Camper van leisure battery voltage monitor

Adding a leisure battery will allow you to run lights, pumps, heaters, phone chargers, fridges and audio visual equipment without running down the vehicle battery and potentially leaving you stranded. It'south not a complicated procedure and vehicle electrics are relatively straightforward and then it'south a job that should be within the grasp of most confident DIY camper van convertors. Having said that, it'southward important that vehicle electrics are correctly configured and all circuits and installations are correctly designed and properly installed and so if you are not completely confident in what you are doing here, it's all-time to get professional person help and advice. A short circuit poses a serious adventure of fire so don't take any chances in this regard.

My camper van electrical excursion included a 12v leisure battery and a 220v inverter and an external mains hook up. Let's expect at the carve up charging circuit in this article and I'll encompass the 12v and the 220v circuits separately.

The difference between a leisure battery and a vehicle battery.

The important signal here is the deviation betwixt the ii types of bombardment. A standard vehicle battery is designed to provide a large amount of current in brusque bursts, i.eastward to power the starter motor. A leisure bombardment on the other hand, is designed to provide smaller amounts of current over a prolonged menstruum of time and as well to be fully discharged before being charged back up once again by running the engine. Leisure batteries are also referred to as 'deep cycle' batteries for this very reason. Using a standard vehicle bombardment for your leisure circuit volition result in a very short battery life.

The charging circuit.

Calculation a leisure battery to your camper van is 1 thing just you will also demand to hook it up to the charging circuit that recharges your vehicle battery. To do this, you will need to fit a split charging excursion. This type of circuit includes a specially designed voltage sensitive relay which allows the leisure battery to be continued to the existing alternator in parallel to your engine bombardment. The separate charge relay prioritises the engine bombardment and automatically switches to the leisure battery once the engine bombardment is fully charged. The circuit itself is very simple and consummate split charging kits are readily available from camper van parts suppliers.

Camper van wiring diagram
Camper van wiring diagram from switchpanel.co.uk

The leisure battery.

I chose a 115ah (Amp-hours; What does this mean? It will supply 115 amps for 1  hour or 11.5 amps for 10 hours) deep cycle bombardment from Halfords for €126. The bombardment itself is a bulky, heavy detail so I opted to install it over the dorsum beam, and under a false floor in the storage compartment. There was plenty of room here for the battery, the 220v inverter, an onboard battery charger and the h2o pump and plumbing. Locating the bombardment over the rear axle was besides ideal for weight distribution and then this location made a lot of sense.

Installation and wiring.

Once I positioned the battery, I screwed some timber battens to the floor to continue it in position. The split charge relay was screwed to the timber of the seat base of operations correct beside the battery. Once it was in place, I merely had to run the cables.

The negative cablevision is secured to an earthing point in the bodywork and connected to the negative terminal of the battery. I fabricated utilize of an existing threaded bolt hole in the bodywork for this. The positive cable runs from the positive terminal of the vehicle battery all the way back to the split charge relay, and from at that place, on to the positive terminal of the leisure bombardment (a 100 amp fuse is installed on either side of the relay terminals). A smaller negative wire from the relay then connects to the negative final of the vehicle bombardment and once this is in place, the split circuit is complete and fully functional.

The spilt charging kit I bought came complete with all cables, terminals, fuses, cable ties and conduit needed and then it was just a matter of installing everything. Properly crimped connections are essential here as a loose connection is a serious burn run a risk so don't effort to brand these connections without the proper tools. I managed to borrow a heavy duty cable crimper from an electrician which was essential for making sound connections to the bombardment terminals. Cutting, crimping and assembling all the cables and connections is relatively simple and the whole installation merely took a couple of hours.

Here's a useful video on the correct way to crimp vehicle battery cables and terminals

Once the battery and split charge circuit are in place, you tin can run a 70 amp positive cable from the leisure battery terminal to a simple, blade fuse holder and start building your circuits.