Finishing your Electrical system
Once you have all your appliances and components in, you will want to power them up. Here, you will find some wiring diagrams, how-to videos to make this process a lot less intimidating. If us kookz could do it, so can you! Let’s do this!
Wiring Guide Download:
If you are a kook and have no idea what you are doing when it comes to electricity, we have made it easy for you. We have made you this wiring diagram to give you an example of how to hook up just about everything you need in your campervan.
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*Don’t worry, we won’t spam you. We just want to know how many people this is actually helping so we know to make more infographics like these.
Portable Power Stations
If you are not into the electrical part of the build and you just want to move on with the build, there are plenty of companies out there that are pre-packaging everything you need to power an off-grid campervan in one unit. This is one of the easiest, but probably the most expensive routes to power up. Just plug and play.
Of the Portable Power Stations, Goal Zero is probably the most well known and also the most expensive. Their stations range anywhere from $199 (to power a laptop) to $2,000+ (able to power a fridge, lights, & charge your laptop.) Other than the fact that they are the most expensive per watt-hour, they aren’t our favorite because they play like an Apple product. Meaning, they only play well with their own proprietary parts (solar panel, proprietary input connections).
Although when we were helping a friend @es_dons add an off-brand flexible solar panel to power his Goal Zero Station, we did find a solution. We made a quick YouTube video of our beachside install in San Diego.
Since Goal Zero is out of our budget and we love to try out the lesser-known brands, we have a Jackery Explorer 240 ($249) and we love it for charging computers, iPads, projectors, small lights, mini food processors, and other things when the sun is down.
DIY your own Electrical System
If you are trying to gain some valuable life skills on this DIY adventure, this is probably the most rewarding. Here, we will teach you how to set up your own electrical system in your van. There are many choices of battery systems you can choose from, Marine batteries, AGM, Lithium, Tesla, parallel or series, parallel or series. We will go over all of that here and hopefully, you can choose one that works best for you and your needs. Remember, every van build is like a unique fingerprint. What one person has might not work for your lifestyle or power requirements.
Budget Friendly Build
Small Van Conversion
Here we show you how we built our van for under $6,000, including the purchase of the van. We break it down in sections to make it easier to follow along.
Subaru Conversion “Camparu”
2009 Subaru Outback, we built it out to travel and live in until we were finished with our Sprinter Build out. Here, we show how we easily added a removable sleeping platform, as well as, some other accessories to make life on the road more comfortable. Free blueprint of the build, so you can make your own! As always, budget friendly.
Sprinter Van Conversion
Here, you can browse through all the topics and phases of our Sprinter build. And you can find just about everything you need to know about converting your Sprinter. We have links to products and step by step how to's and videos. Be sure to check out our YouTube channel for more videos!