Today I'm going to go through how to lay out an off-grid 12-volt system in your vehicle
that basically means you can live out of it full-time and rely on it in any situation now
this is just a start and there are plenty of other products designs and methods out there
that you could use to build on this but as a good value set up this will allow you to run
heaps of 12-volt camp including your fridge plus you'll be able to run and charge your power tools
and even more power hungry devices like a coffee machine or even a microwave now this is Brenno's
D-MAX which means it's used almost every week for a trip and he'll use it almost every weekend that
means it needs to be reliable easy to use low maintenance and able to put out a fair whack of
power almost every day so if you want to build a system that allows you to get off road and
off-grid for extended periods of time in any situation then listen up I'm going to show you
how easy it is to build a robust 12-volt system that's modular enough to easily upgrade as you go
now the first thing you'll need is a deep cycle battery this is the heart of your 12-volt system
it allows you to store and use your power now in this setup we've opted for a 138 amp hour
power battery in a battery box which makes it really easy to use that power thanks to
all the terminals plugs and connectors plus you can keep an eye on your battery voltage really
easily now with your deep cycle battery number 1 you want to keep it as low as possible in your
vehicle because they can be quite heavy and you don't want it to negatively affect your centre
of gravity 2 you want to keep them as stable a temperature as possible and particularly you
don't want them getting too hot as that can ruin your battery over time and 3rd you want to buy a
larger capacity battery than you think you'll actually need remember with an AGM deep cycle
battery you only want to use about 50 percent of its capacity so if you're running a hundred amp
hour battery it's got about 50 amp hours to play with and just as a basic example if your fridge
on average draws one amp hour and you've got 50 usable amp hours you could run your fridge for
around 50 hours if you're aiming to run something that uses 10 amp hours then you could only run it
for five hours for a more detailed explanation I've put a link in the description of a video
where I go through all of that in really high detail so if you're interested check that out
now once you've got that second battery in your vehicle it's got all allow you to run all your
12-volt accessories camping gear camp lights and a fridge while you're sitting at camp and in
this setup what we've used is not only a battery box but also one of these pre-made and pre-wired
12-volt control boxes that means you've already got fused power plenty of switches and outlets
so you can run all your gear really easily now there's three easy ways to ensure that the system
is robust enough to handle heaps of 12-volt gear or plenty of power-hungry gear the first
one is to make sure that your power cables are a big enough diameter and there's a link in the
description with some basics on that second you can make your own power distribution box or set
up but ensure that you're using fuses or circuit breakers as close as possible to the battery so
that if anything does go wrong they'll pop instead of a short and third if you are planning to use
a lot of power hungry accessories that a good investment is to run too deep cycle batteries
that means you'll have double usable capacity plenty of storage and plenty of power to go around
so now that you've got your second battery in the vehicle and you've got plenty of 12 watt
accessories that you want to run off it you need a way to keep your battery charged and
topped up now you could use a dual battery system and a separate solar regulator to do
this which would allow you to charge while you're moving and while you're at camp but for a rugged
robust and really Bush proof setup that's ready for anything I'd recommend a DC DC charger with
solar input now while your vehicle is running a DC DC charger takes the alternator output from
under the bonnet to really efficiently and effectively charge your deep-cycle battery
in the back of your vehicle and there's more info in the description and a link to another video on
that now in this setup the DC DC charger that we run as solar priority charging which means
we can fit the permanent solar panel to the setup here and it will use that power first before using
the alternator charge that means your charging even if you're sitting shops while you're driving
down the road it's using your solar power first and while you're sitting at camp it's constantly
charging your batteries so the three tips for a robust charging system first one is to ideally
use a DC DC charger and then ideally use one that has solar priority charging number two is to make
use of that solar charging by fitting a permanent solar panel so that your batteries being charged
as long as you're in the Sun and number three is to look for a DC DC charger that's able to
charge your battery type this is an AGM battery and needs a higher charging voltage so that DC DC
charger has selectable charging profiles to make sure you're getting the most out of the battery
with the DC DC charger we know we can rely on the battery to be charged efficiently and effectively
so long as the sun's been out on your permanent solar all you've been driving for a couple of
hours you can pretty much guarantee that your battery is fully charged now that's good because
it means you can start think about running some more power-hungry devices awesome luxuries from
home the way to do that is with an inverter now an inverter takes the 12-volt DC from
your battery up to the voltage and converts it into AC just like your powerpoints at home now
in this setup we're running a pure sine wave inverter because it closely matches what you'd
expect to get out of your powerpoint at home and that means it'll run sensitive electronics
and power tools and things like that without an issue there are other types on the market
square wave and modified square wave and they can cause issues running sensitive electronics
or tools so a couple of tips to ensure that your inverter system is up to scratch if you want
to rely on it number one is that inverters come in a wide range of sizes and they actually work
most efficiently when they're nearly at full capacity so if you're only planning to run a
couple of hundred watts or a thousand watts you don't need a 5,000 watt inverter number two is
that some appliances or tools require a largest start up current before they settle down so if
you want to run power tools microwaves or coffee machines you might need a slightly larger inverter
to get it going then it's fine once it settles down so don't buy an inverter that's right on
the limit you've got to find that balance and number three I've said it before you've
got to consider how much power you're drawing from your battery instantaneously and how much
capacity you're drawing so if you wanted to run a 1500 watt microwave off this inverter it would
be drawing a hundred and twenty-five amps but if you're only using the inverter for three minutes
it means you've only drawn 6.25 amp hours out of your battery if you are planning to run really
power-hungry devices a lot it's a good idea to get two batteries to share that power output
now I'm microwaving might seem like a bit of a luxury that you'd never used but if you do have a
trailer or a caravan and you've got the space they can come in handy plus we've used these on a bunch
of trips when we vacuum sealed food and we just need a quick reheated meal there you go 90 seconds
it's drawn very little capacity from a battery so long as you can charge it back up it's awesome
once you start running those more power-hungry devices like microwaves coffee machines or power
tools you need to think about increasing your charging capacity as well now the first way you
could do that is by adding more permanent solar to your vehicle this DC DC charger is capable
of accepting about 360 watts of solar input that means for every hour of decent Sun you
can charge your battery about 25 amps number two is that you should add a portable solar panel to
your setup and I always say this it's because it's super easy to fit into your vehicle when
you're going on an extended trip and they're super simple to set up on your account to get
more power into your system now keep in mind you can run your permanent and your portable solar
panels into the same regulator but you'll need to check the voltage at P max specification on
both panels because once you combine them the system will use the lower voltage so it could
negatively affect your output now what we've done on this setup is we've got a DC DC charger
with our permanent solar input plus we've added a second MPPT regulator with a solar input down here
so we can plug portable solar straight in now that means each panel is working independently
it's using its full potential then charging your battery most effectively now the third
option that it's a great idea is to add a 240 volt charger into your setup plug your system
in and make sure your batteries got a really good charge and if you're heading more remote
the other option you can run a generator throughout the day plug it into your 240 volt
charger and you know your battery's getting a good charge now a hot tip if you're doing
that use your generator or the powered site to run your fridge as well batteries prefer to be
charged when they're not running any appliances a generator also gives you that option of running
your power-hungry devices or appliances directly off 240 volt here rather than using your inverter
and using your battery capacity so if you are really off-grid and really remote to good option
so now you've got a complete set up that's ready for any situation at its heart is your
deep-cycle battery by setting up some sort of power distribution whether it's a battery box
or 12 volt control box it means you can run all your 12-volt gear your camp lights and
your fridge of course that means you need some way to keep the battery charged up the
best way to do that is with a DC DC charger with solar priority charging so it'll charge
from your alternator while you're driving but it always prioritises that free solar
power once you can rely on your system to be charged and topped up all the time it means
you can start to run those more power-hungry devices that means an inverter so you can run
your tools microwaves and coffee machines and your sensitive electronics like laptops
finally if you want to run those more powerful accessories you're going to need extra methods
of charging number one is to add more permanent solar number to add a portable solar panel to
your setup you can use the included regulator or hard mount a second regulator for better
efficiency finally add a 240 volt charger which means you can easily plug in when you're next to
the powered site and if your off-grid you can use your generator to effectively charge your battery
hopefully this has given you a really good understanding of how to layout or set up a
really robust and reliable off-grid 12-volt system as I said earlier this is completely
modular you can always upgrade your 12-volt and add more circuits you can put a bigger battery
bank in or even a bigger generator or more solar panels as you expand if you want any
more technical information make sure you check out those video links that I've put in the description
or just have a browse of the channel as there's plenty more 12-volt tips tricks and install videos
too otherwise if you're into anything camping and for driving it's worth a look cheers guys