Community Forums

bydnar · 12-07-2016, 05:55 AM

2016 Bay Star Sport 2705
BIRD?

Currently I have the luxury of available shore power to maintain coach and chassis batteries. I am contemplating a move to a condo which means that luxury goes away. I'll have to throw it into a storage facility, which does not provide shore power for the outdoor storage area. Thinking ahead about adding a solar charger simply for battery upkeep during storage, not for recovery after a day's use.

I have (1) 12 volt chassis battery and (2) 12 volt coach batteries. Electrically, they are connected via BIRD (Bi-directional Isolation Relay Delay)

I'd like to find 1 solar panel and connect it to the proper terminals so that all 3 batteries are maintained, just like when shore power is connected.

If it is possible to connect 1 panel to charge all 3 batteries, where would that proper connection point be?

kustom · 12-07-2016, 06:20 AM

want to watch this also

"007" · 12-07-2016, 01:56 PM

How often do you use your coach before the Bird system can recharge your batteries.
If it were I, the wires off a Solar controller, may need two panels, would connect to the house batteries as long as the panels have sufficient sun light they should maintain your house batteries.

Now your going to ask what about the chassis battery, you can place a battery disconnect knife switch off the negative battery post to make sure the LP Detector is disconnected , unless you have a switch for that in your display area, than knife switch would just remove radio and maybe your step control drains.

You may not need that because you have a small solar pane just for the chassis battery.
If you have a weak chassis battery when your getting ready to go camping you have the Boost button to draw the good charge from house batteries to start your engine.

I will leave you to sort things out as to what you want to do it may depend on your location, how cold it gets where you live and if there is no shade over your Solar panels.

Now if you go to QT's # 3 and in the BAY STAR Section there are people that have added panels for boon docking and further down from there information on Solar panel installations.
Hope your not too confused you know where to start at least.

LarryW21 · 12-14-2016, 03:16 PM

One of my three 100 watt solar panels keeps my two Trojan T-125s charged but I'm in sunny SoCal when not on the road...not Michigan. Brrrr And the panels feed into my MPPT charge controller which directly connects to the batteries.