Solar Wiring & Panel Sizing (525W Switched On!) | Transit Van Conversion E23
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- We're carrying on with our electrics this time and installing and wiring our mppt charge controller and the rest of our campervan solar system.
We already installed 3x 175W monocrystalline solar panels on the roof previously, so this time we're connecting it up the other end, wiring it through our IMO solar disconnect breaker and into our Victron 100/50 charge controller.
The Great British Weather strikes again, and we're wiring our solar system in the heart of Winter, so we're not sure how much solar power we'll be generating straight away... 😄
Thanks for watching! Any comments or questions? Let us know below!
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Products used in this video (includes affiliate links *):
↠ 175w Solar Panels (x3) - geni.us/YfXF (Amazon)
↠ Victron Lynx Distributor - geni.us/BRX0 (Amazon)
↠ Victron MPPT 100/50 - geni.us/0JE2o (Amazon)
↠ Victron Orion 12/12-30 - geni.us/6u2CH (Amazon)
↠ Blue Sea 6006 Battery Switch - geni.us/KNpAfSd (Amazon)
↠ Blue Sea Fuse Hub - ebay.us/82Ohou
↠ IMO Solar Switch - ebay.us/ZJ7GwX
↠ Battery Terminal Fuse - geni.us/9uLRK (Amazon)
↠ Smart Plug with Energy Monitoring - geni.us/oo2skm (Amazon)
↠ Lithium (LiFePo4) Batteries - www.ksenergy.c...
↠ Wire Strippers - geni.us/9v1Bs (Amazon)
↠ Ferrule Crimp Tool - geni.us/qaqN (Amazon)
↠ Wire Ferrules - ebay.us/2SRaoE
↠ Heat Shrink Crimp Tool - geni.us/cL4uFP (Amazon)
↠ Adhesive Lined Heat Shrink - ebay.us/Ap6huk
↠ Heat Shrink Crimp Terminals - ebay.us/dQYD0Q
↠ 100A Red Isolator switches (we bought from eBay, similar listings ebay.us/zHqIzS, or www.12voltplan...)
↠ Heavy Duty Crimp Tool - www.12voltplan...
↠ Wire/Cable - mostly from ebay.us/WtL24D and www.12voltplan...
↠ Nylon P Clips - ebay.us/beXZQr
* Disclaimer: Some of the links above may be affiliate links. If you choose to click on them we may earn a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you.
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Filmed with:
↠ Sony ZV1 - geni.us/LW73Jx (Amazon)
↠ GoPro Hero 8 - geni.us/PsIIH9 (Amazon)
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* Disclaimer: Some of the links above may be affiliate links. If you choose to click on them we may earn a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you.
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All the different bits of kit and products we used in the video should be linked in the description, thanks for watching! 🙂
I will look for the updated video on this but I’m sure you were way under powered.😮😢
I would have gone with 400amp hours of battery and some portable panels. You are relying too much on the sun that you were not going to get.
Great back up to have that DC to DC charger though 👍
good job😊
@@RVingwithG Cheers, we're pretty happy with the estimations we made and it's been working out great so far, no problems with power usage at all. Even on overcast days we're able to generate a few hundred watts. Winter will be another test but with the DC charger we think it should work out well as we don't tend to stay stationary for too long 👍
What a lovely intelligent couple. Fantastic video collection.
Thank you, glad you're enjoying the videos 🙂
I think they are siblings
@@GingrichG We're definitely not siblings 😄
hi , what size cable from the battery. thanks. ps Good set up.
Cheers, and we used 70mm^2 cables for the battery bank connections 👍
Well done again guys, great informative video. I loved when Abi tried using the lamp for sun power :-) that made me chuckle
Haha, thanks, yeah we thought we'd try it and see what happened 😆Makes us chuckle too 😄 It takes a while to wait for the sun to come out round here at the moment!
Many many thanks for your videos!
Just a question regarding the calculations in the spreadsheet for the laptop. I see you are calculating its Amperage as A = W / V= 0.9, where W is 20 (I guess you observed this with your smart plug) and V = 230 (the ac output voltage from the the inversor). The question is, why are you considering this voltage of 230? Shouldnt you be considering the voltage at which your laptop is being charged ( you can see this on you laptop's adapter)? It usually is around 20 V
Thank you!
Hey, no problem, and yeah 20W was the wattage we measured using the smart plug. The laptop was a bit of a tricky one as it doesn't have a fixed amount of power usage, it depends how charged it is and how much it's being used. So we measured it at a point where it was plugged in, not fully charged and we were lightly using it. You could also treat it as a single charge item that you charge up then unplug and use. And yeah we used 230V/20W as that's what we measured right after the inverter with the plug, before the laptop. So that was how much power was being generated via the inverter to charge it, and the laptop itself steps it down later in its own power supply to ~20.5V. But the wattage (power) should stay the same (ignoring any conversion efficiencies). If it was 20.5V with 0.09A you'd only have 1.8W of power. We find it easier to think of it in terms of watts as then you can compare easier.
You could also base it on the rated output of the charger and work backwards without measuring it with a smart plug, it would just be the max power consumption. So ours is 4.5A at 20.5V=96W as the max power. But then you still want 96W out the inverter which only outputs 230V so 0.4A. Obviously all the figures are a best guess and depend on your own devices etc, but they should hopefully give a pretty good ballpark, HTH and good luck with the build 👍
Good news! The energy to charge your phone is less than you think. At 6:17 you show the energy used to charge devices. Your phone is 3Ah at 3.3V (not 12V), so it is 10Wh not 36Wh. Similarly your 20Ah power bank uses 66Wh to charge, so charging every tenth day is 6.6Wh per day.
Thanks for the comment! Yeah that's very interesting, something we overlooked! We've made some updates to our spreadsheet after looking up the voltage as best as we can find for all the different batteries. It's nice that it was over-specified not the other way around 😀 Always good to have a bit more capacity available to use!
Hi guys, great video and very helpful. The only question I have is why do you need that specific solar isolator switch to connect the positive and negative wires to it as opposed to a general kill switch that you’ve used in other parts of the electrical board for the positive wire only?
Thank you!
Cheers, glad it was helpful. And good question, the short answer is that a double pole disconnect is safer as it cuts power to both conductors at the same time. If you look on page 11 of the victron manual it's also stated there that there should be "a means to disconnect all current-carrying conductors of a photo-voltaic power source from all other
conductors" (www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Manual_SmartSolar_MPPT_100-30__100-50/29694-MPPT_solar_charger_manual-pdf-en.pdf ).
The longer answer is related to grounding, and the way I look at is that it provides an additional level of protection in certain situations. If everything is wired up correctly and there are no faults, then a single pole switch and a double pole switch would be equivalent. Where it differs is if there was a fault somewhere, caused be a stray wire/broken insulation etc that then bypassed the single pole switch and made it ineffective. For example if there was a short to the van frame from the solar + wire, then you could have a potential shock scenario even if the switch was off, as you could have a circuit from the panel + via the short to van frame, through you touching the frame and then if you came into contact with the negative wire back to the panel. A double pole switch would break the negative as well, meaning that this particular shock hazard would be avoided, and it would take two faults in the system somewhere (instead of one) to be an issue, which is much more unlikely.
But grounding is one area where there's a lot of conflicting information out there, different regulations and different specifics and quirks depending on the particular setup. There are various standards but none that are specific to campervans and mobile installations. Some good resources are the section on grounding in Wiring Unlimited (www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/The_Wiring_Unlimited_book/43562-Wiring_Unlimited-pdf-en.pdf ) and this blog is also useful for picking out the parts of the UK electric code for solar isolators and how it relates to campervans (tinybuildelectrics.com/do-you-need-to-fit-a-dc-isolator-to-your-solar-installation ).
And the reason we used a double pole for the solar and not the rest of the electrics is that the solar array is at a high voltage, quite possibly upwards of 50V, which is enough to be a shock hazard. Whereas the rest of our van electrics is 12V which is very unlikely to ever be a hazard with the resistance of human skin. Essentially it's all about mitigating problems in the (hopefully) unlikely event that there is a fault that occurs in the system somewhere. For us for the small extra cost we went for it for the extra peace of mind. We're not electricians though so DYOR of course, but HTH! 👍
83 w 😂😂😂😂I keep my gas generator 😂😂😂😂but well done for a good video that you 😊
Haha, that was in Winter to be fair. We can easily pull over 500W on a good day in the Summer (like we have at the moment) 😛
This maybe the best RV build series I have found. We are on our 4th RV and when we got locked down here in Florida I removed the 110Vac 30 amp / 12 vdc and replaced it with 240 VAC 50Amp / 12vdc Lithium batteries with 300W solar also added a auto transfer switch for the 4KW generator.
Thanks! And that's cool, sounds like a good setup
Puzzles how you both aren't more popular on here. Love your videos
Thanks, glad you enjoy them! We're still amazed how many people are watching them now to be honest! 😊
I can only imagine it’s because the title is Ford and not VW, keep up the good work 👍🏻
@@amm9613 Cheers, we will try!
I've recently had to move onto a narrowboat and I can't thank you enough for this video and for the tips throughout.
I think your diagram, and your 'walkthrough' of your system will be invaluable as I work out how to wire the boat.
Thank you both for an informative, and enjoyable, video.
Royce
You're welcome! Glad you've found it useful and hope everything on your boat goes well 🙂
Nice vid! Have you guys had any issues using ferrules with Victron equipment? I wouldn't think it would affect performance if installed properly on the wire. It seems like it boils down to personal preference (being more tidy and whatnot).
Cheers :) And there's a lot of discussion around ferrules, we prefer them as we find they make for a tidier install that's also easier to maintain, but it's really important to use them correctly and there are a few things to keep in mind beyond personal preference.
In a mobile install you are using fine stranded cable, usually class 5, which for a 16mm^2 cable for example will have over 100 individual strands (centralcables.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Class-5-stranding-resistance.pdf ).
Then depending on the bit of kit you're using, there's different styles of terminals. Some use a 'rising clamp'/cage which as you screw down gradually compresses down onto the wire, and others use a screw which bites down into the wires. For rising clamp terminals a lot of people will say using the bare wire is best as it will spread out all the wires and ensure a really good surface contact. Whereas with a screw terminal if you use bare wire it will bite down into one section of the cable and might damage the wires or splay them out badly, so a ferrule keeps everything together and makes good contact.
Victron's Wiring Unlimited book recommends using ferrules for screw connectors (page 27): www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/The_Wiring_Unlimited_book/43562-Wiring_Unlimited-pdf-en.pdf .
But there's also different types of ferrules, with different shapes. For the MPPT and Orion we used a square crimper, which matches up with the square shape on those units and ensures good contact. If we had used a round or hex crimper, we would have only had partial contact. For the newer Orion XS though the terminals are different and a square crimp won't fit, you need a hex crimp: community.victronenergy.com/questions/296481/orion-xs-cable-size-does-not-meet-listed-spec.html .
Some expensive crimpers have interchangeable dies so you can change the shape you need depending on what you're doing. You can also get different length ferrules, and you want to make sure it's long enough so that the insulation of the wire is not caught inside the terminal.
The most important thing always though is to have a well torqued, secure, and safe connection. As otherwise you can have excessive heat build up at the connections that could ultimately lead to fire if particularly bad and left unchecked. Here's an example of an Orion that was installed badly with ferrules, and ended up just short of setting fire to a boat: community.victronenergy.com/questions/240749/smoking-dc-dc-melted-wires.html . The ferrules weren't crimped onto the wire first just placed on them and then 'crimped' by screwing down into the orion. 😐
We use them everywhere, on both the 12V and 230V side and haven't had any issues, and have had our electrics checked over as well. We think they're great, as long as they're installed correctly. HTH! 👍
@@SelfBuiltStories Thanks a bunch for the detailed response. This is very helpful. I have glanced at Victron's Wiring Unlimited but haven't seen the section on connectors until now. It is such a good reference. And Victron is very clear in their explanations on everything - this is one reason I went with them for my components.
Keep up the great vids! Cheers.
@@ForgeAheadwithMike No problem! Yeah we like the Victron kit, they definitely have the best documentation of the ones we've seen 👍
Morning. Have you considered a tilting system for your panels? I was was watching another video where a chap started with (1000 watt panels) 67watts 51.3 Volts 1.3 amps un tilted then just by tilting the panels up on the top of the van using an actuator the levels went up to 453 watts 60.1 volts 7.5 amps. As a test I think you might be able to jump up on the roof of the van and tilt them up by hand just to see what happens. If this guy is right a few hinges and a motor could dramatically increase your solar input for just a few quid.
