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DIY - Modify your Airstream / Travel Trailer for F150 PowerBoost
The inverter generator was one of the main reasons I bought my F150. I do lots of camping and I was intrigued by the idea of being able to leave my Honda generator at home and instead bring along my own massive power generation station.
The goal of this project is to remove my old school power cord from my Airstream, and replace it with two fancy stainless steel power inlets - one at the front and one at the rear of the trailer. The inlets will be automatically switched - the trailer will use whichever one is plugged in, and will isolate the other. The benefits of the project are:
To upgrade my power system to newer technology - newer Airstreams have power inlets, with detachable cords for more flexibility. Also my old power cord was cracked and nasty and gross.
So I can more have more flexibility to orient the F150 when boondocking. Being able to park the F150 near either end of the trailer, or even a good distance away from the trailer, is a nice improvement
So I can provide AC power to the trailer while I'm towing. This requires a front power inlet - so I can run a short cable from the power outlet in the bed of the F150 to the inlet in the front of the Airstream.
I thought about upgrading my Airstream to 2 30AMP circuits - but decided since there is no chance I'm going to add a second air conditioner, that this was adding more work with no real benefit.
Those of you with 30AMP, 120V trailers can pretty closely match this project if you are so inclined. If you have a 50AMP trailer, you will need different parts than I selected as you have two hot wires, whereas I have just one, but all concepts still apply.
The one thing I want to reinforce - if you decide to make this modification and add two power inlets - you must also install a transfer switch, which senses which power inlet is active and then automatically disconnects / de-energizes the other inlet. Many bad things could happen if you do not do this. Such as your death.
The usual caveats apply - If you are not very experienced with electrical code and wiring and installing line voltage devices, do not attempt this project on your own.
Today I finished part one - exposing the area I'll be working on, planning how the whole installation will work, removing the old power cord, and installing the rear power inlet.
Part two, for tomorrow, is installing the front power inlet, running a cable from the front of the airstream to the power center in the back bedroom, and installing the automatic transfer switch.
Here is my setup. The Airstream has a nice kiss in the right rear where I will be adding the power inlet.
First step was to remove the plywood on top of the rear streetside bed. This exposes the area I'll be working in, the rear street-side storage compartment. It's also where the current circuit breaker panel is located - that's in the front-right of the picture. Yuck I have a lot of junk in there - let's remove it all first.
That's better. The line voltage Romex wiring to the trailer mostly runs to the right from the circuit breaker box. The power inlet Romex runs to the left - it connects to the Airstream power cord in a junction box on the wall at the rear of the Airstream. At this point, I could see I could use the existing Romex for the rear inlet. Simply disconnect the existing power cord, drill a new hole for the new inlet, and then route the old inlet Romex into the new power inlet.
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That metal box on the wall on the left is the junction between the external power cord and the internal Romex feeding my circuit breaker box. Removing the box lets me remove the external power cord - it slides right out the back of the trailer. This gave me about a foot of extra romex to work with. I'll be drilling the hole for the new power inlet just to the left of the white LED light on the wall.
A hole saw designed for stainless steel makes quick work of an aluminum trailer shell. Lots of measuring and fiddling around went on here to make sure I wasn't drilling into any support structures, and I was very careful to look for wiring - the last thing I wanted to do was drill through existing line voltage or 12V wiring.
Here is the entry hole on the inside. I lined the cut edges of the hole with flex tape to make sure there were no sharp edges.
And here we are all buttoned up on the inside. Remember this inside my rear utility compartment - so I'm not trying to make it any prettier than it was before.
Oooh - much fancier now on the outside. I used stainless steel sheet metal screws to attach the power inlet - if they don't hold I will replace with bolts. That's it - easy project because I took the time to expose everything first, and because I re-used the existing wiring. Tomorrow I will pull a cable from the circuit breaker box to the front of the trailer, install the front power inlet, and connect up the automatic transfer switch. I tested the system today and everything is worked as expected. Time for beer.
