The Electrical System in Our Van
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The electrical system is one of the most intimidating projects of a van camper conversion. Kevin spent months researching electrical systems to make sure it would work and even more importantly, not start a fire. One of the most helpful resources we found for electrical was EXPLORIST.life. He has a great YouTube channel and website that will guide you through everything step-by-step. Our blog post will describe the components or our electrical system and why we chose certain things. For a step-by-step guide on the install, we highly recommend the EXPLORIST.life Full Electrical System Install Tutorial video.
Planning the Electrical System
The electrical system requires extensive planning early in your camper conversion since you will need to run wires behind walls, above your ceiling, and onto your roof. You first need to figure out a budget since electrical systems can get expensive quickly. Once your have a budget, you need to figure out how much energy you will require so you can figure out how many amp hours of batteries your need and how much solar you will need on the roof. To figure out how much power you will require, you need to figure out what appliances you will be using in the van and how much power they use. Remember an appliance like a refrigerator can run constantly, while other items such as a water heater or stove top only run when you need them. Ask yourself how often are you going to be charging electronics? What happens if you’re in a cloudy region where your solar panels won’t provide charge? Do you plan on having an induction stove or a gas stove? All these things are important to consider that while planning your system.
We used the power audit from EXPLORIST.life to figure out what we needed for our electrical system. We planned on having a propane stove, so the biggest draws were going to come from the electric water heater, refrigerator, and when we use our electric kettle. After inputting everything, we knew how much battery power we needed in our van.
Lithium vs AGM Batteries
Battle Born 100Ah LifePO4 Lithium Batteries
The next decision was choosing between lithium and AGM batteries. We ended up choosing lithium batteries. Why lithium? Lets compare a Renogy 100 amp AGM deep cycle to a 100 amp LifPO4 battery like we have. The Renogy battery weighs about 69lbs vs the Battle Born which is 31lbs. Multiply that times 4 and we have a huge difference in weight, which equals lower gas mileage and more wear on the van. Additionally, if the Renogy batteries go below 50% it can decrease the life of battery. This is not an issue with lithium batteries. To have a true 400 amp system, you would really need 8 AGMs. You also want to take into account that the life span of AGMs are lower than lithium batteries. AGMs typically have 500-1000 cycles vs lithium having 5,000 deep cycles. The main drawback to lithiums batteries are the cost. They can be four times the cost of an AGM battery. However, we felt the cost was warranted in this situation. We decided to get 4 of the Battle Born 100Ah LifePO4 Lithium Batteries.
With a total of 400 amps of lithium batteries, our water heater uses about 15-20% of our batteries heating for 20 minutes and our electric kettle uses about 8% of our batteries boiling water. Those two items use the most amount of power in our van. So far we've never run out of power and we've been able to use everything we need in the van.
Charging the Batteries
It’s important to be able to charge your batteries back up when they get low. In our electrical system, we have 3 ways to charge our batteries: a shore power plug, DC to DC charger and solar panels.
Shore Power Plug
A shore power plug is the most common method of charging vans and RVs. We chose a 30 amp power inlet for our system, but we probably would have been fine with a 20 amp power inlet. We bring a 30 amp RV power extension cord with us along with an adapter in case we need to covert it to a regular plug. We can plug in at campgrounds or wherever we can find an outlet, as long as it is the right size. We honestly don’t charge our van this way much since the DC to DC charger and the solar are usually more than enough.
DC to DC Charger
The next method for charging is the DC to DC charger. We have a Victron DC to DC charger that allows us to charge off of the alternator while driving. The charger makes sure not to pull too much power too quickly which can lower the life of alternator. It also prevents our batteries from not being charged too quickly. This is definitely an easy way to charge batteries, however it does take some time to charge four 100 amp batteries just by driving.
Solar Panels
The last method we use for charging is solar panels. We have three 200 watt solar panels from Rich Solar for a total of 600 watts of solar on our camper van. You can get Z brackets to attach the solar panels to roof rails or a roof rack. See our article on installing roof rails if you choose to go this route. We chose 600 watts of solar based on our power audit and this solar power article from EXPLORIST.life. The energy from the solar panels run through an MPPT solar charger before heading to the batteries to charge them. Solar panels can send different voltages (other than 12V) through the system so the solar charger maximizes the amount of energy you are getting to your batteries.
So far we haven’t had any issues with running out of energy. The lowest our battery levels have ever gotten was 57% on a winter van trip when there was an ice storm and our solar panels got covered in ice and snow. We have been very happy with our choice of batteries and our charging options so far.
Choosing an Inverter
We decided that we wanted to have AC (Alternating Current, which is what comes out of your outlets at your house) and DC (Direct Current, what is used to charge batteries like a laptop or smartphone) in our van. To accomplish this, we needed an inverter. Inverter chargers can run from 2,000 watts up to 10,000 watts. Don’t just choose the biggest inverter or the same size as someone else because it may be too much or too little depending on your needs. The power audit from EXPLORIST.life we mentioned earlier in the article will help you choose which size inverter you need.
We determined that the water heater and kettle, which use about 1500 watts, were the highest wattage items we planned on using in our van. Based on this, a 2000 watt inverter would serve our needs perfectly. Keep in mind, inverters are meant to run towards the higher end of their wattage. We chose the Victron MultiPlus 2000 watt Inverter for our electrical system. This unit isn’t just an inverter, it’s also a charger. Our shoreline cable also runs directly through this system since it regulates the charge coming in from the shoreline to the batteries. This unit has done a great job for what we need and we have never run into the issue of attempting to use more wattage than the inverter is capable of handling.
Outlets and Lighting in Our Camper Van
We have 12V and 120V outlets scattered throughout the van. We have three 120 V outlets in the van. One is under the kitchen counter for the electric lighter on our propane stove, one is in the back for the water heater, and the third is between the bed and the kitchen so we can use it for the electric kettle or to charge our laptops.
We have 4 12V outlets (2 on driver’s side and 2 on passenger side) by the bed for charging cellphones, watches, etc. Instead of installing USB charging ports, we decided to install outlets instead so we could switch out the charging plug if needed since some of our newer electronics need USB-C chargers.
We chose to use 12V LED puck lights throughout the van. These are a great option to provide adequate lighting with minimal power use. We have 12 puck lights in the van, 6 in the back and 6 in the front. We chose to put the front and back lights on separate switches. We chose dimmer switches so the LEDs wouldn’t be as harsh first thing in the morning :-)
Appliances We Use in the Van
Those are the main components of our electrical system. To give you an idea how much power certain appliances use, here are some examples of what we use in our van. We calculated everything using the power audit from EXPLORIST.life.
- Bosch water heater is 1440 watts and with a 20 minute run time will use 40 amps
- Kettle is 1500 amps and with a 2 minute run time will use 4.17 amps
- Hair Dryer is 1600 watts and with a 15 minute run time will use 33.33 amps (Jess doesn't use this in the van frequently)
- Macbook Pro is 140 watts and if you use it for plugged in for two hours a day it will use 23.4 amps
- Maxx Air fan on high uses 56 watts and if you run it on high for 8 hours will use 74.67 amps
- weBoost uses 16 amps per day
- Refrigerator uses 14.4 amps per day
Those are the bigger draw items that we use. The combination of single charge items like a cell phone, drone batteries, and other electronics will use less then 15 amps.
Partially finished electrical system
Overall out electric system has worked perfectly for us. The inverter has been big enough to handle our appliances and we have never run out of power. You will see way more robust systems than ours, but it comes down to personal preference and what your needs are in the van. Our biggest advice is to take your time and plan. Make sure you do your calculations before going to buy random parts for your electrical system. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. We personally called Battle Born and talked to a sale rep who was very informative about everything. We wanted to make sure the system we planned made sense. Electrical is one of the most complicated systems, especially for someone without experience, but it is definitely doable if you put the time in to do it right.
We’ve mentioned EXPLORIST.life a lot in this post. We swear he isn’t paying us to hype him up. He has created so many helpful tools and guides that we utilized throughout our whole electrical system installation, and his website and Youtube channel are the reason we were able to accomplish installing the whole system ourselves with zero experience.