Just finished the first project on our new 2019 Minnie -- I added a Victron BMV-712 battery monitor and new Samlex 30 amp smart charger. I also got new 2 gauge battery cables, added a 150 amp fuse and prepped for a future inverter install.
I added the new gear to the pass-thru. Given how flimsy the walls are in the trailer, I decided to make my own mounting board out of pre-finished cabinet plywood. I cut a dado in a 1" thick piece of poplar that I screwed into the floor and epoxied filler pieces of poplar above the existing pass-thru frame to screw the top to. The hole in the base board is where the factory routed the cables to the original power switch.
The Blue Seas battery switch ensures that only one charger can get to the battery at a time as well as keeping a battery shut-off switch in the circuit. The Samlex charger does not have an on-off switch, so I used one of those combination switch/outlets in the upper right corner.
I mounted the battery monitor to a piece of plywood I epoxied in place. The monitor is the Bluetooth version so it does not have to be visible in the trailer. After all the pieces were mounted to the board, I screwed the base board in place, positioned the plywood with all the new kit against the back wall and screwed the top into the blocks I had previously epoxied in.
I tapped the nearby factory outlet for power for the charger, but ended up replacing the factory outlet because it was cracked. (Don't know if I cracked it when I removed it, but I strongly suspect it was cracked when the factory installed it.)
I had deliberately run the battery down to about 60% charge and was surprised to see the factory WFCO8955 was pushing a bit over 16 amps to the battery when I first turned everything back on. Granted, it was only at 13.6 volts, but I didn't think the WFCO would push that many amps to the battery at all. When I switched over to the Samlex, though, it started right off pumping 30 amps at 14.4 volts.
I've started off with a single group 31 deep cycle battery with 105 amp hours. I have a pair of GC2 six volt batteries I might install in the future, but I'm going to find out first if we're able to comfortably boondock just running the generator for a couple hours per day given the new charger's increased capacity.
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