Morning :) I can believe those numbers as the sun angle and shade makes a very noticeable difference, it's actually quite incredible how quickly it backs off. If you're driving down the road watching the app you might see 200W then pass through the shade of a tree and it drops down to 15W for a few seconds then back up again. When you're driving up a hill then you'll see a noticeable difference compared to driving down the other side as well depending on the time of day too.
So tilting the panels would definitely increase the yield, but we decided the extra complexity wasn't worth it for us right now. We tend to move around a lot and park up in different places in the evening when the sun is already low in the sky, so we wouldn't get as much out of it as others might.
If it's decent weather then in Spring/Summer/Autumn we generally have fully charged batteries each day already, and in Winter or when there's no sun out so we can't rely on it, tilting wouldn't help much. But we have the DC charger as well so as long as we're driving enough we stay topped up.
We'd definitely think about it more if we started staying in the same place for longer periods or our energy demands changed, but at least at the moment the simple setup is working well for us 🙂👍
@@SelfBuiltStories thanks for the reply and I love the videos. Keep up the great work!
@@chrisandrews7518 no problem, cheers 😃
Hi There, Love your video's, your channel and your enthusiasm. Your are a lovely couple and I love your van build. I have a quick question if that's OK as I just started my own van build. I notice you have not included in your system the option to plug in shore power. If you were to add a battery charger for shore power can this be connected to the Lynx distributer as well? I count 4 items already using up all 4 slots in the distributer - Batteries, MPPT, DC to DC and Inverter so where would the shore power battery charger connect. I hope you don't mind the question? Keep up the great work and video's. Your videos are a joy to watch and so informative.
Hiya! Thanks a lot and glad you're enjoying the build 🙂 And yeah that's a great question and you've counted right, we're using the 4 slots on the Lynx for those things (MPPT, DC-DC, 12V fuse panel and inverter). If you want more than 4 slots, there are two things you can do. The first is to add a second Lynx distributor which bolts directly onto the first one, and would then give you 8 slots. But if you only need one more then it might be a bit overkill. So what you can do is make use of the two bolts on the right which you would normally use for adding a second Lynx device to, but instead use them for another connection. The only thing you have to do to make that work is add your own fuse as there isn't one in that slot. We actually had this scenario recently as we decided to add a second 12V fuse panel and so needed a 5th slot on the Lynx. What we did is run the wires to those far right bolts but using a separate inline mega fuse holder, you can see that here: ua-cam.com/video/s7GXPvPtOqw/v-deo.html. The other way to do it is to use an MRBF terminal fuse and holder directly onto the extra right bolt. Explorist.life shows how to do that here: ua-cam.com/video/W9n01vuGDgM/v-deo.html. We decided to do it with the inline mega fuse holder just because we wanted to use mega fuses everywhere so it's consistent, and we already had a spare mega fuse holder. HTH! 🙂
@@SelfBuiltStories thank you for your reply. Very useful. I assume you never intend to allow for shore power.
No problem, and yeah we're not planning on it, we're basing our set-up on being mostly off grid where we wouldn't be able to hook up. If we've done our calculations right we don't think we'll need it, but if that changed in the future we could add a separate busbar or swap out our inverter for an inverter/charger combi 👍
Love your spread sheet idea. But after hitting pause and rewinding etc. I saw that your fridge you have that it's only used for 6 hours a day??? I would have thought that it was on 24/7? (just starting my van build now)
Good spot! The fridge is on 24/7 but the compressor doesn't run the whole time, it switches on and off throughout the day as needed to maintain the temperature. Then looking at the daily amp draw that Dometic list on the specs worked out to be the equivalent of it being on for 6 hours a day. HTH and good luck with your build! 🙂
Thanks for the quick reply back. I got your answer. Cheers. I guess the more keep opening it the more the compressor will kick in and the same for the summer time. The warmer the ambulant air inside with opening etc. the more it kicks in too.
Yeah exactly that, there will be fluctuations and all the figures are our best estimates with our expected typical usage patterns erring to the worse case, with pretty much everything being used and running every day. So in real life hopefully it'll actually all last longer than we've budgeted for 🙂
Really enjoying your content. But am I missing something? Wouldn’t you be running your fridge for 24hrs, not 6 in a worse case scenario?
Cheers 🙂 And yeah we will be running it 24/7 but the compressor doesn't run the whole time, it switches on and off throughout the day as needed to maintain the temperature. Looking at the daily amp draw that Dometic list on the specs (0.29952kWh 24/h) worked out to be pretty much exactly the equivalent of it being on for 6 hours a day. So we used that figure with the exact W hrs listed from the specs 👍
@@SelfBuiltStories I see, thank you. Keep up the good work
Thanks, and you're welcome :)
Love your indepth content and the way you go about the situation in front of you taking great care of your finished work,
Thank you very much, we do like to take our time and make sure we're doing it properly as we're going to be spending a lot of time in it hopefully 🙂
Keep in mind that the maximum output from the panels is only achieved when the sun shines perpendicular onto the panels. Since you live at a place which is around 50 degrees from the equator, you need to rotate the panels around 50 degrees, meaning one edge should be up so the angle between the panel and the roof of the van is 50 degrees. Plus on a hot day (when the sun shines at maximum force) the panels reduce the output otherwise they will cook.
Thanks yeah we've thought about adding some simple mounts so we can tilt them up at different angles if we're going to be parked up for a while. We'll see how it goes on the road and whether we need to or not, we've had some pretty good-enough yield days with them flat so if we can avoid the extra work we will, but always an option down the line 😀
This was interesting because I have just set up a basic system to charge my car battery except I used a Victron panel and Victron MPPT. But just joined at your bed build and having two sets of hands is really an advantage. Shall enjoy more of your videos, with past ones to catch up on first.
Cool, glad you enjoyed it! Yeah there have definitely been a few projects that would be pretty tough with only of us, like putting up the ceiling!
