Our total campervan electrics kit .. aka… everything we used for the electrical side of our campervan build. To make things easier, this is a separate post from our solar panel kit. Head here to read everything you need to create power for your campervan electrical system.
Oh my goodness, the daunting task of the electrical system in a campervan build. Honestly, once you just start buying stuff for your electrical system, things start to make sense! I think there’s something about holding the items in your hands that helps really understand how all the parts piece together.
This post is all about the extra bits to our electrical system. With the solar power setup being full of so many stinking parts, we did an entirely different post for that! This post is instead all the extra electrical bits. Things like wiring, exterior and interior lights, a fuse box, and more!
Our hope with this post is this bit of the electrical system is easier to understand and makes the entire electric grid of your van build not seem as scary!
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Our Campervan Electrics Kit
Dual Battery Isolator Kit (included enough wiring to ground batteries and inverter)
ALOVECO 12 Volt DC Dimmer Switch
Acegoo RV Boat Recessed Ceiling Light ( 4 pack of warm white)
Blue Sea Systems Fuse Block ST Blade 12 Circuit with Ground and Cover
Nilight LED Light Bar Wiring Harness Kit (2 leads)
Nilight Light Bar (pack of four)
Quick Charge 12V Outlet & USB Charger (2)
Renogy 2000W Pure Sine Wave Inverter (went big for the computer and blender loads)
16 Gauge Red Wiring (100 feet)
16 Gauge Black Wiring (100 feet)
⅜ in & ½ in x 200 ft Split loom black wire protection (to protect wires and be able to fish wiring)
A Closer Look At Our Campervan Electrics Kit
Dual Battery Isolator Kit (included enough wiring to ground batteries and inverter) | grab it here
A Dual Battery Isolator Kit isn’t totally necessary for every van build that has a complete solar setup. However, it’s nice to have as a backup if there’s not much sun.
Dual Battery Isolator Kits allow your normal van battery to charge your leisure battery (AKA your build-out battery) when the van is running. The isolator bit of the kit is what allows the main van battery (the one that runs your van) to charge the leisure battery (the one you add in your build out), but it doesn’t let the energy run the other way. It isolates the batteries so they don’t get overcharged and continue charging when the van is turned off.
This is a super simple way of creating power for the back of your van if you don’t plan on needing much and are driving a lot. I will say, the installation of the Dual Battery Isolator Kit is daunting, as you have to drill or find a hole to shove the wire from under the hood of your van to the inside! Thankfully, the kit comes with all the extra wiring and electric gadgets you need to get your campervan electrics kit job done!
These are the van batteries we recently just upgraded to. They are lithium iron phosphate batteries by Goldenmate and we did a full review on them if you curious about a more budget-friendly power-packed power solution for your van!
ALOVECO 12 Volt DC Dimmer Switch | check price here
This little gadget is so awesome for van life! This dimmer switch controls all four of our dimmable recessed ceiling lights (listed below). It’s super small and really easy to install. The most difficult part of installing this dimmer switch was trying to decide where we wanted it!
I have seen a couple of builds that have multiple dimmer switches in them. This is a great idea for a larger campervan or RV! With multiple dimmer switches, you can have bright lights in the kitchen while having softer lights above the bed or hang-out area! We’ve been very happy with how this dimmer has worked with the lights listed below! Grab them both together or a cozy, yet professional-looking build!
Acegoo RV Boat Recessed Ceiling Light ( 4 pack of warm white) | find them here
I have been so freaking happy with everything about these ceiling lights! They look amazing against the dark wood and match our campervan fan perfectly. And the color of the light is so cozy, it creates such a homey feel in the van.
We have a set of four of these recessed ceiling lights paired with a dimmer switch (listed above) and that has been perfect in the minivan conversion. If we had a bigger van, I think we would have two sets of these lights, installing some under shelves for direct light on counters as well as having them in the ceiling. We’d also have them on two different dimmer switches. With all that said, a set of four is perfect for a minivan-campervan conversion!
Blue Sea Systems Fuse Block ST Blade 12 Circuit with Ground and Cover | check prices here
I feel so silly writing this, but honestly, I’m going to say it just to make other people who feel the same way not feel so bad. I literally didn’t know we needed a fuse box in the van! And you very well know I researched for days if not weeks on end about our campervan electrics kit. Nowhere did I see a proper fuse box in people’s electrical van setups.
I was so confused for the longest time prior to the build, and, even at the start of the build, about how we would connect all the electrical wires to the battery. Not until we laid everything out as a flat lay of our electrical system did Jay ask about a fuse box, not realizing I never got one!
Oops!!! At that point, a light bulb went off, and everything about the electrical system made total sense! Thanks to Amazon, we had one a couple of days later. This fuse box is perfect with 12 different slots for the fuses. We have extra slots for anything we add to the build later, but for now, it houses fuses for the following… fridge, ceiling lights, two sets of roof lights, two 12v outlets, and our roof fan.
Nilight LED Light Bar Wiring Harness Kit (2 leads) | check prices here
For the price of this wiring harness kit, it’s well worth grabbing a kit for each of the lights listed below. These kits have everything you need to hook up your outside lights to the fuse box. And, they come with an on/off switch for the lights. I honestly can’t believe how cheap these are for how perfect and easy they are to install!
