This is a bit of a milestone, its when you can turn the van on and actually check things work! Especially as some things we’ve had for 5 months or so!
Quite a long post, but….
Batteries
2x 100AH batteries fit in bottom of wardrobe next to bed. I keep saying tight but I mean its tight! So much so, the air-vent for the batteries needs to be strategically placed so the batteries fit! Eek. Anyway these are ratchet-strapped down to a tie-down hook mounted in a convenient hole so won’t fly around in an accident.
There are breather tubes connected through a new hole incase they leak
On top, mounted a bit of ply with the Battery Master shunt and connections.
Batteries connected to themselves and everything by 10mm2 cable, 30A maxi fuse between them and up to the main control panel. (Maxi fuses only because they came with 10mm cable)
Fuse boxes
We have 2 habitation fuse boxes, a main one connected to batteries, where most things are spured off and incoming connections from the ctek d250s and the 240v charger. The second fuse box is connected to the AUX switch and contains all aux systems – hob, heater, dump valve and water level sensors
There is a common earth
Engine feed
As previously mentioned we have a 10mm cable run from the engine battery, fused at both ends with 30A maxi fuse. This connects to the ctek d250s
240v charger
We did have a powerline 7A charger, but learned it doesn’t like running equipment when charging, so sent this back and got a Numax 10A fit and forget instead – only problem is we bought it quickly and forgot to check if it had a mounting kit – it didn’t so we had to bodge one 🙁
Control panels
These are superb custom panels I designed last year made by Simon at switchpanels.co.uk – fit perfectly and wired from behind.
Wiring & furniture
The wiring is all colour co-ordinated and is designed with both current draw and voltage drop in mind and is, well, over spec’d. Its all p’clipped as tidy as I can behind the middle bulkhead, and any looms from heater and tank sensors are bundled up and tagged.
A false bulkhead will be installed to cover this in 3 parts or so, so that the fuse boxes and wiring can be accessed for maintenance/repairs, so it will all be accessible but hidden.
Where the chargers are there is as much heat venting as possible, both into the wardrobe and into the void where the van ventilation is.
Nasa BM1
The BM1 appears great – gives “accurate” voltage and current use, and see no reason why the battery level will be inaccurate. Cool.
C-Tek d250s
This seems to work, it connects the engine battery, habitation batteries and solar, and sticks power when its needed. Seems to work!
