Properly Sized Circuit Breakers & Busbar

Total 12V beginner here...

I’m putting together a 12V DC system that includes a 100AH LiFePO4 battery and 1000W inverter. I’ll be using two 100W solar panels and a Renogy DCC30S DC-to-DC charger. Can anyone help me and take a look at the pic to see what size circuit breakers and busbar I should get (circled for reference)? I plan to set up the exact same system. My fridge, lights, and diesel heater will be wired to the fuse box and I’ll use the inverter to charge electronic devices (laptop, phone, iPad, etc.). Any help and advice is appreciated!
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llamalander

Well-known member
Breakers are installed to keep the wires connected to them from overheating or to disconnect them if they short. If you are not sure where to put a fuse, imagine jamming any bare wire into the frame (ground). If the wire has a fuse between that short and the power source, the fuse/breaker will disconnect the power before the source overloads or the wire catches on fire--or both. If the short is between the source and the fuse, it will do you no good.

Breakers are resettable and also act like a switch, which is not always necessary. Fuses can be much cheaper, if you plan to use them, see if one or two styles will fit all your needs to keep things simple.
Blue Sea has some really clear charts for DC wiring here
They have a more in-depth set of charts as well on their web site (and an app too).

Looking at the photo, the size of the power source (alternator/charger/LiFePo battery) or the size of the draw (DC panel or inverter) will determine the wire needed (accounting for the length of the run) and the breaker or fuse required to protect it. So the alternator (starter battery) or the solar goes to the charger-both should have fuses. the charger goes to the LiFePo battery, needs a fuse. From the LiFePo you want to power an inverter and a DC panel to supply (& protect) a fridge, heater and other small loads. Inverter needs a fuse and so will the DC panel, the photo shows them sharing one. Start by figuring out how much power in amps (watts/volts) is going to go through each connection.

Size the alternator wires by using the max output of the alternator, fuse them for that or a little higher (again, see the Blue Sea charts)
Run your ground in the same size wire and count both wires as the total length for fusing.
With a DC-DC charger, use the max output of the charger to do the same calculation (the wires will be smaller), or just use #4 everywhere, as suggested.
Looking at the chart, notice how the shorter the run, the more current any given wire size can carry.
Your batteries will have a max-charge rate that will be a fraction of the total capacity and will last longest keeping to that threshold-- consider that when sourcing your charger.

If your inverter is 1000w x 1.25 /12v is roughly 100 amps, so from the chart above you can use #4 or #2 wire to keep the voltage drop minimal (3% or less)
The more the voltage drops, the greater the amperage you will need to get your peak wattage (amps x volts = watts).
The shorter your wires, the less resistance you will have and the less voltage drop you will see.
You can measure voltage drop with a volt meter testing the source and then the end of the run- the difference is the drop.

The "70 amp breakers" in the photo are for what?
On the left, it protects the solar battery output from overloading the wires supplying the inverter and the DC panel. if these wired are not the same size, use separate fuses.
The panel is probably rated for 100A and so is the inverter, but if you use them at the same time (at max power, pretty unusual) they would trip a 100A breaker.
You may want a bigger wire if the breaker is for combined output. Regardless put this breaker as close to the battery as possible--any wire between the two is basically unprotected.
On the right, you are protecting the wire from the solar controller/DC-charger input, so the wire+fuse are per the charger output as mentioned above (looks like 400w or about 33a max).
Again, put the fuse next to the charger. Generally, any wire less than 12" need not be fused, but it is important to protect it from damage.
A simple way to make short connections is use a 1/4" x3/4" copper bar drilled to fit the 2 posts of the charger & breaker. wrap any exposed area in heat-shrink or electrical tape.
The cross section of the bar is about the same as 4/0 wire, 1/8" bar would be a little beefier than 0 gauge wire- all well beyond what the situation calls for.

Personally, I would wire the line from the charger into the output side of the larger breaker protecting the inverter, not the input side as pictured. The charger is adding power to the battery, so it will not change the max output calculation you use to size the output/inverter (left) breaker. If that is at the positive battery post, any direct short in the wires beyond it will trip the breaker, so the line from the charger has a measure of protection from it too, even if it will never carry more than 40 amps into the battery in regular operation. Having a breaker at the battery will let you isolate it if you need, which can be helpful for repairs or troubleshooting.

