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I went with 3M Thinsulate. Some say that wool you can still smell the 'animal' when it's hot out.

Is you van single or double side door? Mine is the former and I put my BlueSeas circuit breaker box and 50A charger in the cavity space.
 
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I went with 3M Thinsulate. Some say that wool you can still smell the 'animal' when it's hot out.

Is you van single or double side door? Mine is the former and I put my BlueSeas circuit breaker box and 50A charger in the cavity space.
Slightly off topic, but @MOWO (and others!!) would you mind sharing how you got power into the 50A charger located inside (I assume from your description) the driver's side B-C pillar panel?

I have a fairly kludgy (but very serviceable) watertight flexible conduit now from an add-on trim panel on the driver's seat base to my power box (battery, 30A DC-DC/MPPT, 1000W inverter, shunt, fuse boxes, Renogy Bluetooth BT-2, and bus bars) via the driver's side B-C pillar panel. So there is a curved piece of conduit at my feet when I swivel the driver's seat. Hasn't been a problem, but, as I said, it's kludgy.
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I wanted to be able to run my 1000W inverter off the factory aux battery as well as off of my "house" LiFePO4, and I ran my 4 AWG ground all the way back to the driver's seat pedestal aux battery, so I have two 4 AWG cables routed in the conduit with a 100A circuit breaker in the driver's seat pedestal.

As I am upgrading to a 2000W inverter with twin 100 Ah LiFePO4 batteries, I won't be using the 95Ah factory aux battery for the inverter, and therefore not needing or drawing more than about 50A from the factory aux battery, fused at about 75A (Renogy 50A DC-DC/MPPT rated at max 660W load on alternator), so I am thinking I might run a single 6 AWG positive from the factory battery terminal back to the new power box, and find or create a chassis ground closer to the power box. So, I am looking for a way to get the single 6 AWG from the driver's pedestal battery box to my new twin battery power box without an external cable route.

How'd you do it? Any other tips on cable routing from the factory aux battery would be welcome -- Thanks all!!
 
You could rabbet/dado the bottom of your wood flooring and run the cable through it.
Hah, thanks @pounce ! I had the same idea, but using a router from the top. It wouldn't be hard to lift that corner of coin vinyl and put the router to work. I was worried about protection for the top of the cable absent a conduit -- your approach avoids that but I don't want to remove the whole floor at this point. I suppose I could overlay the router channel with some non-conductive plastic?
 
Steel plate. Dado a groove then rabbet edges and cover with steel. Cover with the coin. You can get flat stock at home depot, but you probably have various sources.
Sold. Any reason I shouldn't grind off some paint to make my own ground? I can't think of one provided I check for continuity after it's connected.
 
Can't see why you would not ground to chassis other than if you wanted to run isolated for some reason.
I hear you, but the CAN Bus has me concerned, so I initially thought I should really stuck to the factory ground points -- Am I overdoing it? See below:

Question
What is the proper way to ground a power system?

Answer
Since no two ground points have exactly the same potential, the idealized concept of a single ground potential is a snare and a delusion. In many cases the potential difference is small, but a difference in two ground potentials of even a fraction of a volt could cause amperes of current to flow through a complete ground loop. (Ground loop is a term used to describe any conducting path formed by two separate connections to ground). Ground loops can cause serious interference problems when voltages developed by these currents are coupled into sensitive signal circuits. To avoid ground loop problems, there must be only one ground return point in a power supply system. (A power supply system includes the power supply, all of its loads, and all other power supplies connected to the same loads). The selection of the best ground return point depends on the nature and complexity of the DC wiring. In large systems, practical problems frequently tend to force compromises with the ideal grounding concept. For example, a rack mounted system consisting of separately mounted power supplies and loads generally has multiple ground connections. Each instrument usually has its own chassis tied to the third grounding wire of its power cord, and the rack is often connected by a separate wire to ground. With the instrument panels fastened to the rack frame, circulating ground currents are inevitable. However, as long as these ground currents are confined to the ground system and do not flow through any portion of the power supply DC distribution wiring, their effect on system performance is usually negligible. To repeat, separating the DC distribution circuits
from any conductive paths in common with ground currents will in general reduce or eliminate ground loop problems. The only way to avoid such common paths is to connect the DC distribution system to ground with only one wire. Figure 3 illustrates this concept: DC and signal currents circulate within the DC system, while ground loop currents circulate within the ground system.
 