Amazing job from you both, just a quick one, would be super beneficial if you were to use 20mm glands on the isolator switch where the solar cables come through to ensure they won’t pull out👍
Cheers 🙂 And yeah that would be a good addition, either that or some rubber grommets. The cables have stayed put fine but it would be good to have some extra protection where they pass through the box. We didn't have any on hand at the time but something worth adding at some point for sure 👍
Just a suggestion for the laptop you can get a 12v DC to 19v DC converter which saves running it through the inverter.
Thanks, yeah we might look at something like that👍. It can trickle charge via USB c out of a car charger too in our 12v sockets. Although at the moment we have more than enough power from the solar to use the regular high power charger through the inverter, haven't seen the batteries drop below 80% yet. Does feel a bit inefficient though! Will probably make it more efficient when we've got more devices in and we're fully on the road 🙂
Hi guys, excellent series, best conversion on utube. Could I please ask what size in mm are the cables from the mppt charger and are the cables on the batteries 70mm ? Thank you in advance.
Cheers! And we used 16mm^2 for the solar cables and into the MPPT, and 70mm^2 for the battery to battery and battery to lynx connections 👍
Hi from Russia ))
1) in video time line 4:55 led lamp = 360 min per day is not 16 hours per day but 6 hours ))
2) for 230 volt consumers inverter have not 100% efficiency factor, to calculate the consumption from 12 volts, you can take a efficiency of 80%-85% to have a guaranteed power reserve
3) When using solar panels, it should be borne in mind that even a small amount of dust or dirt on the surface greatly reduces the power of the energy generated. The surface of the solar panel can be slightly tilted sideways so that the flowing water carries away dirt with it during rain. Also, the surface of the solar panel can be treated with an anti-rain compound to give the coating hydrophobic properties.
Hey! 👋 1) Yeah we had a small copy-paste typo in the spreadsheet, it should say 960 minutes which we fixed afterwards. But the energy are still the same as we did them from the hours 😛 2) And yep very true, we based our numbers off 90% efficiency which is what our inverter specs stated. 3) They do get pretty dirty! We've been up there to clean them a couple of times so have that in our longer term cleaning routine. Anti-rain compound sounds interesting, will check that out, cheers!
I know this video is a year old, when battery is fully charged, the victron wont supply charge current to prevent overcharging and damaging your battery (a lot of lithium, batteries have their own BMS battery management system to prevent over current and over voltage anyway - but with the victron gear you wont go wrong). If you turned on the fan you previously wired, you would have seen more amps coming through the charger when you done this video as the battery would have a little more space to accept a charge current that the victron would then supply. But it is not unusual to have less than 1amp of charge in early morning sun, you wont see it really crank up till about 11am till 2pm.
Yeah they're great bits of kit! The batteries weren't fully charged when we first switched it on but it was right at the end of a cloudy day just before the Winter Solstice too, so not great test conditions 😛 But the next day was a lot sunnier and with the batteries in the same state we pulled in around 100W. We typically see around 300W on a good day now we're approaching Spring and last Summer were able to get in the 500s which is great, as the batteries were always fully charged by mid morning. The mppt also restarts in Bulk if it's reset, so if already in float switching the solar isolator off and on again puts it back in bulk momentarily and can see the watts it's pulling in.
nice video guys, just one question, why did you used the smartBMV if you have the smartsolar, both will show the same numbers in the app or am I wrong?
Cheers. And the Smart BMV gives you data on the current draw in and out of the battery bank, whereas the MPPT gives different data on the yield of the solar panels etc. They come up as two separate items in the victron app
Great spirit and content. Have you been to norway yet?
Oh, and one more thing: its a big difference between flat mount and if you have the panels angled towards the sun. Specially north in scandinavia
@@andreasdahl717 Cheers! And nope not yet, but it's going to be our next trip! 😀 And yeah it would make a noticeable difference for sure but as we move around so frequently we probably wouldn't end up actually going up to change the angle most of the time, so for now at least we decided it wasn't worth the extra complexity for us 👍
What is the smart plug you are using do you have link or name? Thank you
Sure, we have a TP Link Kasa smart plug with energy monitoring and have added a link to the description. The one we have looks like it's been updated with a newer smaller version now
Thank you, I’ll check it out
@@jakeliujakeliu No problem :)
Thanks for sharing!! Awesome video, great channel!. We are just starting with this stage in our van conversion and this videos are a great and detailed guide. There's something I didn't quite get from the spreadsheet: how do you calculate the total Amp Hrs when the voltage is 230? I mean, for the 12v items I see you multiplied Quantity x Watts x hrs per day, but I don't understand what is different with the 230v items. (for example, in the laptop file...1 x 0.09 x 8 = 0.72, but you put 13.33 instead). Would you help me with that? Thanks so much, keep up with the good work!
No problem! Glad you're liking our channel! And great question, it is a little bit confusing. Basically we are using the watts as the main thing in the spreadsheet, as being power it is comparable across both voltages whether it's 12 or 230V. So the laptop draws 20W, which is 0.09A when at 230V coming out of the inverter. But that would be 1.67A at 12V. We've listed the 0.09A in the spreadsheet as that's the current that would be measured there, but on the 12V side before the inverter it would be higher, and that is of course the amount that is actually going to be used from our batteries (as the inverter is ultimately powered by our 12V setup). So in the coloured columns on the right we use the Watts as the main point, and then derive the amps from that. So for the laptop we have 20W * 8 hours = 160Whrs. Which is 13.33Ahrs at 12V. Then because it's through the inverter we also apply a 90% efficiency to that too. Should also be said the laptop charger is actually 85W max, but 20W seemed to be a fairly good average for light use when we measured it. We could also have included the laptop in the charged items section too and calculated it based on charging the battery to full, but we figured we'll probably have it plugged in most of the time we're using it so did it this way. All of the figures are obviously subject to variance, but we hoped to have them in the right ball park enough to make good decisions on our setup. Pretty happy with everything so far coming back from a few weeks away in the van. Hope that helps! 🙂
Hey guys revisiting this video. May I ask why you went for a 1000w inverter when you can get a 2000 or even 3000w unit for not that much more?
Hiya, no reason really other than looking at all the things we had to power, we didn't have anything that would require more than that, so we figured it made sense to save a few £. But also we thought if our needs change on the road and we want to power something bigger then it's one of the easier components to just swap in a replacement. 👍
Impressive, thank you for sharing the knowledge, greetings from the Netherlands👌👍
You're welcome, and thanks 😊
You guys are just amazing!!! This is by far the best put video i have seen on van elec. Been dreading it so much. But think I might be able to do it now.
Will it be great of you can give the cheats sheets you used for your system and also the excel sheets. Will help as a guideline please.
Thanks
Haha thank you, glad you think so :) We haven't uploaded it anywhere to download but if you message us on instagram we can send you our hand drawn wiring diagram.
Great job on the van guys. What make is your smart plug and do you remember where you purchased it from?
Cheers! :) And it's a TP Link Kasa that we got from Amazon, there should be a link in the description
Fantastic work guys! I can’t wait to see what happens next!👍
Thanks very much :) We look forward to sharing more!
Cool great, I would pull the positive wire a bit away from the shunt. By the settings for the mppt and the Orion I was at first by 14,4 then 14,2 but my cell started drifting a lot now I’m down to 14v and by the bmv by 13,8 now everything works good.
Thank you! And yeah good spot, we have loads of cable clips ready to go that we're going to use to secure all the wires on the board, but we're waiting until we're doing the AC wiring so we can get the neatest routing with them all on 🙂The positives should be tucked away nicely from the shunt then :)
Hey guys, such great and informative videos! Loving them! Have you guys made that excel spreadsheet available anywhere for download? Thanks I’m advance!
Thanks! We haven't yet but we will do, we'll add a link to the description when we get round to it 👍
Hi Tim and Abi: Briefly this morning I saw your notice of surpassing 1K subscribers. Congratulations to you both on this, one of many milestones to come. I was curious to see, however, that the notice posted nine days ago; yet my subsequent searches have not located the notice again. Nonetheless, thanks for sharing your journey with us. And my prayers for you two come all the way from Louisiana. 😊🙏🏻
Thanks Norm! And no problem we're enjoying making and sharing all the videos and glad that people are enjoying them too. Best wishes from an (actually sunny today!) Devon. 🙂
i have many smart plugs that i use at home.... you know what? It NEVER occurred to me to get the readings from one in a van! Thanks so much for making this video otherwise i would have been stuffing around measuring things until the end of time or writing down ratings form packaging 👍
No problem! Always good to repurpose things you have lying around the house 😃
the calculations aren't completely correct like your phone has 3000mhA battery but only at 3.6V so 10.8wH not 36wH
Cheers, yeah we overlooked the lower voltage of our phones and things at the time and updated our spreadsheet afterwards to adjust for that, the nice thing was the difference was in our favour 😛
Solar Panels in series you get a longer charge from early mornings 🌄 to late evenings,
You can get Tyco Relays that handle large current many used in Aerospace industry 👍
Yeah we decided series wiring was definitely the way to go, really happy with how it's performed! 🙂
Watching for the 5th time 🙈 please could you share your spreadsheet? It made everything look so simple! Trying to figure our system out to be complete in the next 4 weeks 🤞
😀 Don't worry we've watched things over and over again too 😁 You can send us a message on instagram if you want and we can send you a copy of it. Good luck with the figuring out!
Very cool videos and spreadsheets. Would you mind posting a link of the spreadsheet so I will be able to download it and use it as well? This looks very handy to use
Thank you :) Yeah when we get round to it we'll add a link to the description!
Well done both. You have produced a very interesting and informative video. It shows that anyone should be able to carry out this project with a little research and save heaps of money in the process. Looks like you are using the best components also. Very wise!! Cheers from the Sunshine Coast in Queensland Australia.
Thank you very much! Glad you enjoyed the video :) Yeah we're really happy with all the kit, working great for us. Send us some of your sunshine! 🌞🙂
too much technology and the app is not good for a camper or for living in a camper...simply the best...I've been living in a motorhome for the last 17 years, at least 6 months a year, and I know from experience that more than 50% of this nonsense is unnecessary, especially wireless things. what keeps breaking down...you did everything great on the wrong vehicle...ford is the worst possible vehicle and sprinter...one day when you decide to sell that vehicle it's hard to sell because it's a ford...if you did it all on fiat ducato 2.3 or 3.0 Sofim diesel engine these are the best engines for campers...good luck
Cheers, we quite like all the technology though 😛 We like being able to monitor everything and keep a check on the van but for sure not necessary for everyone. We went for the Transit as it has a really nice high roof that allows me (Tim) to stand up in super comfortably even after all the insulation in the floor and ceiling. Loving it so far, not planning to sell it anytime soon, hoping to get a good life of adventures out of it 😀
Great work! We're building ours now.
The hairdryer was a must for the other half so the 3000W inverter is in there, lol. We're using all electric cooking too tho.
Haha, cool! Yeah you won't be needing a toy hairdryer like ours then 😅And thanks!
Hi there love your videos i'm learning alot , keep it up lol oh an by the way when you said i won't need the tools again i bet you will lol there,s always maintinace lol
Cheers, and glad they're useful :) And yeah that is true, and there will be a few choice tools we'll take with us in the van too, like the drill and a lot of the electronics bits. We don't think we'll be in a hurry to use the window glass holders anytime soon though 😅
Hi Both, How are you finding the solar set up?
I'm not sure how you have 525w as I read a reply to a comment on the solar roof rack episode which said you had them wired in series, which If i understand correctly means you have 175w @ 36v.
In parallel would given you 525w @12v but running them at 12v would give you such a low window for usage charge voltage.
I'm investigating solar set ups for my narrow boar so this got my interest and thought I'd comment , in case I have miss understood something.
Cheers
We're loving our solar setup so far! Our build is still not finished so there there will be more devices going in that need powering, but we've taken several trips in the van including one over a number of weeks and the power available was great, we were pretty much always back at full SOC during the morning.
Whether you wire the panels in series or parallel the wattage stays the same, it's the current and voltage that changes. In our series setup we end up with higher voltage but the current stays the same so we can use smaller wires. So we end up with around 7-10A @ 50V or so depending on conditions. On an average day if we happen to check the stats we might be pulling in around 300-400W. HTH!
I need to say that your videos are great. So relatable and well done. AND you seem to actually know what you’re doing !!
Haha cheers, glad you think so! 🙂👍
Hah very funny video. Very enjoyable. I loved that you cleaned the panels hoping for a couple more watts. I would of done the exact same!
