Electrical design updated. Wire is expensive.

I updated the camper electrical design last night when I got home.  I reduced it to single level as opposed to a shelf to help minimize wiring.  

The reason for minimizing the wiring is because I went to order the wire yesterday, and it was an order of magnitude more expensive than I expected.  It totaled around 650 dollars.  Most of the reason it was so expensive is because I went with a 12V system.  8kW surge on 12V is 667A.  That is a terrifying amount of current.  It means I am going to be running parallel 4/0AWG cabling.  Running that many cables (2 per battery * 3 batteries, 1 set for the charger, plus the inverter came with 4 cables) means I need a bus bar.  I have also thus far been unable to find proper fuses either for that kind of current which makes me a little uneasy; my setup will be missing a common and important safety piece.

In hindsight (I am not changing the components now that I have ordered everything), perhaps I should have been a little more thorough in my original plans.  If I had realized this before I ordered everything, I would have likely gone with a 48V system.  Most systems of this size are run off 48V because of the wiring challenges I have mentioned.  I chose not to go that route because of the battery constraints a 48V has; it means I would have to order another battery to connect them in series instead of parallel.  This would have put the batteries alone at 500lbs with the lead acid batteries I chose.  Couple that with a trailer behind it, and my truck would have been doing a wheelie on the whole trip.  I don't like 375lbs as it is, but only went that route because the equivalent lithium setup would have run me $3k+ dollars (the lead acid batteries came to $1200 for all three).  48V would have exacerbated that difference since the Lithium batteries I looked at are around a grand piece.  But going 48V would have allowed me to get a cheaper inverter that included an AC port for charging the bank (saving me a 450 dollar charger) and use normal cheap wiring I could get at Home Depot (saving me another few hundred just in wiring and bus bars and the like.  The 48V system I chose is 6000W surge, which is only 125A which means that standard service wire would have been sufficient.  It still wouldn't be cheaper because of the forced change to Lithium for weight, but it would have been close and a more future proof system (the 48V system was a complete off grid solar setup).  Oh well.  Live and learn.  Sometimes the mistakes are costly.

No movement on the project list.  I have this afternoon off and it is supposed to be nice, so maybe I will try to get the rest of the top of the trailer primed.

2021 Projects:

• Prepare summer equipment
• Carport repair
• Windows in shed
• Shed supports
• Table
• South wall siding
• Bridge over creek
• Review options for house (mobile home vs stick built vs modular)
• Trailer hub
• Rebuild smaller trailer
• Level back yard
• Level side yard
• Level front yard
• Clear trees to creek
• Remove dead/dying beech trees
• Retaining walls?
• Eliminate pile of crap in back
• Camper Electrical extension (portable AC power source and generator)
• Clean up/level area down by second parking spot
• Driveway round three
• Fix shed door.