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Off Grid Power System: Step-by-Step Walkthrough + Wire Crimping Tutorial
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May 2, 2025
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View Video Transcript
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[Music]
0:07
hey everyone welcome back to the shop we're finishing up on our off-grid power system I wanted to go through the
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components that we have here and we're going to put those in the description below so you guys can find those parts
0:19
easily they're also going to be in our DIY van build cheat sheet if you haven't heard about the DIY van build cheat
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sheet is a curated list of all the items that I purchased on Amazon over the past three years so all the items you see
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here tools fuse holders hydraulic crimpers all those items are on there
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you can use that to not only help yourself save time and money but also help the channel so check out the link
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in the description below for the van build cheat sheet you can also find it on Van builderhq.com
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all right we're over here on our off-grid power system and really the only thing we have left is we have one
0:59
more lug that's going to go on the end I'm going to show you exactly how I cut
1:05
crimp this and then do my heat shrink so we'll have just like a mini tutorial at the end of this video so look forward
1:11
to that but let's go ahead and really kick it off and show you what we got here if you've been following in the
1:17
previous live stream we've gone into detail about building the 80 20 frame what components we've used for that uh
1:24
the battery system the inverter distribution block from victron and then
1:29
our DC to DC Chargers by renegie I created this system so that we could
1:35
support the Dometic RTX 2000 AC unit so that's a 12 volt AC unit it's a rooftop
1:41
mounted it's a very efficient unit but when you're building a system like this
1:46
you really want to capitalize on battery power so instead of like a traditional maybe
1:53
400 amp hours we bumped it up to 600 amp hours and that's going to give us enough
1:59
Headroom to actually enjoy the time that we have with the van be able to use the
2:04
components in the van such as water heater for hot water our Inverter microwave
2:12
parking heater interior lights being able to charge our devices
2:17
and then at the same time we'll have enough battery Bank left to enjoy using the AC for the evening
2:24
and possibly for a couple days so in a future video we're going to be taking this system and we'll be doing an
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in-house test of how long we can power the Dometic RTX 2000 with this off-grid
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system that way you guys can get some real world numbers on what we can do with a with a setup like
2:44
this one thing I like to do when I build Vans is keep everything as compact as
2:50
possible space is just such a luxury in a van that you really need to maximize
2:58
utilizing the space very effectively one van that we did for a customer Thomas that's our Marine One van we use that
3:05
van as a good example because we had a structured we had a structured set of
3:12
space that we needed to use in the van that couldn't be taken up by anything else so that was to allow for his paragofer
3:19
which is his electric wheelchair that allowed him to go in and out of the van because that space was already spoken
3:26
for our power system and our water setup had to be extremely minimal but at the same
3:32
time have enough capacity so that he could operate everything in his van so we achieved that with his van this
3:38
van has another purpose his man did not have an air conditioning unit this van does so sticking with a
3:44
theme of keeping everything nice and compact this off-grid power system is only as wide as the individual batteries
3:52
themselves the length begins at the kitchen galley and extends to the back of the van so we
4:00
have a total length here let's get a tape measure out so you guys can get an idea we've got 65
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inches so that's our maximum length on the power system if we come up here we have the width of
4:14
the power system which is the width of our batteries it's 11 and a quarter
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and we're going to be adding three quarters more distance and that's going to be able to take care of our
4:26
three-quarter inch panel that's going to be covering the batteries so once we have all that into place
4:32
that's pretty much our setup now our height is designated aesthetically so
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there's a natural curve and the bump outs of the Ford Transit and we've meet we're meeting that curve
4:44
from the top and coming down to the bottom so our height of our power system is 21.5 inches uh with our half inch
4:52
plywood that's going to cap it on top we got 22 inches high so if you're interested in
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The Form and Function um that's kind of what we're working with there's two other
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notable dimensions in here one is this chamber
5:10
underneath here which is where we have our Webasto parking heater that is going to go under here
5:16
and then behind the two renergy DC to DC mppt charge controllers this is our
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wheel well so our wheel well begins here comes up goes around and then tapers off
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about right in this area right before our inverter so we're really maximizing the space
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believe it or not we only are using four inches of depth with our DC to DC
5:41
and mppt charge controllers now I keep saying those words together because these are dual units so these renergy 50
5:49
amp charge controllers will also will do DC to DC as well as their solar charge controller
5:57
and it's the mppt version of that so we got dual Chargers here
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one we want to have the maximum charging capacities we have 50 amps each with a
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Max of 100 amps pulling from the engine alternator but what's also nice is we have some redundancy so an extreme situation where
6:17
one of these fails we have a redundant backup so you're still going to get charging you're still going to get
6:23
charging from your uh not y'all in your alternator but your engine as well this inverter is extremely big it's a 3000
6:32
watt but it's an inverter charger which makes it very heavy it's about 65 pounds
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this unit is the new renegi Rego it's a pure sine wave inverter and
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charger so what we can do is we can charge the power system we can use it and we can top it off off
6:52
a Shore power we can take our batteries we can invert
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it to 120 volts for our household appliances that we have in the van everything from our induction stove our