In our van, we have two lights going off the front of the van, one out the sliding door side, and one off the back. They are on two different switches, so we can have lights when reversing, driving down dirt roads at night, and searching for campsites. They also work great when we’re in the middle of nowhere with nobody else around and want to light up our entire surroundings!
Nilight Light Bar (pack of four) | grab your lights here
Jay was so stoked to be doing a van build literally just for the fact of putting lights like this on the roof. Come to find out, our van roof is so stinking angled, these don’t work as well as we hoped… In fact, we may be adding another light bar, like this one, on the front bumper of the van soon!
In most cases, these lights would work really well. They’re able to be angled as you need, and are so bright, easy to install, and, look super cool. However, with the curve of our van roof and our huge windshield, the lights just reflect off the windshield if there’s any dirt on it! When installing these lights, make sure to play with them at night to make sure they work where you’re hoping they do before drilling holes in your roof for permanent placement!
Be sure to grab a set of these for your light cable entry point into your van. We talk more about them in our van gadgets post as well as in the solar power post!
READ MORE | the best campervan gadgets on the market | from fun to practical
Quick Charge 12V Outlet & USB Charger (2) | find them here
When I saw this 12V outlet set up, I thought it would be perfect for the van! And shoot, it looks good, but there are a couple of things we actually don’t like about this set. First, the blue lights on the USB charger side stay on all the time. This is super annoying because it pulls power even when not in use. It’s also very annoying if you’re wanting to charge things overnight, as you’ll have a blue light shining through the night.
It’s not the end of the world because you can just cover the light, but still enough of an annoyance that we wouldn’t buy this one again.
The other thing we’re not happy with is that one of them came with loose connections and doesn’t keep the USB cords in the plugs well. Making it nearly pointless to have. That one we’ll be replacing.
All in all, these get the job done, but are not great. For a future build, we’d do a bit more research and find a different 12V outlet.
Renogy 2000W Pure Sine Wave Inverter | current prices here
We went with a larger than typically necessary inverter to use our Vitamix and charge our computers with no problem. It seems like most people have a 1500W inverter instead of a 2000W. So you can most likely get away with a smaller inverter, but just be sure to double-check before going too small.
Regardless of what size of inverter you choose for your campervan conversion, make sure it’s a pure sine wave inverter. These have less feedback than other inverters, which is huge if you’re doing any kind of video or audio production when on the road.
16 Gauge Red Wiring (100 feet) | find it near you here
I’ve included an image above that is a link to Amazon, however, I don’t recommend purchasing through that link. I’ve just included the image for you to see what we’re talking about here. Instead, head to Autozone (linked in the current price and here), or your local automotive store and get wiring from them.
With mixed reviews on Amazon of the quality of this wire, we’d just steer completely clear of it all together! We used 16 gauge wire for our entire build, as we didn’t want to mess with calculating all the different size wires for each thing. This may or may not be a good idea for you. I think it worked fine in our minivan conversion since it’s so small. This may not be the case if running wires for longer sections!
As a side note, when I say entire van build, I’m not including running the wires from the solar to the battery, from the inverter to the battery, the dual isolator kit, or the ground wire on the battery.
16 Gauge Black Wiring (100 feet) | find it near you here
The image here is a link to Amazon, however, I don’t recommend purchasing through that link. I’ve just included the image for you to see what we’re talking about here. Instead, head to Autozone (linked in the current price and here), or your local automotive store and get wiring from them.
With mixed reviews on Amazon of the quality of this wire, we’d just steer completely clear of it all together! We used 16 gauge wire for our entire build, as we didn’t want to mess with calculating all the different size wires for each thing. This may or may not be a good idea for you. I think it worked fine in our minivan conversion since it’s so small. This may not be the case if running wires for longer sections!
You really don’t have to have two different colored wires, you can do it all in red or all in black. However, having two different colors of wire is really, really recommended, as it helps keep you organized! It’s an easy way to make sure you’re connecting the correct wire to the correct side of the fuse box!
As a side note, when I say entire van build, I’m not including running the wires from the solar to the battery, from the inverter to the battery, the dual isolator kit, or the ground wire on the battery.
READ MORE | find the thicker wire we used for the solar and battery connections in this post
⅜ in & ½ in x 200 ft Split loom black wire protection (to protect wires and be able to fish wiring) | grab it here
Conduit helps protect the electrical wires in a van conversion. It prevents the wires from getting pinched in corners and from rubbing against things when moving. Super important for the fact that your van is a mobile unit, and will be moving around a lot!
Conduit is commonly used to fish wires through that you may need later in a build. We didn’t use the conduit like this though. Instead, we used it solely to protect the electrical wires running throughout the van. This pack is great because it has different sizes of conduit, so you can really get it in any crack you need!
Our Campervan Electrics Kit in Photos
More Details On Our Electrical Set-Up
Obviously, you’ll need an entire solar set up to power all of this electrical equipment. But seeing how the solar setup has so many parts, we did an entirely separate post just like this for it.
You can read about our solar set up here.
More Details on Van Builds
Choosing the Best Campervan Fridge for Your Specific Van Build
Mounting Solar Panels to Your Campervan Roof | 31 easy steps
Campervan Lighting Ideas | the best lights for your campervan build
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