This guide will take you through actually connecting things to the battery so that you have power! You probably don’t need as much as you think when it comes to energy consumption in a campervan. But you will need some. And you don’t want to run out.
If you’ve skipped ahead, powering appliances comes from electricity in the van. The electricity is stored in Batteries (please read this) and is generated by things like split charge relays and solar panels (please read this).
This article is about how to use the power you have in the van. We’ll look at appliances, how to install things from the battery, some safety and exactly the set up that we have in our van.
Things that use electricity in a campervan
Firstly, let’s talk about lights. LED lights make for an easy installation into any van and come in various light temperatures (remember to get warm, not cold). They are a necessity and their energy draw per light is incredibly low, making them one of the most efficient things you will install.
The ability to charge your phone is as important as having water on board ;). Having additional sockets & USB Ports are a must. The little units are low cost, work well, and don’t draw too much power.
Next up: fans! Whether you have something small to move air around or a whacking great powered vent in the roof, you’ll need 12v juice to power it. More on fans and ventilation here.
A fridge offers much-needed relief from constantly refreshing melted ice packs every two-three days. They are super useful when spending a lot of time on the road, meaning you don’t need to stop at shops every day for fresh fruit/ veg, and they’ll keep your beers cold. Fridges can be quite power hungry; worth factoring in. More on campervan fridges here.
Diesel Heaters provide warmth throughout winter months, obviously making your van-life comfortable. Out of all the appliances, you are likely to add to your system, diesel heaters have a fairly intense energy consumption (on startup).
Water systems will probably require a 12v Water Pump. And depending on how you want to heat your water, you might require electricity for that too.
Music. If you don’t want your tunes coming off your vans built in radio (read: van battery).
So there you have it! A bunch of different options and ideas on what kind of things might work well within your campervan’s electrical system- whether designing from scratch or upgrading an old setup .
How to get power to you appliance
In order to get power to your appliances you must do the following:
Get it out of the battery: We do this using a bus bar. It basically turns the one terminal on the battery (the little positive and negative nipple) into multiple terminals, so you can have multiple things coming in and out of the battery.
Protect your appliances: From the bus bar, we go straight into a 12v fuse box. This is to add a fuse to each individual appliance ensuring it does not catch on fire in case of a short circuit/ surge in the power. A fuse box will usually have 1 big positive and negative terminal to connect it to the battery, and 6 or 12 smaller terminals that you can connect your appliances to.
And that’s it. You may wish to install an isolator switch to turn off all or big sections of your 12v system immediately. A neat safety measure. Isolators are ‘in line’ which means you take your positive wire, cut it somewhere you can access easily and put the isolator switch in the middle. When it’s on, the switch connects the two bits of wire you cut. When it’s off, they are unconnected.
How to practically do it
This is going to seem really simple, and it’s because it is, actually, quite simple. You should by this point in time have your batteries in situ, and a way to power them installed. We’ll assume you have a bus bar, because that’s the way to go.
Step 1: Connect the batteries to your busbars for efficient distribution across circuits using some fat wire. You might need to crimp a big ring terminal to the wire to connect it to the battery. Insert a big fuse along the line if you like.
Step 2: Once you have completed wiring the batteries and busbars together correctly it is time now connect the Bus bar to your Fuse box. The fusebox will have a positive terminal and a negative terminal. Run positive to positive, negative to negative. Ensure you are crimping the wires around the connectors with a strong hand.
Step 3: Hook each appliance or device into the fuse box individually. The positive wire of the appliance usually goes in the middle section and the negatives all go together on a little mini bus bar on the fuse box. To do this you will probably need to strip out some insulation from both ends of wires, and attach ring terminals accordingly. Then add in an inline blade type fuse rated to the ratings of respective appliances, to protect the appliance against any surges. Don’t forget to ensure proper cable sizing.
That’s it. Remarkable isn’t it. It’s a really nice feeling when you do this yourself and you see the lights go on for the first time. Or you hear music out your stereo. Or your phone starts charging.
Go for it, but be safe.
Safety
Proper installation: Make sure that all wiring, connectors and components are installed correctly and securely to prevent shorts or other hazards.
Fuse protection: Install fuses on each circuit that can handle only slightly more current than needed; this will protect your appliances from damage if there’s an overload somewhere down the line.
Grounding: Ensure proper grounding is established by connecting to the negative terminal on the fusebox or directly to vehicle chassis (metal frame). Connecting to the frame only works if the metal is bare, do not connect to painted metal.
Ventilation & Fire Prevention Measures: Batteries can emit hydrogen gas which is highly flammable! Be sure they’re properly ventilated so dangerous gases don’t accumulate inside confined spaces like cabinets then install smoke detectors near them so early warnings will sound off when things get too hot underfoot!
Insulation/protection: All wires carrying power need insulation via rubber boots or conduit lines or junction boxes. An electrician will tell you every connection needs two insulations. In as many places as we could, when joining wires, we insulated locally and added a junction box.
What we do
We have 2x 110ah batteries that we inherited, that are dying a little bit.
They are charged by split charge relay and solar.
Here’s a list of everything we run off the 12v system:
- 1 set of downlights
- 1 LED coping strip
- Socket with USB chargers
- Amp (for speakers)
- Fridge
- Water pump
- Inverter
That’s it! You don’t need much when you get down into it.
We have a set of electrics in the front and a set of electrics in the back.
We come out of the battery with 1 very thick red and 1 very thick black wires that lead to a 12v fuse box in the front of the van. We also have a separate very thick red and black wire going from the battery to a 12v fuse box in the rear.
Off the fuse boxes are the components, wired in with one smaller red and one smaller black wire for each.
We use terminal boxes wherever possible.
You quickly adapt to what you have and we found that we have plenty with 2 USB’s in the back and 2 usbs in the front.
We have fuse boxes that have plenty of space in them, meaning we can add components when we feel the need to. #futureproofed.
Some things that we think are important to know:
It’s pretty scary dealing with electricity but actually, once you get the hang of crimping and connecting and labelling, you’re sorted.
It’s incredibly rewarding seeing something you have connected lighting up, or making a sound or doing the things it’s supposed to be doing.
And being safe in the knowledge that if you want to add a new light somewhere, or install a new anything whilst on the road, you can do it.