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microwave our hot water heater and then we have 3000 watt capacity and
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that has to do with the livability you may hear me talk about that a lot in our live streams if you can imagine you know
7:19
you're at home not in a van and you want to compete something up in the microwave you want to wash your hands with hot
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water and then you also want to maybe get on your laptop or do some other activity
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but you want to do all this at the same time so if you have a thousand watt microwave you have a 1200 watt induction stove and
7:41
maybe you know you're pulling a couple hundred Watts maybe charging something maybe a battery brick or something like
7:47
that then you really are starting to use up this 3000 Watts but since you have that Headroom you're able to enjoy all those
7:54
devices be empowered at the same time so that's a lot of reasons why people go
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from like a 2000 watt inverter up to a 3000 watt inverter it's just so you can do multiple devices
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at the same time not necessarily that you're trying to power something that's 3000 Watts
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so that's the renji Rigo you may have seen in an old video where we have the same inverter it's not Rigo
8:20
so what Rigo stands for is that it's renergie's new uh inverter that has a
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Bluetooth has Bluetooth integration built into it and we'll talk about Bluetooth here in
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just a second because what we're going to be doing is we're going to be linking all of the six 100 amp hour lithium iron
8:40
phosphate smart battery so these are Energy Smart batteries three of these are self-heating and
8:45
three are not these will be plugged into a hub which
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is right over here the DC to DC Chargers over here will
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also be plugged into this hub and this communication Hub is how this
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whole system is going to communicate with the renergy One controller
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so we've got the energy run control over there I'm going to grab it here in a second to give you guys an example
9:17
but this Hub uses essentially network cables so just like your ethernet cable
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these DC to DC chargers they do come with one cable each so these will be easily plugged up the
9:31
batteries do not come with any cable so you'll have to get that but you have eight ports on here on the Hub
9:37
and so we have six batteries and then we have two DC DC charge controllers so those will all populate this whole
9:43
entire Hub once this is completely populated we'll take our hub
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and the way that these devices link to the renergy one system is with this bt2 module
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now think about this this has this module built into it so you don't need a
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Bluetooth adapter for this that's why we upgraded to the Rigo versus our other
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one also the other one's not compatible so that makes sense but the blue bt2
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connector is going to go into the primary spot and now everything that's plugged into this Hub will be able to
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communicate to the renergy one controller by Bluetooth so this will take care of
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our batteries our two DC to DC Chargers this will also connect with its internal
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Bluetooth connection and then I'm just going to go grab the box for the renji one just so you guys
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can see so here's the renji one controller
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and what I really liked about this is uh this system allows you to
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download the renergy app and your able to extensively monitor all these
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sources you get so much information that uh
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it's almost overwhelming like diving into the menu if you want to get kind of
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nerdy and dive into the menu you can go very deep you can find out the individual sales on these batteries and
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their voltages for the normal user you're not going to worry about that you're really just
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going to worry about the stated charge are these full are these empty it does that as well
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so if we open this up and they have very nice packaging it feels almost kind of like a you know
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Apple unboxing but this is the controller and I was surprised when I first got this
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controller because I thought it was going to be much bigger than it was
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so if you're gonna you can imagine this is a a battery you know it's a very it's extremely tiny
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but we have a display right here and then we have three switches so you can have this
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orientation or you have this orientation we'll probably do this orientation in the van
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these are switches so you get three switches here so once everything is connected via
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Bluetooth to this system now you can do it via Bluetooth but then
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it also has the ethernet port back here in the back technically this is the rs-45 port
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so you'll plug this in if you don't want to do the Bluetooth so you could just plug a cable directly from the Hub to
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this secondly you have the type C and this
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positive and negative Port over here on the left so if you have a type c cable that's already powered
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you can plug that in or if you want to hardwire it right here you can do that as well this is what's really cool once
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you set this all up connect the Bluetooth or add the cable you can see we have these
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six connections up here so each one is a positive and negative
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and what we have up here is these are what are going to control
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let me take that back so not positive negative these are just the control ports so for example if you want these
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switches to activate the lights in your van maybe you have an exterior light and then you want another one to
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connect to your water pump you can do that via these three switch
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ports so there's a wire and wire out and out and out so there's three of them
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now once you set this up this can now be also triggered by your
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phone so if you're in the app you can turn the lights off in your van if you hop into bed you can turn your water pump on if you
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forgot stuff like that there is a subscription plan for a more advanced version that
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allows you to change some things on here but then also monitor your system wireless wirelessly
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we're not going to do that but you do have the option to do that if you'd like to but pretty much in a nutshell that is
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the rendering One controller we're going to have future videos diving into this you know the menus how this whole entire
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thing is set up but really this is just kind of get you guys caught up with what's happening in the shop
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so let's go ahead and put this back in the box and we're going to continue with the uh
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off-grid power system tour so once
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we have this in the van we have all of our batteries connected and these systems here the next question you may
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ask is how does everything work so besides it being connected to this system
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where are the other devices connecting so for example our alternator hookup
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um our battery shut to monitor the power in and out and then lastly the solar
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disconnect in the back that's bringing in our solar power so we'll start where the power comes in first so we're using
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the renegi 50 amp DC to DC with mppt controller
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combo unit right here and if you're looking at this unit we have a four terminals here
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this terminal right here that's not connected will be connected to the engine batteries so
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that's where the alternator charging current is going to come from so that comes into here
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on the back side we have our solar input and that is
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controlled we have a breaker a dual pole breaker
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and we have two of these because we're going to have two systems left on top we're gonna have one set of solar
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charging that's going to be 400 watts and then we'll have a supplemental they'll probably be around the 200 watt
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range so we're hoping to get about 600 watts on the roof so that's going to come in through these
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dual pole Breakers dual pole Breakers are important for a solar charging
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system because although you may have an inline fuse on top of your van
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uh this breaker is going to protect you if you have a
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current back feeding through the negative side of the wire so for example if you just have the positive fused and
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it blows it's possible depending on what damage occurred or what shorted on your
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roof for it to come in feedback through the negative so what's nice is dual poles protect both of the poles at the
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same time however you can't have separate Breakers because I would you know not do its job so if you have a
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dual Pole dual throw breaker if either the negative or positive fails
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it's going to trip this is also very convenient when you're
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doing maintenance so for example say you needed to do a hard reset of your power system
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if you disconnect your battery disconnect in the back so we also have a battery disconnect that disconnects the
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power from our batteries going into our Lynx distributor here
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if you cut this off you can see if we have solar
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still coming in it's still going to feed a small amount of power into our system so that depending on the size of your
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solar Bank or solar array on top of your roof you could have enough power to wear item you
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know parts of your van are still operating because the now they may be like low voltage
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so if you use this breaker you can uh make sure that you disconnect it 100
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and you don't have anything additionally feeding so if you ever need to fully work on
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your system you can turn your system off from your battery disconnect and then
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you can just flip this breaker and then you'll be safe to work on your system and not worry about shorting anything
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out so these two components again they're on
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our DIY van build cheat sheet so we'll reference these if you're interested in getting these products
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so after we have our solar come in
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to have our engine charging then we have our Solar solar's coming in it's being controlled
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by our disconnect box right here so now we're moving on to how this box
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works so if we're getting power from our engine battery this is converting it to
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a chargeable voltage for our batteries
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and there's a different profiles so there's a little button here and you're
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going to select and cycle through that and that's going to go from if you had a sealed lead acid AGM or like a
