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EcoFlow vs. Victron Energy Electrical System Comparison

Like many, we were excited about these “future of electrical system” kits. We bought a 5kWh kit and, initially, we were quite smitten indeed. What a beauty! A few months later the honeymoon period ended. Alas, after much testing and, trying to kindle the love, our cupid never showed. In this post, we’ll do our best to compare an EcoFlow Power Kit (specifically the 5kWh “Independence” Power Kit) to a “traditional” system using high-quality, value-priced 12-volt lithium batteries and a bunch of top-quality Victron Energy components and explain why we’re sticking with the Blue Power. But, You’re Biased! Yeah, that’s a bit true, but not exactly what you think. It’s worth pointing out that selling EcoFlow products is very profitable (notice how many ads there are for these things). In fact, we’d actually earn more money selling you an EcoFlow kit vs. the Victron bundles we discuss in this post. We did sell the Power Kits for a few months but decided to stop selling them recently after considering the limitations. We take our pledge to only sell the very best, road-tested products – the stuff we’d use in our vans very seriously. What follows are the reasons we wouldn’t use an EcoFlow kit in our vans – even if we were DIY’ers who were not experienced with electrical systems. Changes with V2 Power Kits – Update Late 2024 In late 2024, EcoFlow began promoting their new “v2” Power Kits and changed the naming convention to refer to the Power Hub’s output capacity instead of the battery capacity. The new 5kVA model can support 120VAC loads up to around 4000 watts (5000 watts surge). This is neat but we find that AC loads tend to be pretty minimal in camper vans. Apparently the inverter is quieter as well. On the AC side they also added charging from and passthrough of 240VAC to loads when that higher voltage shore power is available. The new kits have a dedicated port for direct connection to the 48VDC battery power so you don’t need to sacrifice a battery connection port to run something like a 48-volt DC air conditioner. In my view the most practical upgrade for a van/RV is the increase to 100 amps of 12VDC power (or 60 amps at 24-volt). EcoFlow also has a new Power Link accessory/add-on that adds some extra connectivity to the outside world like RV-C/NMEA2000 CAN and resistive tank sensors which is a nice upgrade path. When it comes to alternator charging, the specs state that you can have three inputs (13V-60V, 60A/30A/30A, up to 4800W total) but I don’t know of any way to actually provide that from a factory vehicle alternator or secondary alternator with an external regulator such as the Wakespeed. If someone figures this out, please let us know! The Short Version The EcoFlow products are beautifully designed and generally work well if you don’t need advanced features. By far, the biggest advantage of an EcoFlow Power Kit over a professionally installed Victron system is how simple it is for a non-experienced DIY’er to install and configure the system. This benefit does not disappoint and we were duly impressed. Overall, it’s actually a great system and ideal in certain situations. If the limitations we present in this post are not relevant to you, then EcoFlow is a great option. However, as you’ll see later in this post, at today’s prices, you can get everything you need for a comparable (arguably better) Victron system for about $1,900 less than the EcoFlow kit which is about the cost of having an experienced professional installer wire up your Victron system. That is what we’d recommend to most people so that you’re not subject to the limitations we detail in this post and you can have true confidence in your system – both that it will work well and that it will be maintainable and upgradable for the life of your rig. We even have a directory of installers you can browse and, if you’re in our area (Florida) we have some trusted installers we can recommend if you reach out. Ugh, Math Let’s get some math stuff out of the way. If you don’t like math, ya can skip this part… Battery capacity is often measured in amp hours (Ah). But, power consumption is better measured in watts. So, many people refer to the capacity in a system with kilowatt watt hours (kWh) which takes into consideration of the system voltage. To convert between amp hours and kilowatt hours you multiply the amp hours by the voltage. To do the reverse (get amp hours from kilowatt hours) you divide the kilowatt hours by the volts. In our testing of our EcoFlow Power Kit the 12-volt option operates at 13.8 volts. In systems using 12-volt batteries, the voltage is going to be anywhere between 14.4 on the high end, to 12 on the low end, depending on the battery state of charge (SOC). So, when we do conversions, we’ll use the average of those – 13.2 – as the voltage value. For instance, to convert a 5kWh EcoFlow battery to amp hours for a 12-volt system, we’ll divide the specification of that Power Kit Battery of 5,120 by 13.2 to arrive at 387 amp hours. Or, to convert a 314 amp hour rated SOK battery to kilowatt hours we’d multiply 314 by 13.2 to arrive at 4,145. We think this is fair math but you can grab your calculator and adjust that voltage value for yourself if you want to see the impact of using something like 12.8 volts. If you’re not familiar with EcoFlow Power Kits, the most popular of them is a 5kWh “Independence” version. It comes with: One 5kWh battery (5,120 kilowatt hours) which is equivalent to a 387 amp hour battery (at 13.2 volts). Up to 2x additional 5kWh batteries can be added to the system. At today’s prices, they are about $4,600. The Power Hub, which is where most of the components of the system connect to (batteries, shore power inlet, solar input, DC-DC charger input, and the output for all loads). Compared to a traditional/Victron system, it acts as the inverter/charger, DC-DC charger, solar charge controller, etc. A combination 120-volt AC and 12/24-volt DC load center. The EcoFlow batteries are natively 48-volt but this is converted for use with your DC loads (lights, fans, water pump, etc.). You can select between 12 or 24-volts. It can provide a maximum of 1,000 watts of DC power to the DC load center which is about 70-75 amps in a 12-volt configuration. A “console” which is the touchscreen that provides control and monitoring for the system. All the wiring needed to hook the system up – shore power inlet, wiring to your vehicle battery for DC-DC (alternator) charging, MC4 solar power cables, etc. The only wiring you need to provide are for the branch circuits that come from the combination AC/DC load center and power your actual loads in the rig. Compare the Specs Speaking of math, if you’re engineering-minded and want to dive into all the numbers, we’ve made a comparison sheet between the systems we’re discussing in this post in this Google Sheet. EcoFlow Power Kit Limitations Customer Service/Tech SupportIt’s no secret that EcoFlow has less than stellar customer and technical support. Some people describe it as “the worst” or “non-existent”. To be fair, others have had great luck. However, we put a lot of time and effort into having the very best customer service in the industry (don’t take it from us, read our customer reviews) and when the manufacturer doesn’t pull their weight in this regard it can reflect poorly on us. We don’t want to rely on “luck”. So, this was part of our decision to stop selling their products. Lack of ModularityOne of the awesome features of the EcoFlow is that it’s easy to install and there are only a few bits and pieces. But, this also means that there is no modularity. So it’s a bit of a double-edged sword and you’ll have to decide which side of that blade you’d like to fall on. The simplicity of the EcoFlow is great for sure but it creates single points of failure. It’s very handy to be able to swap out a single component if it fails while the rest of the system keeps working. For instance, if your Victron solar charge controller kicks the bucket, you can keep charging other ways such as DC-DC (alternator) charging or shore power. On an EcoFlow kit, these are all inside one box. A traditional system, with lots of individual blue boxes, allows you to stay on the road and limp to the next dealer. Also, any Victron component with the word “smart” in the name can be configured and monitored via Bluetooth with their VictronConnect app. It’s very helpful to be able to monitor and see historical data on each specific component in your system when troubleshooting any issues. Limited Parts Availability Speaking of dealers, Victron Energy has distributors and dealers literally around the world. So, if you’re in limp mode with your power system, you will be able to find the parts and the support and installation professionals you need just about everywhere you might find yourself. In our experience, getting parts for EcoFlow Power Kits is very much the opposite. There are very few stocking dealers of EcoFlow and they don’t have all the fiddly bits you might need. This is made worse by the proprietary nature of their connections. One example: we ordered a replacement battery cable for the Power Kits that has a proprietary connection on each side. We patiently waited for over 3-weeks for this cable and were eventually told that it would be many more before it would ship. Keep in mind this is the cable that connects the batteries to the Power Hub! So, if it fails or breaks or your dog chews through it, you have no power. For us, it was only inconvenient since we are just testing this stuff in our mad van laboratory, but if you were on the road, this would put you completely out of business for way too long. Closed EcosystemOne of the things we love about Victron Energy is that you can “use what you want” from their product lineup and not be locked into “everything” Victron. For instance, in the example Victron system we’re actually using SOK batteries because of their impressive price/performance. Of course, we also sell and recommend Victron batteries – particularly if you’re building out a system with a secondary alternator. In a EcoFlow system, pretty much everything but your solar panels are going to need to be from EcoFlow. Another example is Victron’s Venus OS which powers their GX devices like the Cerbo GX which is an absolutely brilliant device for controlling and monitoring Victron gear. But, it also works with 3rd-party stuff like SeeLevel tank monitor and Ruuvitag sensors. The open ecosystem allows you to add some super cool functionality to your rig and this ecosystem continually grows to become increasingly vibrant over time. Victron also regularly updates firmware for all their devices – generally through Bluetooth and their VictronConnect app. Some who use Victron equipment might say it’s too often! But, these upgrades often come with new features and functionality that are completely free! High Cost of Adding Battery StorageLater in the post, in the cost comparison