Electrical System & Camp Kitchen

For the electrical system and our kitchen setup we started again with some very specific goals:

• Induction cooking – we want to be able to not care too much about wind or the dangers of an open flame. This drives decisions for battery capacity, charging power, inverter size, etc.
• Run a fridge, a fan for our toilet, lights, the water system and assorted other small things.
• Be able to use all available power sources (even though we might not hook up all of them): shore power, solar, alternator.
•  Have as few individual components as possible (which excluded Victron unfortunately).

Of course, the induction cooking part drove most of the technical necessities. There are some interesting observations we made on our journey to a cooking system that seems to work for us:

Propane bottles are heavy. An 11lbs bottle full with propane weighs about 20 to 23lbs. That's actually more than the second battery I need for induction cooking. Then I need all these hoses, regulators etc. So, there isn't much in terms of weight savings over a fully electrical setup.

I know that this is my very personal opinion, but I believe that cooking with propane while camping completely and utterly sucks. Let me explain. When cooking with an open flame a strong wind can make it annoying to nearly impossible to regulate the temperature. We used a pretty high quality setup with our Patriot camper and I hated every single time a slight breeze started. Nearly every single propane camping stove sucks. We own(ed) three different ones: a Martin, a Coleman, and a Jetboil Genesis. We hate every single one of them. The one we still have is the Jetboil, and even on that insanely expensive stove, one of the burners can't simmer after maybe 20 uses. The price to quality is just badbadbad. We then used a MSR Windburner for coffee or tea during the day. That was great, but it required a second type of fuel. The one thing we loved regarding propane cooking was the Weber grill. So, we had to find a way to integrate a small oven into our system without having to carry propane.

Given all that, our cooking system now consists of:

• A 1800W induction plate,
• An electric kettle,
• A 12V travel oven, and
  
• Induction ready pots and pans, and I'm still eyeing an induction ready mocca pot and a small milk frother to make better coffee.

The journey to get the electrical system to the point to suppot these things (not all at once of course, but some can easily be combined) took us again a while to sort out. Here's a component list:

• GP-Factor full Redarc System with Manager 30 and Redvision TVMS 80 including Redvision display;
• A secondary Redarc charger to get us a) a secondary solar input for a mobile solar blanket and b) 25A more DCDC charging for a full 55A;
• 2x 100Ah Renogy self heating batteries with BMS;
• Redarc 2000W inverter;
• Some assorted odds and ends.

Here's the initial system plan:

There is a sub-panel for some of the 12V components (water pump, oven, heater), but other than that it's pretty much as shown above.

Recharging the Batteries

We generally charge the batteries while driving with only the Redarc Manager 30 at 30A from the truck's alternator. 

If we have depleted the batteries more than usual, we can activate the secondary charger, which results in 55A alternator charging, meaning the 200Ah batteries would be full from zero to 100% in less than four hours driving. We have never needed this though. Generally, cooking one big meal, fridge, lights, using other 12V appliances as well as making tea in the afternoon and coffee in the morning has never brought the batteries below 65%. 

The normal usecase is that the batteries are recharged after about one to two hours of driving.

Solar

To supplement our system when the truck sits in place for a while, we have a 140W Sunflare Xplor solar panel installed on the roof of the camper. This easily keeps the fridge running in sunny conditions with the batteries never dropping below 99%. It even covers using the electric kettle twice on a sunny day as we found out when I forgot to turn on alternator charging.

If we wanted to, we could run more solar through portable solar blankets. The second charger has an Anderson 50A plug routed to an accessible spot. Currently we don't have a solar blanket since we just don't need it.

Shore Power

If we are in a place with a 120V hookup, we can use shore power through the Manager 30. It's not routed to the outside though, since we currently don't need it.

Impresssions

 

Initial testing of ideas

The GP Factor Full Redarc System

Making inverter wiring

Testing length of the wiring

First install

First test

First wiring attempt in the camper

All closed up

Cooking our first meal

And one of our typical meals when we are camp cooking

Fixing some wiring issues in the GP Factor unit

The display got relocated to the door panel for better accessibility

Original display location nicely closed up

The final wiring

A nice and clean setup

Charger switching

Charger switching, 120V outlet, and toilet fan switch on the left side

Electrical sub-panel on the right side for water pump, oven, and heater

We have been using the system now and it's been everything we hoped for. No fussing around with gas containers, no planning for refills on longer trips, absolutely perfect wind resistance, and incredibly easy to use. 

We can cook in windy conditions without a second thought:

The induction plate costs a fraction of the Jetboil Genesis and works easily ten times better. The only downside is that it has only one "burner", but we can easily live with that.

And it's so quick and easy to move around with a 10m extension cord, that we use it all the time: