The weather was a little cooler today and it was dry. So, a good day to work on the van! I continued my work on the electrical cabinet. I started by doing some cable management, which basically means using brackets and cable ties to route the wires in a more organized manner, and to prevent them from coming loose during my travels. I recognized the need for some cable management after looking at the picture in yesterday’s post….what a mess. It’s not much better after today, but there are a lot more wires in the cabinet too. I also needed to move some cables to make room for the last two control boxes that were going in today.
The first control box that I installed was the one that manages the charging of the batteries from the van’s alternator. Of course, this only works when the van is running, but can be an effective method to top off the batteries while travelling. The wire that I ran from the van batteries was a 2 AWG wire, which was a little larger than I needed. The control box would only take up to 6 AWG wire. So, I mounted a couple of electrical posts, so that I could take the wires from the battery down from 2 AWG to 6 AWG. A few extra item to mount in the electrical cabinet, and more wires to cut, strip, crimp, and heat shrink.
I then added the last control box, which is called the Cerbo GX. This box is the brains of the electrical system and monitors all of the control boxes that I have installed. It displays the status of the entire system on a 7 inch monitor at the back of the van. I mounted this control box and started wiring it up, but I discovered that I had failed to order three cables that I needed to finish connecting the Cerbo GX to all the other control boxes. So, I placed an order for these three cables and will install them when they arrive.
Next, I installed the StarLink system. This involved installing a small smart transformer for controlling the power to the StarLink antenna. Then I wired in a switch in the back panel to allow me to turn the StarLink on or off as I need to. This will save me power when I’m not using it. Finally, I wired the StarLink circuit into the 12V fuse box, which is where it will draw power from.
I installed as many more 12V circuits into the fuse box as I could, before I ran out of time for the day. I got six circuits installed. The biggest source of delay was because I had not done the research beforehand on the correct fuse sizes for each circuit. So, I had to do that on the fly, which slowed me down a little. I still need to do some more cable management on the wires from all these 12V circuits, but I’ll probably save that until I get the rest of them wired into the fuse box.
Here is what the electrical cabinet looks like now. It’s still a mess, but I’m making slow steady progress with it.
I probably have about one more day of work that I can do on it before I’ll have to stop. Besides waiting for the 1/2″ plywood to mount the batteries, I’m now also waiting for those three cables for the Cerbo GX. This will be another project that will have to remain unfinished for a while until the parts I need arrive.