section, you’ll see that the example Victron system starts with more battery storage capacity than the 5kWh EcoFlow kit (over 40% more) and if you wanted, you could quite easily add a third, 280Ah (3,696 kWh) SOK battery for $1,149 at today’s prices (even less than that if ordered in our bundle) which comes out to about $.31/kWh or storage. Compare that to an EcoFlow 5kWh (technically 5,120) battery that is selling for $4,600 today which is well over twice the cost per kWh of storage at around $.89. This goes back to the advantage of modularity and not being locked into a closed ecosystem of products. This is an example of how being “stuck” in a closed ecosystem can be expensive. DC Output Limits – Not Great for DC Air ConditionThe DC output to the AC/DC distribution panel is limited to 1,000 watts (75 amps when set to 12-volt mode). This isn’t much of a limitation in most cases. But, if you’re in Florida (or similar), and want to run a 12-volt DC air conditioner it becomes a major limitation. Many of these DC air conditioners use around 55-60 amps when running on high (check out our comparison sheet). So, if you are running your AC unit on high, you’re only left with around 15 amps for ALL of your 12-volt loads such as refrigerators, water pumps, Maxxfans, etc. which just isn’t enough leftover juice to use a few of those things simultaneously with a DC air conditioner. Also, there isn’t a simple way to wire up the heavy-gauge wire (like 4 AWG) from the AC unit to the EcoFlow AC/DC distribution panel. You can “hack” the wiring in a few ways but, at this time, you can’t get any more juice. The EcoFlow Power Kits have plenty of 120-volt AC power to run a more traditional rooftop unit but if you look closely at the specifications of those they typically use about twice as much power as a 12-volt DC air conditioners. So, if you want to stay cool off-grid, you’d likely need to pay for extra batteries which are, as we’ve already noted, very expensive. The workaround is to use a 48-volt air conditioner with the EcoFlow that connects directly to the 48-volt battery “bus” but you’ll still have to fight with the proprietary connectors on the EcoFlow Power Hub/battery. No Secondary Alternator for YouWe are big fans of getting the most out of your vehicle engine. Since you’re driving around anyway, why not get massive power from a dedicated secondary alternator or heat your water while you cruise down the road? With a Victron system, you can integrate secondary alternator charging into your system with ease and no limitations. EcoFlow Power Kits have an integrated DC-DC charger similar to the Victron Orion XS units. The input labeled for “alternator” is rated for up to 60 amps and allows for up to 1600 watts. In our example Victron system we show 2x Orion XS DC-DC chargers running in parallel for a maximum charge of 100 amps (1,320 watts). A Nations secondary alternator system with a Wakespeed regulator can charge at over 3,000 watts (!) at normal engine RPMs as you can see from the graphic below that compares Nations 12-volt alternator with their 48-volt version. That’s nearly double what you would get from the “standard” DC-DC charger setup charging from your vehicle alternator with either the EcoFlow or the Victron setup. By the way, the general guideline for charging from your vehicle alternator is to limit the charging current to less than 50% of the alternator’s rating – for instance, if the alternator is rated for 220 amps, you’d want to limit the DC-DC alternator charging to around 100 amps. This is to prevent the early demise of your alternator. So, a secondary alternator is like having a generator running anytime you’re driving at the cost of a small impact on your fuel efficiency – something similar to other belt-driven stuff in your engine like an AC. Importantly, if you price out our Victron-based secondary alternator power system bundle, at today’s pricing, it’s about $2,800 more than the internal BMS bundle we’re using for the price comparison in this post. This is primarily due to the premium Victron batteries and the accompanying external BMS (Lynx Smart BMS) PLUS the actual Nations alternator kit and Wakespeed regulator. On the EcoFlow Power Kits, it’s possible to wire additional alternators/output to “solar input 2” or “solar input 3” but those are limited to 30 amps each and only the first input (labeled for alternator charging) can have its input current adjusted in the app. Using all 3x inputs on the EcoFlow kit would yield around 120 amps or around 1600 watts at 12-volts. Of course, using all the solar inputs for DC charging would prevent you from having solar charging. If you happen to have higher voltage chargers, maybe the power could be increased up to 1600 watts per input at higher voltages since the inputs allow 13-60 volts. If this sounds complicated, we agree! It certainly starts to erode that easy-to-use simplicity of the EcoFlow system. So, what’s the issue with wiring up a Nations alternator to an EcoFlow Power Kit? Basically, there is no point/benefit! It’s an expensive, 280 amp alternator paired with a Wakespeed regulator that outputs over 200 amps at most RPMs but the EcoFlow Power Kit “inputs” are limited to 60 or 30 amps. So, you could, technically, configure the Wakespeed regulator as if it were charging a standard 12-volt lithium battery and limit the maximum charging current to 60 amps but it’s considerably cheaper and easier to just pull 60 amps from your vehicle batttery/alternator! Limiting the current output of a high-current alternator seems silly indeed. And, even if you were willing to forfeit solar charging, we don’t know of a way that we’re aware of to “split” the Nations alternator output across the 1x, 60 amp, and 2x, 30 amp inputs while respecting those current limitations to each port and what would happen if it didn’t work exactly right? Would your entire Power Hub be destroyed? There are other, even more technical issues such as what kind of charge profile would you configure on a Wakespeed regulator for something that is actually a DC-DC charger input and not a battery? Would it have to behave as if it’s in “bulk” phase always so that there is never a current drop? Here again, the Victron system that seems complicated on the surface is, in reality, a lot easier and massively more reliable in this context. We’ve done the work to figure it all out and published it on our blog. We’ve also installed many of these systems and have high confidence in them. As far as cost, our Victron/Nations/Wakespeed secondary alternator bundle with a lot more battery storage (8,712 kWh vs 5,120) and all the benefits of a proper secondary alternator system is “only” about $1,000 more expensive. Cost Comparison Keeping in mind, that we’re not comparing apples to apples. Well, maybe we’re comparing different kinds of apples? Anyway, fruit aside, we tried to come up with a comparable system using high-quality, value-priced batteries like 280Ah SOK batteries and a bunch of Victron Energy equipment. The best way to do this is through one of our many best price bundles where we can offer you the very best pricing and help you gather up compatible components. And, unlike buying from Amazon or elsewhere, we are here to help you through your installation journey. Trust us, many people learn the hard way that Alexa isn’t very helpful when it comes to electrical system troubleshooting. 1) Start with a Best Price Bundle for Primary ComponentsSo, we started with our “internal BMS bundle” which simply means that the batteries have a Battery Management System (BMS) integrated into each battery (internal). In some cases, externalizing the BMS which is then shared by ALL the batteries in your system makes sense. For instance, a secondary alternator system where the charging rates are massive. Here’s a video of how we configured it: By the way, we have free example wiring diagrams that pair up with all our best price bundles to help guide you, or a professional installer. We refer to them as example wiring diagrams quite intentionally. There are so many ways to accomplish the same thing, safely and effectively that there is no single way to approach a power system. However, they are a great, totally free, starting point. 2) Accessory BundleThe “best price bundles” are designed to get you the primary components needed but not things like shore power inlets, load centers, fusing, wires, etc. While the primary components tend to be pretty aligned by “architecture” (internal BMS vs. external, etc.), these “accessories” are more universal and vary much more based on the nature of your system and particular installation requirements. Thus, we cooked up an “accessory bundle” (welcome to better names, please help!). So, step two for our price comparison was to configure the “accessory bundle” to follow the example wiring diagram for our internal BMS bundle. Here’s a video of that configuration. 3) Fiddly BitsBetween these two bundles, you’ll have everything you need outside of the “expendables” like lugs, heat shrink, wire management, a few beers, etc. For that, we have this spreadsheet for some recommended stuff that is frankly, too small and fiddly to be in our store. TotalsThe total for those two bundles, at the time we’re writing this post is $5,281. You’re probably going to need about $100 in “fiddly bits” (lugs, heat shrink, wire management, etc.). So, let’s round the grand total up to $5,400. Lower Pricing for Victron Energy EquipmentOne pretty incredible thing to be aware of is that, at the time of this writing (early 2024), Victron Energy has had two consecutive quarterly price reductions across their product catalog. Yes, you read that right… their pricing went down – twice – in six months! Every single other vendor in our store has either held steady or increased prices. But, Victron is a special company that manages their supply chain incredibly well and has decided to pass on the savings they’ve earned with their efficiencies to their customers. Bottom Line on CostThe 5kWh EcoFlow “Independence” Power Kit, at the time of this writing, is selling for around $7,300. So, the Victron-based system would be about $1,900 less expensive which, as we point out earlier, is very likely enough to hire an experienced professional installer to wire up your Victron system to overcome the limitations of the EcoFlow in this post. You’ll also benefit from an additional 2,272 kWh (172Ah) of battery storage with the Victron system which is pretty substantial. What About the Future We fully expect the EcoFlow products to get better over time and we’ll certainly be keeping an eye on them. You never know, perhaps we’ll rekindle the flame one day assuming this honest hot-take doesn’t burn any bridges. We hope not! We’re always looking for the most awesome stuff for camper vans and RVs. So, if new stuff comes to light, we’ll keep ya posted. Interested in 48-Volt Power Systems If so, check out this blog post that details a Victron Energy-based 48-volt secondary alternator electrical system that is truly massive!

