mb2tv MH Design

[mb2tv]

Decided to do with Ikea bed - bought the beam and slats.
Found a Vango double hob (Go out doors) and bought it - also got a power meter and tried to cook lunch on it today. It seem that the plans to live on Electricity only is very do-able. only used 0.5KWH, so even if I use a bit more it is very plausible. The good thing about the Vango that if you reduce the power it reduces consumption and it does not 'average' the power. So I think the Vango will stay although will be hard to mount - will think about it when I get there.

I am assuming that once the van is here I will have to 'tinker' a bit with placements for everything to fit, but plan is firming slowly.

 

[Sprinter 1 cup]

The hardest part of a van conversion is the wc ! After many re visits I found it's flush !.

 

[wildebus]

Decided to do with Ikea bed - bought the beam and slats.
Found a Vango double hob (Go out doors) and bought it - also got a power meter and tried to cook lunch on it today. It seem that the plans to live on Electricity only is very do-able. only used 0.5KWH, so even if I use a bit more it is very plausible. The good thing about the Vango that if you reduce the power it reduces consumption and it does not 'average' the power. So I think the Vango will stay although will be hard to mount - will think about it when I get there.

I am assuming that once the van is here I will have to 'tinker' a bit with placements for everything to fit, but plan is firming slowly.

O.5KWh is quite a lot in terms of battery draw though. If you relate it for example to a commonly fitted lead 85Ah acid battery, you would have used up ALL the available power just making lunch.
Now I know you are planning on more than that, but just to put it in perspective...

The key thing about using electric is working out how you are going to recharge fast enough.
Lithium has a very fast recharge rate possible so if you combine that with maybe an auxiliary alternator to allow high current rates that will give you a good solution (I find the standard fitted alternators don't put out a consistently high power level in typical driving so you don't get the 'promised' rates.)

 

[Sprinter 1 cup]

O.5KWh is quite a lot in terms of battery draw though. If you relate it for example to a commonly fitted lead 85Ah acid battery, you would have used up ALL the available power just making lunch.
Now I know you are planning on more than that, but just to put it in perspective...

The key thing about using electric is working out how you are going to recharge fast enough.
Lithium has a very fast recharge rate possible so if you combine that with maybe an auxiliary alternator to allow high current rates that will give you a good solution (I find the standard fitted alternators don't put out a consistently high power level in typical driving so you don't get the 'promised' rates.)

Yes that what I'm thinking? Electricity
Battery 2 battery or second alternator ?
Victron 30 amps b2b an hour = £200 plus wire = 900 watts I liked this way but rethinking now.
Second Alternator! ampapge out and cost. Still got to looking in to that as recharge time is most important, can it be fitted to the sprinter ? Gorge@ Humble road is at that point now.

 

[wildebus]

Yes that what I'm thinking? Electricity
Battery 2 battery or second alternator ?
Victron 30 amps b2b an hour = £200 plus wire = 900 watts I liked this way but rethinking now.
Second Alternator! ampapge out and cost. Still got to looking in to that as recharge time is most important, can it be fitted to the sprinter ? Gorge@ Humble road is at that point now.

I know some advocate just using a relay like a Victron Cyrix -Li.
I personally am wary of that (and not because of the Victron Video showing a smoking alternator) because I prefer to have separation between vehicle electrics and leisure electrics and prefer the B2B approach even though the multi-stage features are not required.
I think a 60A B2B is about right for most setups with Lithium. I run the Ablemail AMC 12-12-60. With the Victron B2B you can parallel them so use a pair of 30A. Both of those are fully configurable for any battery types - some B2Bs are not configurable with Lithium directly but if they have a Gel setting that is fairly close and probably ok.

 

[mb2tv]

Thank you for the above information! Still learning , nothing set yet so trying to keep an open mind. As far as I read, the Crafter has a ' smart Alternator' which if I understood correctly the Victron B2B can cope with. I am not sure what size is the Alternator that it comes with - I will have to be sure it has spare capacity to charge the batteries. I have not looked yet at adding a dedicated alternator.
The plan was to have 3X100AH LiFePo4 batteries, and was hoping to be able to fit 2X 180W solar panels.
A very rough estimate is usage of up to 1KWH for cooking for the whole day. 3 batteries can give up to 3750WH (only 3000WH which are usable - 80%). But only cooking will require 2.5hrs of charging on full power solar only.
Maybe we will be required to move more...

 

[wildebus]

You will certainly have enough power for cooking a meal with 3x100Ah Lithiums. And use the right devices at the right time can help - so a slow cooker for example can be very effective when driving or when away from the camper during the day, using power from Solar and/or Alternator and saving the battery for the evening, as well as having a nice meal ready to eat when you stop or get back after a sightseeing walk.
Microwaves are also a very efficient way to cook of course and perfectly useable off-grid as long as you spec the kit right (remember the Microwave wattages quoted is "cooking" power and actual power draw is around 1.5x greater). I can run my 800W Microwave off the batteries, but it is very close to the limit of the 1300W inverter within the Victron 12/1600 EasyPlus.

