So life's got in the way over the past few days, so I've only had one day working on the van. Busy, but doesn't look that productive on the face of it as I've been wiring all day!
Day 8So the first job was to swap the driver seat. The original one was knackered from thousands of fat posties jumping in and out, so I bought replacement on ebay and bolted it in. Easy enough, and was fitted in about 20 mins. In the rain!
Next job was to bolt in all the furniture, which had previously only been set in place. The only important thing here was to make sure I selected screws of the correct length for each task, so I didn't go through the floor of the van, or even worse, the side! I've now got quite a selection from screwfix... While I was at it, I placed the 12V fuse panel where I thought I wanted it.
Anyway, here's what it looked like:
Next job was to tackle the wiring. Now on closer inspection, the bottom of the 12V fuse panel was touching the fridge, and I wasn't happy with this (it has bare connectors on the bottom, and the fridge is metal), so I rotated it 90 degrees and cut a little section of panelling to fill the remaining gap. Doh!
Anyway, I terminated the negatives of all the 12V connections (light, water etc.) in a common earth block (silver at top of next photo), along with the negative from the leisure battery. Then I used a terminal block to connect the positive from the battery to the main positive on the fuse panel. The final job was the connect all the appliance positives to the switch positives through a long strip on terminal blocks (white in the photo below).
The switches are connected to (in order):
1) front 2 spotlights
2) rear 2 spotlights
3) 12V sockets (x2, connected in parallel)
4) water pump (yet to be fitted - other end terminated in a choc block)
5) Fridge
6) blank
Here's the ( albeit messy) rear of the panel:
The panel is a 12V switch panel, with circuit breakers, usually used in the marine industry. Here's what the front looks like (with my embarassing cut-out. I plan to carpet it to disguise it):
Next job was to connect the split charge relay. I used a 12V Durite Voltage Sensing Relay, as these get a great reputation, and only require battery-to-battery wiring (no need to wire from the alternator). Now in some ways the transit made this easy, as the start battery is below the driver's seat, meaning there was no wiring through the main firewall. On the the other hand, cutting the 16mm^2 cable and soldering all the terminations required made it a right pain in the a**e. It's got to be wired in this sequence:
Start battery - Fuse (80A) - Relay - Fuse (80A) - Aux Battery
I chose to terminate the connections in large ring connections that first had to be crimped, then flooded with solder (using a mini blow torch), then heatshrinked. 10 times. Seems like a lot of work, but should give me a safe and efficient split charge system. The system (and aux battery) is stowed below the seat, adjacent to the fridge to keep cable runs short. Here's what it looks like.
And all wired with a temporary battery (note the brown and blue wires supply the fuse panel and are yet to be colour coded):
Finally then, I was able to switch on the spotlights and get a look at the 12V system in all it's majesty!
That's all I got managed on day 8, the next job will be wiring in the 240V side.
I won't get the chance now to do anything for a few days, as I'm out of country, but should have another update in the middle of next week.
As always, comments welcome!