Electricals Finally Finished

After much head scratching, research, asking members of the Brickyard (over and over and over in some cases as I tried to get my head around what they were telling me), we have finally got the electrics in the van sorted.

We now have a 70 AH gel leisure battery installed in the back of the van.  Installed next to it is the mains charger which allows me to charge the leisure battery when we are near a mains.

Attached to that is an intelligent split relay charger which charges the battery when the van is in motion but stops anything from draining power from the starter battery.   This box also provides a fuse box into which all manner of 12v items can be wired.   

We have a couple of LED lights wired into the split relay charger and two double 12v sockets, one inside the cabinet and one outside, providing access to the back of the van.

Finally we also have a mains hook up, located hidden away under the rear of the van, which provides a double 240v socket to the inside of the van and a single 240v socket inside the cabinet which I use for plugging the Ring charger in when hooked up on a campsite.  This is protected with a trip switch.

CMC fitted all this stuff when they did the carpeting and roof and again I'm extremely pleased with what they have done.  The wiring was all neat and well hidden.  The mains hook up is invisible inside the van.  All the wires run neatly and out of the way.

All this neatness means that the bottom section of my cabinet, which I expected to be full of electric wizardry is still fairly empty.   So I've stowed my handy 12v vacuum cleaner, a 75w inverter and my handy box of bungees in the back and still have loads of space for putting bits and bobs in here when I want to.

I need to make a special mention here for CMC. I gave them a big wordy description of the configuration I wanted and went away hoping that they might vaguely get something like I'd asked for. It was quite a bespoke set up really and involved fitting everything into my cabinet. I went to pick up the van 4 days later and was blown away with how good a job they had done of the electricals. It was exactly as I'd asked and neater and more professional than I had expected or hoped for. Great job.


After all this I now have a leisure battery which powers two double 12v sockets.  It is automatically recharged when driving.  On top of that when I park up in a campsite with a mains hookup I can plug into the mains and this gives power to a double 240v socket inside the van and a single 240v socket inside the cabinet.   Into this 240v socket I plug my mains charger and as such when parked up this way the leisure battery is also charged off the mains so effectively all the 240v and 12v sockets are powered from the mains this way.

Really pleased with the results.