PS. when you use high-power AC devices like hobs, kettles, microwaves, etc, not only do you have to make sure your inverter can deliver the power, you need to be sure the batteries you select can deliver the current. Lithiums can be significantly more limited than Lead-Acid when it comes to high current. The 800W Microwave I have ... when that is running, it pulls around 130A from the batteries. A battery that has become popular due to some Youtubers featuring them on their sites is the EcoTree Lithium. Some of the batteries in that range have a very low maximum discharge current and you could not use a significant inverter on them.

 

[mb2tv]

You will certainly have enough power for cooking a meal with 3x100Ah Lithiums. And use the right devices at the right time can help - so a slow cooker for example can be very effective when driving or when away from the camper during the day, using power from Solar and/or Alternator and saving the battery for the evening, as well as having a nice meal ready to eat when you stop or get back after a sightseeing walk.
Microwaves are also a very efficient way to cook of course and perfectly useable off-grid as long as you spec the kit right (remember the Microwave wattages quoted is "cooking" power and actual power draw is around 1.5x greater). I can run my 800W Microwave off the batteries, but it is very close to the limit of the 1300W inverter within the Victron 12/1600 EasyPlus.

PS. when you use high-power AC devices like hobs, kettles, microwaves, etc, not only do you have to make sure your inverter can deliver the power, you need to be sure the batteries you select can deliver the current. Lithiums can be significantly more limited than Lead-Acid when it comes to high current. The 800W Microwave I have ... when that is running, it pulls around 130A from the batteries. A battery that has become popular due to some Youtubers featuring them on their sites is the EcoTree Lithium. Some of the batteries in that range have a very low maximum discharge current and you could not use a significant inverter on them.

Thank you for that!
As I was reading the post I was measuring the power consumption of the home Microwave - just to get an idea: 800W me was consuming 1400wh ! The MW itself states 1150wh (Samsung). I know the power meter might not be very accurate but that is some difference.

As for batteries, just to add to what you say, some batteries have limitations on how many you can connect in parallel. I looked a little bit, and batteries that could supply what I want/need were expensive (at least 6month ago when I looked).

With your prompt yesterday about alternators, I looked at the options available to the Crafter. You can fit an additional alternator, but there are 3 alternators options, 140A, 180A and 250A. I am not sure what mine will have, I suspect it is the middle one as I have Aircon fitted. I will investigate further on that when I get the van, mainly to know how much spare capacity I have (it is complicated with these smart alternators).

Many thanks so far!

 

[wildebus]

FWIW, the Lithium Batteries I have pretty well standardised on for setups are the Poweroad LiFePO4 units. I fully trust the supplier of them (Alpha Batteries) to support them; and I trust the manufacturer of them (Poweroad) to provide all the neccessary backup and support (I won't go into details, but I have first hand experience of both and I honestly could not expect more from either company).
So whilst there are of course a whole load of choices of brands, models and suppliers, I just go with the Poweroads via Alpha as the hassle-free known quantity.

In terms of multiple batteries, the Poweroad Base version has connectivity limitations - you can have up to 4 in series (to make a 48V bank), but more relevantly to you, in Parallel they are limited to just 2 batteries. (you could have larger than 100Ah units though of course to have a bigger bank than 200Ah).
The Poweroad Infinity however has a different BMS and there is no limit to how many you can string together (that is what the 'Infinity' bit in the name means).
They also have a very high current capability - 150A continuous discharge ability, so no problems with Inverters (especially as that is per battery - 3 in parallel would be ok for 450A!), and they have a recommended charging current of 50A per battery, so again for a 3 battery bank, you have the potential to put back 150Ah in one hour if you had the charging capability to do so (it is usually the charging side that is the limit, not the battery - I can only feed mine with 70Ah/Hr due to the chargers).

 

[MatijaSever]

Decided to do with Ikea bed - bought the beam and slats.
Found a Vango double hob (Go out doors) and bought it - also got a power meter and tried to cook lunch on it today. It seem that the plans to live on Electricity only is very do-able. only used 0.5KWH, so even if I use a bit more it is very plausible https://eldfall-chronicles.com/. The good thing about the Vango that if you reduce the power it reduces consumption and it does not 'average' the power. So I think the Nexthash will stay although will be hard to mount - will think about it when I get there.

I am assuming that once the van is here I will have to 'tinker' a bit with placements for everything to fit, but plan is firming slowly.

I think this is enough but final decision will be when we get the van. The double passenger seat meant to take daughter and her partner, and they are quite happy to sleep in a tent (actually they prefer it) outside (we have done this before with the caravan, even though the caravan can sleep 4).