800 Watt Solar Van Electrical System Performance + Free Van Wiring Diagram!

[@ActsofAdventure]

Hey everyone, we'd love to answer your questions about our electrical system here in the comments! While we aren't professionals, we're happy to help share what we've learned through building and living in our van!

[@artistgoneoffgrid5414]

@ActsofAdventure, I bet the competition is not too happy with your free downloadable guides! You don't even know how GRATEFUL the rest of us are, though. I'm just starting my electrical layout, as I'm just finishing up my Promaster's insulation, and I've been looking for an electrical system to mimic that's similar to yours. In the past two weeks I have bought a Growatt 3000watt 48-volt all-in-one inverter/charge controller unit, 1040 watts of solar panels (24 volt), two max fans, and today I just bought 4 of the SOK 206 Amp hrs lithium batteries. I need to look at your roof rack guide now, too! Wow... just thanks so much!!

[@ActsofAdventure]

That's all so great to hear! You're very welcome. We built our van from free internet resources and just want to give back to the van building community. Your electrical setup sounds like it's shaping up to be a beast of a system! Best wishes on your build and please let us know any questions that might come up when installing it all.

[@susanscovill6817]

This is one of the best vlogs on solar use and storage. Other vlogs brag about oh I can run all the appliances in my house yadda yadda yadda. FOR A FEW HOURS! Everyone throws around amp hours and watts but no one puts it into actual usage tests. As a future full time VanLifer I need to know how long I can run daily appliances and charging iPads and laptops and watch a video now and then. Amp hours doesn’t translate to actual hours. You’re the first explanation to show actual real time usage for different appliances. THANKK YOU! Cheers from Canader eh!

[@ActsofAdventure]

Thanks so much! We're glad this style of information is the most useful to you. That's exactly the aim we had in creating this video - real life usage. One thing we didn't show in this video is how many items we charge in our van on a daily basis. Since we work from our van, we're constantly charging 2 laptops, 2 cameras, drone batteries, 2 phones, and other little things on top of the large appliances shown in the video. It all adds up and you need a big system to keep up day-after-day! Cheers!

[@susanscovill6817]

@@ActsofAdventure exactly. And I want to be able to run things like my blender, Tassimo etc too many vlogs seem to centre around ‘loud’. I’m more interested in what I can run and everyday usage. Thanks so much.

[@theaveadventurers]

so true!

[@connorddenniss]

Ridiculously helpful!

[@vudoo068]

Thanks for the real life power usage. This was extremely useful!

[@ActsofAdventure]

Glad to hear it ✌🏼

[@mitchellbarnow1709]

This is a fantastic video and I am really impressed with your 100% electric system! Thank you for sharing.

[@theaveadventurers]

agree agree agree

[@mitchellbarnow1709]

Your wedding videos on Vimeo are absolutely incredible! I wish you continued success and I can't imagine anyone doing this type of video production without you.

[@ActsofAdventure]

You are too kind!! Thanks for taking the time to watch our wedding videos!

[@mitchellbarnow1709]

@@ActsofAdventure They are beautiful to watch, even without knowing anyone in the videos. The one woman who's lost both of her parents at such a young age was really touching.

[@ActsofAdventure]

@@mitchellbarnow1709 Yes her wedding story is especially amazing and we feel very lucky to have been the ones to tell it!

[@alicialatour]

thank you ! we're slowly starting to look into eletrical more and figuring out what to do !

[@theaveadventurers]

Yeti Goal Zero is a great system if you want to keep it simple!

[@yobrevol1788]

Great video dude!

[@ChibaCityBlues]

Thank you so much! This super helpful, because you did what I was planning... ^^

[@ActsofAdventure]

That’s great to hear! Good luck on your build!

[@Sydneyyrhodess]

Thank you sooooo much! For this and these resources.

[@MrTubeman123456]

Interesting video my upcoming build will be very fugul lite compared to yours but very helpful thanks

[@theaveadventurers]

So helpful and great to learn about a different system. We kept ours super simple in our build, but we also aren't living in our van full time. Great information source here!

[@ActsofAdventure]

Thanks Meg & Derek! Appreciate you checking out our system. 🚐👋🏼

[@theaveadventurers]

@@ActsofAdventure Of course!

