Setting up your Sprinter van’s electrical system is a daunting experience that requires a lot of forward-thinking and in order to be successful, you need an wiring diagram for your van. Also, breaking down the electrical build into sever steps will help make things easier for us DIYers!
The first step I recommend to start with is determining all of your appliances and electrical components that you will use in your van. This will not only help you understand what size battery bank you will need but it will also help you plan what gauge size wiring you need. Once you concluded what you want in your van, the next step is to create a wiring diagram. You can find my wiring diagram below as a reference. After you have your wiring diagram created you can use that to get measure how long you expect the wires to be. From here, you’re ready to order your wiring and get started running your wires.
Disclaimer: I am not a certified electrician and by no means an expert in van electricity, however, this post below showcases how we set up our van’s electrical system.
Sprinter Van Electrical Wiring Diagram
Please note our van’s electric diagram is still a work in progress but I want to give you some content as I am working on the van.
In the first electrical van build episode, I showcase the 12v wiring with our 16 gauge marine grade wiring and for our 110v wire for the hot water heater. For the 110 wiring, I originally was used solid core romex wire but after some fantastic feedback on our Youtube Channel we switched out the 110v romex wire with marine grade stranded wire. Romex wire is not built for mobile homes or anything that will cause vibration, instead it’s intended use is for stationary walls like homes and buildings.
Marine grade stranded wire is built exactly for vibrations which is why we swapped them out. At the end of the day, we want our van as safe as possible and built the proper way.
In the wiring diagram below, I captured everything in the first electrical wiring video as well as where we’re going to house our battery bank and electrical compartment.
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Our Electrical System Components
Our van’s electrical system is a make up of several large components. This is something you want to identify early in your build process to understand how large your electrical compartment must be. Below are the main components of our electrical system:
- House Batteries – 3 100Amp Hour Lithium Battle Born Batteries
- Inverter – Victron 3000w inverter
- Solar Panels / Solar Charger – Renogy 400 Watt Starter Kit
- Lithium BIM Isolater
- 110V Breaker Box
- 12V Fuse Box
As we get further into our van build, I will post more content around each component and why each component is a critical makeup of our electrical system.
Direct Current (DC) 12 Volt
Wire:
Lighting:
Light switches:
- 1 Bathroom light switch
- 1 Dimmable switch for the front 3 puck lights
- 1 Dimmable switch for the back 2 puck lights
- 3 Gang switch panel for
USB Outlets:
- 2 Bedside USB outlets – both driver and passenger side
- 1 in the 3 Gang Switch Panel
Electrical Components:
Alternating Current (AC) - 110 Volt
Wire:
Electrical Components
Switches:
Outlets:
Summary
I will continue to update this post periodically as I finish more of the electrical build out on our sprinter van.
- Check out our van build main page for more content related to each van build episode
- Check out the post on how to install a shore power inlet for another source of energy!
If you have any questions or comments, please drop a comment below and I will respond at my earliest! Thank you so much for reading our content, I hope you find it valuable and see what it’s like for a DIYer to build out a van!
Kevin,
Curios as to why you designed with two grey water tanks?
Understand you have two water valves for drainage. Was this to balance weight distribution?
Seems like you could have combined them into one tank.
Ken Ronald
Lexington, KY
Yes, we designed it that way for weight distribution and so we could install the tanks right under the appropriate area (sink, shower) rather then finding a larger area under the van to install and needing to run additional plumbing.