Builds Joltman's Build: The Overkill Weekender

[joltman]

what specs on your tint? the percentages I guess... looks great.

Someone else asked me that. The front is 70% and the sides are either 35 or 55. I just can't remember. I did ask them to do the sunroof and that was 70% I believe. I'm glad I did it. The sun is much less harsh now and I am not getting sun burnt on long road trips.

 

[BIC JET]

Great looking truck! You guys are going to love the off-road world, and you are certainly in the right state (CO) for it!

 

[joltman]

Its been a while since my last post. In that time, I've completed some more maintenance and a mod. Along with standard oil changes/greasing the drive shafts/cycling the KDSS valves, I've changed the gear oil in the front/center/rear diffs. I used Mobil 75W-90 and a hand pump from Amazon along with the crush washers from Amazon as well. For the next time, I got a drill attached pump (cuz I'm lazy) and some larger jack stands that should hold the weight of the truck no problem.

The mod I completed was the upgrade of the main battery to a group 31 Deka 1131PMF battery from Lowes. I used the main battery upgrade tray from Slee along with the Slee extended battery terminals and positive terminal cover. I've got an album of the process here. It's not as detailed as I'd like to get, but it's all I had time for. So far, I've not encountered any issues. My dashcam is able to run overnight without shutting down due to voltage cutoff and there's been no starting issues.

I've also got a roof rack on order from Gamiviti. I went with the Expo++ (w/ taper). I also opted for the 5"x5" grid welded to it so that I can carry some smaller items and not worry about them falling through to the roof. It will be great to be able to carry my larger ground tent (Gazelle T4 Overland Edition), 10'x10' coleman awning and other accessories. @nakman was professional and offered great advice during the process. I'm really excited for this to arrive!

A while back I ordered some Gamiviti MultiBrackets. The idea was to use them to mount my ham radio antenna and GMRS antenna. I ordered these in October 2021 and I hadn't gotten around to installing them. I had no idea where to install my Kenwood TM-D710G radio and my Wouxun KG-1000G radio. I had also visited my local Ham Radio Outlet store and purchased a swivel mount (Diamond K540), a cable with SO239 mount (Diamond CS213-SMA) and a dual band 2m/70cm antenna (Diamond NR770HB). Well, today I got one mounted with the antenna!
In this photo, you can see how close the antenna mount is to actually touching my garage door. I'm not joking when I say I have about 2mm of clearance.

Here's another shot of the clearance.

The next step will be to safely/waterproofly get the antenna cable(s) into the cab without drilling holes or getting everything soaked. I was loitering over in a thread that Eric Sargent made and he discussed how they get cables from the roof rack into the cab using factory grommets on the hatch. They replaced the black plastic grommets with Ford made grommets. I was interested, and we all know that Eric is a trustworthy source. So sight unseen, I placed the order for 2 of those as well. I put one in today and it does fit! I couldn't believe it! So I will be getting another antenna/mount/cabling from HRO and mounting up the second antenna on the MultiBracket and then pulling those antenna cables through that grommet. I was in a hurry this afternoon, so I didn't have time to take photos of the grommet. I promise I'll get some soon. I know the antenna isn't connected to anything at the moment, but I'm so stoked to see it on the truck! It's really renewed my enthusiasm for modding this truck. Believe me, there's more to come too!!

 

[joltman]

One of my goals for the Cruiser has been convenient storage for tools, camping equipment and luggage. A drawer system seemed like the best idea. And since this is an overkill build... Back in February 2022, I placed an order with @TrekboxX. In June, this box arrived:

It was huge. It was custom made to hold the drawer system. It's actually made of the same plywood as the drawer system. I wasn't expecting it that soon, so I wasn't ready to install it yet. But I had to take a peek:

So what was holding me up on the drawer install? Electrical and comms. In my head, I've got an idea for how I want this truck to look. It's a mix of what I've seen on this forum, believe it or not. The idea was to run power to the back before the drawers were installed. I also wanted to have my GMRS and Ham antenna cables run down to the drawers as well. In the previous post, you saw me temporarily install the Gamiviti MultiBrackets on the stock roof rails. The idea was to use the Ford grommets I posted about earlier to be the ingress point for the cable into the hatch and interior of the truck. I also wanted to install two red/white lights on the hatch, like we've Eric Sargent put on Cruisers. I had placed an order for Whelen lights and they have arrived. I went through the massive project of pulling interior trim and hatch trim so I could run wiring for the lights and the antenna cables:

Here you can see the two antenna leads on the left, and red, orange, white, and black 18 gauge wire. The wire was put in a 1/4" split loom for it's run inside the hatch. I don't need rattles chaffing the wire and causing a short. You can also see in the top right the L shaped rubber grommet. This is the Ford grommet and it fits perfectly in the stock hole. At the top middle where I used the factory boot to run the wires and antenna leads. This boot has the window washer fluid tube in it. There was plenty of room for the wiring, but running it through the boot was a lot of work. It took a long time to get my wire pull through the tight corners. A tip for those doing this, you can see the white plastic ring that's still in the boot hole on the hatch. That should have come off and I should have clipped that back on the boot _before_ putting the boot back in place. I didn't realize that and it took me a while with small picks and needle nose pliers to get the boot wrapped back around that white plastic while it was in place.

Here's a couple shots of the interior rear passenger panel removed and you can see more of the split tubing I used once I got into the headliner. That split tubing ran from the boot ingress point, above the headliner and down the D pillar and over the wheel well.

You can see in that last photo the two split looms coming out behind the middle row passenger seat near the wheel well. One of the antenna leads was shorter than the other due to turns it had to make coming from the roof rails. But that's a problem for another day.

 

[joltman]

The next step was to run electrical from under the hood. A month or so before this portion of the project, I installed a Blue Sea SafetyHub 150 on the Slee Accessory Tray under the hood on the passenger side. I didn't get any photos of the install process. Sorry! However, I was now ready to run positive and negative 6 gauge wire to that SafetyHub.

Here you can see that I started by removing the door sills from the passenger side. I decided not to run the wire through any loom simply because this is _thick_ jacketed wire. It's from Battery Cables USA from their Extreme Dual Jacket series. I started from the rear and ran the wire through the factory harness strap downs.

Here you can see the wires passing by the B pillar. It was a very tight fit, but it did fit.

The cables followed up the foot well and passed through the firewall in the stock grommet location. I snipped off the two nipples and used some dish soap to lube up the wire. They passed through the nipples easily.

Here you see them entering into the engine bay. They were tight coming through the nipples so I don't see a need to use silicon on them for water intrusion protection.

Here you can see their final position mounted to the SafetyHub 150. The lugs were crimped with a hydraulic crimper and I used adhesive lined heat shrink to protect the cable jacket. As you can see, the SafetyHub is not charged. I have some 1/0 gauge wire that I need to run to the main battery. I was thinking of running the wire along the back of the engine bay and zip tying to the factory harness that runs there. However, I'm trying to think of the best way to run the wires to the battery once I get to the driver's side of the bay. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear/see it. I want the cables to be as out of the way as possible, but 1/0 is pretty big cable. I spec'd 1/0 gauge because in the distances I was looking at, it could handle 150A without issue.

With the electrical ran to the back, it was time for the drawer install!

 

[joltman]

The TrekBoxx is heavy. Like, really heavy. I needed a friend to help me install it in the truck. We spent the Fourth of July doing the install. It was hot and we were working for hours to get it in and lined up. This is not to say that the install is difficult. It's not. I'm just dumb. I think I would be able to perform the install much quicker next time. Probably in 2-3 hours. My friend and I were having too much fun BSing, but that's part of it! Because of that, I didn't get any photos of us doing the install. Here is the finished product:

The drawers come installed in the box and it doesn't appear like you can take them out. If you can, that steps wasn't included in the instructions. This thing is _solid_. I'm amazed how much weight the drawers can hold. I really need to organize and pack down my tool bag as it takes up a large portion of the large drawer. I also have my spare compressor in there along with tire puncture repair kit and air up tools. I should move some of that stuff to the side wing. In the time I've had the drawers installed, I've not been able to scratch them. I dragged a large fold up camp chair across the surface and thought I had scratched the finish. Nope, whatever was there was from the chair, not the finish. The "scratch" rubbed right off. The drawers are also heavy, but I knew that going in. The rear suspension dropped by probably an inch after the install. However, there's been no issues with bottoming out on trails with the extra weight. An upcoming purchase will be a fridge to take advantage of that sweet slide.

About a month before this, I spoke with Tim with Gamiviti. I was ready for a roof rack. I told him what I was interested in and he asked me a few questions to narrow things down. One thing I wanted was a 5"x5" wire grid to help keep smaller items in place on the rack. This was in addition to the standard rails. I also opted for 4 roof rack feet per side. I figured, the truck has 4 brackets per side, even though the stock rack only uses 3. Why not do them all? The rack is the Expo ++ with taper. I placed the order. Just before the drawers were installed, Tim told me the rack was ready. So, on the 6th, I drove up to Tim's and we installed the roof rack. That was fun! It took about 1.5 hours, again, only because I'm dumb. I have read many threads on this forum about people who have lost the roof rack nut plate in the headliner. Tim obviously has the experience and we didn't have any issues with those plates. Here are some photos of the rack installed:

You can kind of make out the 5"x5" wire grid. I also ordered a sunroof cutout with the insert as well as the MaxTrax mount. I love this rack. It is the exact look I was wanting. It's unbelievably sturdy. You can grab the side and shake the truck and not flex the rack feet or the rack. You can also see the Gamiviti prototype wedge that replaces the stock middle speaker grill. That is for an upcoming project. But to get to that project, another project needed to be done.

 

[joltman]

I had an issue. The AC in the rear of the vehicle was blowing hot. It had been doing that for a while; most of the summer of 2022. This became an issue on a very warm day on the way home from a soccer game where the little dude in his car seat was getting blasted with hot air. I decided that it was time to get to the bottom of this. I did what any sane person would do, and started searching for posts here on Mud. I came across several threads mentioning an HVAC servo motor issue most likely caused by an HVAC computer firmware issue. To diagnose this, you could go to a dealership and have them plug in TechStream and get a diagnostic code, or, you could do it yourself with hacked TechStream software and sketchy OBD tool! Obviously, I chose the sketchy method because it's way cheaper. Last year I purchased a TechStream ODB tool from vxDiag. Back then, I installed the cracked TechStream software on a dedicated laptop that will never touch my internal wifi. I plugged the tool in and turned on the truck. I saw this:

