Our Van Solar Power System

Solar power is a common way is to power camper van conversions. It’s probably the best choice for a van build especially if you plan to boondock and go off the grid for any amount of time. With solar power you can save money by avoiding expensive campsites and enjoy many of the comforts of home in a completely sustainable way. There’s nothing better than getting free power from the sun all day long!

Tools

• Power drill and drill bit set

• Hole saw

• Spade bit set

• Tape measure

• Electrical wire stripper

• Electrical crimper and multitool

• Hammer lug crimper

• Spring clamps

• C-clamps

• Hack saw

• File

• Small adjustable wrench

• Ladder

Materials

• Three 100-watt Renogy solar panels

• Renogy branch connectors

• 20a inline fuse and holder

• Renogy 20-foot, 10-gauge solar panel and controller connector cables

• Butyl tape

• Self-leveling lap sealant

• Weatherproof solar port

• Renogy 200 amp hour deep cell gel gattery

• Renogy MPPT charge controller

• MT-50 Remote Solar Meter

• Blue Sea Systems ST blade fuse block

• Blade fuse set (2a to 35a)

• 16 gauge wire, red and black (200 feet of each)

• 10 gauge wire, red and black (100 feet of each)

• 22-10 gauge quick connector set

• Heat shrink tubing set

• 50 feet of ½” split loom

• 50 feet of ¾” split loom

• Wire clips

• 80/20 T-track extruded aluminum rails

• Elevator bolts

• Washers

• Nuts and bolts

• Eight 12v lights

• 12v, 20a rocker switches

• Three 2-USB 12-volt charger outlets

• 2-way 12v power outlet and on off toggle switch and housing

• Dual USB socket charger, LED voltmeter, 12v power outlet and on-off switch

• Two socket and rocker switch housing

• 12v Fantastic fan

• Renogy high-efficiency 12v fridge

• 12v propane/CO detector 

Why and How We Chose Our Solar Power System

Though our DIY van build in some ways is much like your basic RV, there were aspects of the typical RV rig that we wanted to avoid. Namely, the need to plug into a hook up or run a generator in order to charge our auxiliary battery was something we wanted to avoid. We wanted easy power in our van no matter how far from civilization we were.

A common solution is to purchase and install a solar array and related components on your camper van. Because neither of us had any real experience with solar, we began our research! There are many online sources for determining your solar needs and entire websites are devoted to this topic. Everyone's needs are different and highly dependent on your own personal power needs, so if you're looking to set up your own solar array for off-grid living we suggest that you do some in depth research of your own as well.

12-volt electrical systems are generally pretty safe to work with compared to a 110-volt household electrical system. Still anytime you are working with electricity, you should be extremely careful. Do not take try to DIY your van’s electrical system without doing some serious research.

For our system, we tried to overbuild our system to prevent power issues down the road in case we ever had long periods without good sun such overcast or rainy days. We chose to purchase our components through Renogy. We purchased three 100-watt panels, an MPPT charge controller, and a 200ah GEL battery as the main components of our system. 

A quick note on dual charging: we opted to keep our auxiliary battery system completely separate from our Sprinter’s battery and alternator. If you anticipate heavier electrical usage, you might consider a dual charging system. In this case, make sure you get a smart battery isolator to allow you to charge your batteries from your alternator as you drive.

A Simple Guide to Off-Grid Camper Van Solar Systems

On a sunny or even a cloudy day, the sun’s energy radiates onto your camper van’s solar panels. The photovoltaic solar panels collect this energy and converts it into electricity. The electricity is transferred through wires to the charge controller.

The charge controller is the “intelligent” part of your solar system. It regulates the electricity coming from the solar panels. The charge controller then sends this electricity to charge your van’s auxiliary battery. The 12v battery holds the electricity until you are ready to use it. When you are ready to draw this energy, whether it be flipping a light switch or the fridge kicking on, the energy is sent back through the charge controller, through a fuse box, and out to these devices (also called “the load”) through wires.

