Electrical Upgrade - Control Panels, Trim and Inverter Connections. January 2024

Control Panels - I mounted all the control panels in the same location EEE used, over the wardrobe closet. 

Brother Tom came over and helped me make the escutcheon trim, he is better at it than me.  We used 1/8" thick ABS plastic to make the escutcheons. 

Any mistakes (and there were a few) were made by me, but they are hardly noticeable. 

Covering up - I put the solar controller and the solar disconnect switch in the back of the wardrobe closet. It was convenient because that is where EEE had put the solar controller originally.

 

It is a hidden space so I was not too concerned about looks, but I may add some type of trim around the components later. 

Inverter Wiring - I first connected the new 10AWG AC wiring to the inverter, the AC IN feed from the panel (Shore/Gen) and the Inverter AC Out back to the panel. The lock down connectors on the Xantrex make this pretty easy. The previous inverter (Magnum) controlled the inverter by using a 12V power wire from the panel. This gets turned off when the disconnect in the stair well is turned off. This allows turning off the inverter by connecting this wire to the ACC input on the Xantrex inverter.  The inverter did not come with a connector for this, but I made one from a Mercedes pin connector. I also connected the remote panel via the RJ12 connector. 

After making the AC connections and control connections, I made up the 4/0 cables to connect the Lynx Power bus to the Inverter.  I torqued them to spec and rechecked everything twice. 

My batteries were due on the 20Jan but have been delayed due to the attacks by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi militants on ships in the Red Sea. Ships are being diverted around the tip of Africa causing 3-4 weeks of delays.  My new ship date is 14Feb2024.

Since everything is in place sans the batteries, I may just put a set of batteries in to test and debug.  The tricky part is that the location of the battery connections is different on my new batteries. I only have enough 4/0 cable to do the job, if I can makeup some cables from what I pulled out, I will give it a try, otherwise I will have to wait for my batteries.