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Lithium-Ion phosphate battery you'll select this it'll let you know that you've selected
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whatever chemistry you're working with and then this controller will take your engine batteries which are typically you
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know lead acid or AGM and then convert that to a charge profile that matches your lithium
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iron phosphate batteries which comes out here this goes into your Lynx distributor
19:26
and that will charge your batteries and it's just copied over here so you'll have two
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Charges going in and then each one is has the common
19:38
negative right here so we have a negative here a negative here and those negatives are going to be put
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into our the chassis ground at the back of the van so at the back of a Ford Transit
19:50
you'll have these three terminals that they use to ground the tail lights and some other things so we're going to pull
19:56
off of that well the terminal stud in the back and then that's how we will actually feed uh
20:03
and ground all of our negative wires so now that we have power from this
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going into our system we need to manage that and we're going to be managing that with a victron lynx distributor
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it's always nice to get a little bit of victron components in your van and this is what it looks like you guys
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uh I've probably seen this in some other vans
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but this is the lynx distributor it's kind of pricey it's you know I
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guess technically like a glorified bus bar but we love it because it is exactly
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that it's it's one place it's a system to where everything is ready to go it's
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very robust it can take a lot of current so a thousand references the the amps or
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the amount of current that I can withstam or that it's rated for and if you want to have these lights
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activated since we don't have any other victron components that activate the
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lights explorers.livet has a great video where he shows you how to wire
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the inside of this to have these lights active and what these lights do is they essentially alert you when a fuse is
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blown and they'll tell you what fuse is blown
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but back to the kind of robustness of this system I like it because
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it's very simple easy to understand and you can locate it somewhere where if one of your fuses blows it's very easy to
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get to so up here we'll have our positive n and
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this is our negative our ground for our system
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and this is how our power comes into this system this big chunky red positive cable this
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is actually our battery disconnect that goes to the back so for example we have a sliding tray that goes right here so if you had this
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packed up to the gills you know you wouldn't be able to access this so all
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of our access and Breakers are on the back so you can quickly get to it in the event of emergency
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or just general maintenance so right here we left off with the power
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coming in from these controllers so they come in here and then we have this fused with a 60
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amp fuse so this fuse is rated to protect the wire coming out
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so that protects that and then this power is going into our Lynx distributor
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and once this goes in it has the ability to charge our batteries
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so you can actually think of it as coming through this top bar coming down through the disconnect back in to the
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battery system now one thing to note that we'll talk about later is
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we will be taking a a negative cable from the back of the batteries all the way to the front and you may be
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wondering why we'd have such a long run so what we want to do is anytime you wire batteries together you want to have
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the same length uh in the supplying as well as
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so the power going in and out so what we do is we're going to take this length of cable here and then we'll
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replicate that I've already measured these two and then we'll have a negative line going from the very back
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all the way to our shunt here and our shunt is going to be what allows
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us to monitor our power in and our power out that's how we calculate our battery
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stated charge as well as consumption as well and although the renzi one because of
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the smart lithium batteries is going to tell us our state of charge
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we wanted to have a redundant system so this was just a way to quickly glance and see the power coming in and out
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so that is how the power is coming in from the batteries and being charged from the DC to DC charge controller here
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the next step is what about our other items that are consuming the power so
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once we have these two items charging it so we have our alternator charging and our solar charging
24:26
we have another way of charging it and that's via Shore power via our inverter charger so our inverter charger is going
24:32
to have a Shore power plug going outside of the van so if you wanted to if you're at your
24:38
house a friend's house or you're an RV site you'd be able to top off these batteries
24:43
at night time or just anytime you wanted to top them off and you wouldn't have to
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run the car I mean you wouldn't have to run the van and you wouldn't have to worry about
24:53
um the sun being out for example so that's the nice thing about the inverter charger so with this inverted
