This installation was completed in March of 2022. The owner of this 5th wheel contacted me after he was referred to me by Battle Born Batteries.  The customer purchased a kit consisting of various Victron components and Battle Born batteries, along with some other related parts.  After receiving the equipment from Battle Born, the customer decided he wanted a professional to do the installation.  He spoke with his Battle Born sales representative and was referred to me.  We spoke about the equipment he purchased and what I could do for him.  The customer ultimately decided to use my services and brought the 5th wheel and equipment to me.

I was familiar with this particular floorplan because I have done several installations to the same floorplan in the past.  The installation went very smoothly as a result.  I like this particular floorplan a lot, both for its nicely designed living space and for all the open space available for solar, inverter and battery installations.   I was able to hide all the equipment behind the basement wall in unused dead space in the trailer.  The customer lost no storage space as a result and, in fact, gained storage space in the front compartment where the OEM batteries used to be.

The customer purchased GC2 batteries from Battle Born.  This was my first time working with the GC2 battery design.  I found them very “installer friendly” to work with.  The battery lug layout and case design make them very convenient for installation purposes.  All of the battery interconnect wires were very short and were in a nice, straight line for this particular installation.  I found the GC2 design much more convenient to work with compared to the standard BB10012 design.  The BB10012 design is very nice for direct replacement of a similar lead acid/AGM battery, but I found the GC2 design much more convenient for custom installations.

The only major components the customer did not get from Battle Born were solar panels.  I had some very nice 365 watt REC panels on hand which the customer decided to purchase,  The REC panels paired nicely with the SmartSolar MPPT 100/50 controller the customer purchased.  The 100/50 controller is rated for 700 watts of solar and I added two of the 365 watt panels (for a total of 730 watts of solar).  The controller can be “over-paneled” in this manner as long as the voltage and amperage parameters of the controller are not exceeded (which they were not).  This 5th wheel had no solar wire pre-run from the roof, but it did have a solar chase from the roof to the basement (as do most Grand Design 5th wheels) that made adding the wire fairly simple.

The Multiplus II was installed in line ahead of the main power panel and can power all electrical circuits in the trailer (within the capabilities of the inverter).  All the components went in with no issues.  Once the installation was complete, the customer returned to pick up the 5th wheel.  He was very happy with the final product and was looking forward to taking it out and using his new system.