Nice setup and really good visual on the install. I went with just a extra front plug on my Airstream. I did however use the SmartPlug, it's more secure, I've made a 30' and a 8' cord with male and female SmartPlugs. When my new truck finally arrives, my plan is to install a box with a female SmartPlug under the bed, near the hitch and wired up through the bed to the 30amp outlet. That way I can keep the cap closed and locked, while supplying power. SmartPlug is above the battery box, behind propane cover.
Just for clarity, you drive with the generator running in the truck. Can you do this? I could see the stupid Ford lawyers stopping this. 😂.
Is that so you can run the fridge while moving? Is there other items you have drawing power while in tow? My fridge has 12v/120/Propane so when I am plugged into my 7 pin I get 12v power. I also cool my fridge to cold and fully loaded before I leave and I have not had it get warm during transit.
Just for clarity, you drive with the generator running in the truck. Can you do this? I could see the stupid Ford lawyers stopping this. 😂.
Is that so you can run the fridge while moving? Is there other items you have drawing power while in tow? My fridge has 12v/120/Propane so when I am plugged into my 7 pin I get 12v power. I also cool my fridge to cold and fully loaded before I leave and I have not had it get warm during transit.
Yes, you can drive with ProPower running. They designed it with the idea in mind that you may be charging batteries or running a mini fridge in the bed.
Yes, you can drive with ProPower running. They designed it with the idea in mind that you may be charging batteries or running a mini fridge in the bed.
Ford is actually marketing the use case of powering the trailer while towing. They talk about running a crock pot while you are on your way to your campsite. I'm interested to see if any use cases for powered up towing are actually useful - for example I can imagine starting the air conditioner going about an hour before reaching a hot climate campground to pre-cool the trailer. I also like the idea of running the fridge on AC instead of propane while driving, my fridge has a tendency to have flame blowouts when towing, and it won't reignite when that happens.
Running the power cord from the front of my trailer back to the power center in the rear was a bit more painful than I expected. I did this once before when I added solar to the Airstream, but the 10 gauge SOOW cable for this project is just a little bit fatter and was a lot harder to pull through the cable raceways built into the trailer. And of course everything took longer than planned, because like any good Airstream owner, I fixed and upgraded a bunch of other things I found lacking during the project... But my new house batteries are sweet...
After bringing the power cable to the front of the trailer, the first step was to carefully drill a hole for the new power inlet. This turned out to be much easier then the inlet I installed in the rear of the trailer, I just had a lot better access and visibility and there were many fewer wires in the way.
Okay, now we switch to the back of the trailer. In my Airstream, the line voltage breaker panel is located under the passenger side bed. Here you can see that I mounted the new automatic transfer switch next to the existing power distribution panel. There were questions In another thread about someone's F-150 ProPower inverter's GFI getting tripped by an Airstream. As you can see, at least in my Airstream, neutral and ground are not bonded inside the trailer. I also have a GFI breaker, which is not tripping the Ford's GFI - this makes me suspect the other poster had neutral to ground shorted somewhere inside their trailer...
Here is the new automatic transfer switch all wired up, just prior to testing. What you were seeing are two inputs. The first input is from the new power inlet at the back of the trailer, I reused the existing Romex that had fed the circuit breaker panel and attached it instead to the shore power input of the transfer switch. The second input is from the power inlet at the front of the trailer which will be connected to the F-150. I connected the SOOW cable from the front of the trailer to the generator input of the transfer switch. The output of the transfer switch goes through a leftover bit of 10/2 cable I had laying around to the inlet of the existing circuit breaker box. The way the transfer switch works is that if shore power is turned on, it simply passes that power through to the Airstream. If generator power is turned on, whether or not shore power is connected, there is a roughly 30-second delay and then the transfer switch mechanically switches to the front power inlet. In all cases, only one power feed is active, and the other feed is mechanically and electrically isolated. After testing I taped the wire nuts, and installed the cover on the transfer switch box and the circuit breaker panel. I also anchored and taped all of the power cables per code.
Voila! Line voltage from the F-150 pro power inverter feeding into the new power inlet in the front of the Airstream. As a later exercise I will figure out how to make this work with my MX4 bed cover closed and locked...