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charger not only can we charge the batteries but this is what we're going to use to power our 120 volt devices as
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we said earlier and right here is how this unit gets powered so this unit takes a lot of
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current especially if you are running multiple devices
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and this thing has a max current draw of up to 300 amps so we have it fused at
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300 amps it will be very challenging to hit that number so
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300 amps is a ton of current so you're typically not going to get anything close to that but just in case
25:40
that is the recommended fuse for the inverter so you can kind of
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see 300 amps is the max and we have our 1000 amp capacity so
25:51
don't forget that so from that thousand you can start taking away at your reserves so for
25:57
example you know after the 300 you get about 700 amps left so where is that going to go we'll have
26:03
700 next we have our RTX Dometic RTX
26:09
2000 rooftop AC unit the manufacturer recommends an 80 amp
26:15
fuse protecting that circuit and just to do simple math you know we
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bring it down 80 let's just say 100 so we got about 600 amps left
26:27
and our last device is this right here so this is a terminal fuse and it's a
26:35
pretty cool hack so I found this I learned about this also from explore.life and if you notice this
26:41
cover we have this little terminal stud coming
26:46
out and why do we need this well this is an easy way to add one more
26:52
fused circuit coming out of the lynx distributor we're going to use this for our
27:00
remote fuse block and this is what it looks like
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so as you can see all of our major components are handled by the lynx distributor you know our DC to DC charging our
27:13
inverter and our Dometic RTX 2000 so our big current draws are protected by these
27:19
big chunky Mega fuses this one we have uh so we did our quick math we
27:25
got about 600 amps left over so we have this which is a 500 amp uh this is a 100
27:31
amp terminal fuse and so that brings us down to 500. so you see we're only using half the
27:37
capacity even though we have these high current items we're only using about half the capacity of this Lynx
27:43
distributor so it's a very robust unit but what we're powering with this 100
27:48
amp circuit here is we are powering this St blade fuse
27:53
block so blade fuses uh you guys have probably seen them mostly from
27:58
Automotive so you know if you've ever replaced like your tail light fuse or something like that it's probably a
28:05
blade fuse and that's just a fuse that just inserts like a blade just like it says
28:10
all the components that I use other than this like the lynx distributor or some
28:16
of these components are nine times out of ten gotta be a blue C systems component so the battery disconnects or
28:22
Blue Sea Systems and then any fuses or bluecy systems the St blade fuse block
28:29
that we're about to talk about but what's nice is this block can
28:34
support up to 100 amps so we have a 100 amp block 100 amp fuse
28:40
so now we just kind of start taking away on our usages so this block
28:46
is going to be con conveniently located underneath our kitchen galley and this is going to take care of all of
28:53
our overhead lights any exterior lights we have our parking heater our fridge
29:00
um our water pump USB charging Outlets anything 12 volt like that
29:06
we'll be out of here but what's nice about this is if you supply it with such a high
29:13
current then the future customer can add whatever additional things that they
29:18
want to and they won't be limited by the current so if you can go nice on nice
29:24
and high on current here you know 100 amps you're going to have a lot of devices that you're going to be able to
29:30
use not only simultaneously but future expansions be really easy you're
29:36
going to be able to tap into this one thing to note about these blade fuse blocks is some are sold without a
29:44
negative grounding port and that may be fine depending on your
29:50
wiring situation but in my experience it's very aggravating to have to pull the negative
29:57
uh or make a negative connection uh outside of a fuse block so when you're
30:04
buying these fuse blocks two things make sure that it has a negative terminal and make sure it has a plastic Snap-on cover
30:11
just to protect it from anything that might rub up against it so with this one what's nice is you have
30:17
your negative terminals up here and then you have your positive terminals over here so if you have a new wire that you
30:23
wanted to put in like a USB charger Outlet you can just take that positive negative wire it right here to the side
30:28
add your blade fuse and you have your new circuit very very easy
30:35
so that is where this uh terminals going
30:40
then to finish up on the back we talked about our disconnect so we have a blue C
30:46
systems disconnect and they're typically in red but we got this one in black because we're trying to keep everything
30:52
nice and Sleek kind of color uh coated is for um not color coded but
30:59
aesthetically you know we want we want it to look good um so this one is black we also have uh
31:07
this box they do make a gray one if you're looking for gray so they've got red gray
31:14
and black so we only have two connections back here we have this is our main connection
31:20
uh now again you need to make sure that these things are rated for uh
31:26
the the maximum current that you um you may see at one time
31:33
so for example this is uh also again any of these products you really want to make sure that they're UL listed or try
31:40
to get as many UL listed items in your van just for safety but for this we have 300 amps continuous
31:46
450 amp Spike for five minutes and then we got 675 amps for 30 seconds
31:54
so we're not going to hit any of these numbers because these fuses will blow
32:00
before this ever gets interrupted so just for sizing purposes that's a
32:06
good thing to look forward to then last but not least in the back here
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we have our solar disconnect box this box if you go and look at our van build
32:18
cheat sheet you'll be able to find this box this box is nice because
32:23
it is Splash proof so it has these gaskets and
32:28
what's nice about this is for example in Thomas's van this is mounted inside his
32:33
battery system and there's no way for water or rain from the back doors being open to get to
32:40
it so this was just mounted on its clip and just for easy access and maintenance
32:45
however this as you guys can see we don't have any room to put this box
32:52
so we are putting this box in the very back and that's a one to something to think about when you have all these components is where you're going to put
32:58
them so this layout we have this box in the
33:04
very back and you can imagine if the doors were open and it was storming one day we have our disconnect switch protected
33:11
but we need to protect this so what this box does is we have our
33:16
disconnects there's these little plastic tabs you can break out so it comes with one opening but since we have two
33:23
