Lets Get Wired! (Electrical)
Now that we have something to put some air flow over us we need power to run it right? Correct. After thinking about it and seeing many other builds we wanted to be totally independable, meaning we don’t need to stay or go anywhere to charge our batteries or to keep us powered. We wanted to be able to live off grid for as long as we wanted. So we needed 3 different means of charging up our battery banks. Our 3 ways of charging the batteries will be #1 via solar power. This will be our go to or main charging source. Secondary means, (if there is no sun for a few days) will be to charge the bank via the engine alternator. Lastly will be using a shore power connection, being able to plug into any 110v to power and charge the bank, using an IOTA DSL-30.
-Solar
Solar engery is great! Its free and will charge up your batteries throught the day and last you through a few nights depending on your load and batteries. We purchased this kit from Renogy Solar. I highly recommend this company. Great products, very nice people and every time we call for tech help, they are more than happy to help. We purchased the 300w starter kit and upgraded to the MPPT charge controller, which brings everything you need to get charging! The kit comes with 3 100w panels, the mounts to mount the panels to the roof, the wiring from the solar panels to the MPPT controller, the MPPT controller, and the wiring from the MPPT controller to the batteries. Quite easy to set up. We wired the positive from the solar panels to a 10 amp breaker before the charge controller to be able to turn off any incoming power from the solar panels.
-The Breaker Panel
For the breaker panel, we happened to have a few old aviation breakers laying around so decided to use those. Any ordinary house 110v breaker will work. You can use these breakers, and store them in a housing like this, and still have the same effect. We wanted the cleaner, concealed look. Or you can also go the fuse route and go with a set up like so. We are using 7 breakers:
#1 – Solar in (10A)
#2 – 12v outlets (7.5A)
#3 – Lights (5A)
#4 – Rear fan (5A)
#5 – Front fan (5A)
#6 – Fridge (20A)
#7 – Engine in (35A) (Van alternator)
Circuit breaker we made.
Having these breakers allows us to stop the power from incoming and outgoing whenever we please.
The finished product.
To wire these breakers or fuses, which ever route you choose to follow, is fairly straight forward. You will take your feed from the battery, make a connection at the breaker or fuse on one side, and then continue from the other side of the breaker to the load item.
-Shore Power
Having a shore power connection is always nice. Whether you are at your house, a friends house, campground, or anywhere with an outlet, as long as you have an extension cord you can charge up your batteries and run your electronics using your shore power connection. We went with the IOTA DLS-30. We personally don’t think you need anything more than the 30 series.
-Battery
One of the most important parts of the electrical system is having a good quality battery bank that holds a good amount of aH (amp hours). We choose to use XS Power XP300. The batteries hold 120aH each. We have 2 which will give us 240aH. When choosing a battery we would recommended at least 90 aH each, and highly suggest it to be an AGM if the area will not be vented. When lead battery’s charge they off gas hydrogen. A highly flammable explosive gas that you don’t want to be inhaling. AGM (Absorbent Glass Mat) batteries are great because they are sealed and maintenance free.
-Inverter
Next would be to decided whether or not you will need or want the use of 110v appliances. If yes, you will need an inverter. The inverter is used to convert your 12v system (usually car related items. Phone car charger, cigarette lighter, etc..) to 110v. (house appliances. Laptop charger, TV, etc…). Then you will need to know, or guess, how much wattage you will use on you 110v system. We have a 1000w inverter because we opted for a TV, and we have 2 laptops, 4 cameras and a drone that we will be frequently charging. Setting up the inverter is pretty straight forward. Hook up the black cable (ground or negative) to the ground post on the battery (or in my case the black goes to the shunt for the battery monitor). And the red cable (positive) to the positive battery post. We did run the positive thru an inline fuse just to protect the inverter. The recommended fuse was a 100A. That should be converting your 12v to 110v. Now what? What we did was we bought some standard house wire and a male 110v plug. We ran the 110v wire throught the van, leaving an outlet in the 4 corners of the van. An outlet on each side of the bed, one in the living room, and we put a GFCI in the kitchen. After the wire is ran where its supposed to go, and all the outlets wired in, you connect the male plug to the wire and you will have 110v power around the van. We wired our inverter to a contactor and that is wired to our switch panel, so that we can turn on/off the inverter with a switch located in the kitchen area.
-12v outlets
We thought it would be a good idea to have a 12v outlets on each side of the bed as well. For times that we just need to charge our phones, so we don’t have to have the inverter on. This little combo panel has 2 USB ports and a cigarette lighter port.
The white outlet is the 110v, the black one below is the 12v.
-LED lights
We’ve searched many websites looking for shallow LED lights. The best ones that were recommended to us were these recessed puck style LEDs from SuperBrightLEDS.com. We chase to install 8. They are super bright for what they are. 170 lumens and only draw 180mA. The way we rigged ours are 3 on the left side, 3 on the right side and 2 in the center. The sprinter came with 2 lights in it with 3 switches. One in the cab, one at the sliding door and one at the rear doors. So we wired the 2 center LEDs to that circuit to allow us to turn on just 2 lights from pretty much anywhere. These 2 will run off the van engine battery. The good thing is that they are timed. Meaning they will turn themselves off in 10 or 15 minutes. The 6 lights we wired 3 to one switch and the other 3 to another switch. This gives us a low (3 lights) and high (6 lights) mode.
The lights being installed
-The fridge
We wanted a regular style fridge, like a house fridge, with a door. Opposed to the dometic chest style. All though they are great fridges, a lot of people use them and love them. We have never heard anything negative about the chest style, we just wanted the one with a door. We came across this Truck Fridge. It’s a bit large but so far its great! It has the Secop compressor, formerly known as Danfoss compressors. These compressors are super efficient only drawing 60 watts while running. 60w/12v= 5 amps! Truck Fridge states that we don’t need to reinforce the insulation, but we did. We added a 1” poly iso foam board to the 2 sides and half way up the back of the fridge to hopefully make it even more efficient. Be sure to read the warranty because there are some things that can and will void the warranty. Its 4.2 cu ft and even has a small freezer. We have the 12v model but they do have models that are 12v/110v.
Now that we are all wired up, lets talk about where the magic will happen. The bed… and its frame.
