Simple electrical system holiday van

Hi guys! Me and my girlfriend just bought an Opel Vivaro which we are converting into a weekend/holiday home on four wheels. Neither of us are very practical nor experienced, but after trial and error, googling and youtubing we feel that we are ready to start on the most daunting part of the build; the electrical system. And what we have understood is that for two newbies such as us, it is important to ask for advice from our betters, aka you guys. So we thought we might ask you guys about the electrical scheme we have drawn. We are mostly conserned about safety, in terms of fire hazard and such, do we use the right dimensions for cabling, and fuses. I think we might have underestimated our need for power, so we might go for a larger battery (180 amps max) and two 100W solar panels rather than one. Thanks for the help guys!

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Thanks Axel :slight_smile: I actually found it earlier, and have used it to guide my research. I guess I also hoped for some independent review of the schematic I made.

I would install a low voltage cutoff to protect the battery. Many solar charge controllers have one built in, but if not they’re available separately. You’re probably right that you’ll need more solar and battery capacity. My tutorial has a section on establishing an electrical budget.

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If your fuse block is only 100amps you need a less then 100amp breaker running to your battery. if it’s 150 your fuse box would burn before the breaker would kick. As for your USB ports the 20 amp fuses are probably overkill. I think definitely you’ll want bigger then 6mm (10awg?) cables running on the solar panel side and it’s definitely overkill on the other side for a few USB ports.

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Yes, use wire size appropriate for the current (amps), and fuses that will blow before wiring gets hot, and sized for the devices being powered. (Just as I say in the tutorial.)

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Amazing feedback, thanks Axel and Bretly! This was just what I was looking for. I’ll have to read through your tutorial again :smile: