I've just picked up my Caravelle, which has double duty as a daily driver and weekend camper.
We plan on camping every other weekend for the next 6 months, with a longer 3 week Euro trip somewhere in there. The majority of our camping is on sites and mostly with hook-up available, but we do often have long driving days when heading to the continent (anywhere between 6 & 12 hours is not unusual). I don't want to make any permanent changes to the interior or the van body; therefore, a complete leisure circuit is not on my plans, so I've been looking at how I can get all the benefits of being hooked up and off-grid.
Other than no permanent changes, I've tried to think of a simple solution that avoids me needing to swap plugs/cables between sources depending on where we are and to give us constant USB power in the rear (the Caravelle has 12v sockets in the rear, but they are perm live against the van battery). My initial thought was to have everything necessary running from the Bluetti and using the hookup to pass through charge(?) the power pack, but from what I've read, that is not an ideal way of doing things, as these batteries don't like to charge and draw simultaneously.
I'm far from electrically minded, so the image may be utter nonsense, but I'd be grateful for any feedback and suggestions on the diagram below before I take the plunge and buy the power pack. For reference, the fridge will be a 60w Alpicool 45
Original "Pass Through"
"Switched" version
We plan on camping every other weekend for the next 6 months, with a longer 3 week Euro trip somewhere in there. The majority of our camping is on sites and mostly with hook-up available, but we do often have long driving days when heading to the continent (anywhere between 6 & 12 hours is not unusual). I don't want to make any permanent changes to the interior or the van body; therefore, a complete leisure circuit is not on my plans, so I've been looking at how I can get all the benefits of being hooked up and off-grid.
Other than no permanent changes, I've tried to think of a simple solution that avoids me needing to swap plugs/cables between sources depending on where we are and to give us constant USB power in the rear (the Caravelle has 12v sockets in the rear, but they are perm live against the van battery). My initial thought was to have everything necessary running from the Bluetti and using the hookup to pass through charge(?) the power pack, but from what I've read, that is not an ideal way of doing things, as these batteries don't like to charge and draw simultaneously.
I'm far from electrically minded, so the image may be utter nonsense, but I'd be grateful for any feedback and suggestions on the diagram below before I take the plunge and buy the power pack. For reference, the fridge will be a 60w Alpicool 45
Original "Pass Through"
"Switched" version
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