Very fun to see you both enjoying it
Ha yeah, it doesn't look like it in the video but they were actually pretty dirty up there! Was very satisfying to clean them if nothing else 😛
I love the video's. Very neat work en proper preparation and using good materials. Thank you.
No problem, thanks for watching!
Videos are awesome! Just hope you have that van insured to the hills. My god the £££ in that!
Thank you 😁
Loving your videos and the detail you go into! We've bought exactly the same van as you and have recently been designing our electrical system. I was just wondering - how come you have 3 water pumps on your spreadsheet?
Thanks! 🙂Good question, we're planning a slightly non-typical water system with recirculating shower and heat exchangers, and our current thinking is that we will need 3 pumps to make it all work. Design still a little subject to flux though!
Can you wire renogy solar panels to a victron charge controller?? Can you mix and match between companies products pretty easily? Could I have renogy charge controller with victron batteries?
Yep there's no problem doing that, we have a victron charge controller with renogy panels and KS energy batteries. Just make sure things like the charge controllers have the settings changed to match the specs of the batteries. It should be fairly easy to find the recommended settings from the battery manufacturer to plug into the controller.
Great video, will you guys do a video on the DC to Dc hookup?
Cheers! And yes, it will be the next video actually 🙂👍
I’m going for a similar set up as this, does the lynx distributor eliminate the need for a circuit breaker coming off the solar controller?
The lynx is just a 4-port mega fuse hub which keeps everything nice and tidy, so it's slightly different to a resettable circuit breaker. We don't have a breaker after the MPPT controller though, we have a dual pole solar disconnect before the controller so we can completely isolate the panels from the rest of the system 👍
Hi guys. Any reason why you didn’t put a fuse between the panels and charge controller?
Hey, yeah it's not needed for our particular setup as it would be redundant. We have 3 panels wired in series that from the specs have a short circuit current of 10.3A. Because they're wired in series, even if one of the panels developed a fault and short circuited, there is still a max of 10.3A of current flowing through the whole array. That is below the 15A max series fuse rating of the panels of 15A, which is the amount of current the panels can safely handle. So even in the event of a fault it is well within the specs of the panel. And a fuse would likely either never blow or nuisance blow under normal use. It's more of a consideration if you have panels wired in parallel. Much more info here: gnomadhome.com/fusing-solar-panels/ or explorist.life/how-to-fuse-a-solar-panel-array-and-why-you-may-not-need-to/ 👍
Nice spreadsheet! Will you share it with your fans?
Cheers! If you message us on instagram we can send it to you 👍
Another great video thanks. As someone who has no knowledge of electrics I had no idea of the issues with using solar and I wonder how many others looking to install panels on their vans realise this as well. Hopefully they will see your video first!
Looking forward to the next installment
Our pleasure! Thanks for the continued support 😊
Why didn't you include an external power hook-up connector for campsite since you were planning on travelling to countries with little or no sun hours in winter?
We spend the majority of our time off-grid so we decided quite early on in the build that we wouldn't add shore power as most of the time we wouldn't be able to use it. Instead we focussed on having enough solar and alternator charging capability so that we could use the van all year round but still not have to be tethered to a campsite hookup every now and then. We've travelled through Scotland in the Winter as well where open campsites were few and far between, so not sure we would have been able to rely on it even if we had it in some of those places.
When we have sun we don't think about power usage at all really, and when we don't (like Scotland in the Winter) we are a little more power savvy but as long as we don't stay in the same place for too long we charge back while we're on the road. Worst case scenario we would just need to idle the van to charge a little, but so far we it's working out pretty nice 👍
Hi guys, what size mega fuse are you using in your linx distributor, thank you
Hey, we used 60A (MPPT), 80A (12V hub), 40A (DC-DC) and 100A (inverter). That works well for our set up with the kit we have but obviously depends on your system 👍
GOOD JOD , FROM SOUTH SARASOTA , FLORIDA !! Y'ALL COME ON DOWN Y'ALL LOVE IT !!
Thanks a lot! 😁
Another amazing video guys. Well. Done
Thanks again!
hey again guys i was looking at the IMO Solar Switch the link has gone now, would you be able to put another up? thanks guys
Hey, thanks for the heads up. The listing we used isn't there anymore but have updated it to show some other similar listings, the one we have is the IMO SI16-PEL64R-2 👍
Do you guys use 10awg or 8awg for solar ? And can you share the solar port product link?
Hiya, we used 16mm^2 for all the solar wires which is closest to AWG 5 or 6. The links for the bits we used should be in the description but if something is missing give us a shout 👍
use a tripod for your camera you have way too much movement which makes people dizzy
Sorry if you found it too shaky, we can't use a tripod most of the time as we're always moving around the van and want to get close ups of things. But we had the camera on a 3 axis stabilised gimbal instead 👍
what gauge wire do you have from the battery up ? looks good
Cheers :) And we used 70mm^2 for the battery bank and battery to lynx wiring, which was appropriate for us based on how we sized everything in our setup 👍
When you did your first fit electrics, did you run the wires to the driver's side via the rear door frame or did you run them along under the bed? Wire just to get around the door frame is coming in at 7m one way!
Yeah it's pretty crazy how quickly it adds up! We did a mixture of both, so for the lights we ran wire up and around the door, but for the diesel heater and DC charger we ran them just above ground level behind the wall (as they're thicker wire and we wanted a nice short run). We ran most of those wires when we did our pre-wiring here: ua-cam.com/video/DTzaAh7on4c/v-deo.html. Since then we've also added a second 12v fuse hub on the driver side to serve all of the 12v stuff on that side. HTH 🙂
Hi, where did you buy the UV light for the shower? tanks!🐱
Hiya, we have this one from Amazon: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B076BFT4HN, although haven't actually used it yet so can't comment on how good it is 😛
What about charging of a petrol generator? or charging from socket like at home before leaving?
We decided not to add provisions to be able to charge from shore power in the end, as based on our calculations we think we should have enough power just from the solar and alternator charging. But it wouldn't be too difficult to add it later on if we felt we needed/wanted it then 🙂
👍👍
🙂
What about AC charging from a house, building or generator?
It would be relatively simple to add but for us we decided not to have any hookup as we'll be off grid most of the time, and we generate enough power to charge from solar and the alternator 👍
🌼👌🏻👍
🙂
Hello again, 2nd time round watching this video, just as good for me this time round :)
I know it's a little cheeky and there's most likely lots of these on the internet but could I ask if your Excel spreadsheet for sizing your solar panels is ... available to share? :)
Don't ask, don't get, right?
Cool, glad you like it! And if you're still interested if you message us on instagram we can send it to you
@SelfBuiltStories I will see if o can remember how to log in to Instagram;)
THIRD time watching the video. Research is great when there's a channel like this to watch :)
Haha cheers, glad you find it useful enough to rewatch! 😊 As it happens since your last comment we've got round to uploading things to here: buymeacoffee.com/selfbuiltstories/extras 😀
How to dry your hair: eh, just stick your head out the window, luv! 😇
Hmm, not sure it would be an all weather solution 🙃
Great job guyz.🤙🍾🥂
Cheers! 🙂
There's no sunshine in the UK, so why should you install solar panels😇
Haha, yeah we've definitely had our fair share of questionable weather...! It's still been enough to keep us topped up though 😛
Great video first class thanks for sharing
No problem 👍Thanks a lot, glad you enjoyed it 🙂
Hey guys. Long time lurker here. Love the detail in your videos. If you were to add 230v hook up, where and how would you do it?
Hey! Glad you're liking them 🙂 Good question, we decided early on that we weren't going to add shore power hookup as we plan to be off-grid most of the time, so we've gone with solar and B2B charging only. But if we were going to add it, what we probably would do is put in a combined inverter/charger unit instead of just the inverter we have. So something like the Victron Multiplus or equivalent. Then we'd essentially get the hook-up side with no extra work and pretty much a drop-in replacement. You could retrofit it later with a standalone charger and transfer switch but it would be a bit more involved, so we'd probably even in that case swap out our inverter with a combo unit that is intelligent enough to automatically switch over when it detects shore power and handle any change in the earth bonding etc. HTH!
@@SelfBuiltStories Thanks for the info. I went for a Renogy inverter charger but I’m sending it back because it’s absolutely massive and weighs a ton. Note to self: read the specs thoroughly
@@johngrainger152 No problem. Yeah some of the kit is pretty heavy!
can you upload all the charts you made. Maybe Ill just copy your set up.
Hiya, we haven't got anything uploaded anywhere at the moment but it's something we'll probably do later on when we have a bit more time
Thx guys, I don't remember seeing you deal with the 2nd charge controller, might have missed it. Sorry. You absolutely work well together!
There's only the one solar charge controller, do you mean the DC-DC charger? If so we haven't actually wired that in yet, but it's all there ready to go! 😛
@@SelfBuiltStories DC-DC controllers, such as a Redarc 1225D or 1240D would make the need for the MPPT controller redundant, as it will take the positive current from the vehicle start battery and charge the house batteries while driving. It will priortise the vehicle battery first, then direct the charge to the Lithium battery. Without a few mods, the DC-DC charger will not charge the vehicle start battery though. As with Victron, the wiring needs to be configured to accommodate the Lithium type battery.
@@lesblack413 Cool, yeah there's some nice bits of kit out there for sure. We just quite like having the Victron kit and how seamless everything is together in the app :)
Why do you need a solar disconnect switch? Thank you
Without the switch there's no way to stop the power from the panels making its way into the system, unless you go up on the roof and cover them up with something. So it's really handy for being able to isolate the solar while doing maintenance and troubleshooting etc. And a completely random secondary use we've found is that switching it off and on again causes the mppt to instantly switch back to bulk mode which has been handy a couple of times when we start to draw the batteries down shortly after it's already switched into float 🙂
What AWG gauge size is the Stanley self stripper
Hiya, it can strip 0.2 to 6mm² wire, so 10-22 AWG. HTH :)
Hi Guys we have enjoyed watching your build and am rewatching this episode to get more info prior to embarking on our own layout - here is the silly question - once the panels are exposed to daylight they start working so does it matter that they are exposed and wired but without being actually connected - this has really puzzled, many thanks in advance
I can answer that. No, it doesn't matter, because unconnected, there is an open circuit, so it can't generate any voltage / watts etc. This is why you should cover the solar panels to work on the panel connections + and -, and why you need the isolator (double pole or single pole) between the panels and the MPPT controller or a BC-DC controller.
Hiya, yeah it's not a problem to have them up on the roof unconnected, we had them up for some weeks before we got round to doing the electrics inside (had to give them a clean by then!). Just be sure to tape the ends up well with some insulation tape as obviously you don't want them to short out on themselves or the van metal. And as Les says, cover them up with something like cardboard when you're connecting it all up/doing any maintenance on them so you can be sure they wont' be generating any power 👍
@@SelfBuiltStories Many thanks - one of our next jobs!
No problem, good luck! 👍
Me again! I'd like to ask please, with your continuous running table, you divide the laptop, a 230v appliances by 230v. e.g 20 / 230 = 0.09. But then at the top table for power consumption totals, you divide the 230v row by 12v. e.g. 177.2 / 12 = 14.7. Why would this then be divided by 12 not 230 if they are 230v items?
Hiya, good question! Everything downstream of the inverter will have a much lower current as it is running at a much higher voltage (230V), so in the example of the laptop it's only using 0.09A. But we're not really interested in that, what we want to know is how much power that equates to on the 12V side as ultimately everything is powered by our batteries. So what we do is calculate how many watts it uses (which allows us to compare the same power across 12V and 230V, which gives us 160W hours. Then in the coloured 'Total Amp Hrs' column we're working out what the equivalent amp hours would be at 12V. For the 230V items you could read 'Amps' as 'Amps at 230V' and 'Total Amp Hrs' as 'Total Amp Hrs at 12V'. And you'll notice that the 'Total Amp Hrs' column is derived from the 'Total W Hrs' column. The 'Amps' column is more just for extra information but it's not used in any calculations, everything is derived from watts.
Then the summary at the top also just derives from watts. The 'Amp Hrs p/d' for the 230V is just what you get if you add up the 'Total Amp Hrs' for the 230V with rounding. HTH 👍
@@SelfBuiltStories Thank you very much for your full answer, I hope it helps other people too as you have written such a thorough answer! I think I understand more, it was a bit tricky for me to get my head around and I think the idea is settling now. I asked on FB a similar question and no one gave a response as good as yours! I'll have a go at my own appliances and use tables likewise to yours. Happy travelling, PinkBSL 🤩😇
@@pinkbsl7972 No problem at all, cheers 🙂
Very good electric work on how you did it
Thanks 🙂
Awesome guys, great video
Thanks so much! 🙂
Your sister is so lovely x
Thanks but she's not my sister, she's my wife 🤣
Hi I im pretty ignorant with regards to this and noticed your solar isolator is 16 amp rated (ebay one)- the panels Optimum Operating Current 9.75amp each so does that not mean it needs 3 times a 9.75 amp rated switch - just wondered if safe before picking one up thanks for any info 🙂
Hiya, we've wired our panels in series so the current (total amps) does not change, it's the voltage that increases. If we had wired them in parallel then it would have been the other way around, and the voltage would have stayed the same but the current would have multiplied. So for our setup, it shouldn't be higher than around the 10A level, which also means we can use some less hefty cables on the roof. For more info on series vs parallel wiring explorist.life is pretty helpful: www.explorist.life/solar-panels-series-vs-parallel/#Voltage_Amps_of_Solar_Panels_Wired_in_Series
Thanks very much for the info - very helpful
@@omallythomas3768 You're welcome :)
Would be VERY HELPFUL if you could post a LINK to the various SPREADSHEETS used in your calculations.
Oh...you already did? Sorry didn't see.
Thanks for considering this request.
We've sent the diagram and things to a few people who've messaged us on instagram 👍
Brilliant explanations n
Thank you 👍
No point using them in the UK, Got forgot to turn on the sun there
Yeah it would be nice if we had a bit more sun, but even on overcast days we can generate a few hundred watts of power so it's been working great to keep our batteries charged so far 🙂
What size of wiring did you use from the charge controller to the lynx distributor?
Hi, we used 16mm^2, which is the maximum guage the mppt can take 👍
Thanks for the quick reply, I had 16mm2 but thought it would struggle to fit into the charge controller just awaiting the crimper tool. @@SelfBuiltStories
No worries! Yeah it's a snug fit but it works 😛
Do you guys have the link for the wire you brought for the solar panels to connect to the imo dc switch ?
Hey, we bought most of our wire from www.12voltplanet.co.uk/stranded-single-core-plain-copper-cable.html 👍
sorry i meant the mc4 connectors@@SelfBuiltStories
@@leviripley Ah, think you mean this one then? uk.renogy.com/renogy-solar-adaptor-kit/
very perfect👍
Cheers :)
Just another GREAT video, you two. 👍Love the spreadsheet calculations and the bit about the hairdryer. 😁
We've already done similar spreadsheets (yours are much easier on the eyes though). Greg's videos helped a lot as well... 😉
Our van will be gasless and I'll be building the LiFePo4 batteries from scratch (2 x 178Ah) - that's a lot cheaper than buying completed units. No gas cooker, just induction stovetop and a diesel heater combined with some floor heater pads in the seating area and perhaps the shower stall. Solar will be very similar to your setup with a DC-DC charger to get some recharge while driving. I will try very hard to get the electrical stuff further to the middle or front of the vehicle, to reduce cable lengths somewhat - but in the end it will most likely be a compromise.
We do love the job you've done thus far and can appreciate all the extra work you had shooting the footage, cutting it and finally sharing it here. Setting up the shots, everything seems to take twice as long (that's at least my experience...).
Cheers from across the pond! 😊
Thanks Volker! Ha yeah, in theory everything is calculated for but we can only tell for sure when using it aggressively out on the road. Interesting building the batteries, would be interested to see how that turns out. Look forward to seeing how your van progresses. And twice as long? At least 😅We enjoy it though and especially looking back at the beginning, already it's nice to be able to remind ourselves of the progress, which we'd surely forget at some point down the road (no pun intended!) otherwise. 😁
Those solar panels would need to be oriented towards the sun to be more effective. Having them laying flat like that is not ideal in most parts of the World. So, ideally you'd want to be able to change their angle towards one side and park accordingly.
Yeah we have it on the backburner as a possible future upgrade to add tilting brackets onto the unistrut, but so far we haven't needed it. We'll have the DC-DC charger too and plan to be moving around fairly often and not staying long enough to make it worth it to get up on the roof and change the angle. But yeah we'll see how it goes on the road and add some tilts if we need it 👍
Hi sorry to bother you after your wedding congratulations again by the way… Why didn’t you use the solar panel cable to come out of the Killswitch to go straight into the distribution bar? Also what size cable did you use to come out of the kill switch to go into the distribution bar? Many thanks
Thanks 🙂 And we have the cables coming from the panels, through the solar kill switch and then into the MPPT charge controller. The panels have to feed direct into the charge controller for it to work. We're using 16mm^2 cable for all the solar connections, which is the maximum size that fits into the terminals on the MPPT and more than enough for our setup as our panels are in series so the total current/amps stays fairly low. It's essentially the same cable before and after the switch, just the black ones came part of the solar kit with the panels and the coloured ones we got separately. HTH!
Hi the panel with all the electrical gubbins on does it need to have a good air flow round it or could it be hidden in a cupboard - maybe with a PC fan connected for circulation - it can be all so expensive left on show if a sly eye crosses it by with the door open thinking on the security side ;-)
More air flow is always good, but yeah we might cover it with something at some point. Although a big part of that would be to stop anything hitting it/dust and things 🙂
U should shincronise both chargers with each other there for charging could be control at parameters of battery voltage and battery tempeacher
Yeah it would be nice. The MPPT and BMV smart shunt are configured on the same local victron VE.Smart network and talking to each other, but the Orion doesn't yet have the capability to join the network and synchronise with the others unfortunately. It's been a requested feature for 2 years but still not possible annoyingly (community.victronenergy.com/questions/69199/vebus-orion-smart-tr-networking.html). They are all configured with the parameters of the batteries though
I think I would have turned the solar charger upside down for shorter wires and better routing or the wires.
Hmm yeah that would have tidied up the wire routing but Victron doesn't recommend mounting it any other way. Think it would also mess with our heads being upside down 😜
Your videos are the bright spot in my day even when the sun isn’t shining. 🌞😊
Ah thanks Norm, our pleasure, hope you continue to enjoy the videos 🙂