feel confident that my plan will work for me.

As a side note, my 5th wheel trailer has both dc and ac grounded to the chasis, neutral is not bonded to ground. That's the way the factory wired it and it has served me well.

[Ron Dickey]

Speaking of over building these teardrops are all these wirings really nessary. couldn't most of it run off smaller batteries and could you simply have a plug bar with a fuse and plug things in as you needed. Did they do all that stuff in the first teardrops.

Not to put down all that marvalous work done, I printed out the wonderful schemadic. I drempt alittle then reality hit. At my speed the trailer will take a year to build with out all this. And the electrtical will need to be figured before I get to far into the wood work.

If I were using my trailer as a power station for a remote cabin then yes I can see much of that.

How much weight is such a system?
a little off the subject but this is what a power trailer looks like.
http://www.mrsharkey.com/trailer.htm
others are smaller but this is what I found.

Ron D.

[bdosborn]

As a side note, my 5th wheel trailer has both dc and ac grounded to the chasis, neutral is not bonded to ground. That's the way the factory wired it and it has served me well.

Not only is it safer to ground the chasis to the AC equipment ground, its a national electric code requirement. Thats what the green wire is for - grounding metal objects that might get accidently energized (like a trailer frame).
Bruce

[Dee Bee]

Hi again

You have given me great ideas and input. It has taken me a while but I have updated my schematic. I'd appreciate all of you taking a look at it again



Some have posted their idea and plan to have a bare bones system with plug in power strips etc. I am sure it will work. I like the "to each his own approach" on this forum...

For me I wanted something that would work simply, reliable, and safely. once installed I wanted the electrical system safely out of the way. I also wanted a convenient way to control the various circuits.

I think I have acheived this but I will admit that it is not a simple as I first thought it would be.

Here is the end result:


But I like the end result


Build on

DEE

[ScottH61]

Just took a quick glance, but I don't think you really need the SPDT switch to the left of your volt meter... with the 9V switched off, it wouldn't matter if there's voltage or not. It will only display voltage if the battery is turned on. That's one less switch you have to throw just to check the voltage. It's possible that I'm just reading your diagram wrong...