Internal vs external placement of electrical systems

[tomrasdf]

Pros and cons of housing the core components of your skoolies electrical system in an undercarriage compartment vs inside the living-space?

We are beginning the systems design phase of our bus (still on the steep part of the learning curve).

We see lots of examples on youtube of builds that place batteries, charge controllers, inverters, etc entirely in an undercarriage compartment. Our bus is a 40' Thomas activity bus that has nice roomy undercarriage storage. It would be great to be able to house the electrical there to give us more interior space, but I want to understand the tradeoffs involved in doing so.

Temperature control?
Safety?
Accessibility?
Other concerns?

If you opted to house your electronical systems externally, I would love to hear about your experience and any key learnings or resources that you found valuable.

If you have strong opinions either way, throw them out!

Thanks!

[ewo1]

Originally Posted by tomrasdf

Pros and cons of housing the core components of your skoolies electrical system in an undercarriage compartment vs inside the living-space?

We are beginning the systems design phase of our bus (still on the steep part of the learning curve).

We see lots of examples on youtube of builds that place batteries, charge controllers, inverters, etc entirely in an undercarriage compartment. Our bus is a 40' Thomas activity bus that has nice roomy undercarriage storage. It would be great to be able to house the electrical there to give us more interior space, but I want to understand the tradeoffs involved in doing so.

Temperature control?
Safety?
Accessibility?
Other concerns?

If you opted to house your electronical systems externally, I would love to hear about your experience and any key learnings or resources that you found valuable.

If you have strong opinions either way, throw them out!

Thanks!

Great question! I was asking myself the same thing.
My bus, an RE Amtram, came with lots of underbelly storage and I am currently in the beginning planning phase of electrical and plumbing.

I am leaning towards putting my batteries and accompanying equipment in one of the boxes. My driving thought is access to the equipment. Having it all outside the bus might be quite inconvenient during cold, wet weather, to do emergency repairs. The flip side to that would be limited access and physical constraints of having it all on the inside of the bus.

The one concern I have would be theft. Having on the outside might make it easier for theft.

I too would like to hear the thoughts of those who decided to put it all under the bus.

[TJones]

Batteries would be fine in underbody storage. If you use lead acid the compartment needs to be vented. If using lithium and planning on being in freezing weather there would need to be a way to keep them warm.

The electronics could live in the storage as well provided that there is enough volume of air for cooling. You would want the storage compartment to be well sealed so that road dust and moisture doesn't get into the electronics.

I plan on staying in cold areas so I will have lithium batteries and the electronics in the interior.

Ted

[HamSkoolie]

Our rig is a 40' RE. We're planning 10kWh of lithium with 2500+ watts of panels, a Victron multiplus inverter/charger/transfer switch.
The hope is to place all those components (except the panels and their feed lines) in an exterior bay with the 120VAC breaker box inside the rig. DC circuits will probably consist of one large gauge main line carrying 40 amps total to three separate distribution fuse panels. This is to reduce the number of large gauge DC lines running the length of the bus allowing us to use smaller gauge wires from the three fuse panels while only having two large gauge wires (positive and ground) running the length.
The reason for the batteries, charge controllers, charger, inverter, etc. to be in an exterior bay is that they will be enclosed by steel giving some protection from a rapid fire in the living quarters AND leaving more room inside.
Cooling and heat for the bay will be via forced air from the inside of the rig, into the electronics bay and then vented overboard. Since we will have both AC and heat inside, dumping a bit into the bay for cooling seems the easiest approach. If that's not enough, we may install bigger forced air for cooling and provide heat pads when heat is needed.

[musigenesis]

My bus has an insulated bulkhead wall about 2' behind the driver's seat. I'm considering mounting my electrical systems on the cab side of this wall, so that everything is outside of my insulated living space but still protected from the elements.