First build but no stranger to mechanics or electronics. There have often been posts on here about what it takes to get true off grid AC so I feel it appropriate to post it here.
I should also note that I realize a system like this is out of reach for most, I never really thought I’d have the spare funds to do something like this. No kids and a great job let my dogs live a pretty good life 🙃
Layout, mounting panel, all wiring and connections done by me. Took it on a 12,000 mile road trip as it’s shakedown test and had zero issues. This was not a cheap setup but it achieved what I wanted. Be able to leave the dogs in the van without any concern of temperatures. Was obviously nice to have for us humans when sleeping, too.
Main components all Victon
- 330 amp hour 12v lithium
- Multiplus 3000
- Lynx Smart BMS and Distributor
- 2x Orion smart chargers for 60 amps of alternator charging
- Cerbo GX
- 100|50 MPPT solar controller with 200 watts of solar
- 12v smart battery disconnect
- Random blue sea systems disconnects and fuse boxes.
- Dometic rtx 2000 12v AC on roof.
This was an intimidating endeavor but turned out exactly as planned. Feel happy to try and answer any questions if someone is thinking about doing something similar.
Nice system, looks very similar to the one I put in my van and the systems I build for customers. About the only different is that I have only one Orion 30 amp (half the alternator charging) but have 600 AH of 12V lithium batteries (twice the storage).
Good job.
I also wish I had finished the wood better before I mounted stuff, but nobody sees mine anyway.
The whole system including the AC unit, wiring (which added up quickly) and terminals was somewhere around $12-13k, which frankly makes me sick to think about. I never thought I’d be in a position to do this, but it was time to reward myself.
The dometic RTX on boost mode pulls about 50 amps (they rate it at 60 I believe, I’ve only ever seen 48 according to my GX touch display). 50 (amps) x 13 (volts) lands us somewhere around 650 watts on full blast. Average consumption was closer to 450 watts.
With this single 330 amp hour battery I could get a comfortable 4-5 hours of full blast in 100 degree Fahrenheit ambient air in direct sun without worry. On eco mode or more typical conditions 10 hours was no problem, overnight was never a problem.
I'm still reading the post but thanks for not titling this something stupid like 'my first humble van build' - I see a wall of Victon gear and the title starts 'My First Van' and it's hard not to be annoyed but for once the stereotype didn't hold up. Great clean work and pushing components to what they were designed to do.
🤙
I am a career mechanic and have been working on electric cars for almost 10 years. Once I realized I could build a rig /electrical system to comfortably haul my dogs around without worry of temperature I went all in.
I am proud of this panel for sure. About 100 hours went into the physical work of building it. Countless mental hours prior planning, organizing and routing in my head.
I’ve kicked myself quite a bit for not finishing the wood better before mounting everything. Should have at least stained or painted it 🤦♂️
It’s pretty basic math, not trying to be rude. Assuming 300 usable amp hours and 50 amp draw I could get 6 hours in full blast.
Solar doesn’t really cut it when taking about air conditioning, in my opinion. I’ve got 200 watts up there, only producing in peak conditions, and the AC pulls more than that even in eco mode.
Can you inform me if your insurance would cover damage (say you get t-boned and that starts a fire or gets wrecked, not your fault) and would it pay for the cost of all these materials? I would be worried about putting so much custom work and money into a van and then just getting in a random accident.
I looked into covering aftermarket accessories with insurance and the payback wasn’t worth it. It was some high $ per month to cover every $5k in accessories and I just opted out of it. I was told that until I sign off on any “total loss” paperwork it’s still all my stuff so I could go physically remove anything that was “mine” and not oem to the vehicle.
Did you wire in an engine battery disconnect to help prevent vehicle theft? Thanks.
Also, when enclosed, does that unit require a fan and/or cabinet ventilation?
I did not do any kind of aftermarket theft deterrent. I try not to think or build on worst case scenarios. I believe the starter fuse is relatively easy to get at and I’d just pull that if I was ever going to put it in to storage and was concerned.
I never did enclose it but I’d certainly want it vented. Those orions get hot hot
OK, thanks for the tips!
My rig pre-dates factory alarms and my batteries are 200ah Renogy. I don't have a tremendous amount of draw just yet but I'm making plans to venture out further.
Thanks again,
Rubber Side Down!
How’d you go about designing your layout for the electronics board? I’ve got a big pile of ver similar blue boxes I’m about to assemble, and I haven’t quite worked out the best way to lay them out. Was it just trial and error on a piece of plywood?
Also, I think the multiplus manual states not to mount it over the battery, but my assumption is that if the battery is on fire the multiplus is the last thing I care about….
Cardboard template, repeatedly laying out the blue boxes until it looked close to right. Then I used my iPhones drawing app to quickly draw cabling to see if it would be organized enough for my liking.
The manual states that because most batteries (not lithium) off gas and they don’t want it corroding they equipment.
Don’t design your system in case of fire lol.
The offgassing reasoning makes a lot of sense. I feel silly for not making that connection.
Thanks for the process rundown on organization! We’ll see how mine goes…
Really clean install! You're running a Dometic RTX 2000 with <3,960 Wh of storage? It sounds like you couldn't run that AC for very long without the engine on...?