The error that people were referring to is the above error B1449. This error is kicked if you run into the HVAC firmware issue. So I scheduled an appointment at the local dealership. They couldn't get me in for nearly a month. Great. So I waited. But, what is that other error code? Room temperature sensor circuit (rear passenger side)? Why does that sound familiar? For days I was thinking about this. I found out where that temp sensor is located (under the cup holders, in a cubby on the rear passenger trim piece). Why would that be not working? Remember above where I took out the rear passenger trim piece in order to run the wires for the hatch lights and antenna leads? In order to take out that trim piece, there is a single harness connection. Guess what connects to that two-wire harness? The Room Temperature Sensor (Rear Passenger Side). Crap. I had an idea of where the sensor on the trim piece plugs in. Here's a photo of it:

Its hard to see, but it's sitting loose next to the black floor grommet in the middle of the photo, directly behind the loose split loom with orange wire in it. I didn't want to take apart the entire drawer system just to plug the harness back in. Hell, at this point, I wasn't even convinced that this harness was the cause of my AC issue. So I sat and stewed for a while. Then, about a week before the dealership appointment, I decide, ya know what, just pull out the jack cover and see if you can get your hand up in there. So I tried it. And I could feel the dangling plug, and I could feel the corresponding plug on the trim piece. After about 10 minutes of fidgeting, I was able to seat the connector. I waited for the next day and tested the AC again. It worked perfectly. It's continued to work perfectly since that day. I was so pissed at myself. This whole time (since summer 2021 maybe???) the AC hasn't worked because I forgot to plug in a harness. I think the harness was forgotten back at the end of summer 2021 when I removed the trim piece for a second time to try and replace a nutsert that I incorrectly installed during my Victory 4x4 molle panel install. Incidentally, I fixed that nutsert when I ran the wires for the light/antenna leads this summer. So that's perfect now too.

On to the next project.

 

[tbisaacs]

I had an issue. The AC in the rear of the vehicle was blowing hot. It had been doing that for a while; most of the summer of 2022. This became an issue on a very warm day on the way home from a soccer game where the little dude in his car seat was getting blasted with hot air. I decided that it was time to get to the bottom of this. I did what any sane person would do, and started searching for posts here on Mud. I came across several threads mentioning an HVAC servo motor issue most likely caused by an HVAC computer firmware issue. To diagnose this, you could go to a dealership and have them plug in TechStream and get a diagnostic code, or, you could do it yourself with hacked TechStream software and sketchy OBD tool! Obviously, I chose the sketchy method because it's way cheaper. Last year I purchased a TechStream ODB tool from vxDiag. Back then, I installed the cracked TechStream software on a dedicated laptop that will never touch my internal wifi. I plugged the tool in and turned on the truck. I saw this:

View attachment 3136575

The error that people were referring to is the above error B1449. This error is kicked if you run into the HVAC firmware issue. So I scheduled an appointment at the local dealership. They couldn't get me in for nearly a month. Great. So I waited. But, what is that other error code? Room temperature sensor circuit (rear passenger side)? Why does that sound familiar? For days I was thinking about this. I found out where that temp sensor is located (under the cup holders, in a cubby on the rear passenger trim piece). Why would that be not working? Remember above where I took out the rear passenger trim piece in order to run the wires for the hatch lights and antenna leads? In order to take out that trim piece, there is a single harness connection. Guess what connects to that two-wire harness? The Room Temperature Sensor (Rear Passenger Side). Crap. I had an idea of where the sensor on the trim piece plugs in. Here's a photo of it:

View attachment 3136579

Its hard to see, but it's sitting loose next to the black floor grommet in the middle of the photo, directly behind the loose split loom with orange wire in it. I didn't want to take apart the entire drawer system just to plug the harness back in. Hell, at this point, I wasn't even convinced that this harness was the cause of my AC issue. So I sat and stewed for a while. Then, about a week before the dealership appointment, I decide, ya know what, just pull out the jack cover and see if you can get your hand up in there. So I tried it. And I could feel the dangling plug, and I could feel the corresponding plug on the trim piece. After about 10 minutes of fidgeting, I was able to seat the connector. I waited for the next day and tested the AC again. It worked perfectly. It's continued to work perfectly since that day. I was so pissed at myself. This whole time (since summer 2021 maybe???) the AC hasn't worked because I forgot to plug in a harness. I think the harness was forgotten back at the end of summer 2021 when I removed the trim piece for a second time to try and replace a nutsert that I incorrectly installed during my Victory 4x4 molle panel install. Incidentally, I fixed that nutsert when I ran the wires for the light/antenna leads this summer. So that's perfect now too.

On to the next project.

I did the same thing when installing my dobinson's drawers. I distinctly remember unplugging it to remove the interior panel but didn't remember plugging it back in. I ran it like that until I pulled them out later this year, but yea my AC was pretty whacky for a while.

 

[TrekboxX]

Looking great! Glad you got them in. Only one note for clarification- the shipping crate is definitely not made from the same material- it's Birch plywood which is vastly inferior to the Baltic birch used in the systems. We've been using it through covid because it's actually been cheaper than OSB(!) which we normally use.

Just didn't want you to think you were paying for a Baltic Birch crate!

