Post 12: All things electrical - wires and batteries and inverters, oh my!
The remainder of April was spent running and pulling wire through small channels and holes in the van. Dozens of hours spent trying to be clever, burdened with the knowledge that if I didn't have a great deal of forethought, it would be REALLY hard to go back and change the set up later. I had to decide things like how many lights, and where. The refrigerator location, water pump, 110 outlets, battery shut off, electrical panel/fuses, and so on. All this with ZERO previous knowledge or experience. SO many hours online researching, learning, watching YouTube videos, coupled with a bit of what you might call praying.
I had wires EVERYWHERE, and often the labels that I had attached came off and I had to sort the tangle of wires several times throughout the process.
My trusty companion Jim had built me an electrical box to house the batteries, solar controller, and the inverter/converter.
I added a vent and started the portion of the build that literally made my brain hurt.
First the batteries in place. Then the electrical panel and fuses in a location that I could access them from inside the van. I had chosen the wire lengths initially to have the panel in the rear, so I had to splice every wire to increase the length.
I am a Virgo after all, so it HAD to be neat.
I actually made my own wire - connection the ends and shrink-wrapping the ends over the kitchen stove.
I had to ground the entire system to the van. This entailed drilling a hole in the floor and bolting it underneath the van
I installed the bus bars for all the positive and negative connections
And a shut-off for the entire system that could be accessed easily if the van would be out of use for weeks or months. I have only used this when working on the electrical system; the solar runs 24/7/365 so the refrigerator has been running for almost a year now completely off the sun
Lots of fuses for safety
Connecting the inverter/converter - this 2000 watt pure sine wave inverter/converter combo will invert 12v battery power to 110 for a typical house plug and convert 110 shore power to 12v to charge my batteries when I am plugged in.
Here is the inverter, batteries, and solar charge controller all hooked up
Now to bring all the circuits to the electrical panel - positives and negatives.
One by one my lights began to work. The fan functioned properly! I connected the 12v plug in for the refrigerator.
I hooked up the battery monitor to show the solar working, battery charge and current amp hour usage. Perfect!
Finally, a light gray paint would coordinate with the rest of the interior.
Now to JUST connect all the rest of the lights, plugs, and appliances.
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