Unless you have an inverter, most solar systems are 12-volts. Our entire system is designed as 12-volt DC power. We have a 12v fridge, fan, lights, USB outlet, even a 12v propane detector. Many vanlifers decide to install an inverter so that they can plug items like a laptop into 120v AC power. We even bought an inverter, but ultimately realized that with our low-tech lifestyle we didn’t regularly need AC power. We saved money by returning it.  

Selecting a Battery for our Van’s Solar Power System

To chose the battery for your van, the first thing you need to think about what you will need to power in your van. If you are going to be making smoothies in your Vitamix every morning and using your computer to work in your van, you might need higher capacity. We only needed one battery, but you can wire together multiple batteries if you need extra juice.

Calculating Your Anticipated Energy Draw

If you want to get technical about your solar needs, you should add the wattages of all the devices you will use daily and divide it by 12v. You can usually find the wattage for a product in the manual or find it online. Many products designed for campers or RVs will just give you the Amp hours directly along with the wattage. Here are a couple of formulas to keep in mind:

Watt Hours (Wh) = Watts x hours of use

Amp hours (Ah) * 12 volts = Wh

Wh / 12V = Ah

We added up the watt-hours of all the devices we anticipated using, but, of course, it’s difficult to know before you live in a van. You don’t really know how many hours you will be actually using your system. We tried to overestimate everything for our actual life in the van since we were only using these devices for a fraction of the day. For us the list of devices with an over-estimate of usage was:

• Eight 12 volt lights- 3w each 24w if the were all on at once, but we estimated a usage 4 lights at 12 hours per day = 12w x 12 hours = 144Wh

• Fridge- 50 watts while cooling, but we read that on average it takes 1.3Ah to maintain 40 degrees = 15.6w x 24 hours = 374.4Wh

• Propane Detector- 75mA or 0.9w x 24 hours = 21.6Wh

• 6 USB Outlets (2/socket)- estimated draw of 5w/outlet with something plugged in and charging (30w total), 2 outlets per day for 4 hours each = 10w x 4 hours = 40Wh

• Fantastic Fan- 30w on high, but it has a draw of 1.86Ah or 22.32w for 12 hours (running overnight on low and while cooking) = 22.32w x 12 hours = 268Wh

• Miscellaneous draw (voltmeter, battery meter, phantom load)- 10Wh (probably less but you want to factor it in)

We calculated that the amount of energy needed each day was 858Wh. Battery capacity is measured in amp hours. Next we had to convert our estimated watt-hours to amp hours.

859Wh / 12v = 72Ah

Once you know your projected draw in Ah over a 24-hour period, you can select a battery. Again, you will want to calculate some buffer into it. Most batteries should only be drawn down to 50 percent of their capacity (and ideally not that much even). For example a 200Ah, actually only has a 100Ah of capacity.

Since we had calculated 72Ah of energy usage, we selected a 200Ah battery to ensure we would have enough capacity. You want at least a little extra capacity to make you have enough even if it’s cloudy for several days in a row.

Types of Batteries

There are essentially four types of batteries used for solar systems: Lithium Ion Batteries, Lead Acid, AGM, and Gel Batteries.

Lithium Ion Batteries or LifePO4 batteries are like the ones in your phone. They are a great choice for vanlife! They are safe for putting into your living space, because they don’t off gas very much. They can be depleted 100%, and they have the longest lifespan of any of the batteries. The only issue is that they are rather expensive. But they have come down in price a lot since we built our van, so they might be a great option for you!

Lead acid batteries are what you’d typically find as car battery or golf cart batteries. These batteries are cheap! But there are several risks that come with using lead acid batteries in your van build. In the unlikely scenario that they break or corrode and leak, you’ll have dangerous battery acid (the electrolyte) everywhere. The bigger risk however is off gassing. The gasses these batteries produce if they are overcharged is toxic and flammable if they are in an enclosed space (such as the cabin of a campervan where you are sleeping).