Tips for Wiring the AC Terminals on a Victron Energy MultiPlus II

We get a lot of questions from our customers about this, so we’ve made a short video with some basic tips on how to wire up the 120-volt AC terminals (AC input 1, AC output 1) on a Victron Energy MultiPlus II inverter/charger including using ferrules and to NOT use the release button when inserting the wires! Ferrules are inexpensive and help out with most electrical installations. One great place to source them is Ferrules Direct. Here’s a link to the particular ferrules we recommend for the 6 AWG AC out 1 terminals. You would use the 10 AWG gauge version on the AC input terminals. We also have some other recommended tools and terminals you might need in this document.

Warehouse Tour Video

We thought it would be fun to share a little “behind the scenes” footage with our customers so we made this quick warehouse tour video. Sometimes we’re asked if we stock the stuff we sell in the store and the answer is, yes, literally tons of it! Of course, there are some things that are dropshipped but we have hundreds of the very best products for camper van or adventure rigs in stock every day! We’ve done the work of researching (and road testing) the best stuff so you don’t have to. Our catalog of products is carefully curated so you can have confidence you’re getting the best stuff for your van. Learn more here.

48-Volt Secondary Alternator Power System - Massive!

Build Your Own Electrical System Bundle We worked extensively with Victron Energy and Wakespeed to design a system that will work reliably and safely! However, electrical systems are complicated and we recommend that you either have your system installed by a professional or, if you do it yourself, have it inspected by a professional when it’s completed. Please use the information provided at your own risk. Follow this link to gain access to our library of FREE Camper Van Electrical System Wiring Diagrams. Use the PDF files to print/zoom in. After following the link, open the Vanlife Outfitters 48V Secondary Alternator Wiring Diagram for our example wiring corresponding with this blog post. In this blog post, we dive into a massive, 48-volt secondary alternator power system for mobile applications like a camper van or RV using the Nations 48-volt alternator kit, paired with a Wakespeed WS500 regulator and a bunch of Victron Energy components. You can buy all the components necessary in one best price bundle in our store. Update February 2024. We wrapped up the installation before our Peace Love & Vans event in early February 2024 (the one with the epic weather!). The system performed even better than our expectations producing over 5,000 watts of power and sometimes over 6,000 watts at typical “driving RPMS. Also, as expected, it doesn’t do anything at idle. So, this is a system that is amazing for anyone doing some driving – even if it’s just short distances between your campsite and sightseeing/grocery shopping! If you’re planning on using at idle, you should consider the “high idle kits” we discuss in the post! Jump down the results video and installation photos. Update January 2025. Victron has released their NG (new generation) Smart Lithium Batteries including a native 48-volt battery (51.2 nominal voltage). As a result, we’ve slightly redesigned this system to use those batteries instead of using 2x 24-volt batteries in series. The NG batteries have a bunch of new features you can learn about in this video. Please us the diagram link above or for the updated system example wiring diagram. If you’re looking for the older examples you can use the following for the 2-battery and the 4-battery example diagrams. We put a lot of time into developing, testing, and documenting these systems. The resources are all free but we can only afford to do this because folks support our store! A few years ago we introduced our 12-volt secondary alternator power system, along with all the same kind of resources that made installing an advanced power system like that accessible to tons of our customers.  Why a Secondary Alternator? Instead of huge battery banks, we like to focus on huge charging sources and “balancing” our battery bank size with the ability to get it recharged on a regular basis. We see a lot of customers with massive battery banks (think 1,000 amp hours or more) but try to rely on relatively tiny charging sources such as solar and DC-DC chargers. DC-DC charging is generally limited to about 50% of your vehicle’s factory alternator and solar is primarily limited by the small available space on a van roof – particularly when you have other things up there like Maxxfans or air conditioners. It just makes sense that, as you increase your battery storage capacity, you need to increase your charging capabilities. That’s where the secondary alternator comes in. These secondary alternators are designed specifically for high current charging, including external regulation from a device like the Wakespeed WS500 Pro for advanced charging in a way that keeps your batteries happy. That last point is pretty important since your batteries are one of the most expensive parts of your electrical system! The combo of the alternator and regulator is much like having a pretty big generator that is powered by your engine when you drive. It does put a load on the engine but it’s similar to other belt-driven stuff like your van’s air conditioner. Va Va Voltage – 12 vs. 24 vs. 48 Big picture, I think that most people should just stick with 12-volts unless they really need the benefits of a higher voltage system. 12-volts is very reliable and simple considering most “loads” running off a system are 12-volt or powered by an inverter supplying 120 volt AC. Our thoughts on 24 Volt systems have changed over time. You can read about why a 24 Volt system with secondary alternator or 24 Volt system (without secondary alternator) may be right for you. For those looking for massive alternator-based charging power, we still believe that a 48 Volt system is the best option. Take a look at the graphics below that compare Nations 12-volt, 280 amp alternator with the 24-volt, 140 amp alternator and the 48-volt, 100 amp alternator. The 48-volt alternator output is considerably higher which is one of the main reasons to consider a higher voltage system. At higher RPMs, it can produce about 70% more watts than the 12-volt alternator as you can see in the graphics below. So, if you need it, the jump from something like 3000 watts to something like 5000 watts of charging may be compelling enough to pay more for and deal with the extra complexity and other caveats (detailed below). In addition, the other advantages of a 24-volt system, like smaller wires, higher efficiency, and less heat are doubled with a 48-volt system. Native 48-Volt Loads – Air Conditioner Another advantage of a 48-volt system is the ability to run loads that are native to 48-volts like the impressive Nomadic Cooling X3 unit that we’ll be putting into our 48-volt test vehicle. Stay tuned for more blogs and videos about that! It’s the most powerful DC unit on the market and also very quiet and energy efficient – particularly compared to older, 120-volt AC rooftop options. The Benefit: Super Fast RechargingAs an example, let’s say you’re camping off-grid down here in Florida in the summer so you run your 48-volt air conditioner all night long and maybe have a fan running plus your refrigerator and other smaller loads. You might wake up in the morning, take a look at your Touch 50 screen connected to your Cerbo device, and see that the battery state of charge (SOC) of your batteries might be 60% or maybe even 50% meaning you’ve used something like 80 or 100 amp hours of stored power from your battery bank. Keep in mind that in this in this hypothetical story, you using one of the highest draw appliances – air conditioning – in a sort of worst-case scenario of Florida in the summertime. In other scenarios, you might use far less. With this 48-volt secondary alternator system, charging at around 100 amps, you would only need to drive for about 45 minutes to completely restore the power you used! Take a little drive to get some groceries. Maybe a little less if it was a sunny day and your solar panels were pitching in. Incidentally, if you use one of our Isotemp water heaters, connected to your van’s coolant lines, you’d also produce hot water for the next day or so with no additional power use. You see, we like the make use of the vehicle we’re driving around anyway! Let’s contrast that to using “just” the solar panels. In pretty much perfect conditions, the 4x, 200-watt solar panels shown in our example wiring diagram for this system might produce something like 12-14 amps so you’re looking at over 6 hours of sitting in the sun to accomplish the same thing as the grocery run and there are plenty of times you either don’t have sun or don’t want to park in it! Also, it can be quite difficult to fit so many panels on a roof of a van if you also want Maxxfans, air conditioning, etc. Surprising Cost ComparisonAt the time we’re publishing this blog post (prices change, y’all), the best price product bundle for our example 48-volt power system with 200 amp hours of battery storage at a nominal 51.2 volts (10,240 watt hours) configured with the 150/35 charge controller is “only” about $1,500 more expensive than the equivalent (same battery storage) 12-volt secondary alternator system. Caveats and Safety Currently, 48-volt alternators – of all makes/brands – have lower charging output at idle compared to their 12/24-volt counterparts. I’m sure this is being worked on and hopefully, it will improve over time but, for now, this isn’t ideal. 48-volts is high voltage and, as such, requires a lot more skill and care to be installed correctly for a safe system. If you’re going to install a 48-volt system you really need to know what you’re doing because the consequences of mistakes are much higher than a 12-volt system. In particular, “load dumps” can be catastrophic in a 48-volt system. A load dump is when the alternator is charging and there is a sudden, unplanned disconnect between the charging output and the batteries absorbing the current such as a short circuit, blown fuse, or a disconnect switch being turned off thus causing a voltage spike. High-quality 12/24-volt charging alternators, like the ones from Nations, have “avalanche diodes” that are designed to suppress the voltage spikes to something like 32 volts which, while high, isn’t likely to destroy your system components. However, 48-volt alternators don’t have this feature which means that a load dump can result in a 400+ volt spike which is extremely dangerous and will certainly destroy your system. Super duper bad. It’s much harder to find components that are rated for 48-volt systems – so many of the things that are normally used in 12-volt systems have a max rating of 32-volts or even 48-volts. In our 48-volt system, we’re going to see the battery bank voltage somewhere between 51 and 57-volts depending on the state of charge. We’ve made this easier for our customers. In our example system (see wiring diagram at the top of this page), all the components are rated for 58-volts or higher. Also, we have an entire section of our store that is now dedicated to this higher voltage world of 48! A 48-volt power system allows you to really scale up your solar system if you have the space for it (let’s say on a skoolie build with a large roof) since the current produced at the same wattage is much lower. But, you also need to be sure that your solar panel array(s) are running at high enough voltage to charge the batteries. Victron Energy solar charge controllers require that the input voltage from your panels (PV input voltage) is at least 5 volts higher than the battery bank voltage. Most solar panels we see our customers output something around 20 volts in optimal conditions and less in suboptimal conditions (cloudy, dusk, dirty panels, etc.). Therefore in a 12-volt system, it’s pretty easy to have the PV input voltage above the battery voltage. In a 48-volt system, you’ll need to be sure to wire enough panels in series (or series, parallel) to get the input voltage up to at least 5 volts greater than the battery voltage. Aiming for the higher end of the solar controller rating is a good idea so that you get some charging from solar, even in suboptimal conditions. In our example system, we show 2x sets of 2x panels in series that are then wired in parallel for something around 110-113 volts coming into the Victron Energy 150/35 solar charge controller.   System Overview If you download the wiring diagram as a PDF (link at top of the post), you can zoom in/out to see all the details presented there. In addition to the Nations/Wakespeed combo, this example system is full of brilliant blue boxes from Victron Energy!  We offer the system with 2x (or more) Victron 100 amp hour, 48-volt (51.2 nominal voltage) Smart Lithium NG batteries wired in parallel using the Victron Lynx Class-T Power In (M10). That is roughly equivalent to an 800 amp hour battery bank at 12-volts. These are “external-BMS” batteries which means that the Battery Management System is not inside each battery like many lithium batteries such as Battleborn or SOK, etc. Instead, this system uses the Lynx Smart BMS NG for both batteries (or more if you were to add additional in the future). The Lynx Smart BMS is a combination of a BMS, a system-wide battery monitoring shunt/monitor, and a giant disconnect switch (more on that later) that is integrated into the Lynx system from Victron including the single Lynx Distributor (M10) we have in this system. You can read more about internal vs. external BMS batteries in this post. The rest of the system is fairly typical for a van/RV/mobile power system (MultiPlus inverter/charger, solar controller, etc.) except that things are running at 48-volt instead of a more traditional 12-volt. We also need a pair of Orion 48/12/30 DC-DC converters running in parallel to convert the 48-volts DC to 12-volts DC to supply power to all the normal 12-volt stuff (lights, refrigerator, etc.). Battery Notes The example system and best price product bundle use 2x (or more) Victron 100 amp hour, 48-volt (51.2 nominal voltage) Smart Lithium NG batteries. When it comes to batteries, most people are pretty focused and familiar with two key specifications: voltage (48-volts in this case) and the storage capacity, typically expressed in amp hours (100Ah per battery in this case resulting in 200+ amp hours when wired into a bank in parallel). The other key specifications are the “recommended charge current” (≤100A for these batteries) and the “recommended discharge current” (≤100 amps for these batteries). Those last two are basically how quickly you can refill the batteries when charging or how quickly you can discharge them for your loads. If your chargers or loads are higher than those ratings, you can damage the batteries or create excessive heat. External BMS batteries like these typically have much better specifications since, often, an internal BMS is the limiting factor. You can see all the specifications of the batteries here. So, if there is any limitation at all in the example system, which is a strange thing to write in the context of this massive beast of a power system, it’s that you might find yourself in a rare and unusual situation where the combination of your off-grid charging sources (secondary alternator and solar) may actually exceed the recommended charge current rating of the battery bank. In the example system (with two batteries), this is 200 amps (100 amps per battery) which at the nominal voltage of 51.2 volts is 10,240 watts! So, that’s a lot of juice for being a “limitation”. Another great feature of this system is that it will automatically coordinate the maximum allowed charging current across all the charging sources using something called DVCC (Distributed Voltage and Current Control). This is possible because every charger in this system has digital connectivity to the Cerbo GX (Wakespeed regulating the Nations alternator via VE.Can, solar