Electrical Understanding my van setup

[Jimbo]

Hi all
Lifting the seat cushion in my expanda exposes the area where the previous owner had a battery installed. I have not played with any of this before, so am now exploring what it does.
In the attached photos there is a battery charger, and all the cables where the battery mounts.
So my questions...
What type of battery is reccomoended?
Will this run the fridge?
When I'm driving, I know the fridge gets DC voltage from the tug via the 12 pin plug as I had the plug wired for it. Does that wire in the van pass though this battery setup or is it direct to the fridge?
Where/how would I attach a portable solar panel to keep the battery topped up when bush camping? There is no Anderson plugs anywhere on my van.

Any input of advise is appreciated.
Cheers

 

[peterg]

What type of battery is reccomoended?

If you have thousands....lithium
If you have hundreds....glass matrix (AGM)
If you have less..........

The important bit is to work out what you are running and how long you want to run it for....we've got a 120aH AGM. it runs all of the lights for 7 +days. Less when using other appliances.....other people's on here will be able to give better guidance...

 

[MDS69]

Hi all
So my questions...
What type of battery is recommended? 100-120Ah AGM
Will this run the fridge? No
When I'm driving, I know the fridge gets DC voltage from the tug via the 12 pin plug as I had the plug wired for it. Does that wire in the van pass though this battery setup or is it direct to the fridge? Direct to fridge
Where/how would I attach a portable solar panel to keep the battery topped up when bush camping? There is no Anderson plugs anywhere on my van. I would look at getting an Anderson plug installed direct to your battery.

Any input of advise is appreciated.
Cheers

 

[boots33]

What type of battery is reccomended?

An AGM or Gel battery are the most popular. As the area is not vented to the outside you must not fit a standard wet cell battery even if it is a maintenance free type. You also cannot fit a calcium battery type as the setec charging unit is not compatible with them.

The size battery you need will depend on your power requirements. Again most people are happy with something around the 100ah mark but if you do a lot of long term off grid stays or are a heavy power user you may need to look at something larger.

Will this run the fridge?

The Normal setup (if there is such a thing) with three way fridges is not run your fridge from the van battery. Some do as a matter of choice but you must keep in mind that three way fridges use a lot of power when on 12v so they can flatten your battery fairly quickly once the vehicle is turned off.

When I'm driving, I know the fridge gets DC voltage from the tug via the 12 pin plug as I had the plug wired for it. Does that wire in the van pass though this battery setup or is it direct to the fridge?

Could do both but normally the fridge will be separate from the battery charge wiring. you will need to trace the wiring back to see what is going where.

Where/how would I attach a portable solar panel to keep the battery topped up when bush camping? There is no Anderson plugs anywhere on my van.

Your picture shows a dc to dc charger so that will most likely be inline with the charge wire coming from your vehicle. This means you will probably not be able to use your 12pin plug to connect your panel to your van battery. Your best choice may be to fit an anderson plug wired directly to your van battery and use that for your solar.
Remember you will need to have a regulator fitted to the solar panel and it cannot charge any higher than 14.8v as the setec may be damaged.

If you do fit an anderson be sure and run it all the way to the front of your A Frame and leave it long enough to connect to a car mounted anderson. Even if you never connect it to your vehicle it will be a feature many look for in a van purchase so is worth the extra few meters of cable.

I would also buy a battery box to put the battery in. These are quite cheap (I picked one up from BCF for about $19) and will keep your battery protected. You should also make sure that all wires connected to the positive battery terminal are protected by some form of fuse or circuit breaker.

Be careful when working out which wire goes where. If you are not sure it may be best to take the van to a sparky to get it sorted.

 

[Dobbie]

Very comprehensive reply.

Boots put me in the correct direction when I first started upgrading our 12v setup and it works beautifully.

The only suggestion I'd make is that you add some 12v sockets (extras if needed) while the wiring is being sorted out as it sounds like you're looking at unpowered / free camping in the future.

Consider what you want to run on 12v and how best to locate them....and, of course, how many. As a rough guide we have 8 12v sockets to keep stuff charged and for tv etc and that seems enough.....but we do lots of off grid camping.

 

[boots33]

Yes it is surprising how quickly the 12v outlets fill up these days. Seems everyone has something that needs charging.

 

[Dobbie]

Yep.

I just checked our van ready for getting away next week...or whenever...and thought I'd better check the toys and the power packs which we use a lot.

Found iPod and all ereaders flat as a tack so trying to get them up to speed ....total of 6 and that's without iPads, phones, camera batteries etc.

Really surprising how many there are!