2017 F350 camper top conversion with battery bank system

dpav · October 2017

So I posted a picture of my new 2017 F350 with my new Lear camper top. I’m in the process of building out the inside to become my sleeping area and living area for the next year. I plan on installing a pioneer platform on top of the topper. I also plan on using an 18“ x 18“ x 46“ long locking cargo box to house my battery system. Still designing battery system looking for input and help. Want 2 or more 12volt deep cycle marine battlers hooked up to a 2000 watt sine wave inverter with 55amp battery charger. Also wanted a noco Genius battery charger. Still trying to work out the total amp hrs that would be provided. I do plan on trying to run a variety of items because I will be calling the truck my home for the next year. I’m the winter I want to be able to run a bathroom heater. I’m the summer I want to be able to run a possible 6,000 btu portable ac unit. I need a hot plate all season long. Maybe a few lights. A computer charge and cell phone charger. Durning my trip I will have a few stationary locations where I would like to be able to hook up the battery chargers to a extension cord and charge the batteries manually via 120v outlet. I do not plan on having a bunch of solar panels on the roof because of size. I’ve thought about a 25 W 12 V solar panel for trickle charge during travel. Or possibly two. Am I missing any thing or overlooking some things. Open to all suggestions. I want to be able to be self-sufficient for a good amount of time. Obviously I know I can run all of those things at once but am looking for the best option to have the longest available battery back up for my truck.

Estragon · October 2017

Be careful selecting marine "deep cycle" batteries. Often they're a sort of hybrid design, not intended for regular, repeated, cycling to ~50% state of charge. Anything with a cranking amps (CCA) rating is likely one of the hybrid designs.

A couple of 12v batteries might give you something like 200amp-hours, at a 20hr rate of discharge. Of this, only about 1/2 is usable. Discharging below 50% will shorten the battery life, and voltage will drop too low to be useful at low states of charge. This means you have about 100ah at 12v = 1200watt-hours available. A 120v heater typically runs around 1500w, so you would get maybe 45mins of run time (likely much less, as fast discharge reduces effective capacity, and the will be inverter and wire losses).

Your box would likely fit 4x6volt L16 size deep cycle batteries, which wired as 2x12v strings would give you about 700ah@12v, 350ah usable, or 350x12v=4200 watt-hours. Still only enough to run the heater for a couple of hours. You would want ~100amps of charging for such a bank.

Probably the best way to approach this is to get something like a Honda eu3000i inverter generator to power larger loads like heating and cooling, and for charging batteries when no shore power. Running loads like electric heating is hard even for off-grid cabin systems with lots of space (and money) for batteries and solar panels. In a mobile application, using a generator for such loads is unavoidable IMHO.

dpav · October 2017

I found this video online and this guy had some crazy numbers for amp hrs

Spence_McCallie · November 2017

What you're describing is not realistic. I have an RV with two 75 AH batteries, and need 100W of solar power to maintain a decent charge for a weekend. All I run off of it is lights, radio, water pump, and heater (the blower only!). If you want heat, I would look into a propane heater for an RV. The AC is most likely not in the cards without a generator. You have a large enough truck, I'd pull a trailer.

bsolar · November 2017

get a nice fan and a coleman dual fuel stove ... running on battery for high-draw items is not practical, not even slightly ..

2017 F350 camper top conversion with battery bank system

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