Thinking about installing the Renogy 20 amp DC to DC charger

[Rob Culver]

Hello all,
Just got back from a long trip in which I turned off the Trailmanor Dometic Fridge to avoid the large DC amperage draw, (more than 12 amps), it draws on the Lithium Lifepo4 battery I installed. The tow vehicle doesn't usually supply more than 6 or 7 amps when driving either. Without power for several hours at a time, that made the fridge somewhat unusable on hot long driving days.

I'm considering installing the Renogy 20 amp DC to DC charger referred to in other threads on this forum but only if it's safe, easy, and doesn't require running new heavier gauge wires on either my Tow vehicle or the TM.

When looking at this TM electrical diagram here: https://www.trailmanorowners.com/for...8&d=1584889354 you see a 30 amp fuse between the TM battery and the converter. Is installation as straight forward as hooking up the Renogy 12 volt input and output between that 30 amp fuse and the +12v on my Lithium battery? And then putting the input and output grounds to the battery negative terminal?

Reading through the Renogy installation guide starting at page 7 of this url, https://www.renogy.com/content/RNG-D...060-Manual.pdf, that appears to be possible. The only catch is that they refer to a D+ ignition wire plug on the Renogy that needs to be connected from the tow vehicle ignition in order to turn on the Renogy only when the Tow vehicle is running. I would think it would be Ok to hook that D+ connector up to something so it would always be "On" because there is no power to the 7 pin bargeman connector from the tow vehicle and thus no power to the Renogy input side in any case unless the Tow vehicle is running. I've tested that.

Just interested in anyone's thoughts who might have already installed the Renogy 20 amp DC to DC charger and if they were able to do it without running any new cables anywhere other than just the new short cables to attach it to the TM battery. Thanks in advance for anyone's thoughts on this!