 

[joltman]

@TrekboxX than you for the clarification! That makes more sense now that I've worked with that shipping plywood. That will be in an upcoming post.

 

[varun bhargava]

The next step was to run electrical from under the hood. A month or so before this portion of the project, I installed a Blue Sea SafetyHub 150 on the Slee Accessory Tray under the hood on the passenger side. I didn't get any photos of the install process. Sorry! However, I was now ready to run positive and negative 6 gauge wire to that SafetyHub.


View attachment 3136533


Here you can see that I started by removing the door sills from the passenger side. I decided not to run the wire through any loom simply because this is _thick_ jacketed wire. It's from Battery Cables USA from their Extreme Dual Jacket series. I started from the rear and ran the wire through the factory harness strap downs.

View attachment 3136542

Here you can see the wires passing by the B pillar. It was a very tight fit, but it did fit.



View attachment 3136546

The cables followed up the foot well and passed through the firewall in the stock grommet location. I snipped off the two nipples and used some dish soap to lube up the wire. They passed through the nipples easily.

View attachment 3136548

Here you see them entering into the engine bay. They were tight coming through the nipples so I don't see a need to use silicon on them for water intrusion protection.


View attachment 3136549

Here you can see their final position mounted to the SafetyHub 150. The lugs were crimped with a hydraulic crimper and I used adhesive lined heat shrink to protect the cable jacket. As you can see, the SafetyHub is not charged. I have some 1/0 gauge wire that I need to run to the main battery. I was thinking of running the wire along the back of the engine bay and zip tying to the factory harness that runs there. However, I'm trying to think of the best way to run the wires to the battery once I get to the driver's side of the bay. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear/see it. I want the cables to be as out of the way as possible, but 1/0 is pretty big cable. I spec'd 1/0 gauge because in the distances I was looking at, it could handle 150A without issue.

With the electrical ran to the back, it was time for the drawer install!

These pictures and explanations are amazing! I wish I had seen this before doing my own wiring earlier this year.

 

[CWolg]

Following!

 

[joltman]

I mentioned in a previous post that I was using the Trekboxx shipping plywood for another project. That project is a "house electrics" board that mounts on the front of the Trekboxx. Again, I didn't take photos of the actual process. I know, I suck. However, I have some photos of the board installed on the Trekboxx and the electrics/electronics mounted on that board.

Let's talk about the board first. The board has several cutouts to go around the mount points for the Trekboxx luggage barrier. The electrics board is secured to the Trekboxx via trimmed bolts and T-Nuts. This allows me to take off and put on the electrics board without needing to worry about dropping nuts in the drawer body. Because of the space between the back of the second row seats, I had to mount the Orion lower. It's hard to see from this photo, but the Orion actually mounts over the luggage barrier's lower bar. To make that work, I needed to cut out narrow strips of the Trekboxx shipping plywood and glue them together. Then the lower strips were screwed to the bottom of the Trekboxx directly. The upper strip was glued directly to the main electrics board. This allowed enough room to "span" the luggage barrier lower bar. This will be more apparent in a later photo.

Now let's talk about the electronics. On the board you will see:

• Victron Orion 12/12-30 DCDC charger w/ aluminum backing plate (heat dissipation and non-flammable contact point per the manual)
• Blue Sea 300A Single Pole Switch
• Victron Lynx Distributor (this is much easier than fabbing up a smaller fuse block)
• Blue Sea 12 Device Fuse Block
• Kenwood TM-D710GA 2m/70cm amateur radio
• Wouxun KG-1000G GMRS Radio

In a previous post, I showed the 6 gauge wire I ran from under the hood directly to the second row. In the above photo, you can see it all bundled up under the electrics board. In the following picture, you can see the tidied up electrics board.

Maybe I should use the phrase "tidied up" more loosely? I will say that none of the cables are loose and the board is quite secure. You can see that the antenna leads from the roof have been attached to their respective radios and wires have been secured to the board with rubber insulated or plastic cable clamps.

So what's the end game here? At some point this summer, I will be installing a 100Ah LiFePO4 battery under the driver's wing of the Trekboxx. This will have the negative lead go directly to the Lynx distributor's negative bus bar (on the right side of this photo). The positive lead will go to a 100A fuse, then to the Blue Sea switch From that switch a line will run to the Lynx positive bus bar (again, right side of the photo). Here's a photo with the Lynx cover removed:

Victron really put a lot of thought into this distributor. It has the exact amount of fuse terminals a DC system would need, even to accommodate two methods of DC charging. I have the vehicle's negative running to the bottom middle "sytem-wide" ground mount on the Lynx. The vehicle ground is the same as the house ground because I'm using the Non-Isolated Orion charger. The Orion then has it's negative OUT going to the Victron's negative bus bar in position 3 (counting from the left). The Orion positive (which supplies charge to the battery _or_ to act as a power supply if there's no battery to charge) then goes to position 3 positive bus bar utilizing a MIDI 60A fuse. All connections to the Orion have been made with crimped ferrules and heat shrink. I have left enough slack in those cables to add a Victron solar charger directly next to the Orion and under the Lynx. That solar charger would then mount to the same aluminum plate and connect to the Lynx in position 4.