AGM batteries and gel batteries are pretty similar. AGM, or absorbed glass mat, holds the electrolyte in a suspended state in fiberglass mats. Gel batteries store the electrolyte battery in a paste-like substance. Both batteries have electrolyte held in a solid state so there is no risk of a spill of battery acid. Both AGM and gel batteries are sealed so there is no risk of off gassing into your living space.

We selected a gel battery over an AGM battery because they are better in higher temps, such as a sealed van left out in the Texas sunshine. They also are a better than AGM batteries in situations where you have a long slow draw. For example, if you ever plan to leave your van sit for some amount of time while traveling elsewhere.

We chose a Dometic Deep Cycle Gel Battery. This battery is maintenance free. Dometic makes products designed for off-grid, mobile solar systems in boats and RVs. We were able to get a charge controller and other components designed precisely for our type of system. Despite being a bit more expensive than other brands, this compatibility made sense to us so it was worth the extra spend.

Picking Out Solar Panels for a Camper Van

After you have calculated your estimated draw and the capacity you need in a battery, you should select solar panels to match. Solar panels are measured in watts.

To find out how many panels you need in watts, you should take your estimated consumption and divide it by the number of full hours of sunshine (between 5 and 6 hours is the common amount).

859Wh / 5 hours of sunlight = 171.8 watts

Even though we probably could have gotten away with 200 watts of solar panels, we opted to install a 300 watt array. We chose three 100w solar panels to charge our 200 Ah battery.

Traditionally 300 watts of solar panels might be considered more than is needed for a 200Ah battery. However, we wanted to ensure that we were able to maintain appropriate battery levels even on cloudy days (and weeks)! We had plans to travel in the cloudy Pacific Northwest, spend time camping in shady forests, and during the winter with snow. Having a larger system allows us to be completely off-grid. We never have to worry about our food spoiling in our fridge or not being able to run our fan on a blisteringly hot night.

With an appropriate charge controller, having extra solar energy coming in to charge your battery is always a good idea. This allows you to maximize the potential energy available during the peak sunlight hours.

Choosing a Charge Controller and Why You Need One

A charge controller is a device that regulates the voltage coming into your battery to prevent overcharging. Most 12v solar panels will put out 17 and 21 volts. There’s a lot of complex information online about why putting 17 volts straight into your battery is bad for it, but basically will overcharge it and eventually destroy it.

You want up to 14.4 volts to be going from your solar panels into your battery to keep it “healthy” for a long time. The charge controller gives your system the intelligence to regulate the voltage, and protects your battery.

Likewise, depending on the charge controller you select, it can also prevent you from over-discharge by shutting off your system before drawing your battery below 50 percent capacity. So you definitely need a charge controller for your off-grid solar system

There are two types of charge controllers: PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) or MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking). PWM charge controllers are cheap, so at the bare minimum you should get one of these to protect your battery. However, they are designed for small-scale systems and dissipate extra energy to your system as heat. MPPT charge controllers will actually regulate the current and maximize the production output of your solar system so you can get a 90% or higher efficiency from your solar panels. 

Sizing Your Charge Controller

To size your charge controller you should take the maximum short circuit current rating for your solar panels (in our case 6.24 amps) and multiply it by the number of panels you have in parallel (in our case 3). Then add a little bit of safety by increasing that number by 25 percent.

6.24amps x 3 x 1.25 = 23.4 amps

You should also calculate the maximum draw on your system in amps at one time. To do this, add the wattage of all devices if you had them turned on at one time (not the watt hours, just the watts at one point in time). For us, if we had every light switch turned on, the fan was running on high, the fridge was cooling, and we had a device plugged into every outlet would be about 135 watts.

135 watts / 12 volts = 11.24 amps

Whichever number is higher is minimum amperage you need for your charge controller. (Learn more about how to size your charge controller).