The adapter I selected from Amazon apparently utilizes the hot leg that Ford calls circuit B...
A question for my Ford dealer. Why the heck is the propower inverter so loud. This might be fine for a construction site, but for a quiet campsite?
Nice setup and really good visual on the install. I went with just a extra front plug on my Airstream. I did however use the SmartPlug, it's more secure, I've made a 30' and a 8' cord with male and female SmartPlugs. When my new truck finally arrives, my plan is to install a box with a female SmartPlug under the bed, near the hitch and wired up through the bed to the 30amp outlet. That way I can keep the cap closed and locked, while supplying power. SmartPlug is above the battery box, behind propane cover.
Fantastic setup, for sure let's share notes on how we figure out how to route power from the ProPower outlet in the back of the bed to the Airstream. I can see two ways to do this most easily, one is to install a port in the last segment of my MX4 bed cover that I could run a power cable through, The second is to try to piggyback off of one of the outlets in the back of the truck, and run a cable down through the outlet box and underneath the truck to a new outlet at the back of the truck. I'm a bit worried about screwing up the warranty if I do the latter...
Running the power cord from the front of my trailer back to the power center in the rear was a bit more painful than I expected. I did this once before when I added solar to the Airstream, but the 10 gauge SOOW cable for this project is just a little bit fatter and was a lot harder to pull through the cable raceways built into the trailer. And of course everything took longer than planned, because like any good Airstream owner, I fixed and upgraded a bunch of other things I found lacking during the project... But my new house batteries are sweet...
After bringing the power cable to the front of the trailer, the first step was to carefully drill a hole for the new power inlet. This turned out to be much easier then the inlet I installed in the rear of the trailer, I just had a lot better access and visibility and there were many fewer wires in the way.
Okay, now we switch to the back of the trailer. In my Airstream, the line voltage breaker panel is located under the passenger side bed. Here you can see that I mounted the new automatic transfer switch next to the existing power distribution panel. There were questions In another thread about someone's F-150 ProPower inverter's GFI getting tripped by an Airstream. As you can see, at least in my Airstream, neutral and ground are not bonded inside the trailer. I also have a GFI breaker, which is not tripping the Ford's GFI - this makes me suspect the other poster had neutral to ground shorted somewhere inside their trailer...
Here is the new automatic transfer switch all wired up, just prior to testing. What you were seeing are two inputs. The first input is from the new power inlet at the back of the trailer, I reused the existing Romex that had fed the circuit breaker panel and attached it instead to the shore power input of the transfer switch. The second input is from the power inlet at the front of the trailer which will be connected to the F-150. I connected the SOOW cable from the front of the trailer to the generator input of the transfer switch. The output of the transfer switch goes through a leftover bit of 10/2 cable I had laying around to the inlet of the existing circuit breaker box. The way the transfer switch works is that if shore power is turned on, it simply passes that power through to the Airstream. If generator power is turned on, whether or not shore power is connected, there is a roughly 30-second delay and then the transfer switch mechanically switches to the front power inlet. In all cases, only one power feed is active, and the other feed is mechanically and electrically isolated. After testing I taped the wire nuts, and installed the cover on the transfer switch box and the circuit breaker panel. I also anchored and taped all of the power cables per code.
Voila! Line voltage from the F-150 pro power inverter feeding into the new power inlet in the front of the Airstream. As a later exercise I will figure out how to make this work with my MX4 bed cover closed and locked...
The adapter I selected from Amazon apparently utilizes the hot leg that Ford calls circuit B...
A question for my Ford dealer. Why the heck is the propower inverter so loud. This might be fine for a construction site, but for a quiet campsite?
Hey any luck on rerouting the cable? I'd like to do a similar setup. I've even thought about tying into the existing panel and putting a small hole out behind it and wiring in my own 30 amp connector near the hitch. I saw someone on here doing something similar.
And thanks for the info on the automatic transfer switch, I was looking at some manual switches but this makes it that much easier.
05-24-2021, 07:49 PM
DIY - Modify your Airstream / Travel Trailer for F150 PowerBoost
