Van Electrical System + DIY Guide + Excel Spreadsheet
The electrical system of any camper van is truly the heart and soul of the entire conversion. Most people with vans choose to have the option of their van running off grid and being able to be plugged in as well.
After our personal struggles with our first van (you can only go up from your first try), we have decided to share a lot of things that we wish we had found during our own research process. We want to help others as much as possible with getting into their own DIY vans. There’s something very different about good quality craftsmanship and math, so it’s easy to see where the struggle lies with electrical.
That being said, we aren’t certified electricians and if you aren’t comfortable with installing your own electrical system, we’d suggest contracting that out.
We’ve decided to make our electrical layout spreadsheet available via download for $20.00, and this blog is going to be a step by step guide on how to use it. The excel spreadsheet includes our equations and calculations, but if you don’t need those this step by step guide is also an excellent resource to see how we chose to set our spreadsheet up.
Let’s talk steps to utilize this table to your advantage
1) Decide what devices you’re going to have in your van that use power
2) Decide the devices you’re going to have in your van that generate power
3) Decide if the batteries you’re going to use are 12 volt or 24 volt
The spreadsheet will automatically tell you if the battery you selected has enough storage capacity for your van to run
4) Fill out the information in the spreadsheet
The areas highlighted in grey are what you need to fill out yourself in order for the formulas to auto calculate
Most of the information required you can find on the actual device itself (such as operating voltage and amperage draw)
Make sure you add more devices if you have more than are listed in our spread sheet
For those unfamiliar with AC vs DC
AC: Alternating current, commonly a household outlet (most household outlets that are AC are 120 volts in the United States)
DC: Direct current (usually 12 or 24 volts)
You can skip to the watts column if you know that information and leave the voltage and amperage cells empty
Estimate how long you’ll be using each device daily
For the solar panel cells simply put the watt rating of the panels and how many your are going to use
6) Plug in the information required above and let the spreadsheet tell you if you have enough energy storage/energy generation
The cells in our screenshot above are green, they’ll turn red if you need to edit your information to achieve the right amount of power
Summary cell information:
Total consumed amp hours in a day- the amount of energy being used in a day from your batteries (currently highlighted green)
Total power generated in a day- the amount of energy being generated and stored in your batteries every day
Net gain/loss- the extra energy you have available from your battery (or negative if you need to adjust some things to get it just right (currently highlighted green)
Inverter needed to run all items at once- the size of the DC to AC inverter you need to power all of your devices at the same time from your battery bank
Lastly, reach out with any questions you may have or suggestions that could improve this spreadsheet.
If you take the time to download this spreadsheet and these directions aren’t easy enough for you to follow, please email info@goldenadvantures.com so we can make sure this spreadsheet is as helpful as we intended it to be.