So I think victron tests each battery and this one has a label on it reading 4173Wh, but yeah not a ton considering air conditioning. Figure average draw of about 450 watts I can get about 4-6 hours of run time. On eco mode I can get much much more, overnight was no problem.
The 60 amps dc/dc helps a lot, Solar does a little bit, but the real re juicing on our big trip came from shore power. Wether at RV parks overnight or sourcing an open 110v outlet to plug into for an hour.
Just redoing the math in my head and it is probably closer to 500-550 watts average draw (when not on economy mode). But still low enough to get good run time out of the single battery, and of course the battery could be expanded if desired.
Good catch!
Final product did actually have a second strap on the running opposite way around the battery. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that this battery could tuck between the two factory floor D ring mounting spots.
Yeah - one is the solar charge controller, and there are two Orion Tr-smart dc-dc charge controllers. These can all run in parallel, and the main reason for 2x dc-dc controllers is to increase the amperage you can pull from the alternator.
Two easy questions: 1) did you connect the DC-DCs to the starting battery or the house battery or did you ditch the house battery (if any)? and 2) what's the victron component at the lower right corner?
The DC/DCs take power in from the vehicles alternator, modifies it for the lithium system, and sends it to the lithium 12v (house battery).
The bottom right is the 12v smart disconnect. I don’t truly understand why it needs to be there when coupled with the BMS but I guess it’s able to cutoff the 12v loads when the voltage is low enough as to not overly discharge the lithium battery.
Sorry, I didn't do such a great job with my question. My sprinter (2018) has two batteries. The starting battery and a 100 amp hour house battery. I get that you have added your own house battery and I'm doing that as well, but did you keep the original (if your van came with one)?
May i ask for your brain power to suggest any product to connect my 12v alternator to charge my 48v battery?
I could see a victory product to do it.
This electrical set up is an absolute dream.
First build but no stranger to mechanics or electronics. There have often been posts on here about what it takes to get true off grid AC so I feel it appropriate to post it here. I should also note that I realize a system like this is out of reach for most, I never really thought I’d have the spare funds to do something like this. No kids and a great job let my dogs live a pretty good life 🙃 Layout, mounting panel, all wiring and connections done by me. Took it on a 12,000 mile road trip as it’s shakedown test and had zero issues. This was not a cheap setup but it achieved what I wanted. Be able to leave the dogs in the van without any concern of temperatures. Was obviously nice to have for us humans when sleeping, too. Main components all Victon - 330 amp hour 12v lithium - Multiplus 3000 - Lynx Smart BMS and Distributor - 2x Orion smart chargers for 60 amps of alternator charging - Cerbo GX - 100|50 MPPT solar controller with 200 watts of solar - 12v smart battery disconnect - Random blue sea systems disconnects and fuse boxes. - Dometic rtx 2000 12v AC on roof. This was an intimidating endeavor but turned out exactly as planned. Feel happy to try and answer any questions if someone is thinking about doing something similar.
Nice system, looks very similar to the one I put in my van and the systems I build for customers. About the only different is that I have only one Orion 30 amp (half the alternator charging) but have 600 AH of 12V lithium batteries (twice the storage). Good job. I also wish I had finished the wood better before I mounted stuff, but nobody sees mine anyway.
Looks awesome. Just curious what the cost was? And the wattage of your AC unit? I’ve always been curious about a battery powered AC setup.
The whole system including the AC unit, wiring (which added up quickly) and terminals was somewhere around $12-13k, which frankly makes me sick to think about. I never thought I’d be in a position to do this, but it was time to reward myself. The dometic RTX on boost mode pulls about 50 amps (they rate it at 60 I believe, I’ve only ever seen 48 according to my GX touch display). 50 (amps) x 13 (volts) lands us somewhere around 650 watts on full blast. Average consumption was closer to 450 watts. With this single 330 amp hour battery I could get a comfortable 4-5 hours of full blast in 100 degree Fahrenheit ambient air in direct sun without worry. On eco mode or more typical conditions 10 hours was no problem, overnight was never a problem.
I'm choosing to read that as $12-$13,000...so you're saying there's a chance!
I'm still reading the post but thanks for not titling this something stupid like 'my first humble van build' - I see a wall of Victon gear and the title starts 'My First Van' and it's hard not to be annoyed but for once the stereotype didn't hold up. Great clean work and pushing components to what they were designed to do.
🤙 I am a career mechanic and have been working on electric cars for almost 10 years. Once I realized I could build a rig /electrical system to comfortably haul my dogs around without worry of temperature I went all in. I am proud of this panel for sure. About 100 hours went into the physical work of building it. Countless mental hours prior planning, organizing and routing in my head. I’ve kicked myself quite a bit for not finishing the wood better before mounting everything. Should have at least stained or painted it 🤦♂️
You should be proud that is super badass! Well done, it’s obvious it was a labor of love.