We chose a 40 amp Solar Charge Controller from Renogy. At the time we built our van, Renogy didn’t offer a 30-amp charge controller, which would have been our perfect size when we were building out our van (now they do!) It protects against overcharging, over-discharging, overload, and short circuit. It’s compatible with gel batteries (which is extremely important) if you have the MT-50 meter to calibrate the device. The MT-50 allows you to set the parameters of the charge controller to match your battery and system (follow the manual to do this). It’s also a monitor that allows us to easily check to see that our system is functioning correctly. It appears that the most recent generation of Renogy charge controllers have this functionality built into the module.

You can also buy solar kits from Renogy, which make it easy to size all your components, fuses, etc. correctly if you do not want to make all these calculations. They even come with the wires for connecting the solar panels.

Connecting Our Battery, Solar Panels, and Charge Controller

After we had sized and selected our components, it was time to connect our system components together. We actually connected our system in a temporary test set up before mounting it in the van to make sure we had gotten everything put together correctly. It’s much easier to correct something before you have mounted your panels to the roof of your van.

Parallel vs. Series for an Off-Grid Camper Van Solar Panel

We put our solar panels in parallel in our camper van solar system. Putting your panels in parallel will increase the amperage while keeping the voltage of your system the same. In our case we would add the amperage of all three of our panels together (max 6.24 amps x 3 = a total of 18.72 amps) but the voltage remains 12 volts. The downside of parallel arrays is that there is a loss of efficiency with high-amperage systems through wires over a long distance (which is more applicable in a long motorhome). However, our system isn’t that high amperage, and there isn’t that much distance in a camper van so this loss of efficiency wasn’t that big of a deal for us.

Solar panels in series will increase the voltage rather than the amperage. Two 12v solar panels in series become in essence one 24-volt panel while keeping the amperage the same. The benefit to doing this would be if you had a 24-volt battery set up (which could potentially be advantageous if you plan to have an inverter connected to high voltages devices.) A downside of panels in series is they they are dependent on each other. If one is shaded it will impact the others even if they are in full sun.

If you have a large number of solar panels, you could also connect your panels in series-parallel. In these systems, you might have 6 panels, with pairs of panels connected in series, and these three pairs then connected in series to create a 24-volt system.

Check out this article from Renogy to understand more about the pros and cons of parallel and series for off-grid solar systems.

Wiring Your Camper Van’s Solar Panels

When you buy solar kits from Renogy, they come with wires to use for running to your charge controller. You can also purchase the solar panel to charge controller adapter kit from Renogy (10AWG wire), which is what we would recommend so that you do not have to worry about gauging or crimping the wire correctly. This kit is “plug and play” and is designed to withstand the elements so you don’t have to worry about a “DIY” connection being exposed to sun or water. (Never connect your solar panels to the charge controller without first connecting the battery.)

To run your solar panels in parallel, all your positive wires go together and all the negative wires go together. Use a Y-branch wiring connector to connect the wires together. This reduces the wiring from the roof of your van into two single positive and negative wires coming into the van.

Next the positive wire is connected to an inline 20amp fuse, which prevents too much current from going down to the charge controller. The circuit would be broken if the fuse was ever overloaded, preventing damage to other components. (Technically for a 40amp charge controller, you only need a 40amp fuse, but our system really should never get above 20amps from our solar panels, so we went with a smaller fuse.) Our fuse is mounted in a fuse holder under the solar panels to keep it extra dry.

Finally, these wires run into the van through a hole we drilled in the roof of the van through a cable entry housing attached to our roof. This solar port protects the cables and protects the roof of our van from water damage. This wire port is attached to the roof of our van with butyl tape and lap sealant (like our fan) to make it waterproof.

Inside the van, the wires from the solar panels are bundled inside some conduit. We chose to run the wire in near our door, so we were able to hide the wire alongside the doorframe behind an access panel that we designed so that we could easily access it.

Mounting and Connecting the Charge Controller

Our charge controller is mounted on the back of our bed platform with screws. It should be given a bit of space on all sides to allow for proper ventilation. Our battery, fuse box, and charge controller are mounted behind our bikes, ensuring that they are never crowded by loose groceries, sleeping bags, or backpacks.