charge controller via VE.Direct and the MultiPlus inverter/charger via VE.Bus) and the Cerbo GX is communicating with the BMS and its current monitoring shunt via VE.Can as well. In the Cerbo GX we can set a “maximum charge current” and have it intelligently manage this for us. So, in those “perfect” conditions you’re going to keep the batteries happy but in some cases, forfeit some of potential power available at that moment by throttling down one or more charging source. Below is this setting in the Cerbo GX (Menu -> Settings -> DVCC). Since you have plenty of “headroom” on the maximum charge current, it’s even possible to charge from the standard, vehicle alternator with this 12-volt to 48-volt battery to battery (DC-DC charger) from Sterling Power that could be added to the system so that you could charge from BOTH your Nations secondary alternator as well as your factory vehicle/alternator or use that unit as a sort of backup. Victron recommends that you update the firmware of new batteries (using VictronConnect and Bluetooth) and pre-charge your batteries individually before wiring them up into a system. Full details in the manual. And, if you’re wondering, you don’t feel like you’re getting shocked if you touch the 48-volt terminals of the battery. Here I am demonstrating this and I feel fine 🙂 But, Where Is The Main Disconnect? Missing the bulky red disconnect/battery switch you’re probably used to seeing bolted onto a Lynx Distributor? This system uses the Victron Energy Lynx Smart BMS NG which has one of those massive switches built into it. It’s a 500 amp rated “contactor” that can open or close to act as a switch being “on” or “off” respectively. As the name suggests, it’s also the BMS (Battery Management System) for our Victron Smart Batteries so, if the batteries are distressed (too hot, too cold, over or under voltage), they can trigger this contactor to “open” which will electrically disconnect all the “loads and chargers” connected downstream from the Lynx Smart BMS electrically. Finally, there is also a battery monitoring shunt inside the Lynx Smart BMS that communicates with the Cerbo GX to show the same kind of battery status information that the popular BMV-712 does. All this in one single box! But that’s not all! If you look closely at the example wiring diagram, you’ll see that we have a toggle switch wired into the “remote” terminals on the Lynx Smart BMS. This allows you to open/close the contactor (turn off/on the system) with that switch in the same way you would a big, bulky main disconnect switch with one HUGE advantage. Anytime the contactor in the Lynx Smart BMS is about to open – whether triggered by the batteries to protect themselves – or by you manually – the BMS will communicate this to the Wakespeed WS500 regulator before this happens so that the alternator can stop producing charging current thus preventing an extremely dangerous voltage spike that would occur if someone flipped off a manual disconnect switch while the alternator was charging! More about so-called “load dumps” earlier in this post. Field Drive in 48-Volt Alternator Systems First, what is the field drive? It’s the wire that supplies voltage to the alternator’s rotating field coil. In this example system, it’s the blue wire on the Wakespeed wiring harness “alternator leg”. You can think of the field drive as the sort of gas pedal – the more field voltage, the more current the alternator will produce. If you want to dive deeper into how alternators work, this is a pretty good video. We often get asked if you can install a secondary alternator onto an engine before you finish the rest of the electrical system and wire it up to that system. The answer is yes! Even though the alternator will be spinning after the mechanical installation, it won’t be producing any current until the Wakespeed regulator gets installed and provides the field voltage to the alternator. In 12-volt and 24-volt systems it’s common for the “field” to be specified to operate at the same voltage as the connected battery. This is not always the case with 48-volt alternators. In fact, many 48-volt alternators, the field is actually specified at 12-volt. In such cases, there are a couple of ways the Wakespeed WS500 can be deployed. This is what we recommend… Apply a derate value using the $SCA command when configuring your Wakespeed. The $SCA command has three ‘”derate” values which can be set to “normal”, “small alt”, and “half-power”. These are typically used to reduce the output of an alternator to account for system cooling concerns and prevent overheating and/or to reduce the load on the driving engine. But they can also be used to effectively reduce the “field voltage” from 48-volt to allow direct driving of a 12-volt field alternator even when the red, power supply wire on the Wakespeed harness (ALT+) is attached to a 48-volt battery system. To do this simply start with a “normal’ derate value of 0.25 (25%) which will reduce the average field voltage to an acceptable operation range. Due to the prevalence of 12-volt fields in 48-volt alternators, beginning with version 2.5.0 of the Wakespeed firmware, it will default to this 25% derate values if those have not been explicitly defined using the $SCO command detailed above. If your alternator has a true 48-volt field (the Nations alternator we show in this example system uses a 12-volt field), you will want to explicitly issue a $SCO command to restore the 100% field drive (r max field drive is otherwise appropriate). Connect the red, power supply wire on the Wakespeed harness (ALT+) to a 12-volt source such as the vehicle battery. Importantly, if you take this approach, you need to be sure to wire the red/yellow wire (VBAT+) from the Wakespeed harness to the 48-volt battery for proper voltage sensing. This does not work with the “van harness” which is a simplified version of the “standard” Wakespeed harness that does not include the VBAT+ wire. Circuit Protection In our example wiring diagram (zoom in on the PDF), we’re using the Lynx Smart BMS with a Lynx Distributor downstream as the main bus bar. From left to right, we show the following connections and fusing: 125A (80V) mega fuse for the Nations alternator charging output 125A (80V) mega fuse for the MultiPlus inverter/charger 80A (80V) mega fuse to feed the Littelfuse secondary bus bar that accepts lower current rated, MIDI fuses (see below) 60A (80V) mega fuse for the charging output of the solar charge controller. Note that this fuse size is larger than it needs to be (max of 35 amps from the charge controller multiplied by 1.25 (25% additional) is around 44 amps. However, the 10 AWG wire we show can accept 60 amps at 48-volts, so we can have this additional headroom. Remember that circuit protection is to ensure your wires are not exceeding their maximum ampacity. The example wiring diagram uses a very compact, Littelfuse bus bar with MIDI fuses. as a secondary bus bar. It’s kind of like a miniature Lynx Distributor in the sense that it combines a bus bar with fusing. However, it does not have a negative bus bar so any required negative wiring is run to the main bus bar (Lynx Distributor). Ideally, you keep your wire lengths for the positive and negative wires close to the same lengths. There are the following three connection points inside the secondary bus bar. 30A (58V) MIDI fuse for one of the two Orion 48/12/30 converters. Similar to the 60 amp fuse above, this is larger than the load requires but the lowest amp-rated MIDI fuse from Victron. The Orions will pull about 6-8 amps to create the 360 watts at 12 volts. But, here again, the 10 AWG wire is more than capable of carrying up to 60 amps if there was something like a short circuit. 30A (58V) MIDI fuse for the second of the two Orion 48/12/30 converters 50A (58V) MIDI fuse for an additional 48-volt appliance such as an air conditioner. In our example, we’d be using a Nomadic Cooling X3 which calls for a 50 amp fuse (see specifications chart). Configuration With everything wired up, let’s dive into configuring the system! Given the nature of this post, we’re only going to focus on the configuration steps for enabling the secondary alternator and Wakespeed regulator. One awesome feature of this system provided with the Lynx Smart BMS is that the charge profile for the other Victron Energy chargers in our example system (MultiPlus inverter/charger and solar charge controller) is managed intelligently by the Cerbo GX using DVCC. This is possible because all of these devices are “talking” to each other digitally through the Cerbo GX. If you want to learn more about this DVCC magic you can read this section of the Cerbo GX manual. One benefit of this is that it’s quite easy to configure the system for charging. But, If your system has other chargers/devices that don’t have a data connection on them (no VE.Bus, VE.Direct, VE.Can, etc.), such as an older (pre-Orion XS) Orion DC-DC charger, and therefore cannot be managed by DVCC, you’ll have to configure that device the “old fashioned” way with VictronConnect which is beyond the scope of this post. We also won’t discuss all the setup possibilities of the Cerbo GX – you can check out this other post about that. Instead, we’ll only focus on what’s necessary to make it work with the Wakespeed regulator. However, we’ll be dedicating another post to the Cerbo GX including connecting it to VRM so “stay tuned” for that, or consider signing up for our email newsletter which is available at the bottom of all of our pages. Victron Lynx Smart BMS Configuration with Victron ConnectRemember that any Victron product with the word Smart in the name means that you can configure, monitor, and control it via Bluetooth using the VictronConnect app. So, if you haven’t done so already, you’ll want to install VictronConnect. Links to download the app are available for iOS, Android, Windows, or MacOS on the VictronConnect page. Most folks find the app simple to use but you can read through the manual if you need it. To use it, you’ll need Bluetooth enabled on your mobile device or computer so that it can communicate with the various Victron products. Once you open the app, you’ll see a list of all the Victron products that are within Bluetooth range -all with their factory default names. You can easily rename each device to make it unique to your install if you’d like. To configure (or monitor/control) a device simply click on its name from the list in VictronConnect. The first time you connect you’ll be asked to pair with that device. The default pairing PIN is 000000. We recommend you change the PIN on all your devices so that other users of VictronConnect don’t mess with your system! Keep in mind that if you find yourself in a place with other camper vans/RVs that have Victron components you might see a bunch of other devices listed in VictronConnect – basically anything that’s within Bluetooth range. By the way, if you don’t have any of this equipment yet but are curious how it all works, you can actually use VictronConnect with “virtual” (demo) devices. In other words, you can go through the settings and screens available in VictronConnect for any Victron Smart product by using the demo library available in VictronConnect. This is a great feature to use when planning a system. Let’s start with the Lynx Smart BMS NG. Connect to this device in VictronConnect. The first screen you’ll see is the “status” tab that displays the same kind of information as other battery monitors from Victron including the calculated state of charge (SOC) as a percentage and if you scroll down, a bunch of other information about the battery including voltage, current, etc. Below is a screenshot of this screen. Since the Lynx BMS is configured for 12-volt batteries by default, the first thing you’ll notice is an error reading “battery voltage not allowed”. You are likely to be prompted for a firmware update as well. If so, proceed with that firmware upgrade. Next, enter the settings of the Lynx Smart BMS NG by tapping on the “gear icon” in the very top right part of the screen. Here you’ll want to change the system voltage to 48 and tell the BMS about your batteries. In our base system with the 2x, 100Ah batteries in parallel you would enter 2x for batteries and 200 amp hours for campacity. You’ll also want to change the “relay mode” setting to “alternator ATC”. This is how the “white wire” (feature in wire) that we wired from the Wakespeed harness into terminal #9 on the multi-connector of the Lynx SmartBMS is interpreted by the BMS. It enables the ATC (allow to charge) relay to disable charging from the Wakespeed/Nations if the battery triggers that state. Note: if you’ve ever configured another Victron Energy battery monitor such as the BMV-712 or SmartShunt you may notice that the settings presented here are different and, in some ways, more simple than you’d see on the other products. That’s because, in this example system, you can literally only use one single type of battery – a Victron Smart lithium battery. The batteries may have different capacities (200 vs. 300Ah, etc.) but they are the same baseline so many of the settings about the battery that you have to change/set in other systems are already known/assumed in this case. Wakespeed WS500 ConfigurationIf you buy your Wakespeed regulator from us as part of our best price product bundle for this system it will ship pre-configured based on the information we collect when you add the stuff to your cart. However, configuring a Wakespeed WS500 regulator is pretty simple when using the Wakespeed Android app – particularly with the latest Wakespeed Pro that we stock that has a Bluetooth connection.   Configuring the Orion 48/12/30 DC-DC ConvertersThese are the devices that convert the 48-volt system voltage to 12-volts for your main DC load center for your common 12-volt stuff like lights, fans, appliances, etc. They are not “Smart” so there is no Bluetooth connection for configuration/monitoring. But they’re quite simple devices. All you’re going to do with these is get a tiny screwdriver and turn the potentiometer (how often do you get to use that word!) to adjust the output voltage (-15% to +25% of the default output voltage). Turn counterclockwise to decrease the output voltage. Turn clockwise to increase the output voltage. In our system, we’re setting this to right around 13.5 volts which is a typical “float voltage” in a 12-volt system. Charts! Nations Alternator Charging Output Comparisons (12V / 24 / 48V)Click On Images To Open Larger Other Recommend Reading/Resources This video details every connection on the Wakespeed WS500 van harness. There is a lot of relevant additional information in our blog post about the 12-volt version of this system that we didn’t want to repeat here. We’ve always used the Blue Sea Circuit Wizard for sizing wires in 12-volts but it doesn’t work for 48-volt systems. However, we found this 48-volt wire size calculator to be very useful. There are quite a few configuration options.  Blog post about configuring a Cerbo GX and Lynx Shunt for battery monitoring. If you have a Sprinter and want to remotely start it at a specified battery state of charge (SOC) and/or have it idle up to produce more RPMs/alternator charging current check out this kit from Mid City Engineering. A quick note on Mercedes Sprinter N62 bracket: The general consensus (Nations, our installers, reports from the internet) is that the 3-belt system that is used by Nations in their kits for Sprinters without the N62 “factory secondary alternator bracket” are better than the N62 version. In fact, we’ve heard of reports from Nations that some people who paid at the dealership for the N62 bracket have taken it off in favor of the 3-belt option. Installation Photos and Testing Results Note, these tests were were done with the older/original configuration of this system using 2x, 24-volt batteries wired in series as we detail at the beginning of this blog post. However, what we’re testing is really the performance of the Nations alternator with the Wakespeed regulator which will be the same with the newer, 48-volt Smart Lithium NG batteries.  