One of the ways that Orion knows to start charging the house battery is by sensing the voltage on the vehicle's battery. While this does work, it can produce undesirable results. What if I wanted to charge the vehicle's battery? The Orion would see that as a higher voltage then kick on it's charger. This would have the effect of essentially draining the vehicle battery in order to charge the house battery. There is another method to kick on the Orion's charger. Another smaller gauge, fused wire will be run from vehicle ignition to the Orion's L trigger port. When the vehicle's ignition is on, a higher voltage will be detected on the wire running to the L trigger. This will tell the Orion to start charging the house battery (or for the time being, to turn on as a power supply). Using this method, I won't rely on the vehicle battery's voltage as a means of starting/stopping the Orion.

Position 1 is being used by the Blue Sea 12 fuse block. That fuse block currently has both radios fused in, as well as the runs for the Whelen lights that will be installed on the rear hatch. I have the lights, just haven't had the proper weather to install. The fridge will also get it's power from that fuse block. When I purchase the 100Ah LiFePO4 battery, I will also purchase a Victron dedicated shore charger for it. That will also live under the driver's wing on the Trekboxx. It will be wired to the Blue Sea fuse block as well so that it can be fused properly and charge the battery.

Position 2 could be used for an inverter at some point in the future.

This has been sitting in my vehicle since October. There have been no rattles or any other issues. However, it's not currently powered. Again, I ran out of time due to family issues, and I ran out of nice weather to work in the garage. The next step is to run power from the vehicle battery to the Safety Hub 150. I have the proper gauge wire, lugs, heat shrink and fuses. I just need to find a proper path from the vehicle battery to the Safety Hub. I think I have an idea there, but it will involve removing the ARB air compressor to run the wires properly. But that will be another post!

 

[joltman]

It's been a while! I finally was given some time to finish the wiring from the starter battery to the SafetyHub 150. Here's a photo of the completed work:

This was a lot of work. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I tried a different routing path. You can't really see it in this photo, but on US Driver's Side in the engine bay there's a plastic shroud along the top of that fender. Behind the shroud there are fender mounts that are nearly perfect for running the negative lead. Unfortunately, I scaled up my leads to 2/0. According to Blue Sea, they only needed to be 1 gauge for 150A @ 9ft with 3% loss. I went way overboard. But if someone were to get a 1 gauge, they could go through that side and use rubber grommets for the mount pass-throughs.

Either way, this is what I came up with. You can see that I went to great lengths to secure the leads away from anything major. There is a potential rubbing point for the negative against the battery, but we'll have to see how that goes. I should probably get some plastic tubing to put around the lead at that point. You might also notice that on the L side of the refrigerant line, that the cover is missing. That was lost to the engine bay somewhere during this install. A new one is on order. If you're curious about the part number, that's 88375-30290.

Here are some photos of the leads on the Slee extended terminals and then tucked up and zip tied to the wiring harness:

Here you can see the final termination on the SafetyHub 150 that's mounted on the Slee Accessory tray. I added some plastic/rubber edging to the sharp edges of the tray. This edging has metal tabs in it that hold the edging securely to the tray. I got this edging from Gamiviti. It was originally intended to go under the plastic air deflector to protect the paint above the windshield. However, that deflector hasn't come anywhere near the paint, so I re-purposed the edging. It's on there TIGHT. It will not come off.

There are two different devices being powered from the Hub 150.

• On the right you can see two positive leads that run to the ARB dual compressor. I moved the power harness from connecting straight to the battery (cluttered wiring) and using the ARB odd sized fuses, over to the Hub 150 using two MIDI 40A fuses.
• On the left, you see a larger gauge wire. This runs to the back and connects to the Victron Orion 12/12 30. I've got a 60A MIDI fuse on the Hub 150 to feed that device.

As soon as I popped the 60A fuse on the terminals, the Victron sprung to life. It's been 9 months or more I've had it, and it finally is alive! That was a great feeling seeing those lights!

The Orion has 2 modes:

• Battery Charging Mode
  • You can configure the chemistry of the battery you want to charge and it will figure out (or you can manually set) the charge rates/float rate, etc.
  • It has 2 methods of turning on the charge function:
    • Detect voltage on the starter battery lead and if it's above a defined voltage, start charging. This is a nice idea in theory, but if you put a trickle charger on your starter battery, the Orion could kick on and drain your starter just to charge the house battery.
    • Monitor a switched 12V source and turn on the actual charger. This is the better method as the charger will only kick on if you choose a switched source that's active only when the engine is running.
• Power Supply Mode
  • The Orion acts as a constant 12V (configurable up to 15V) power supply. This will power any accessories whether the vehicle is started or not. This is great if you don't have a house battery yet and still want to power things like a fridge.
  • Via the Victron Connect app, you can turn this power supply output feature on and off

I don't have a house battery yet, so I've chosen the Power Supply Mode. I don't have a fridge yet either, so I've actually turned off the PS mode. The next steps for the Cruiser are to wire up the control heads for both radios, and install the Whelen dual output lights on the tail gate. If I have time, I'll also install them under the hood (both ideas courtesy of Ed Martin Toyota/Eric Seargant). Also, I think it would be a great idea to get a 3D printed wedge for under the hood installs. This would angle the Whelen lights to shed light on the engine bay more evenly. I don't have a 3D printer, nor any experience with creating a model, but it would be a great idea for some talented person!