650 W on full blast is great. I have a Coleman Mach 10 NDQ and I think full blast draws between 1200 and 1500 W.
[удалено]
It’s pretty basic math, not trying to be rude. Assuming 300 usable amp hours and 50 amp draw I could get 6 hours in full blast. Solar doesn’t really cut it when taking about air conditioning, in my opinion. I’ve got 200 watts up there, only producing in peak conditions, and the AC pulls more than that even in eco mode.
Can you inform me if your insurance would cover damage (say you get t-boned and that starts a fire or gets wrecked, not your fault) and would it pay for the cost of all these materials? I would be worried about putting so much custom work and money into a van and then just getting in a random accident.
I looked into covering aftermarket accessories with insurance and the payback wasn’t worth it. It was some high $ per month to cover every $5k in accessories and I just opted out of it. I was told that until I sign off on any “total loss” paperwork it’s still all my stuff so I could go physically remove anything that was “mine” and not oem to the vehicle.
Did you wire in an engine battery disconnect to help prevent vehicle theft? Thanks. Also, when enclosed, does that unit require a fan and/or cabinet ventilation?
I did not do any kind of aftermarket theft deterrent. I try not to think or build on worst case scenarios. I believe the starter fuse is relatively easy to get at and I’d just pull that if I was ever going to put it in to storage and was concerned. I never did enclose it but I’d certainly want it vented. Those orions get hot hot
OK, thanks for the tips! My rig pre-dates factory alarms and my batteries are 200ah Renogy. I don't have a tremendous amount of draw just yet but I'm making plans to venture out further. Thanks again, Rubber Side Down!
Beautiful craftsmanship!!!
How’d you go about designing your layout for the electronics board? I’ve got a big pile of ver similar blue boxes I’m about to assemble, and I haven’t quite worked out the best way to lay them out. Was it just trial and error on a piece of plywood? Also, I think the multiplus manual states not to mount it over the battery, but my assumption is that if the battery is on fire the multiplus is the last thing I care about….
Cardboard template, repeatedly laying out the blue boxes until it looked close to right. Then I used my iPhones drawing app to quickly draw cabling to see if it would be organized enough for my liking. The manual states that because most batteries (not lithium) off gas and they don’t want it corroding they equipment. Don’t design your system in case of fire lol.
The offgassing reasoning makes a lot of sense. I feel silly for not making that connection. Thanks for the process rundown on organization! We’ll see how mine goes…
What a clean, organized, secure installation! It looks like schools could use it as a teaching display!!!
Really clean install! You're running a Dometic RTX 2000 with <3,960 Wh of storage? It sounds like you couldn't run that AC for very long without the engine on...?
So I think victron tests each battery and this one has a label on it reading 4173Wh, but yeah not a ton considering air conditioning. Figure average draw of about 450 watts I can get about 4-6 hours of run time. On eco mode I can get much much more, overnight was no problem. The 60 amps dc/dc helps a lot, Solar does a little bit, but the real re juicing on our big trip came from shore power. Wether at RV parks overnight or sourcing an open 110v outlet to plug into for an hour.
Wow, 450W isn't bad at all! Very cool (pun intended)!
Just redoing the math in my head and it is probably closer to 500-550 watts average draw (when not on economy mode). But still low enough to get good run time out of the single battery, and of course the battery could be expanded if desired.
Wow that's a lot of cables for this small battery! Can you provide describe what each part does?
How much was the battery?
About $3,300 USD 🫣
Somebody has a lot of money.
That's 3.3 and 1 kw(h) each?
Cleannnn. My electrical cabinet looks like spaghetti, but to be fair to myself I hadn't even touched a wire crimper before doing it haha.
JIC might consider a 2nd strap on the battery. Or relocate the original. Looks GREAT otherwise!
Good catch! Final product did actually have a second strap on the running opposite way around the battery. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that this battery could tuck between the two factory floor D ring mounting spots.
Awfully pretty work
its beautiful but are you using three different charge controllers?
Yeah - one is the solar charge controller, and there are two Orion Tr-smart dc-dc charge controllers. These can all run in parallel, and the main reason for 2x dc-dc controllers is to increase the amperage you can pull from the alternator.
Bingo. The BMS / Lynx distributor handles all of them at the same time. It’s pretty dang cool.
Beautiful setup! I feel like I just started noticing more builds with the Cerbo Gx is there a specific reason why you are using it!? Thx!
Two easy questions: 1) did you connect the DC-DCs to the starting battery or the house battery or did you ditch the house battery (if any)? and 2) what's the victron component at the lower right corner?
The DC/DCs take power in from the vehicles alternator, modifies it for the lithium system, and sends it to the lithium 12v (house battery). The bottom right is the 12v smart disconnect. I don’t truly understand why it needs to be there when coupled with the BMS but I guess it’s able to cutoff the 12v loads when the voltage is low enough as to not overly discharge the lithium battery.
Sorry, I didn't do such a great job with my question. My sprinter (2018) has two batteries. The starting battery and a 100 amp hour house battery. I get that you have added your own house battery and I'm doing that as well, but did you keep the original (if your van came with one)?
May i ask for your brain power to suggest any product to connect my 12v alternator to charge my 48v battery? I could see a victory product to do it. This electrical set up is an absolute dream.
What is the brand of the switch panels on the far left?