Electrical Battery / solar setup

[bt75]

I'm totally new to caravan ownership, just bought a 2010, 16ft, 16.49-1HL.

The van doesn't have a battery (so no battery monitor or battery switch) but does have a dometic fridge and Setec STII power supply. I'm keen to do the following, and would be grateful for any advice...

- Add a battery and battery monitor (and battery switch if necessary) so that I'm able to go 'off grid'.
- Wire in an anderson plug to the battery so I can charge it with a solar panel.
- Charge either the battery or the fridge (or both?) while I'm towing via an anderson plug on the car.

Seeking help with the equipment I need, tips on how to do the install and any other advice or things to look out for regarding things like switching between 240v and 12v for a complete newbie.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Hitting the road]

G'day bt75, welcome to the forum. The questions you are asking are fine but pretty open, a fair bit of caution needs to be taken with online advice, as any one giving tips has no idea of your own expertise, experience or confidence...plus you don't know what experience the "advisor" has either. And unless a sparky I woujldn't be fooling with 240v.
I good idea, and safer for you at this point, would be to do a bit of initial swatting up on the subject via searches on this forum as well as other forums or web sites that have info on fitting out a van with power options. Then you can easily ask either / or questions which can draw on group experience.
Budget also seriously comes in to play...how much do you want to spend as there are a myriad of ways to approach what you are asking., with cost outlays varying dramatically.
Not much help I know, but when I started out in the camping / caravanning world I just did lots and lots of research and reading to find the answers I initially wanted.

 

[Drover]

Firstly Welcome to the mob ............................... There are many threads that will answer your questions if you dig around a bit, someone may be able to post some links as its not a simple thing to answer without writing a multi page manual and does depend on the experience one has....

To save a lot of time if your van has a water pump fitted then it is possibly already wired to fit a battery, look at bottom of cupboard or under seat for a little cluster of cables tucked away.

Get the Setek manual out along with your fridge manual and have a good read up on how they operate, also check the 12 pin wiring so your familiar with it, this will come in handy when you come to upgrade things...............

Your fridge is a 3 way, runs off 12v when your are driving down the road and then only when engine is running never when shut down, it cannot run on 12v when in camp, thats either gas or 240v.. You also need to fire it up a day or 2 before leaving on 240v to get it chilled down properly.

If your want to do off grid then at minimum a 120ah AGM battery with ideally at least 200wats of solar with a reasonably good MPPT solar regulator, the ones that come with most solar set ups are junk, a good MPPT of around 30amps will allow you to expand the system later on.

So have a look around and you should find details, if not come back and ask............ leave the 240v alone though..

 

[bt75]

Thanks both!