So those are the updates for the truck. I'm super pleased with the outcome. I'm also really glad I took the time to wire the house power board correctly and cleanly. If anyone has any comments or suggestions on the underhood wiring, please let me know. I think the zip ties are enough to keep the leads safe and tangle free, but any other ideas are welcomed. Thanks!

 

[tbisaacs]

It's been a while! I finally was given some time to finish the wiring from the starter battery to the SafetyHub 150. Here's a photo of the completed work:

View attachment 3342467


This was a lot of work. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I tried a different routing path. You can't really see it in this photo, but on US Driver's Side in the engine bay there's a plastic shroud along the top of that fender. Behind the shroud there are fender mounts that are nearly perfect for running the negative lead. Unfortunately, I scaled up my leads to 2/0. According to Blue Sea, they only needed to be 1 gauge for 150A @ 9ft with 3% loss. I went way overboard. But if someone were to get a 1 gauge, they could go through that side and use rubber grommets for the mount pass-throughs.

Either way, this is what I came up with. You can see that I went to great lengths to secure the leads away from anything major. There is a potential rubbing point for the negative against the battery, but we'll have to see how that goes. I should probably get some plastic tubing to put around the lead at that point. You might also notice that on the L side of the refrigerant line, that the cover is missing. That was lost to the engine bay somewhere during this install. A new one is on order. If you're curious about the part number, that's 88375-30290.

Here are some photos of the leads on the Slee extended terminals and then tucked up and zip tied to the wiring harness:

View attachment 3342471
View attachment 3342473

Here you can see the final termination on the SafetyHub 150 that's mounted on the Slee Accessory tray. I added some plastic/rubber edging to the sharp edges of the tray. This edging has metal tabs in it that hold the edging securely to the tray. I got this edging from Gamiviti. It was originally intended to go under the plastic air deflector to protect the paint above the windshield. However, that deflector hasn't come anywhere near the paint, so I re-purposed the edging. It's on there TIGHT. It will not come off.

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There are two different devices being powered from the Hub 150.

• On the right you can see two positive leads that run to the ARB dual compressor. I moved the power harness from connecting straight to the battery (cluttered wiring) and using the ARB odd sized fuses, over to the Hub 150 using two MIDI 40A fuses.
• On the left, you see a larger gauge wire. This runs to the back and connects to the Victron Orion 12/12 30. I've got a 60A MIDI fuse on the Hub 150 to feed that device.

As soon as I popped the 60A fuse on the terminals, the Victron sprung to life. It's been 9 months or more I've had it, and it finally is alive! That was a great feeling seeing those lights!

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The Orion has 2 modes:

• Battery Charging Mode
  • You can configure the chemistry of the battery you want to charge and it will figure out (or you can manually set) the charge rates/float rate, etc.
  • It has 2 methods of turning on the charge function:
    • Detect voltage on the starter battery lead and if it's above a defined voltage, start charging. This is a nice idea in theory, but if you put a trickle charger on your starter battery, the Orion could kick on and drain your starter just to charge the house battery.
    • Monitor a switched 12V source and turn on the actual charger. This is the better method as the charger will only kick on if you choose a switched source that's active only when the engine is running.
• Power Supply Mode
  • The Orion acts as a constant 12V (configurable up to 15V) power supply. This will power any accessories whether the vehicle is started or not. This is great if you don't have a house battery yet and still want to power things like a fridge.
  • Via the Victron Connect app, you can turn this power supply output feature on and off

I don't have a house battery yet, so I've chosen the Power Supply Mode. I don't have a fridge yet either, so I've actually turned off the PS mode. The next steps for the Cruiser are to wire up the control heads for both radios, and install the Whelen dual output lights on the tail gate. If I have time, I'll also install them under the hood (both ideas courtesy of Ed Martin Toyota/Eric Seargant). Also, I think it would be a great idea to get a 3D printed wedge for under the hood installs. This would angle the Whelen lights to shed light on the engine bay more evenly. I don't have a 3D printer, nor any experience with creating a model, but it would be a great idea for some talented person!

So those are the updates for the truck. I'm super pleased with the outcome. I'm also really glad I took the time to wire the house power board correctly and cleanly. If anyone has any comments or suggestions on the underhood wiring, please let me know. I think the zip ties are enough to keep the leads safe and tangle free, but any other ideas are welcomed. Thanks!

Running this almost exact setup!

Builds - Travis’s PNW LX570

Much more room in rear position which I assume will negate my progressive dampening nirvana

forum.ih8mud.com

I ended up running big wires along the front and compressor etc along the firewall.

 

[Kurosawa]

One of the ways that Orion knows to start charging the house battery is by sensing the voltage on the vehicle's battery. While this does work, it can produce undesirable results. What if I wanted to charge the vehicle's battery? The Orion would see that as a higher voltage then kick on it's charger. This would have the effect of essentially draining the vehicle battery in order to charge the house battery. There is another method to kick on the Orion's charger. Another smaller gauge, fused wire will be run from vehicle ignition to the Orion's L trigger port. When the vehicle's ignition is on, a higher voltage will be detected on the wire running to the L trigger. This will tell the Orion to start charging the house battery (or for the time being, to turn on as a power supply). Using this method, I won't rely on the vehicle battery's voltage as a means of starting/stopping the Orion.

I have been running a single group 31 starter/house battery setup for years and am now adding a separate house battery with the same Orion unit and have a question about this quote above.

I have the Victron onboard battery charger mounted under the hood and an exterior plug in my front bumper for hooking up to shore power which I love for pre-cooling the fridge/freezer and topping off the battery before trips. I was planing to plug the truck in and be able to charge the start battery and have voltage flow through the Orion to also fully charge the new house battery. I thought this would be a good thing (charging both at once) but you make it sound like it may not work the way I was imagining?

Thanks for any insight you may have on this.

 

[joltman]

I have been running a single group 31 starter/house battery setup for years and am now adding a separate house battery with the same Orion unit and have a question about this quote above.

I have the Victron onboard battery charger mounted under the hood and an exterior plug in my front bumper for hooking up to shore power which I love for pre-cooling the fridge/freezer and topping off the battery before trips. I was planing to plug the truck in and be able to charge the start battery and have voltage flow through the Orion to also fully charge the new house battery. I thought this would be a good thing (charging both at once) but you make it sound like it may not work the way I was imagining?

Thanks for any insight you may have on this.

If I understand your wiring from your build thread, you have the Victron Battery Charger (which lives in the engine bay) connected directly to the starter battery. You then have a (fused?) run from the starter battery back to the Victron Orion (hopefully mounted near your house battery) which acts as a charger only for a house battery (located where?). You intend to charge the house battery via the Orion, which will get it's power from the starter battery, which gets its charge from the Victron Charger.

Here is where the issue could occur. Let's say that the house battery has a SOC of 50%. You plug in the Victron Charger which raises the voltage on the positive terminal of the starter battery. The Victron Charger only raises the amperage slightly (it's a 13A charger). The Orion would see a higher voltage and start charging the house battery at whatever rate the Orion has (18A or 30A). The problem is that the Victron Charger can't supply enough amperage to charge the starter battery and the Orion at the same time. So where does the makeup amperage come from? The starter battery. So you discharge the starter battery to charge the house battery. The starter battery, being a lead acid, can't handle deep discharges. I know you have the Deka battery (we've dicussed that in the past), so you know its discharge limits. If you continue doing this charge method, it could damage the Deka battery. It certainly could leave the Deka at a lower state of charge than when the charge session started.

My recommendation is to move the Victron Charger (or add one) to the house battery side of your system (behind the Orion). Yes, it won't charge the starter battery, but that battery really won't need it since it's only the vehicle battery. When the truck is running, the alternator puts out plenty of amperage to charge the starter battery and run the Orion with enough left over for the vehicles systems. And, the benefit of running the Victon gear is that you can also use the solar charge controller at the same time. If you had a roof mounted panel, it could be charging the house battery at all times in additon to the Orion.

I hope this helps!

 

[Kurosawa]

If I understand your wiring from your build thread, you have the Victron Battery Charger (which lives in the engine bay) connected directly to the starter battery. You then have a (fused?) run from the starter battery back to the Victron Orion (hopefully mounted near your house battery) which acts as a charger only for a house battery (located where?). You intend to charge the house battery via the Orion, which will get it's power from the starter battery, which gets its charge from the Victron Charger.

Here is where the issue could occur. Let's say that the house battery has a SOC of 50%. You plug in the Victron Charger which raises the voltage on the positive terminal of the starter battery. The Victron Charger only raises the amperage slightly (it's a 13A charger). The Orion would see a higher voltage and start charging the house battery at whatever rate the Orion has (18A or 30A). The problem is that the Victron Charger can't supply enough amperage to charge the starter battery and the Orion at the same time. So where does the makeup amperage come from? The starter battery. So you discharge the starter battery to charge the house battery. The starter battery, being a lead acid, can't handle deep discharges. I know you have the Deka battery (we've dicussed that in the past), so you know its discharge limits. If you continue doing this charge method, it could damage the Deka battery. It certainly could leave the Deka at a lower state of charge than when the charge session started.

My recommendation is to move the Victron Charger (or add one) to the house battery side of your system (behind the Orion). Yes, it won't charge the starter battery, but that battery really won't need it since it's only the vehicle battery. When the truck is running, the alternator puts out plenty of amperage to charge the starter battery and run the Orion with enough left over for the vehicles systems. And, the benefit of running the Victon gear is that you can also use the solar charge controller at the same time. If you had a roof mounted panel, it could be charging the house battery at all times in additon to the Orion.

I hope this helps!

This definitely gives me the context I was missing, much appreciated. I have all the house equipment ordered so now before install is a good time to consider moving the charger and thinking about a new location for it in the back etc. I'll update my build thread with the result once completed.

 

[joltman]

I cannot believe how long its been since I've posted an update! My life has been unbelievably busy immediately following my last post. But I haven't been idle. I've slowly been continuing my build. One of my goals for the build was to take the truck out in the wilderness for several days and have a comfortable experience while having a reliable vehicle. I had been wanting a fridge in the truck not only for the wilderness days, but also for normal days, or family road trips. I could have run a fridge from the starter battery, but I was nervous that I could run the battery flat. I'd been wanting a house battery. Specifically, a LiFePO4 battery. However, I could only really put the battery in the driver's side wing of the Trekboxx. I couldn't find a battery that was affordable and could fit the size restrictions I had with the drawer. With my TrekBoxx I received a battery tray. It had dimensions that seemed reasonable:

WIDTH 6 13/16"
LENGTH 12 3/16"

However, while keeping the TB lined up evenly in the back, the battery tray never sit completely flush on the floor. It sat slightly on top of the plastic trim. This meant my vertical height was limited to around 10 3/8". This really limited me on battery option. Back in Feb/March of 2024, Li Time introduced a 100Ah LiFePO4 Group 24 battery. This battery had low temp cut off and Bluetooth. But it being a Group 24 sized battery meant it could fit into the wing! So I jumped on it. Here is the battery sitting in the tray:

As you can see it fits wonderfully in the tray. So I went about installing the battery and tray in the wing. You can see what I mean when I say the tray didn't fit perfectly between the plastic wheel trim. I had to put a scrap piece of plywood under it to lift it a bit, and then got some machine screws and T nuts to attach the tray to the drawer.

Now with the tray mounted securely, the battery and tray clamp clear the bottom of the folding wing with room to spare!

That battery has not moved, nor have I had to tighten anything since I installed it in March of 2024. I drove around for a few days to make sure it was nice and secure. Next it was time to wire the battery into the rest of the power board. Apologies for not getting more photos of this process. It was too much fun!

I used 2/0 cable from Battery Cables USA (along with their lugs and heat shrink) to wire the battery into the power board. As you can see above, I've also added an MRBF fuse block and fuse to the positive side of the battery. This is a required safety feature in case some wires get crossed along the way. Its hard to make out, but I've also added a Victron 500A Bluetooh Shunt on the negative line. I bought this well before I bought the battery as I didn't think I'd be getting a battery with BT capabilities. I will say though, after 14 months with the Li Time app on my phone, I'm very glad I have the BT shunt. It is much more reliable than the Li Time app. One of the quirks of the app is that it will only register power usage if it's over so many hundreds of milliamps. So whatever Ah are listed in the app might not be accurate due to the slow draw of some devices like the radios. The Victron shunt is much more accurate. I did have to adjust the settings of the shunt. Specifically, the Peukert Exponent, which I set to 1.05. I found that on some website, possibly DIY Solar Forums, but I don't recall. I have the shunt's current threshold set to 100mA. I could lower that too if I wanted, but I haven't had the need yet.

The last safety piece of the puzzle was a disconnect switch for the battery. If I ever had to do any maintenance on the board, I needed a way to turn off the output from the battery. I could do this in the Li Time app, however, I'm not going to trust that app. So I put in a Blue Sea Systems 6006 m-Series Battery Switch.

This sits between the battery positive and the positive bus bar of the Lynx distributor. Perfect! In a previous post I showed the Victron 12/12-30 DC DC charger. Before the battery, the charger was set to POWER SUPPLY mode. It would power the Lynx distributor when the truck was running (when the charger detected greater than 14V on it's inputs). It was time to change the charger to CHARGING mode! I did that through the Victron app, changed it to CHARGER mode. I started the truck and after a few minutes, the Orion started putting 28A into the battery! Hooray! But I wanted a backup method of charging the battery. We'll get into that in the next post!

 

[joltman]

When you're out in the middle of nowhere, fuel is important. You don't want to waste it. That means I don't want to waste fuel just charging up the house battery. I'm sure you're saying "You really don't have any load on that battery! Why would you need to charge it up in the middle of nowhere?" That's a good question and we'll get to that. But first, let's talk about the additional charging methods for the house battery. Obviously we have the DC-DC charger, which is great! When it heats up, it's output lowers, but on long drives, that's no issue. What about when I'm at home and don't want to run the truck in the garage to charge the battery up? I left a hint in the last photo. There's a red and black cable coming from the Lynx. That is a pig tail that came with the Victron Blue Smart IP65 Charger 12/15. This allows me to charge the house battery from my home's AC power.

Just need to roll down the rear passenger window, and passthrough an extension cable. That charges around 13-15A no issue.

Around this time (March 2024) the wife and I started planning our first solo camping trip with the kiddo up in the mountains. We wanted to stay up at a dispersed spot on a trail that my club has adopted. We wanted to stay up there for a couple days. In the weeks leading up to the July trip I needed to add a couple items to the power solution to allow us to function for a couple nights. I really wanted a better light solution for the rear cargo area. I had seen a great solution that Eric Sargent had shown off that utilized two Whelen red/white puck LED lights. Luckily, I had planned for those lights way back before the Trekboxx install (July 2022!). I had a positive and two negative lines already ran to the rear gate (the other side was terminated on the Blue Sea 12 slot fuse block)! I pulled down the trim work and started wiring up a double throw, single pole switch on the dead panel area of the gate trim and installed the two lights as evenly as I could. The LED puck lights actually have two negative outputs, one for each color red/white. You'd think they'd have two positives, but no. The double throw, single pole switch actually switches out the negative legs of the lights.

I only got this far before I had to run up to see Tim with Gamiviti to pickup lots of roof rack accessories for the camping trip. Tim probably thought I was nuts, but I used them all! Here's a quick pic of the kiddo in Tim's 40. Thanks, Tim!

After I got home from that pickup, I finished the lighting install. I'm thrilled with the results. There's a ton of light and having the red light is just fun!

Now we have lights for the camping trip! But, I have more power needs...