Video Tour of the Isotherm Freeline 140 Refrigerator / Freezer

Check out our quick video tour of the relatively new Isotherm Freeline 140 refrigerator/freezer. This unique refrigerator/freezer has been designed specifically by Isotherm for the “RV market”. With its tall but slim dimensions, it is particularly suitable for compact vehicles that want a spacious fridge. Its excellent insulation ensures very low energy consumption to save batteries. It also features a “door block system” which allows the door to stay partially open when it is not used (in storage, etc.) in order to prevent the creation of mold and smell in the fridge.

Installing the Mabru 12-Volt Rooftop Air Conditioner in Your Camper Van

Introduction Well, it’s summer in Florida, so what better time to dive into the world of air conditioning for your van? In this blog post, we’re going to take an in-depth look at installing the Mabru 12000 BTU rooftop, 12-volt DC air conditioner. We chose this unit for its quiet operation, energy efficiency, and overall value. I have one in my personal van, and it keeps me cool even in the Sunshine State’s scorching heat. We’ll also discuss how to modify the unit to fit a standard 14-inch by 14-inch hole, just as I did in my own van. You can find this unit for sale in our store, and as always, you’ll discover a wealth of information on our website at vanlifeoutfitters.com, including a handy spreadsheet comparing various 12-volt rooftop AC units on the market. Before we dive into the installation process, let’s first discuss the tools and materials you’ll need Jigsaw (or your preferred tool for cutting the roof opening) Metric socket set/wrench ½” drill bit and a step bit Caulking gun and sealant (we recommend Loctite Marine PL or similar) Small zip ties Plastic bag or plastic sheeting File Rustoleum paint (or similar) to protect bare metal “Solar entry gland” for passing the wiring harness into the van roof (and grommet) Roof adapter, butyl tape, or PVC shims (if needed to fill in roof corrugations) Lap sealant (such as Dicor, if needed) Let’s start by unpacking the contents of the Mabru AC unit’s box and understanding what you’ll use and what you might not need Paper roof-cutting template Manual (though we’ll provide you with a more detailed guide) Bag with 15mm nuts and LED lights (for fastening the unit with brackets and optional interior lighting) 6x mounting bracket pieces (for unit installation) Bag with the remote control and wires for optional LED lights Bag with rubber spacers (not used in standard installation), large black screws (for flanges on installation brackets), wire ties and mounts (for wiring harness routing) Plastic “L-bracket” things (not used in standard installation) The Mabru AC unit itself Note that the video shows some hoses at around 29 seconds. These are no longer included. They were for routing the condensation from the base plate to somewhere else – perhaps to use that water for another purpose. You can see the “ports” on the baseplate where the condensation drains onto the roof where those hoses, or something equivalent could be connected. Turns out no customers used them so they omitted them from the box. The video below shows all the items in the box in the same order as the list below… Finding the serial number Before we dive into the installation, it’s wise to locate and make a note of the unit’s serial number for future support or repair needs.  Starting in the summer of 2024, the serial number for the units is located inside the RV cover. Prior to that it had been in a different spots including behind the interior vent panel inside the return air compartment (example photo). On newer versions, you can also find the serial number inside the remote battery cover as shown in the photo.  Step 1: Finding a suitable location & cut opening Begin by finding a suitable location for the AC unit on your roof. We’re often asked if it’s better to have the AC in the front of the van or the rear of the van and this really comes down to personal preference. For me, I prefer to have a Maxxfan over my bed area in the rear of the van because I actually use it more often and I also don’t like having cool air from an AC blowing directly on me. Others want their bed area to be the coolest part of the interior space so they may prefer to have it located in the rear. The other consideration is to look for a “bay” between the support ribs of the van roof that is wide enough for the unit to drop into but not too wide such that the support brackets that must span between the ribs would be too short. Once you’ve identified the placement you must transfer that to the exterior. There are many ways to do this but many installers will use a small drill bit to make a pilot hole from the interior that marks one of the 14 x 14 opening corners. By doing this from the inside and then using the paper template on the outside, lined up with the corresponding corner on the template, you can have confidence where you cut your roof opening. Preparing the roof opening You can install the unit into a standard 14” x 14” roof opening or the Mabru’s native size of 14.62″ long x 20.125″ wide. The unit comes with a paper template that includes both roof opening sizes and bolt-hole location. The easiest method uses the native opening size (no modifications), but we’ll guide you through modifying it for a standard 14” x 14” hole. Cut the template and use it to mark your roof opening, ensuring precise measurements. To use the paper template, cut out the opening with a razor blade or scissors. In this case, for the 14” opening, we’ll be cutting along the dotted line. Some installers prefer to transfer the template to plywood for a more rigid template. Prep pro tips: tape plastic underneath to catch metal shavings and use a large piece of plywood with a blanket underneath to distribute weight on the roof which will prevent indentation. It’s also very helpful to tape the area of the sheet metal that will be cut out to help stabilize it and prevent it from falling through and shearing during the cut. You might even stop periodically during the cut to re-tape areas. Cut the main roof opening AND drill the 4x mounting bolt locations with a ½” drill bit. If you’re using a jigsaw with a metal blade, you can expand the pilot hole you might have made earlier when locating the installation area, or you can drill a new pilot hole in one corner, inside the cut-out line that is wide enough for your saw blade and then drill another hole opposite the first. Most installers are using either a jigsaw or metal cut-off disc on an angle grinder.  File the edges, clean the area, and apply rust-prevention paint to all bare metal. Installation using a “standard” 14″ x 14″ roof opening The photo shows the unit turned upside down with the baseplate facing up. The area with the blue painter’s tape indicates how the unit would drop in over a standard, 14” x 14” roof opening. You can see that the area for the cold air outlets (larger, upper rectangular hole) and return air (lower, smaller, 2x, rectangular openings) fits comfortably within this space. However, the interior panel/vents are wider than 14″ (about 18″ wide) which you can see in the image below. So, if you want to install the unit into a standard opening size, you’ll have to do some basic modifications. Since most of our customers want to use the 14″ x 14″ (standard size) roof opening, this is the process we will detail in the rest of the post. Step 2: Installing the Gasket and Sealing Place the gasket around your roof opening (and bolt holes), ensuring it forms a rectangle. You’ll want to place the rubber gasket around your openings. It ships flattened. Start by stretching the two sides apart from each other to begin reshaping it into a rectangle (video of this process below). One side has an adhesive below a protection tape and the other side does not. We place the side with the adhesive down onto the sheet metal of the van so that it will stay positioned while we seal it. The gasket should form a rectangle around the perimeter of your roof openings – both the bolt locations and the 14” opening (see photo below). It can be difficult to get the gasket reshaped and positioned correctly but it is possible with enough care and time.  For van models with a prominent roof curve (IE Ford Transit), You may need to cut the gasket so that it fits snugly around the outer bolt holes.  See photo below. Later in the installation process, the AC unit will be placed on top of this gasket and eventually bolted down such that the gasket will compress to create a waterproof seal. So, it’s important that all the bolt holes are inside the perimeter of the gasket. We recommend using a marine sealant such as Loctite PL Marine or 3M 5200 around the inner and outer perimeters of the gasket. Fill in any roof corrugations if needed and apply marine sealant around the inner and outer perimeters of the gasket. If your roof has corrugations where the gasket is positioned, you’ll want to fill these in before placing the gasket. There are a number of methods to accomplish this. DIYVans in Oregon sells very nice adapters, you can fill in the valleys with layers of butyl tape or buy/cut PVC adapters like we sell for a Promaster van. If you use butyl tape or PVC adapters be sure to follow up with a generous layer of Dicor lap sealant. Video of shaping the gasket into a rectangle Step 3: Mounting the unit onto the roof Lift the AC unit onto the roof with help (2-3 people). Typically it’s best to leave the unit in the box while lifting. We use a forklift which works great but not everyone has that luxury. Scaffolding also works well. Two people on ladders is tricky but it gets the job done. Once it’s on the roof, you can carefully unbox it and turn it upside down on the roof such that the exterior shroud/cover is on the van roof and the interior panel/vents are facing up. Since we’re installing this into the “smaller”, 14″ roof opening, you’ll need to remove the interior panel/vents and styrofoam air director to be able to place the unit through the opening. Start by removing the 4x, 10mm nuts that attach the interior panel/vents to the unit then you can lift it off. As you do, find where the wiring harness is attached to the baseplate of the AC along with a temperature sensor and carefully cut this wire tie to release the wires. Once the wires are released the interior panel/vent should lift off completely. Next, remove the styrofoam air director that is below. This will need to be modified later, so you can set it aside for later in the installation. With everything ready, you can now place the AC unit over the gasket/opening and bolt it down using the metal mounting brackets. We recommend that you recruit a few extra people to help you with this step. It works best with two people on the roof positioning the AC unit into the right place with another person inside the van holding the interior panel/vents that need to be passed through the opening and managed safely while the rest of the unit is positioned, otherwise, it will sort of dangle and can be damaged. The inside person can also guide the folks on the roof on positioning since the most difficult part of the process is getting the bolt holes lined up correctly so the unit can drop into place. If necessary, you can expand the ½” bolt holes with a step bit to make the 4x bolts line up for dropping into place. Be cautious not to over-tighten, and consider attaching the brackets to the roof supports. Step 4: routing the wiring harness There is an approximately 11-foot piece of wiring harness that comes off the unit itself that is terminated with a grey, Anderson connector (photo below) and there is another section of the wiring harness that is also approximately 11 feet included in the kit that has a pairing Anderson connection to extend the wire from the unit to your 12 volt DC bus bar. The wiring harness is two 6 AWG wires, one red for the positive DC supply and the other black for the negative. The positive wire includes an inline, 80 amp fuse to protect the circuit. Since the Mabru uses around 55 amps on max, it’s too high a draw to wire to a typical DC fuse panel/load center. So, many installers will connect the wires to the “right side” of a Lynx Distributor that is designed to attach to another Lynx Distributor to expand the connections available. You don’t need to use a fused terminal on the distributor because of the fuse provided on the wiring harness. Begin the wiring harness routing by deciding on the location for your solar entry gland that will provide a waterproof path for the wiring harness through the roof to wherever your electrical system is located. We recommend locating the entry gland behind the unit as closely as possible while avoiding any structural supports or other obstacles inside the van. After you drill the hole for the wires, that the entry gland will “cover” we recommend using a rubber grommet to protect the wires from the sheet metal, and don’t forget to file and paint this exposed metal as well. Also be sure to fasten the gland to the roof and seal it with a lap sealant like Dicor. You’ll also want to make sure the wires are protected by wire loom and any length of wire secured to the roof. Self-adhesive cable tie mounts work well for this purpose. Next, you’ll have to choose how you want to get the wiring harness through the hole you created. The tricky part of this routing is that the Anderson connection at the end of the section of the wiring harness (photo below) prevents you from being able to route the black and red wires through the “glands” on the solar entry since they cannot be separated. There are a few ways to manage this.