[@bethechange4934]

Awesome stuff, thanks for sharing. Have you considered a solar hot water heater? I think they are way more efficient at heating water than going through PV to batteries and then an electric water heater. Even a small, panel that you could set outside on a little stand and plug in might be a cool option that would save a lot of electric.

[@StrattaontheRoad]

Hello, fantastic job you did, I am installing my solar and have a question: why you connect serie-parallel your solar cells and not all paralell? I have 4 units 100w, open voltage 24.3V, 5.21 Amp.

[@ActsofAdventure]

Hey, thanks! Great question. We did series-parallel because 1) We liked the idea of separating the front 2 panels and the rear 2 panels in case one half of the roof is shaded, then the other half of the solar array is still producing full power. 2) All 800 watts in parallel would be a very large amperage and require thicker gauge solar wires. These wires are very long and some amps can be lost over that distance. Raising the voltage by connecting the 2 parallel pairs in series allows less energy to be lost when traveling the length of the cables. Then, the MPPT controller converts it all back to 12v at the highest/best amperage needed for the batteries anyway. Hope that all makes sense and helps!

[@dimitristsagdis7340]

Tnx - nice set up. Why the two sets of two solar panels run in different directions (landscape at the back, portrait at the front)?

[@ActsofAdventure]

Hey, good question. It was about the fit on the roof. The 2 panels at the back of the van behind the fan wouldn't fit lengthwise, so they had to go widthwise. And by mounting them widthwise, we had to mount them on the unistrut roof rack a bit differently than the front panels.

[@dimitristsagdis7340]

@@ActsofAdventure ok I get the 2 rear panels had to go widthwise due to the fan but then why not the two front ones widthwise as well. There is something I’m not getting?

[@ActsofAdventure]

@@dimitristsagdis7340 Check out our solar panel roof rack blog post for more pics. actsofadventure.com/solar-panel-roof-rack. You'll see that the rear panels had to be mounted higher on an extra layer of unistrut. Widthwise, these solar panels fit exactly on top of the unistrut side rails. This creates a problem because you can't access the bottom of the panels to mount them to the unistrut. Since the front panels could fit lengthwise, they didn't need the extra mounting height, and so they are more aerodynamic and low profile. I would have preferred to mount the rear panels lengthwise, but they just barely wouldn't fit unfortunately.

[@dimitristsagdis7340]

@@ActsofAdventure ok Tnx it is clear now.

[@jingqiwu2865]

Very useful info!

[@ActsofAdventure]

Thanks! Glad you found it helpful!

[@elkhornslough]

Thank you so much for putting out this video. Very helpful! Looking forward to spending some time with your diagram. Why don't you upgrade to lithium? Seems like that would give you more than enough power. Cheers!

[@ActsofAdventure]

You're very welcome! Let us know if you have questions about the items in the diagram or the wiring connections. Our decision to go with AGM was largely due to price. We have 350 usable amp hours for $1400 total. That many amp hours in lithium costs around $3500, especially 2 years ago when lithium was just becoming mainstream. When our AGM's degrade in 2-3 more years, we will likely consider lithium as their replacement!

[@mitchellbarnow1709]

@@ActsofAdventure What an excellent logical decision! It is easy to forget how fast the prices of lithium batteries have fallen and that they were too expensive for your budget two years ago.

[@ActsofAdventure]

@@mitchellbarnow1709 Gotta love technological advances and an increase in competition! I remember it was really only Battle Born or build-your-own with lithium cells 2 years ago.

[@dimitristsagdis7340]

you mentioned you don't need to pay for water [min 0:32] how come? You don't seem to elaborate on this in the video; pls explain.

[@ActsofAdventure]

I was wondering who would catch that ;-) Here in the Western U.S. we've always been able to find free places to fill our water tanks! Usually at gas stations or city RV dump stations. We never stay at campgrounds or RV parks so we find as many free water sources as we can. They're all listed on the iOverlander app or rvdumpsites.net.

[@dimitristsagdis7340]

@@ActsofAdventure Tnx I thought it was maybe due to your electrical installation for example some RVs use UV filters and recycle their shower water as well as dehumidifiers to turn condensation to water for dishwashing, I’ve even seen rain water traps with gutters in the roof:-)) by I could find anything of such things in the diagram which is why I thought to ask just in case.

[@ActsofAdventure]

@@dimitristsagdis7340 Wow, that would be a next-level water system! Maybe in our next van build!

[@yevkenny]

How do you know when the water is hot?

[@ActsofAdventure]

We only turn on the hot water heater when we need it for showers. We can tell when it is done heating the water when its large electrical draw on our battery monitor goes off. We’ve also learned that it takes about 15-20 minutes.

[@TheJuiceman247]

Any particular reason you chose AGM over Lithium? Just checked the prices on the batteries you mentioned and the prices for a lithium bank of similar capacity isnt all that different. Not too mention the batteries are a lot lighter too for your payload

[@ActsofAdventure]

Hi Hugo, great question. When we built this in 2019, we spent ~$1500 on our AGM batteries, and lithium was at least double today’s prices. Cost of lithium has really gone down a lot. Those Enduro lithium batteries are a really great deal, and even make us consider switching to lithium! AGM has worked really well for us though. One of our favorite benefits is that we can store the van all winter and never have to worry about the temp of the batteries.

[@mitchellbarnow1709]

If you are going to take separate showers, do you leave the water heater power switched on, since the thermostat will stop the power draw once the set temperature has been reached?

[@ActsofAdventure]

We got the 4gal Bosch instead of the 2.5gal so that a full heated tank would be enough hot water for both of us to take showers. We take short, on-off style showers, but there's enough hot water for both of us without the need to re-heat the water tank or keep it switched on. Also, we generally heat the tank in the afternoon, and it stays hot through the evening.

[@mitchellbarnow1709]

@@ActsofAdventure That is fantastic that four gallons is enough and you can heat it up when you have plenty of spare solar energy!

[@DrawdownTrader]

At 7:24 . If I understand correctly.. let’s say you had an appliance that sucks 348amps/hours and you use that for an hour. Would the batterie be dead ? Huge thanks for the wire diagram 💙

[@ActsofAdventure]

Glad the wiring diagram is helpful! Yes, 348 amps for 1 hour would use the whole useable half of our battery bank.

[@melaniecollins4045]

Thanks for the great video. I have been trying to reach continuous resource multiple times by phone and email and they never respond. I spoke the first time with Brad and since they I get no response even when I am ready to buy from them.

[@ActsofAdventure]

Hey Melanie, thanks for watching! I’m really sorry to hear that. That was not my experience with their company. Try contacting the owner Matt directly. He’s always been very helpful with me. [e-mail] And feel free to ask any questions here! I’d be happy to provide any answers I may know.

[@melaniecollins4045]

@@ActsofAdventure thanks so much! I will and thanks for your help.

[@skylermaxwell3060]

Why are you afraid of propane. Overall this was a very informative video and I really enjoyed it. I just wonder why you would rely electricity for all major appliances. It would make more sense to have heat intensive appliances like water heater and stove/oven be propane based and reserve amp hours for things that NEED to be powered by electrical. You wouldn’t need to have to such a large electrical system ie (800W, 3000W inverter and 700AH battery). I bet you could cut all of those in half if you distributed your systems over other sources. I’m still a huge fan and I for sure am using your van layout layout as inspiration for mine. Thanks for your videos!

[@ActsofAdventure]

Hey Skyler, propane is definitely an efficient and inexpensive way to cook and heat things, which is why the majority of vanlifers choose propane. We went full electric for a few reasons - mostly that we didn't have to install an entire propane system in addition to a water system and an electric system. Having never built anything before this van, it took us a year to build, and not having to worry about propane was a welcomed relief. I actually enjoy electrical wiring. Secondly, of course no propane means we never have to refill propane on the road. Just one less thing to worry about. Electricity is 100% passive once it's installed. Third, we didn't want to take up precious cargo space with a sealed propane locker, and mounting a propane cylinder under the van felt sketchy to us because we are often on rough dirt roads. Finally, knowing that off-grid electrical is expensive, we built our large electrical system on a budget. You could easily spend more than double what we spent on all Victron electronics and lithium batteries, which is what you often see in other van builds. All in our Promaster + build out cost less than an empty Sprinter! Thanks for checking out our resources and we wish you all the best on your van build!

[@skylermaxwell3060]

@@ActsofAdventure all great reasons, it sounds like you made the right choice. Good luck with everything, your Channel is great

[@jeremyfreeman866]

👍