The oem second battery grounds under the driver seat. The starter grounds under passenger. You can run an isolated dc/dc charger to your house battery and not ground to the chassis. I have the isolated Orion so I can do that if I want to, but I can still ground to the chassis. Just depends on what you need. I think most people probably do not need isolated nor is it required in a vehicle since the chassis is all connected.
 
The oem second battery grounds under the driver seat. The starter grounds under passenger. You can run an isolated dc/dc charger to your house battery and not ground to the chassis. I have the isolated Orion so I can do that if I want to, but I can still ground to the chassis. Just depends on what you need. I think most people probably do not need isolated nor is it required in a vehicle since the chassis is all connected.
OK @pounce -- OK, you have two negatives on your DC-DC. Renogy does not. I'm going to stick to the factory ground point under the driver's pedestal.
 
Slightly off topic, but @MOWO (and others!!) would you mind sharing how you got power into the 50A charger located inside (I assume from your description) the driver's side B-C pillar panel?
I have two chargers for the battery bank, a ProCharge Ultra AC-to-DC 50A charger, and a Sterling Power DC-to-DC 60A charger (mounted right behind the passenger seat). The latter + and - input is connected directly to the start battery. No oem aux battery.
 
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Discussion starter · #32 ·
Hi @Shuttergirl . I'm a little bit stymied about how they attach the duratherm liner on the ceiling in the back of the van. Because I don't see any logical place where they could attach it. There is no rib in the very back and there's no holes either. I ran across this when trying to find someplace to attach the extra insulation to the ceiling. Is there any way you could take a couple of pictures of the ceiling of your van? Especially The ceiling in the back of the van. Thank you so much.
 
OK @pounce -- OK, you have two negatives on your DC-DC. Renogy does not. I'm going to stick to the factory ground point under the driver's pedestal.
Follow-up @pounce -- I found a very conductive chassis ground at the driver's C-pillar D-ring. So I am not going to need to ground back to the auxiliary battery ground under the driver's pedestal.

Thanks for all your help!
 
Thank you both for all the information. I'm finally feeling like I'm making some progress.

I was able to pop the push pins out as @icerabbit instructed. Yes, it was very easy. And I was able to remove all of the door panels.

Pro-tip from the hair salon. If you pull the pin too hard, it will pop out without the center plug. If you have trouble, you can either gently pry it (I just used the flat head of the screwdriver), or you can briefly hit it with a hair dryer. The heat from the dryer makes the plastic more pliable. I learned this when I bought some cheap plastic thing from amazon.com and I accidentally assembled a piece wrong and had to remove the plastic pins.

I wish I had remembered that trick when taking off the rear panels. The door side panel is trapped by the door handle trim, which you have to pop off. I managed to get it off, but not before breaking two of the little clips. Rats. First casualty. Oh well...at least it's a small casualty that can be easily replaced. I think if I'd hit it with the hair dryer, it would have made the plastic more pliable and I wouldn't have had to use as much force to pop the clips out of their sockets.

Next question. Behind the door panels is a sheet of plastic that is sort of sticker glued in place. (see picture below). I'm not sure why it's there. I will need to remove it to put insulation in. Did you leave it out? Or did you put it back in place?

wrt the jack housing, @focus805 you said you removed it. But how? Is it just a matter of removing the two torx screws? Did you have to do anything with the bent metal tab things?

Thanks again,
Tracey

View attachment 21211
When I insulated my back doors...I very carefully removed that, ran dental floos as sort of a web to hold up the wool, then replaced that. It will pick u every speck of dirt or wool fiber to place it out of the way. Then re-installed it. It's very sticky.
 
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