Your busbar is probably a chunk of tinned copper tapped for screws. It will only be insufficient if the cross section is smaller than a wire you would need to run 125% of your max current through, and even then it will likely be fine.
As you can see above, you don't need much bar to carry a huge amount of current. The suggested 250A rated one is more than fine.
Use one that has enough screws for your system, attaches easily and has a cover if you want one.

With all these separate components, it may be worth using a single fuse block to make all of your connections and just use breakers at the two battery posts.
A Blue Sea 7748 block has 4 high-Amp spaces (30-200 amps) and 6 smaller fuses (1-30 amps) as well as a negative busbar. The 200 amp total rating will likely cover all of your needs.
Run a short wire from your DC-Charger to a 40A fuse slot.
Run as long a wire as you need to the inverter and fuse it at 100-125A.
Your heater, USB plugs and fridge (and possibly lights) will run off the small-fuse side.
The positive lug is connected to your LiFePo battery (with a breaker at the post).
All the negatives will run to the busbar--from the inverter, charger, LiFePo, heater, etc. and you should also run a cable back to the starter battery.
You should also fuse the solar at the panel with a waterproof block to protect those wires and allow you to disable it when you need-- like when you take it into a shop and don't want to electrocute the mechanic.
With this sort of arrangement, most of your connections are in the same place, which is fairly compact. The second battery and the inverter can fit wherever you have room.


Lastly consider getting DC chargers for the phone and computer gear rather than converting to AC with the inverter and back to DC to charge.
The inverter is most efficient running near its rated capacity, much lower draws will be far less efficient. Installing a few 10A cigarette style outlets will let you use standard car chargers for your electronics, or you can get dedicated USB outlets to do the same thing.

Hope that helps, & remember, if you screw-up you can burn your Jeep to the ground!
 
The Renogy instructions for the DC-to-DC charger (30A) recommend using 8 AWG wire for the short distances. Would 4 AWG wire still be fine for the short distances? Also, my 1000w inverter came with 8 AWG wires to connect to the battery; however, I see online calculators suggesting something more like 4/0 or 2/0 wires. What do you think?


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How does this revised wiring diagram look? I altered it based on 2x100W panels in parallel, a 100 AH LiFePO4 battery, and 1000W inverter. I’m still confused on the wire gauge to use. I know 10 AWG is for solar, but can I use 8 AWG for the wires connected to the Renogy charger since it’s a 30A charger and all the cable lengths are very short (Renogy’s recommendation for 3’-16’)? Or, should I stick to 4 AWG as indicated on the diagram?
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llamalander

Well-known member
What does the chart say? what is your max load? these are the things you design your system around....
Max system power under 200 amps? yes? the smaller busbar is probably ok
Max draw from the inverter & DC panel together only 30 amps? yes? #8 is ok.... what? it's more than that? use the chart!
Max input from the charge controller 33 amps- why a 50 amp breaker?
This is going to require a little more math from you so some guy on the internet doesn't burn your Jeep to the ground.
 

Ducstrom

Well-known member
Wire the heater to the battery. I have my webasto running from my fuse panel and I have issues with led lights flickering on startup. I'll be changing the wiring to come off my busbars in the future.
My wire size is all good and a bit of Google searching shows it can be an issue when running led and webasto from fuse panel.
 

Lovetheworld

Active member
Wow be careful there, are you suggesting to run something of the battery directly without a fuse? That is just bad.
It can be more practical to run a heater NOT through the solar charge controller load output. As the startup current can be high and you don't want to interrupt the burning process. But of course still with a fuse.
 

Ducstrom

Well-known member
Wow be careful there, are you suggesting to run something of the battery directly without a fuse? That is just bad.
It can be more practical to run a heater NOT through the solar charge controller load output. As the startup current can be high and you don't want to interrupt the burning process. But of course still with a fuse.
Not at all. Make sure it had a fuse. Just don't run it out of the fuse box with everything else.
 

OllieChristopher

Well-known member
Honestly I would start from scratch. That wiring diagram is a nightmare. Using a single circuit breaker for 2 wires is not right. And circuit breaker to circuit breaker is not right either. Keep in mind that you are only fusing or using circuit breakers for the wire not the device.

Before you start sizing wire you need to simplify that wiring. To start, remove that Inverter and have it come directly off the house (solar) battery bank. The wire to the fuse box you have has to be rated for 100 amps. That 30 amp breaker is going to trip every time you put any aux loads to the box more than 30 amps or load on inverter.

To size the fuses and wire simply figure out how many feet you are going and max amps the wire needs to handle. Voltage drop will not be an issue as long as the length can handle the amps.

I am by no means meaning to offend you but please consider a full redo of the wiring. I assure you the way it is now will give you fits with tripped breakers and inverter issues.
 
No offense taken! I actually really appreciate the feedback and input. I’m a complete 12V novice and prefer the simplest setup possible. All I want is to safely power my fridge, lights, and heater through my dual battery setup with the auxiliary battery charging through the Renogy DCC30S charger. I don’t think I’ll have much use for an inverter, but I got one just in case. Renogy has very simple instructions and a wiring diagram for the DCC30S, but it doesn’t specify the details for wiring the inverter to the system.


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Lovetheworld

Active member
Who cares what you call it. I would call a circuit breaker a device, I wouldn't call a fuse a device.
And these kind of semantic discussion are useless when you are trying to learn somebody about how to properly make a safe 12V circuit.
Yeah, really useful to spend your time on what word to use for a fuse.

Next to that you could also say you are protecting the wire from a faulty device (that has a short for example). That is why you put in appropriate fuse sizes matching the device.
But of course you are also protecting the wire from damaging itself against something (for example rubbing against metal part of car and making a short).

Anyway, you want to fuse close to the battery, at least one big main fuse. The fuse box, probably through the solar charge controller load output, can be further away.
So no long unprotected cables from battery to (solar) charge controllers and other devices.
 

OllieChristopher

Well-known member
Right. Its an overcurrent protection device.

Please don't confuse the person who is trying to learn. Joking is fine but misrepresenting and trolling to get a reaction is not.

And these kind of semantic discussion are useless when you are trying to learn somebody about how to properly make a safe 12V circuit.
Yeah, really useful to spend your time on what word to use for a fuse.

That is just how Verksad rolls. Unfortunately it confuses someone who is trying to learn.


Basically it's important to know that overcurrent protection, be it a circuit breaker or fuse, is to protect the wire. When you size the amps for the fuse or circuit breaker you want it to fail before the wires max amps can handle before it melts. If you do this then your build will be fine.

The wire itself is sized to handle the amps of the device being powered. There a a bunch of different configurations to achieve what you want. Here is an example of my setup:

I fuse my wires at the battery with a fuse that will blow below my wires amp rating. I only use the circuit breaker before the fuse box so I can switch it off for servicing.

If you take note most all devices themselves have their own built in fuse/circuit breaker to protect the device. In the rare instance that that the device is not protected I still fuse for the wire. If wire is sized properly for the device being powered then the overcurrent protection for the wire has redundancy built in to protect the device as well.

An example of overcurrent protection redundancy is my Blue Sea 7622 isolator. It's not self protected but rated at 500 amps. My 1/0 wire is fused for 300 amps. So both wire and device are protected by way of wire protection default.

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akhummer

Member
I like these Blue Sea products for charging DC devices (tablets, phones, etc). They are configurable, can be had in the switched version, or add a volt/amp meter. It’s convenient to monitor the system voltage from the bunk area too.
 

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Lovetheworld

Active member
I think a USB-C output is getting more relevant as well. But then I mean a proper one that can deliver the whole USB-C range, power delivery feature. Which can also be achieved with a socket plug. That way you can charge your phone or your laptop or other devices quickly.
It might even cause you to skip the inverter, but that depends of course on what you bring with you.
 

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