Electrical Addons to the Cabinet

There are two main jobs that need doing regarding adding electrical power to the van: a mains hook up and installing a split relay charge.  This entry attempts to explain what I'm planning with each job and how they are going to be wired in.  Both are to be fitted into the existing cabinet which houses the leisure battery and charger.

CABINET

The cabinet comprises two sections, lower and upper. The lower section covers the wheel arch and is where most of the electrical stuff will be added. The upper section houses the leisure battery, charger and cool box.

MAINS HOOK UP

This will come in at the back of the van and run under the floor to the cabinet. It will provide two 240v sockets, both in the bottom section of the cabinet.

The first will be a double 240v socket which will be fitted to the forward facing side of the lower section, alongside the existing stereo speaker. This will supply power to the outside of the cabinet, into the back of the van.

The second will be a single 240v socket which will be fitted inside the lower section, supplying power to the inside of the lower section of cabinet. This socket is designed to provide power to the mains charger and thus be totally internal to the cabinet.

SPLIT RELAY CHARGE

The intelligent split replay charger needs to be installed and hooked up. The SRC box will be housed in the lower cabinet section. It has two main cables. One will be run under the floor to the front of the van and connected to the starter battery. The other simply runs up from the lower section of the cabinet to the upper section where it connects to the leisure battery terminals. All 12v appliances need to be plugged into the SRC box which is fused.

LED Lights

These will be wired into the lower section of the cabinet and plugged into the SRC fuse box.

Double 12v Sockets

There are two of these. One needs to go from the SRC and be fitted into the forward facing wall of the lower cabinet section alongside the double 240v socket. This will provide 12v power to the back of the main van. The other needs to be housed in the upper section of the cabinet. This provides 12v power to the upper section of the van – for the coolbox and other appliances (12v kettle, phone chargers etc) that might be housed inside the cabinet.

CABINET CHANGES

To install these electrical items a few changes need to be made to the cabinet:

A hole will need to be cut in the shelf that the charger sits on. This hole will allow wires to be fed from the upper section to the lower section. It needs to be big enough to get a plug through as I want to pass the charger power cable through this into the lower section of the cabinet to plug into the single 240v socket housed there. In addition to this the cables running from the SRC to the Leisure Battery will need to pass through this hole, as will the wire from the SRC to the double 12v socket that will be housed in the upper section.

A pair of holes will need to be cut in the forward facing wall of the lower section, one for the double 12v socket and one for the double 240v socket.