battery uh solar panel arrays we're going to have
33:29
two of these disconnects they're all they're rated for how much ever you know
33:34
how much power you anticipate coming in so we have one for 32 amps and then the other one I believe is 16 amps but we
33:40
have two side by side this cover comes over pops in and this is now nice and
33:48
protected
33:53
so that is part of the back next we're going to talk about the tools
33:58
here and then we're going to do that in prep for the end of this video where we're going to do a quick tutorial on
34:04
how to strip cut crimp cut strip crimp
34:09
and heat shrink this while this wire that's a tongue twister
34:15
all right let's check out the tools that we have here again all these tools are on the DIY van build cheat sheet check
34:22
out the link in the description below so let's go ahead and take off the table the items that we're not talking about
34:35
before I forget this was not mentioned the alternator charging I'm using these
34:41
as safety fuse blocks and we're going to be using two of these and these will be the two fuse blocks from each of the
34:48
engine batteries so we have a dual battery setup in the Ford Transit so one will be attached to one battery one will
34:53
be attached the other battery they're both going to be six gauge wires coming back to this unit and so this will be
34:59
the point that is protecting the power cable of the 12 volt line going from the
35:07
engine battery to the DC to DC charge controller what's nice about these Blue C system safety blocks is
35:16
they have a nice uh they're actually designated for the engine bay of a boat
35:22
but they have a gasket here it snaps over there the wires are protected and then these yellow Clips
35:29
are really nice because it's a very satisfying click to shut this top
35:34
some other lower cost uh fuse blocks like this I don't like
35:41
them because I've I've found a issues with them um so they're typically sold for like
35:48
car stereos if I were you the Just For Peace of Mind definitely get this system
35:55
it uses a mega fuse which is really nice because it'll be the same type of fuse like this and if you have the same type
36:02
of fuse it's just more convenient to have these fuses you're used to them you know that this fuse is the same as this
36:08
fuse all you need to do is change the amperage and this will be underneath your driver's seat so we'll have two of these
36:18
all right let's talk about tools for crimping and making all these connections so first we need to have our power cable
36:27
so our power cable I get it from a company called windy Nation uh again
36:33
these are all on the van Builder HQ di van build cheat sheet
36:38
so you can buy these you buy them in lengths of 10 10 feet 25 feet 100
36:44
however you will find that 4 Ott which is a very chunky wire is very expensive
36:49
so 10 feet of red and black cable is about 150 dollars on Amazon
36:56
but what's nice about that is you do get color-coded cables and typically 10 feet is enough to do a
37:03
battery a typical battery bank system so you need to find your wire you need to find out what gauge wire
37:08
you're using so we're using two gauges two different gauges not two gauge two
37:14
different gauges we're using a four Ott and we're using a six gauge
37:21
and it's also called battery cable slash welding wire but those two are going to be able to
37:28
supply all of our circuits in here we have our power the chunky ones are the
37:34
power's coming from the battery go into the inverter the air conditioner from Dometic
37:40
actually uses a four gauge wire but when you purchase that unit that is an add-on that you'll need to buy for the Dometic
37:46
RTX unit but it's already designed with a fitting to snap right into it but it
37:52
is an additional cost when you're buying the Dometic RTX 2000 but that will go here
37:58
so we have only purchased two the kit that we bought for the Dometic has the
38:03
four gauge but the tools we use here are going to be able to strip uh cut strip and crimp
38:11
as well as heat shrink all the heat shrink all of those so once we have our cable the next thing
38:17
we need to do is we need to cut our cable and
38:24
pair wire cutters is not going to cut it no pun intended on these wires you're going to need a specific wire
38:31
cutter and you need one that has a 4 ought wire capacity
38:37
you won't believe how big this needs to be to cut something like this
38:43
and if that makes sense you know bigger wire bigger part pliers to cut it these cable Cutters are specifically designed
38:51
to shear the cable so it's not like a cut
38:57
where it's coming down it's kind of like moving in this like kind of like a shearing action
39:04
and that's important because you don't want to fray the end of this wire if you
39:10
Fray the end of this wire then it's going to be extremely hard to crimp onto
39:16
your connections so we need our wire cutter so we got our wire we have our wire
39:22
cutter once we've cut our wire we'll we need to
39:28
strip off the
39:33
our insulation on the outside and so this is one of the tools that we use we'll have it in the description
39:39
this one's really nice it has a little mini blade that you can dial the height of it and then this just snaps onto the
39:46
cable flip it around and that's going to allow you to take off your ends next
39:52
you're going to need your your battery lugs or your ring terminals these are the ones that if you can get
39:58
UL listed it's nice because there's a lot of weird name manufacturers on this and this is more of a safety item
40:05
because you're having so much current come through here two things they make four out
40:11
uh size but the two differences are one is a 5 16 inch hole and then one is a 3 8.
40:20
typical batteries are going to be 5 16. size for the mounting hole
40:26
your shunt your battery disconnect is going to be of the 3 8 variety you
40:34
can find ones that are the 5 16 but I Accord with the current that comes out
40:40
of this you're probably not going to find something like that but anyway you're going to go ahead and get your uh
40:46
your terminals and then once you get them you're going to get your hydraulic crimper you can
40:55
get a manual crimper I like the hydraulic crimper gives you just more peace of mind that the connection is very very strong robust so this is one
41:03
that's on the list as well they have little interchangeable dies so you can go from four out to two watt to
41:10
four gauge and then you can go all the way to six gauge if necessary
41:17
so you're going to need that to do that so once you've crimped the cable we're going to move into a heat shrink
41:25
and you can buy these big rolls of a heat shrink especially if you're doing a battery bank it's nice to have you know
41:30
just a big roll so you're not having to continually order stuff as far as heat shrinking goes
41:36
just get a gun just a really cheap gun heat gun you want to do corded
41:43
I used to work with cordless guns with battery packs but battery packs and heat guns don't mix
41:49
because they they run they die really quickly you need some scissors to cut your heat
41:54
shrink foreign pliers to undo your bolts so that you
41:59
can test fit your cable once you have it finished you know tape measure to measure
42:05
everything the calipers this seems a little Overkill but when you're ordering your heat shrink tape you need to make
42:11
sure that the width of your terminal
42:17
the heat treat that you're buying can fit over your terminal if you go on Amazon there's a bunch of
42:24
different sizes and one size may not be the same as the other so you really need to check the description because I
42:30
bought a lot of this stuff and even me I've found where I ordered one size that I ordered before
42:36
and the size has changed and it didn't fit so what I do is I measure this with
42:42
a pair of calipers I reference the size chart and then I ordered that and it seems to work out perfect every time
42:50
so once we have all that the marker is gonna we're gonna show you
42:55
here in just a second we Mark the cable to find out where we need to uh take off the outer
43:03
cable so that we can access the copper
43:09
and then there's a little trim tool sometimes your cut doesn't go all the way through so a little exacto knife
43:15
helps to kind of clean things up make sure you have enough terminals you
43:21
don't want to order exact size because if you mess up one of your crimps you're gonna it's just you're gonna have to reorder
43:27
you have to wait so make sure you have at least order an extra bag
43:32
then we have our zip ties zip ties are nice because you can hold all the wires in place when you're doing these these
43:39
routes before you cut everything to make sure everything is going to be where you want it and that way because these are very
43:46
stiff and it's hard to keep them in place if you're a one-man band trying to put this together so these assist in
43:52
holding the cable in one place and then finally we just have a allen wrench this
43:58
is just in case we have to move anything out of the way to get access to our cables this I'm actually using to
44:05
uh you know tighten up these so that's pretty much it as far as all
44:11
the components go last part of this video we're going to dive into doing a little step-by-step tutorial on how to
44:18
cut this and that'll be it for the video so um hope you guys enjoy this next part
44:25
if you have any questions make sure you put those in the description below they help out the channel a lot we'll reference that for a future video to
44:31
answer your questions and uh yeah looking forward to your comments but let's go ahead and jump into our
44:37
tutorial on how to cut strip crimp and heat shrink a 4 ought battery
44:45
cable all right let's kick off this tutorial here's all the tools that we talked about we're going to do each one step by
44:52
step got a little ahead of myself I've already stripped this but I'm going to
44:58
show you how to do it anyway so the first thing we need to do is we
45:03
need to backup we need to take our tape measure and depending on our battery terminal sizes
45:11
so like from here to here we need to find out how long that's
45:17
going to be so the length is going to be
45:23
where the terminal the ring terminal goes over
45:30
like that you can over here so kind of like that so the measurement between if you have a
45:37
straight shot you're going to do this and measure from this part of the lug to this part of the lug so
45:43
essentially try to aim for measuring about right here and then right here kind of like
45:50
that halfway point above this little ramp area because we want to make sure that from
45:55
here to here we have good heat compression for the wire itself this
46:02
extra part is just more insurance that we have a really good connection when we go to do our hydraulic crimp so from
46:09
here to here is what you're going to use for your measurements
46:14
and then you just kind of want to play around and make sure that if you have a straight shot that when this goes down
46:20
to connect the negative bat side of One battery to the negative the other it's nice and easy it's not kinked or Twisted
46:27
it's just nice and clean for my application I need to make a Bend so I
46:34
will make sure that when I make my Bend one that the cable can bend and two that
46:40
after I'm bent and I put it on my terminals I've got a good connection so that's the first two things so once
46:46
you've got your measurement the nice thing about doing things the right way
46:52
is this length of cable needs to be the same for every single battery that you
46:58
connect in a row so that the power is distributed evenly so what you can do is you can just have
47:04
a table here and what I like to do is I'll take a permanent marker and I'll make a reference mark
47:10
and then I'll get my tape measure out and for example these cable ends that I need are links are 10 inches
47:18
so I'll take my tape measure I'll mark 10 inches and then now
47:24
on my workbench I've got a part where the cable starts and then I got a place
47:29
where the cable ends and so what this is going to do this is going to help me to just get my
47:35
production up a little bit faster so I'll take the cable and you guys will be doing something like this you'll have a
47:41
long piece of cable you want to put it here it's almost kind of like cutting rope
47:47
and then when you get to this end piece you're going to want to take out your marker
47:53
and then you just want to make a mark right there damn once you've done it you want to do
48:00
this one at a time you want to Mark and do a bunch of them just do this one at a time take your cutters
48:07
and then sometimes this won't go through but it's it's sized so that the cable
48:12
can go through like this you can buy a big one but it's not necessary the cost just goes up but
48:18
right where these uh blades are you want to put that there and then go ahead and
48:23
take it and then cut the wire the nice thing about this specific
48:29
cutter as you guys can see is it has a shearing action so you're
48:34
going to get this really clean cut because you want a clean cut for this
48:40
next purpose it's so that this does not Fray
48:46
and you have a hard time you know sticking it into your terminal so once you've measured
48:52
you've cut and now you have your wire your next step is you need to strip the
48:59
outer housing from The Wire so you're going to take this is our tool on the list
49:05
you take this tool you'll need to practice dialing this up or down so that it doesn't cut into the
49:11
copper wire but it takes away the rubber insulation
49:17
so take this you're going to pop it on and then what you're going to do is I'm going to try to do this a second time
49:24
without screwing this up but you'll take it make sure it's together like that
49:30
and then take your fingernail and finger and you want this to be a guide because you're going to rotate this
49:36
counterclockwise around here so you're going to take it and you kind of see what I'm doing I'm taking it and I'm
49:41
rotating it and then once you get one revolution you'll hear a snap if you
49:46
hear a snap then you probably dialed in perfectly because what you'll have is this clean
49:53
break take your hand and then you want to hold it and then twist this part of the wire
49:58
like that and you can see look at that you have an
50:04
just an incredible clean cut and if you look in here notice we don't have any copper
50:10
filings or pieces of wire because we were just remove the rubber with this tool and we've protected our
50:20
copper which is really good if you accidentally Nick one or two little fine wires
50:25
that's okay don't panic but if you do like five like ten five or ten you're
50:32
going to want to uh cut this and then recrimp it because remember this is what's Point taking all the current all
50:38
the power from your battery system and the more wires that are gone the less
50:43
the more resistance this is going to create uh and it will not be as safe as
50:48
it could be so once you have one side done do the same to the other one but leave this on
50:55
because you're going to be working over here and hitting this and it keeps you from messing up and fraying this
51:01
the reason you don't want to fray it is because look how precise these lugs are you see that it's
51:09
very very precise so because it is precise if it's frayed it's really hard to get
51:16
this on here next you want to make sure uh take into account the curve so if you're going
51:22
over a straight battery to battery connection this Arc is what you want to have
51:28
so then when you lay it down it goes flat if you have a curved connection like I do I want to go with the natural
51:34
curve of the cable so for me I'm going to take my terminal and I'm going to turn it down like that
51:42
and then I'm going to take it and I'm going to stuff it in here like that
51:47
so I get as much wire in there as I I possibly can
51:52
and then what I'm going to do and I don't do this on both sides but I'm
51:58
going to show you guys I take a marker and I just make a line like that and that lets me know when I
52:05
go to crimp it if I've accidentally moved it I can visually see that because if I
52:11
moved it now it's not with the curvature of my wire it's been offset so now I can just kind of line it back up
52:19
I'm going to hold it I'm going to take my hydraulic crimper I'm going to make sure I got the right
52:24
dies in here there's multiple dies they have like four odd two watt six gauge so
52:30
I have the four ounce size in here if there's a metric number you can convert that to a OT size and they may
52:37
have a chart depending on where you bought it from so this one does so you can represent or you can just ask me
52:44
what it is but we're going to take this we're going to close uh
52:50
right here so that we can get pressure from our when we Pump It Up
52:56
and we're just going to get it very loose just a loose tight fitting
53:03
okay and then when we get there we'll go ahead and slide it you can undo this if you've got it too
53:09
tight just a little bit like that and so I just need to open it up again
53:20
okay it may be hard to see but I have about that much
53:27
coming out of the back side and I have my wire pushed all the way in all right so that is what that looks
53:34
like I'm going to hold the wire like this so my fingers on the gun and
53:40
this is holding the wire so it's the right orientation I'm going to put this on the bench
53:45
make sure this is tight and then I'm going to go for it and I'm gonna go until I fill a lot of
53:53
resistance like right there I can't go any further so I'm going to take it don't take it
53:58
out yet I want to check to make sure that my die has compressed I might get one more push
54:05
and I can see that my die is completely compressed so I'm going to go ahead and release the
54:10
knob so when I release the knob the Piston comes back
54:17
this Falls away my die stays in there but my cable is now crimped
54:24
now I was doing this on camera with you guys so I wasn't paying 100 attention but if it's offset like this
54:31
you won't have to redo it it's not the end of the world as you can
54:36
see you still have some Flex in this wire but you want to make sure it's as
54:41
close as possible so once we have that you can go ahead and test it and if you see the cable
54:47
coming out don't panic you're just sliding it down this side so you can
54:52
work it back in right there so it's not actually the cable coming out of your lug it just
54:59
seems like that so kind of just work it back up and so now we're ready to we're going to
55:06
go ahead and we're going to heat shrink this side
55:11
so you take your heat shrink out just need a pair of scissors and so with a marker I'm going to show
55:17
you guys what I measured so you can always do this so that line is where I
55:23
start my heat shrink and then I come back and I try to come back about this so a little bit shorter than this
55:30
distance so it's a little bit longer on this side a little bit shorter over here but you really can have it as big as you
55:37
want what you don't want to do is this area right here
55:43
you don't want the heat shrink in this area right here
55:51
so you don't you don't want that this because this area is your mounting surface for your electrical connection
55:58
so anything from here back is okay so back here is okay
56:03
don't have it on the surface and you kind of can see there so if you can think about like my pinky
56:09
is the surface you want it to be that you don't want you don't want the this
56:15
making your connection not as good as it can be because if this is on if you're
56:20
crimping when you were to tighten it down if you're on top of this plastic you're not making a good connection and
56:28
it might be only connecting on this side so you want this heat shrink to be all the way back right there
56:37
so let's take this we've got this and let's move this out of the way
56:48
so we have it here and then we're just going to take it right there and we're just going to go ahead and
56:54
make our cut all right so once we've cut it
57:02
we're going to open it up this one does not have the adhesive sealant which is
57:07
that's completely fine you can have these with adhesive sealant they'll be more glossy on the inside but
57:13
just make sure that if you do have that there's just one extra step and you just
57:18
want to make sure that you're heating the heat shrink up enough so that it kind of oozes out to make that seal
57:25
all right it's going to get loud we'll keep the video rolling but go ahead when you turn your gun on let it warm up just
57:31
for a second on high heat we're going to come and we're just going to slowly shrink this until it gets almost all the
57:38
way around and then we're going to rotate it to evenly finish the rest out
57:43
[Applause]
58:08
foreign
58:14
[Applause]
58:44
so I on I purposely made this go a little bit too far so that I can show you if you are heat
58:51
shrinking and you mess up you go too close to where your mounting surface is so say for example like you have like a
58:58
washer here
59:08
let's say you had like a mounting washer and that washer was coming in contact with your heat shrink
59:14
uh what you can do is you don't have to redo your whole heat shrink or fix your wire or anything like that just take
59:21
your X-Acto Knife that I was talking to you guys about and you just take your X-Acto Knife and
59:26
just cut that piece of heat shrink so that it is not interfering with
59:33
your plug and then once you've cut that you can pull it away
59:40
and then that makes sure that that is going to be a good connection so if you have something that's you know 99
59:45
perfect and then you just have a little bit of overhang it's okay to cut that back so that you have your nice metal to
59:52
metal contact but that's how you cut strip
59:59
crimp and heat shrink a four odd cable that's going to go on your battery terminal
1:00:05
so I hope that helps if you guys have any question on how to do this put that in the comments below don't forget to
1:00:11
check out all these parts that are on the DIY van build cheat sheet you can find that link in the description below
1:00:17
as well as on van builderhq.com thank you guys so much for watching we'll see
1:00:23
you in the next video foreign [Music]
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