On the Renogy 40 amp Solar Charge Controller, there are 6 terminals. They are conveniently labeled by what should be connected to them. There is a little solar panel icon, which indicates where the positive and negative wires from the solar panels should be connected. There is a battery icon for the battery wire terminals, and a light bulb icon, which indicates the outbound energy to your fuse box.

To connect the charge controller to the battery, we used a 10AWG wire (you should size this wire based on the specs of your system though). Again we have a 20amp fuse inline with the positive wire. After the fuse is connected, you can connect it to the battery’s positive and negative terminals. As soon as you connect it, your charge controller should turn on, which is very satisfying.

After you connect the battery to the charge controller, then you can connect the charge controller to the solar panels using the terminals on the charge controller. Don’t forget to always disconnect your solar panels first before disconnecting your battery from the charge controller. 

Do You Need to Ground Your Battery?

In an AC system the ground is a literal connection to the earth (hence “ground”). In mobile systems, people often ground to their chassis, which essentially makes the whole body of your vehicle the ground. Rather than having the black negative wire coming back to the battery to form the circuit, the body of your vehicle connects the device back to the battery. This cuts down on the cost of wire, because you basically cut the amount of wire you need in half.

In a 12-volt system, you don’t necessarily need a ground as long as you complete the circuit with a negative wire coming back to your battery to complete the circuit. Our fuse box is a marine product designed for boats. Boats often have a fiberglass or wooden body or even if the body is metal, it will be touching the water causing another electrical issue, so using the boat hull, as the ground is not an option.

We stuck with this “marine” system of putting each device on its own circuit with a positive wire going from the fuse box to the device and a negative wire coming back to the fuse box. This gives us an easy way to trouble shoot any issues that might arise as well, because we can isolate each individual device and circuit. This system works for us because we have relatively few devices being powered by our system.

Wiring the “Load” in a Camper Van

After your solar panels, charge controller, and battery are connected, you are now ready to connect your load. Your load is any device you want powered by the battery. The first step is to connect your charge controller to a fuse box. There is a positive and negative terminal on the fuse box. You can connect these terminals to the battery using the same thick wire used to connect the battery to the charge controller.

Fuse Box

A fuse box is basically just a way to split the energy from your battery out to different devices that need power. In the fuse box each circuit has a positive and negative terminal, which is connected with a simple ring connector. There is a slot for a blade fuse on each positive terminal that will blow in the case of a surge. The fuse should be sized for the max amperage of the circuit without going under. We suggest getting a full set of blade fuses rather than buying them individually. It’s cheaper and you’ll have the right size. Here’s a handy chart you can use for sizing fuses.

We have a Blue Sea Systems ST Blade Fuse Box. It allows us to split the energy out to our load. We have individual circuits for our fan, fridge, propane detector, and outlets. The circuits for our lights have switches. We have eight lights on five circuits (with two lights on most circuits and with separate switches for each circuit.) 

Sizing Wires in Your Camper Van

Sizing wires is sort of complicated. You need to use the amperage of the system and the length of wire needed to connect to calculate the correct gauge. Rather than trying to calculate it yourself, you should use a chart to help you find the correct gauge of wire to use for each circuit. Here’s a great chart you can use to size your wires for your solar system in your van.

As you can see from the chart, the shorter your wires are, the less resistance you will have and the thinner (or higher gauge) wire you can use. The thicker wire gets, the more expensive it is. You can always use a lower gauge (thicker) wire in place of a high gauge (thinner) wire, but not vice versa. We suggest picking one or two gauges. It’s going to be more cost efficient to buy one spool of a lower gauge wire even though it costs more, than buy many spools of differently gauged wire.

We used 16-gauge wire for our lights, outlets, and propane detector. We used 10-gauge wire for our fridge and fan. I’m only writing this to point out how we opted to use only two sizes of wire. You should always utilize a gauge chart to calculate the size that you need.

