Ken, I finally took delivery of our 170 4x4 crew, stoked!! Looking at the stuff you crammed under the passenger seat, my question is if you have factory swivels / low pedestal? Oh ya, and do you want to come up to Alberta and help me pirate/ duplicate your build?? Very impressive!!
Best regards,
Gary
Congrats on the new van! I do have the factory swivels and low pedestals. It was tight but everything fit. This is not a criticism of how other people lay out their electrical components, but in my van with a small family, there just isn't space to waste filling the entire "garage" with electrical and water systems. All of my van hardware is either under the seat pedestal or tucked into this 23" x 13" x 16.5" box including 200 aH of lithium, a 1000W inverter/charger, all disconnects, breakers, lithium safety systems (BMS, contactors, etc), fused distribution, solar charge controller, etc.
Yes, there is 200ah of lithium hidden under the inverter. It probably looks totally unserviceable, but I can get to all of it within minutes by the easily removable front and side panels. I bought the highest quality marine electrical components I could get my hands on, so I'm not expecting any component problems.
One thing I really like--I just added a 120V outlet that you can barely see bolted to the front left corner of the box. That outlet is powered by a small 600W inverter in the passenger seat pedestal and provides "shorepower" to the Magnum inverter/charger for backup charging (aka graphite dave). The inverter/charger is plugged into that outlet with a standard NEMA15 plug, which means I could power other devices off that outlet and via the alternator when driving, but the cool part is the ability to plug the inverter/charger lead into a regular extension cord for true shorepower. I didn't bother wiring in a complicated network of shorepower switches because I truly don't think I will ever use shore power, but it's there if I had to. For that matter, I have never needed anything but my 300W LG panel to keep my batteries charged.
Have fun with your build! I'll be in Waterton Park in a couple of weeks (with the van), but I'll be on a break from van-building.