\ Option one is to remove the wires from the Anderson connection temporarily to get them through the entry gland and then put them back. You can do this by opening up the connector with small screw driver. Option two  is to cut off the Anderson connector about 6” from the end with the connector of the wiring harness section that comes off the Mabru unit, separate the wires to get through the entry gland, and then splice it back on using 6 AWG butt connectors and heat shrink. Option three is to remove the exterior shroud/cover from the Mabru unit to locate where the DC supply wires connect to the unit itself on the left side (driver side) and disconnect these wires. This allows you to separate a section of the red and black wires to route through the entry gland and then you can reconnect the wires to the terminals on the AC. Below is a photo of these connections. With the AC unit mounted on the roof and the wires routed to the interior, we can move on to the interior installation! Woot! Step 5: Interior Installation Assemble the supplied mounting brackets and secure the AC unit to the vehicle. The brackets come in 6x pieces that will be assembled into 2x separate bracket assemblies – one for the passenger side and the other for the driver side. The bracket pieces are painted black but they often get a little dinged up in transport. However, they are stainless steel and, in most cases will be hidden away in your ceiling, so there is no need to be concerned about any small dings. You’ll take one “middle” section and pair it with two “extensions” (photo below). The “middles” do not have “flanges” on the end and the “extensions” do. Place a middle flat on a surface with the C-channel facing down and the bolt holes facing up then grab an extension and turn it so that this channel is facing up and the flange is on the flat surface. Then slide the extension into one end of the middle. Do the same on the other side of the middle. Now you have a bracket that can expand from both the front and rear to the length needed to span between the structural supports that form the front and rear of the “bay” you installed the AC into on the van roof.  The maximum span is about 30” from front to back when the extensions are fully extended. Below is a video of this process. Worth at least a few thousand words. Assembling the Mabru installation brackets Once you’ve assembled both brackets, using all 6x pieces, you can install them onto the passenger and driver side, over the mounting bolts from the AC unit that are now hanging down into your van. The holes in the brackets should line up with the bolts and you want the flanges on the end of each extension to press firmly against the van supports. If there isn’t a factory support structure where your bracket flanges land, you will have to install your own support with adequately sized metal or wood that is attached to the vehicle roof with something like a heavy-duty construction adhesive. The brackets are held in place with the supplied, 15mm nuts. You’ll want to tighten each of the 4x nuts in a rotating fashion – moving from one nut to the next in circulation so that you can create even pressure around the gasket. You want to make sure that the gasket (on the roof between the AC unit and the roof of the vehicle) shows some compression. Don’t exceed more than 15 newton meters of torque. Once torqued down you can choose to use the provided, black screws to attach the “flange” part of the brackets to the roof supports if you’d like. We don’t typically do this since the system is so tightly installed. Reshaping the styrofoam air director to fit your desired ceiling height and fit the 14”x14” hole Pause for a minute to take a look at the interior of the AC at this stage. On the baseplate, there is a thin layer of foam. In the front part, there are two rectangular openings. This is where the cooled air comes out. To the rear of that is one larger rectangular opening. That is where air is pulled into the unit from the interior of the van to be cooled. See the image below.   The function of the styrofoam air director is to, you guessed it, direct the cooled air to the vents. You can see that the shape of the foam is the same as the vents on the interior panel.  If you were installing into the Mabru’s native (larger) roof opening size, the styrofoam air director does not need to be modified since the opening would be large enough for it to press against the baseplate with no modifications.  But, if you look at the 14” opening install, the air director is wider than the roof opening and where it passes the area where the Mabru base plate is visible you can see that the metal roof of the van is “lower “. Since it’s no longer one flat plane, we have to essentially reshape the air director so there is a notch on the driver and passenger sides. We’ve tried a number of tools for this and a serrated knife or a hack saw blade, removed from the saw, seems to work the best. You can hold up the air director inside the van in the area where it is installed – lined up with the bolt locations with the air vents facing forward and mark where the notches need to be cut. Below are some images of this process. Click on any image to open it larger. Once you have the notch cut, you can consider another modification: Depending on how deep your interior ceiling will be – which is normally a combination of the van’s metal supports, furring strips, and ceiling material if you want the interior panel/vents to be as high as possible so that it doesn’t come down into the living space as much, you can shorten the foam air director to the height that you need. This is optional. One additional tip on all this surgery: if your modifications are a little sloppy you can use foam tape lon the cut portions so that, when the air director is installed into place and the interior panel/vents are installed, it will be pressed up against the baseplate/van metal and the foam will compress to fill any small gaps. This is important because you want as good of a seal between the air director and the baseplate on the AC so that cooled air doesn’t leak into the ceiling cavity or anywhere else it’s not cooling your rig. Putting it all back together With the foam director reshaped, you can now reassemble it with the interior panel/vents. You want to re-attach the wiring harness and temp sensor to where it was wire-tied before. The temp sensor needs to be in that location, directly adjacent to the air return to sense the temperature of the air inside the van. This is how the thermostat on the unit works. Now you can re-install the interior panel/vents by sliding it over the 4x bolt locations and re-attaching the 10mm nuts to secure it into place. Note that there are two sets of bolts for the interior panel/vents, you can raise or lower the lower bolt to set the correct height of the interior unit if you’ve cut down the styrofoam air director. Return air: ensure proper venting for return air to avoid cycling issuesWhen the unit is running you can use the various vents to direct the cooled air. One thing to keep in mind is that you don’t want to create a situation where the cooled air is going “directly” into the return air vent(s) such as pointing the cool air vents directly at the return area. If you do that, the thermostat will interpret this cool air coming from the AC unit as the “interior air temperature” causing the AC unit to cycle the compressor on and off too rapidly. Instead, you want the return air to be more representative of the actual ambient air temp inside the living space. Some customers prefer to make their own return air grille.  The return air trim ring that comes with the Mabru is unnecessarily large and unattractive.   Directly below are some photos of what some of our customers have done. Note, the return air grille should be at least as big as the return air opening on the baseplate of the unit itself, if not a little larger.  Finish wiringAt this point you’re ready to finish routing the wiring harness to your 12-volt DC supply – often the right side of a Lynx Distributor or other bus bar connection. Powering on, testing, and tips Now you can turn it on for the first time and ensure that it’s working! In our testing, with a laser thermometer, we normally see between 25-30 degrees F delta between the temperature of the air coming into the unit and the cooled air coming out after a few minutes of operation on “max” mode. When it’s really hot inside, this might look like 90 degrees inside the van and 65 or 70 degrees of cooled air coming out of the unit. Over time, as the interior temperature goes down from the cooling effect of operating the AC, the cooled air will get increasingly cooler. On very hot days, we recommend pre-cooling your van as you drive by running your vehicle air conditioner as powerfully as you can AND running the Mabru unit on high. The initial cooldown of the living space takes much more cooling/energy than maintaining the temperature. In many camper vans or RVs the house battery bank, that is powering the Mabru unit will be charging from the vehicle alternator while driving and some of that energy can power the AC unit without discharging the battery as much. Then, when you arrive at your destination a pre-cooled van can generally be kept cool by the Mabru even in low or eco mode. Obviously, the size of the van, how it’s insulated, the exterior color of the van, using insulated window coverings, and locating the van in the shade all help a lot as well. The remote control is pretty confusing so we have a handy “guide” that maps the buttons to the various functions. Congratulations, you’ve successfully installed the Mabru 12000 BTU rooftop air conditioner in your van! Now you can enjoy cool, comfortable journeys during even the hottest days.  If you found this guide helpful, please consider supporting our store for other great road-tested products designed to support DIY van builders like you. Stay cool out there, and happy van adventures!   As of 2026, we no longer have any stock of our flush mount interior faceplate. Bonus Instructions for customers who purchased a Flush Mount Faceplate for Mabru RV12000 Air Conditioner There are a few easy steps to relocate the electronic Control Panel from the factory trim piece to your new Face Plate. Step 1. Using a wire side cutter, carefully snip the zip ties holding the wiring harness and the temperature sensor from the inside of the return air cavity. This will allow you to move the factory trim piece off to the side for convenience for the next steps. Step 2. Remove the four screws on the black control panel housing on the back side. No need to pry up here as I did the first time… there are four more screws on the front side. Step 3.  Remove the Control Panel face sticker to reveal four screws behind it. You can add a little heat from a hair dryer or heat gun to soften the glue a little. Carefully remove the sticker using a putty knife or similar wide blade. The sticker is pretty durable, but you don’t want to nick it as you will re-apply it once the control panel is installed in the new flush mount face plate. Step 4.  Remove the four phillips head screws and the white trim piece. Pull the control panel forward and rotate 90 degrees, then pull it back through the factory trim piece. Step 5.  After the A/C unit is mounted on the roof as described in the other sections, cut off the 4 bolts so they are above your planned ceiling height. The front two bolts should be left long enough to secure the styrofoam deflector. Step 6.  Cut the styrofoam deflector so that it fits flat against the black bottom of the A/C unit (trim away the excess that hits the metal roof of the van. The table saw with a tall fence works great. Step 7.  To ensure the air will not short circuit, you can install 1” thick foam tape between the roof of the van and the A/C unit and cover it with aluminum tape. Step 8.  Hold the foam piece in place and mark the location of the ceiling framing. Then add the thickness of your ceiling material and cut the styrofoam to the correct height. Then install the foam, securing it with the two front bolts. You can also use thin foam tape to close any gaps to prevent the air from short circuiting. Step 9.  If you use very thin ceiling boards, such as ¼” cedar, consider installing 2×2 framing on the sides of the Styrofoam such that the screw holes in the Face Plate align with the framing. Otherwise, you can screw directly into the ceiling material to secure the Face Plate. Step 10.  Re-install the control panel removed in steps 3 & 4 in the same way, insert it through the hole in the flush mount faceplate then rotate so the screw holes line up. Install the white trim piece and four Phillips screws, then the face sticker can be re-applied. Step 11.  Replace the four screws on the black control panel housing on the backside. Step 12.  Use two new zip ties to re-attach the wiring harness and temperature probe from step 1 above. Step 13.  Secure the flush mount faceplate to the ceiling using screws of your choice. Thin foam stripping can also be applied on the bottom of the styrofoam deflector to provide an air-tight fit with the faceplate.  (You may need to glue wood or metal strips on the backside of the panel to help the screws grip into the control panel). As always, if you have any issues or questions with installation please give us a call or email us.

