fitting a pleasure battery

where is the best location to place the battery, and what size is best to use?

only need it too run some lights and maybe a heater for the winter

=]]

You won't be able to run a heater from a leisure battery and get any meaningful heat from it - unless you use it as a 12v power source to control a diesel heater like an Eberspacher.

You'll need a split charging circuit to connect the battery to the alt. I've got a good wiring diagram on my PC which I'll post here when I'm back at it.

awesome thank you, im not the best at wiring so all the help the better thank you. well inside of a heater maybe i should insulate the van abit better =]]

I thought a 'pleasure battery' fits neatly inside the sex-toy   .

Right back at my PC. Pic time:


I live on a boat and the above is more or less how my engine start and domestic battery bank is wired.  It works.

A couple of point you might like to consider:

First off, where is the leisure battery going to live?  There isn't a huge amount of "empty" space under the floor to fix a second battery - also the physical size of the battery is a limiting factor.  The easier option is to build in a battery box in the load space of the van - if you're going to make a camper conversion this is the way to go, but you do lose storage space. Swings and roundabouts really...

Second.  How much stuff do you need to power off this battery?  You need to sit down and do a "power audit".  List the items you want, find out how much power they consume and the amount of time you will likely be using them.  This will give you the size of the battery you need and more importantly how long it will take to recharge the battery after a typical nights useage.  Remember the alternator is only a smallish 50amp unit so what goes out will have to be put back in.

To minimise your electric consumption seriously consider using LEDs for lighting.  I converted the old T5 tube light fittings on my boat to 6 SMD warm white LEDs - 5 to each fitting.  Bought off ebay a couple of years back they are very effective, plus my energy useage has dropped to boot.   Have a look at LED "ribbons" on ebay, here's a link to some:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3528-5050-5M-10M-15M-20M-LED-Strip-Light-Tape-Roll-Ribbon-Adhesive-Lamp-UK-Stock-/110915385980

The space inside the van is small so I'm going to use a few metres of this to light mine up - again in warm white.

Insulation? Oh yes.

Heating?  Do not be tempted to use a propane camping heater.  Not only is there a likelyhood of it being kicked over and it torching your van, there is also a very real danger of it killing you from Carbon Monoxide poisoning.  Same goes with using a camp stove to heat the van.  On my boat there is a CO detector and for the sake of my continued living I make sure it is working correctly at all times.  I can't overstate this enough.  In an enclosed space with very limited ventilation, don't use combustable fuel in a non room sealed device as a form of heat.  Seriously. Don't.

So, other options?  Well, the engine is an effective way to make water hot (sometimes too effective...) so you could try and use a second heater matrix and fan plumbed into the cooling system to heat the rear of the van.  This might sound like an anathema, but in boaty circles the engine isn't just a means of propulsion. You'll find a lot of boats when moored run their engineas it's also an electric generator (tops up your leisure battery) and, via a calorifier, supplies hot water - or in your case a potential source of heating.

That's enough for now.

did I mention solar?

Forgot to add:

If your power audit tells you that your power requirements aren't too excessive, you could consider just getting a bigger engine start battery and just runing everything from that instead.  Obviously you'll need to spec a battery that'll physically fit inside the battery compartment, but you'll have the advantage of not losing any interior space/fabricating up an underfloor battery box.  

Whatever you do, don't forget to include suitable fuses and an isolator switch (important!) to any new wiring you add to the van.  And make a diagram so you can remember what that red wire does.

Second battery everytime, as then you don't have the flat battery problem when you come to drive away after a nights heavy romance in the rocking hijet.

HighlyJetted wrote:Second battery everytime, as then you don't have the flat battery problem when you come to drive away after a nights heavy romance in the rocking hijet.

A *whole* night?

Okay for the first five minutes I grant you, but even I can't make a game of Scrabble last more than three hours.

Make the battery box bigger, there is enough room for a second battery beside the original.

^^^^ what he said

Seen a few done like this.