How to Run and Connect Wires in a Camper Van

After you have selected the correct size wires for your camper van’s load, it’s now time to run them through your van and connect them. As mentioned above, you should always select the shortest route possible for your wires to reduce resistance. It’s also important to reduce any friction or sharp corners where the wires could rub and break over time from the movement of the van.

It’s ideal to place the wire in spots where you could still access them without tearing your entire van apart. As much as possible we ran wires through split loom in the backs of cabinets or our fridge bench. This split loom is held it in place in with wire clips. In some places we ran the wires through the metal walls of our van frame. We also designed an access panel going up our wall so that we could easily get to the wires coming from the solar panels as well as those going up to the ceilings for our lights and fan.

Once you have your wires run through out your van, you may want to wait to connect your appliances until you have your walls and ceilings, cabinets, etc. installed. Otherwise you will be disconnecting and reconnecting most of them again.

To connect the high gauge (thinner) wires to your devices, you can use quick crimp connectors. The quick connectors need to match the same gauge as the wire. For example, use a 16 gauge butt connector for a 16 gauge wire. The easiest thing to do is to buy a set of various sized crimp connectors. In our van we used some ring connectors, but mostly butt connectors.

To crimp a wire to a connector, you’ll need a wire stripper and cobra pliers for crimping. First you strip the plastic coating off the end of the wire. After selecting the correct connector, you can then crimp it on. Later you can easily connect it to your light switch, outlet, or fan.

To connect lower gauge (larger) wires, you will need a lug hammer crimper. This tool will allow you to properly crimp a larger cable.

After you have crimped a connection, you may want to protect it and hold it in place with a heat shrink tubing. Don’t forget that you need to slide this onto the wire before you connect it. You can simply use a lighter to lightly heat the tubing and it will shrink around the connection.

Mounting Our Solar Panels on Our Van

Our three 100-watt solar panels are mounted on the roof of our van. The roof of the van is slightly curved, so the solar panels have to be slightly lifted off the roof by a rack. We have two panels mounted side-by-side and one mounted behind those.

Building a Roof Rack for Our Stealth Solar Panels

We didn’t want the solar panels on our roof to be too obvious, since we planned to do a fair amount of stealth camping. We built a roof rack that was fairly low profile. You can barely see it if you’re standing on the ground. It’s definitely note noticeable if you’re just driving past.

On the top of our Sprinter van are two inset rails that run vertically along the length of the van. We were able to slide the head of an elevator bolt down into the rail and from there we could bolt on the rack for the solar panels. Elevator bolts have a large flat head, and you can find them at your hardware store, they are easy to find online. This DIY rack would allow us to expand our rack to hold additional panels if we ever wanted to increase the capacity of our camper van’s solar system.

We built our rack for our solar panels from 80/20 T-slotted extruded aluminum rail. Because they are aluminum, they are lightweight and you can easily cut them with a hack saw or drill holes through them. If you use a center punch, it’s much easier to get your drill to bite into them.

We used a short piece of 80/20 rail bolted into the elevator bolt along with a few washers as a spacer to lift the cross pieces high enough to raise the cross members above the curve in the van roof. The cross members are bolted to these spacers. We slid bolts into the aluminum rail to use for mounting the solar panels onto the rack.

The Renogy solar panels come with Z-shaped mounting brackets. Rather than mounting these brackets on top of the cross pieces, we mounted them inside the rails to keep the solar panels low profile.

What We Power with Our Solar Panels

Here’s what we power with our 300-watt solar panels and 200-amp hour battery in our camper van.

Lights with Switches

We have eight 12-volt lights on four separate circuits. We have two lights above our counter, two lights above our bench, two lights above our bed, and two lights below our bed so that we can see when we need to get something out of storage. Each of these sets of lights has their own circuit. We put the lights above our bed each on their own circuit in case one person wants to stay up reading.

Each circuit has its own switch. Switches simply break the circuit when they are off so no electricity will reach the device. Switches should be matched to the amperage of the circuit.

The lights in our van have surprisingly low draw on our battery for how bright they are. We could have installed only 4 lights, and we still would have plenty of light. The warm-white lights are preferable for such a small space where you don’t need as much illumination.