Miles Van Camper Tour

Video Tour of "Carmen": The Van That Won Best In Show At Peace Love & Vans 2023

This is video features in-depth tour of the van that won Best In Show at Peace Love & Vans Florida 2023. Over 100 vans competed in the DIY Build competition, and we narrowed the field down to 12 Best In Row vans. The final round of judging was tough and there were so many incredible vans. At the end of the day, this van affectionately named “Carmen” by owners Ted and Mary Milburn (IonDesignVan on Instagram) checked off all the boxes. It featured a very clever floorplan, charming character, meticulous attention to detail, highly advanced systems, efficient use of space and attractive interior design choices. A few of our favorite features of this van include: Dedicated Secondary Alternator Charging System w/ Lithionics Batteries and Victron Energy Components. Mabru Air Conditioner w/ custom vent grille and Webasto Air Top 2000 Heater for optimal temperature regulation. Fiamma F80S awning that extends their living space and a Fiamma Carry-Bike on the rear doors for bringing along their bikes. A living room with Murphy bed that converts the space into a bedroom. Full kitchen with lots of counter space and custom-built organizers in drawers and cabinets. High-end finishes and interior design choices. View the full van tour video to see more about this van and its amazing owners. Be sure to check out our store for the best, road-tested products available for your van build.

Configuring a Victron Cerbo GX, BMV-712 or SmartShunt and Connecting with VRM

This post was originally published in 2023. We think that the content in this blog is still useful, but some things have changed just a little bit: new GUI, new features, same great powerful capability! Check out our refreshed blogs like Setting up Victron's Remote Monitoring, and inviting Vanlife Outfitters to your system and Configuring your Victron system with VRM for a updated take on these important features.  This post details how we suggest you configure a Victron Cerbo GX for a camper van/RV and, once you’ve done so, how to connect it to Victron’s free remote monitoring and control cloud service called VRM. This guide assumes that you have a MultiPlus inverter/charger as we show in our free example wiring diagrams. While you’re here, you might also be interested in our blog post about how to monitor water tanks with a Cerbo GX or how to wire up a cooling fan that is turned on automatically using one of the Cerbo GX’s relays and a clever 4-in-one Ruuvitag sensor (temperature, humidity, air pressure, and motion). Cerbo GX VersionsFor a period in 2024 Victron was offering three versions of the Cerbo GX as we detailed in this video (Cerbo GX, Cerbo-S GX and the MK2 model). As of 2025, Victron eliminated the Cerbo GX and the Cerbo-S GX so that there will, once again, be only one single model which is the MK2 version. In other words. the Cerbo GX MK2 replaces the original Cerbo GX and the Cerbo-S GX is no longer available. Victron Energy also offers the Ekrano GX which is similar but has an integrated touch screen.  For the sake of simplicity, we’ll refer to all “GX Devices” (all versions of the Cerbo) as the “Cerbo GX” in this post since they all use the same underlying operating system (VenusOS). Cerbo GX Configuration 1. Connect a Touch Screen The primary, in-person monitoring and control interface to the Cerbo GX is either the 5″ Touch 50 screen or the 7″ Touch 70 screen. These touchscreens can be powered from any 12-volt USB plug – either one like this in your rig, or the USB port that is right next to the HDMI port on the Cerbo GX itself. The video and touch commands/data require an HDMI connection. If you are placing your touchscreen far away from the Cerbo GX we’ve found this 25′ HDML extension cable paired with a HDMI female-to-female adapter works well. 2. Power on the Cerbo GX You do this by plugging in its DC power supply cable into the bottom of the unit and making sure the other side of the wire is wired up to your DC positive and negative bus bars/battery terminals. There is an integrated, inline fuse on the DC positive wire that is supplied with the Cerbo GX. Once power has been applied, it will take a minute or two to boot up but you should see some of the LED lights on the Cerbo GX turn on and the touchscreen coming on during the booting process – first with the Victron Energy logo and later with one of the standard screens (pages). 3. Connect the Cerbo GX to a Wi-Fi Network Tap on the lower right portion of the touchscreen to open the menu bar to access the Menu. Then choose “Settings”, then choose “Wi-Fi” and then “Wi-Fi networks”. This should open a list of available Wi-Fi networks much like any computer or mobile device. Next select the network name you wish to connect to and finally, press on the empty “field” area on the right side of the password row. This will open a virtual keyboard allowing you to enter the password for the Wi-Fi network. After you enter the password and return to that network’s screen, you should see that the “State” row reads “Connected”. If it doesn’t, it’s likely you need to re-enter the password. 4. Update the Firmware One of the great things about Victron Energy equipment is that their developers are continually improving the apps and firmware which means you get extra features and stability every time you update the firmware or apps. To update the firmware (the version of Venus OS running the Cerbo GX), open the Menu, choose Settings, and then Firmware. From this screen you want to make sure that “Check and update” is selected on the “Auto update” row and then press the “Press to check” button. From there you’ll either be guided through the update or it will report that you already have the latest version. 5. Customize System Name Open the Menu, choose “Settings” and then choose “System setup”. Take a look at the first two rows on this screen. The “System name” should be set to “User defined”. You can then press on the empty field area in the “User defined name” row and enter what you want to name your system. 6. Label AC Input 1 We like to choose the appropriate “label” for the AC Input 1 on the MultiPlus inverter charger. In most cases this input is fed from Shore power. From the same “System setup menu” (Menu -> Settings -> System Setup) press on the AC Input 1 row and choose “Shore power”. 7. Enable Remote Console One of the cool features of VRM (more on that below) is the ability to remotely control your Cerbo GX using the remote console. To enable this we need to update a few settings. Start by entering the Menu, choose “Settings” and then choose “VRM online portal”. Make a note of the “VRM Portal ID” from this screen. We’ll need that a little later when we connect the Cerbo GX to VRM. Then scroll down until you see the the “VRM two-way communication” option and turn it on. Now go back into Settings and choose “Remote Console”. We recommend pressing on the “Enable password check” and choosing a password that you will need to enter when using Remote Console from VRM. Then make sure that “Enable on VRM” is turned on. Finally, you need to power cycle/reboot your Cerbo GX before these settings take effect. One simple way to do this is to pull the power supply plug from the bottom of the Cerbo GX and then replug it. 8. Boat & Motorhome Overview & Units Open the Menu, choose “Display & language” and then turn on the “Show boat & motorhome overview”. This adds a new “page” or “screen” to your Cerbo GX that allows you to control a MultiPlus inverter state (on, off, inverter only, charger only) as well as the AC input current. Next, choose “Units” from the same “Display & language” menu and change to F from C (Fahrenheit). Settings -> Display & language -> Units -> set temp to F (From C – available in Venus OS 2.9+) 9. Enable DC System Open the Menu, choose “System setup”, scroll down to “Has DC system” and turn that on. What the heck is this? Basically, it just tells the Cerbo GX that there are DC loads in the system that you want to monitor – such as your DC load center/fuses. When turned on you see the DC “box” on the display screens/pages. In a van/RV, there is almost always a DC system but in some other applications, such as an off-grid install, there may not be any DC loads. 10. Set Time Open the Menu, choose “Settings” and then “Date & Time”. From that screen, press on “Date/Time local” to set your local time and then press on “Time zone” to select your local time zone. 11. Bluetooth Settings Open the Menu, choose “Settings” and then choose “Bluetooth”. From this screen, you’ll want to make sure that Bluetooth is turned on (“Enabled”) and then press on “Pincode” to set the login code to connect to the Cerbo GX via Bluetooth using VictronConnect. 12. Configure Your Battery Monitoring If You Have a Victron BMV-712 or SmartShuntYou need to tell the battery monitor about your batteries by connecting to the device via Bluetooth with the VictronConnect app. The default password/pincode for Victron Smart devices when connecting via Bluetooth is 000000 (six zeros). Once connected click on the “gear icon” in the very top right portion of the screen and then click on the “Battery” row to open the battery configuration screen. You should be able to find these specifications in the documentation from your battery manufacturer. For SOK batteries, check here.  Battery Capacity: total amp hour rating of your battery bank Charged voltage: varies with battery & manufacturer - see datasheet Note that this number should be about .2 or .3 volts below the absorption charge voltage set in your charging devices Discharge Floor: 10% (or, more conservatively 20%) The discharge floor is used to calculate the “Time-to-Go” or “Time remaining” info on the battery monitor. Lithium batteries can be discharged completely but it’s not recommended to go below 10-20%. By setting this to 10% or 20% instead of 0%, the battery monitor will change its calculations to provide for this “reserve” power. This value is also for triggering the relay at a certain state of charge (SOC). Tail Current: varies with battery & manufacturer - see datasheet Charged Detection Time: 3m Note, this setting, along with the “Charged voltage” above is what triggers a “synchronization” to 100% state of charge. In other words, if your battery bank gets to the “Charged voltage” setting for 3 minutes, it will be considered fully charged by the battery monitor and, from that point, it will track actual power consumed from the batteries (amp hours) to calculate the state of charge. This algorithm gets better after a few charge/discharge cycles. Peukert Exponent: 1.05 Charge Efficiency Factor: 99% Current threshold: 0.10A Time to go averaging period 3m Battery SOC on reset: Keep SOC State of Charge: leave defaults Synchronize SOC to 100% button In normal operation you probably won’t use this feature. However, if you are certain your batteries are fully charged, but the normal charged detection mechanism isn’t working (a combination of the batteries reaching the “Charged voltage” setting for the length of time specified in the “Charged detection time” setting), you can press this button to manually “synchronize” to 100% state of charge. Zero Current Calibration button This option can be used to calibrate the zero reading if the battery monitor reads a non-zero current even when there is no load and the battery is not being charged. Note: most battery manufacturers recommend that you make sure your batteries are fully charged at least twice per month which allows the battery monitor to synchronize to keep the state of charge calculations. This video has some great information. If You Have a Lynx Smart or NG BMSIf you have the Lynx Smart or NG BMS, it means you’re using Victron's Smart or NG lithium batteries and, therefore, the system already knows almost everything it needs to about the batteries. You just need to connect to the Lynx Smart NG BMS via Bluetooth with the VictronConnect app. The default password/pincode for Victron Smart devices when connecting via Bluetooth is 000000 (six zeros). Once connected, click on the “gear icon” at the very top right part of the screen and change the 3x settings shown below in the “System settings” section. 13. Add Ruuvitag(s) Ruuvitags (available in 3x versions with varying levels of waterproof) are wireless (Bluetooth) sensors that can provide temperature, humidity and other data to your Cerbo GX. We like to use one inside our van, one outside of the van, another in the fridge, etc. The integrated Bluetooth connectivity on the Cerbo GX is not strong enough to support the Ruuvitag Pro so Victron recommends that you add a third-party USB to Bluetooth adapter. We’ve found this TP-Link model is affordable and works great. Once you’ve connected the USB Bluetooth dongle, pull the plastic tab from the Ruuvitag to activate the unit with its internal battery. Next, open the Menu on the touchscreen and go to “Setting” and then choose “I/O”. Make sure that the “Enable” switch on this screen is turned on. After a few seconds, you should see the Ruuvitag you have powered on appear in this menu. Once it does, turn on the switch next to that device as well. If you’re adding multiple Ruuvitags, we recommend that you do one at a time so that you can write down each Ruuvitags unique ID and make a note of “where” you’ll be placing that particular Ruuvitag. This will help you give the Ruuvitags meaningful names in the next step. Once you’ve added all the Ruuvitags you’ll be using you can rename them something meaningful. Start by reopening the Menu which will bring up the “Device List”. You should see each Ruuvitag listed here. To rename, press on the Ruuvitag you wish to name then press on “Device” and then press into the empty field in the “Name” row to bring up the virtual keyboard and type in the name you want to use. You might also be interested in our blog post about how to trigger a fan controlled by the Cerbo GX relay with at a particular temperature as measured by a Ruuvitag. 14. Consider Customizing the Logo on the Cerbo GX Screen This video details the process. In our experience, a 800 x 440 pixel image works well for aspect ratio/size. If you don’t get the aspect ratio right it squishes the logo. Also, we recommend using a background since transparent images don’t look good. 15. Consider Adding Tank Monitoring If your rig has water tanks – fresh or grey – you might want to check out our tank monitoring blog post to be able to monitor your tank levels on the Cerbo GX. 16. Consider Adding GPS You can add a USB GPS receiver such as this one to your Cerbo GX which is a really cool way of tracking the location of your van/rig. And, once you connect up your Cerbo GX with VRM (coming right up!) you can even configure a “geofence” area on a map and receive notifications if it goes outside of that area. Connecting your Cerbo GX to VRM 1. Create a VRM Account Start by establishing a VRM account for yourself on this page. These accounts are “free for life” from our friends at Victron! Once you register, they will send you a confirmation email that you have to open and confirm. Once you’ve confirmed, login to VRM. 2. Add Your “Installation” Next, navigate to the “Add installation” screen in VRM. Then choose “Cerbo GX or Cerbo S-GX” option. You’l need to enter the “Installation ID” which is the “VRM Portal ID” you may have written down back in “step 7” above. If not, refer to “step 7” to find this information on your Cerbo GX. You can also name your “installation” on this screen. Once you’ve provided that information you can press the “Request access” button to proceed to the next step. Note, if the Cerbo GX has previously been linked to another VRM account, and that “VRM Portal ID” and you try to “Request access” when establishing your new account/installation, the email address used the first time the Cerbo GX was added to VRM will be sent ane mail and you’ll see a message on the screen that reads “An email has been sent to the administrator adding new site”. The easiest thing to do is to have the original owner/account holder forward the email to you. If that isn’t possible you can reach out to your Victron dealer (which might be us!) so that we can try to manually override this for you. 3. Update Preferences In VRM, click on “Preferences” in the left-side navigation (if you don’t see “Preferences” you’re likely viewing an “installation” so you’ll have to click on the “back” button at the top of the left-side navigation first). Next, click on “Display preferences” and configure the options on this screen to your preferences. We normally change “Units” to Fahrenheit and Gallons. 4. Enable Widgets In addition to the main “Dashboard” report that shows much of the same information you’d see on the Touch 50 or Touch 70 screens, you can add a super wide range of “widgets” to the “Advanced” view in VRM. Widgets are basically domain/device-specific reports/charts. Below is a screenshot from the “Advanced” view in VRM showing 3x widgets. To enable these widgets start by navigating to your installation by finding its name in the left-side navigation in VRM. From there click on “Advanced”. New installations do not have any widgets activated so you won’t see much there yet. To choose which widgets you’d like to see, look for the “widgets button” near the top right part of the VRM interface. Below is a screenshot of this button. That will bring up a list of the various devices in your system such as the “Gateway” (your GX device – the Cerbo GX), battery monitors, solar charge controllers, Ruuvitags, etc. Basically, anything that is connected to the Cerbo GX. You can then click on a device to reveal a list of available widgets for that particular device. Below is a screenshot showing some of the widgets for a Victron SmartShunt which I have renamed “Battery Monitor – AW Battery Monitor”. You can see that there are 7 widgets available and many of them are colored blue which indicates that they are active/selected. To add/remove a widget from a device menu, simply click on its name once to activate (shown in blue text) and click again to reactive (black text). Widgets can be reordered to suit your preferences. Also, as you scroll through the data in one report, you’ll see the various reports are linked together. Many of the widgets/reports can be made larger by clicking on the “expand icon” in the top right portion of the widget. 5. Enable Inverter/Charger Control If you want to be able to change the “mode” of your inverter/charger (on, off, charger only mode, inverter only mode), go into your installation, navigate to “settings” and then “general” and toggle on the Inverter/Charger control as shown in the screenshot below. 6. Considering Sharing Access If you purchased your equipment from us (thanks), you can take advantage of our world-class support including adding us to your VRM account so that we can help you troubleshoot remotely when necessary. Or, perhaps you want someone else monitoring your system for other reasons. Whatever the reasons, to share your system, navigate to that “installation” in the left-side menu by clicking on the “installation”/system name. Then click on “Settings” and then select “Users”. From this screen, you can use the “Invite user” button to invite a user. If you want to invite us, at Vanlife Outfitters, please share with our service department email address which is service@vanlifeoutfitters.com. Victron also offers a "Share" link, but Vanlife Outfitters technical support can not use that method. Please use the Settings -> Users -> Invite User steps above to share access with support. 7. Consider Adding a Micro SD Card Anytime your Cerbo GX has an internet connection, it will push the date from the system to VRM but if you’re offline this isn’t possible. You can add a Micro SD card to the Cerbo GX (built in slot) so that all this data can be stored locally and, when you’re back online, it will upload the data captured during that period! Other Cool Stuff (for the Classic GUI only) If you want to really go big and see tons more information/data on your Touch 50/70 screen you can add something called GuiMods which is pretty cool. This video details the process. Note that the updated "New GUI" (really Victron, that's the best you could do for a name?) no longer supports GuiMods. The New GUI incorporates many of those powerful mods into the standard Venus OS release. Our recommendation is to make sure that the New GUI is running on your Cerbo. We think you'll like it!