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maxx2phone asked

New to Victron - 1st post - Seeking info for my learning journey

Greetings All. As the title states I am just starting out with Victron products. A quick background...

I have a 50 Amp 5th wheel RV. I am not an RV Tech or an electrician, just an owner who wants to learn. So I hope that I have come to the right place I do have a basic understanding of electricity, but I also have a healthy respect for it.

I currently have a single lead acid battery and am going to install 2x200 AH Lithium batteries, in parallel. Along with that, I am also going to install a BMV-712 Smart Shunt to monitor them as well as a WFCO WF9850L2 converter. My goal is to eventually install a Multi Plus II 3000 2x120 inverter, a Cerbo GX, and eventually install some solar.

For the Shunt; I know that I should only connect a single NEG cable from the NEG side of the battery to the shunt, and have nothing else on that side. Here is my conundrum. I currently have a cable that goes from the negative side to ground. I also have a generator that is connected to the NEG and POS posts of the battery. I also am pretty sure that all POS cables should go to the shunt.

Okay, so on to my very basic question...

What to do with the ground cable and generator cable. My thought is that I install a Bus Bar and connect those two negative cables to the bar, and then connect the bar to shunt. I am pretty confident that I should connect the generator NEG to the Bus Bar and the generator POS to the shunt. I am not sure if I should also connect the ground to the bar as well, or is it OK to leave the ground on the negative side of the new battery.

Long post and I apologize. My terminology may be off, and I probably left out some important information, but I wanted to try and explain everything as best I could.

Thanks in advance for any replies. I really appreciate it. Excited to learn more.

SmartShunt
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1 Answer
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kevgermany answered ·

Shunt has two sides for neg, battery and loads. All the negs, including ground go to the load side. A properly sized busbar is great for this.

On the positive side, there's only a thin sensor cable and this goes direct to the battery pos terminal. I expect you'll use a busbar to connect the batteries in parallel and to connect charging sources and positive load connections. Sensor cable can go to the busbar.

Do not connect the positive for the shunt in a way that it will carry any load. It is for voltage sensing only.

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