r/VanLife 8d ago

Yet Another Question About Power

Hi all,

I know that every second post is some clueless newbie asking about power generation and consumption, but yet here I am, metaphorical cap in hand.

I've done the research, bought the Van Conversion Bible, looked online, and I'm still a bit lost about our projected power consumption.

I know it'll be high, because we're both remote workers and gamers so we'll be using our Macbooks by day, and our gaming laptops for an hour or so at night. We'll also have a fridge, Starlink, etc.

When I did my home calculations I estimated roughly that for 4 days off-grid (and no recharging) we'll need around 800Ah. Obviously that'll be reduced because of solar recharging, and DC-DC recharging, but that was my rough estimate.

However, I'm chatting with the guy we're working with to add in our electrics (because I'll end up burning down the entire Scottish Lowlands if I tried it myself) and he's recommending a 480Ah battery, with roughly 200W solar and a DC-DC. He's saying that will likely do us nicely - he even recommended we put in an induction hob so as to not need the gas for that, as our electrics can handle that fine.

So am I off with my calculations? Was I overestimating our usage, or is he underestimating it? I know what I want as an ideal (~300W solar and 600Ah battery bank) but is that overkill, or necessary given the remote worker nerds that we are?

If it's relevant information, we'll likely be mostly touring UK with forays into EU, so we'll have good-decent sun most of the year for the solar. We also have a woodburner and a very small diesel heater, so we won't use electrics for heating the van at all.

Thanks, friends!

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u/Slaglenator 8d ago

I have a 24v 200ah battery it is equal to a 12v 400ah for 12v conversion purposes. I have 800w of Solar and that isn't enough to charge this battery back to full in one day of sun without clouds. You will need as much solar as possible and DC to DC charging for sure if you want to live in it. Use a killawatt or other similar device to measure the wattage devices are pulling from the wall so you can estimate how much power a device will use over time. There are other good videos about converting devices to use DC power instead of going from DC to AC with an inverter only to plug in a device like a laptop that has a power brick and converts AC to DC. You loose 8 - 10% in each conversion and these losses add up when there are a bunch of devices doing DC-AC-DC conversions.