Van battery bank

[Jon Miller]

Hi all,

Just putting up this diary for general thoughts and ideas.

In my last diary entry I showed How my Beatles struggled with some sealed lead acid batteries and flooded cells.  http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2007/1/25/195821/360

I explained how my next vehicle was going to be able to cope with the extra weight of such batteries and after much planning and organisation over Christmas I am now the proud owner of a type 25 VW camper van.

I am very pleased with this vehicle as its equipped with all the things required for most long trips away on the continent. The only area lacking with this campervan is the lack of a decent electrical capacity, currently the van has a second battery installed underneath the driver's seat but this sadly is only a car battery and thus not suitable for my needs.  (laptop, TV, etc.)

I was lucky enough to get hold of eight 12 volt 24 amp hour SLA batteries that fitted nicely under the rear bench seat of my van.  After measuring twice and cutting once I managed to build and install a suitable box made from wood out of local skips.

This picture is of my van and the solar pannel i will be mounting on the roof.  At the time i had spent the day using the solare pannel to power my laptop.

 this is a picture of the bench seat in the rear of the van with the battery box installed.  

just a close-up of the empty battery box

Another one just from a different angle

That batteries placed in a battery box ready for wiring up

again another angle.

I have a couple of things left to do with the batteries in the battery box before I will start mounting the solar panel on the roof.  I am currently proposing to clamp the solar panel to the roof with the use of flat steel bar and coach bolts.

I've also received in the last couple of days the new solar regulator,  it's a 16 amp  controller that has many useful functions.  Details to follow

Hopefully this diary entry has been of some intrest to somebody.

Thanks looking at any comments welcome!

Jon M

[AbyssUnderground]

Even though you sent me the pictures earlier, still nice to see them again :-) Also the one outside the van I never saw. That panel looks massive.

[WindHarvester]

Great project and nice VW Jon.

I look forward to your future posts and progress.

Lonnie

[Bruce S]

Very nice box, good to see that you left the sides lower to allow for air circulation.

Also, very nice van. One item that I have seen on the micro-buses at the eath day event this past Sunday was that people are beginning to use those wind-deflector for sun roofs to give their panels a air void effect. One gentleman said he'd had worries about even having his 100watter come off bolted in 6 places until he put the deflector up. Says it made the air rush over the van quieter too.

Very nice pics too.

Cheers

Bruce S

[fungus]

Very nice! Good to see it and lovely box :-)

Do the batteries still hold a good charge? Nice solar panel too, how many watts is it?

Thanks,

[Jon Miller]

Hey Bruce

A wind delector sounds like a good idea to me, thanks for the idea.

Fungus, The batteries still hold a good charge and the panel is a 64watt panel, rekon it should be good for the 192 amp hour battery bank.

Enjoying this project so far, lots left to do

[BT Humble]

Nice work!  What's the gross weight of the vehicle now?  I'll bet your gearbox gets a workout on the hills. ;-)

BTH

Proud owner of a Ford Econovan Maxi 2-litre hill detector.