USB Outlets

We have three sets of USB outlets in our camper van. At the back of our bed we have a set of outlets so we can charge our phones in bed. There’s a set of outlets at the front of our bed cabinetry by our counter. We also have a set at the end of the fridge/storage bench. You can buy 12-volt switches and USB outlets that are round and can all fit into the same housing. To install these round outlets, we used a spade bit to drill the correct sized hole.

Whenever possible we tried to charge our phones while driving to save our battery (not that we ever really needed to). You can also buy 12-volt adapters for many common devices like camera battery chargers or strings of lights. You can even small inverters that you can plug into your cigarette lighter to charge things like laptops. That’s another reason why we ultimately opted not to install an expensive solar-powered Renogy inverter.

Voltmeter and Solar Meter

Along with the USB outlets in our bench, we also have a small voltmeter that we use to monitor the voltage of our battery to ensure that it’s running normally from a quick glance.

As previously mentioned, we also have a more detailed Renogy solar monitor that is connected to our solar charge controller. From this monitor we can tell how much voltage is coming in to the solar panels as well as how much we are drawing from the battery. There’s even a small smiley face that shows you the overall condition of the battery.

Fantastic Fan

We have a 1250-series Fantastic Fan in the kitchen area of our van. It has three speeds and is reversible so that you either pull air in or blow it out. We often left our fan running on low speed overnight for moisture or temperature control in our van. The fan fortunately does not draw too much power from our system (approximately 17Ah from our estimate).

Although it is our second highest draw on our van’s battery, if we were to build our van again, we would have installed another fan above our bed so we could get some cross circulation without having to open the back doors. Read more about how we installed our fan.

Propane Detector

We have a small 12-volt propane and CO detector in our propane locker. If you have a propane system, heaters, or a stove for cooking in your van, you should have a propane/CO detector. This detector runs 24 hours per day, but the draw is extremely low.

Dometic Fridge

Despite being impressively efficient, our fridge is our biggest draw on our solar power system. Having a fridge in your camper van is going to enable you to go off-grid for long periods of time without having to live off pasta and canned peas. If you want to power your van conversion exclusively with solar, you should get a high-efficiency fridge rather than just a typical mini-fridge like you’d find in your average RV. The extra cost you spend on your high-efficiency fridge will be saved in not having to buy a bunch of extra batteries and solar panels.

We have been highly satisfied with our Dometic fridge. It has 46 liters of capacity, which is bigger than you think. You can set the temperature anywhere from below freezing to into the 50s. There’s a low power setting in case your battery is running low. Plus it will not draw your battery below where it should be depleted. It also has adapters so you can plug it into your van’s cigarette lighter socket and even into a wall outlet. Dometic doesn’t make our exact model anymore, but the comparable model today is the CFX55.

How Reliable is Solar Power?

We have found our solar power system to be extremely reliable for camping, boondocking and off-grid travel. We have never had any issues with our solar system, aside from having a fuse blow because it was the incorrect size.

Even on cloudy days, our battery will charge back up to full capacity. We actually really never noticed a difference on cloudy days. Winter is probably the time when we had to monitor our solar power most closely, because there are simply fewer hours of sunlight in the day, the sun is at a lower angle, and having snow or frost on your panels can block the sun’s rays.

Every now and again, you do need to clean off your solar panels with a soft microfiber cloth. It’s not nearly as often as a lot of people make it out to be. (You really do not need an expensive ladder screwed to the side of your van! But if you don’t have one, you won’t be a real vanlifer.) We clean ours maybe twice a year, or more often if we are in dusty conditions and it hasn’t rained. We just have a simple expandable ladder that we store under our bed and use to get up to the solar panels. Honestly we could probably get away without it. We could use our bed platform to allow us to boost ourselves up onto the roof.

Overall we have been very satisfied with the way we built the solar system for our van. Our solar system has been the right size and battery capacity for us.

If you have questions about building out your van or installing your solar system, get in touch with us here!