Turning my van into a mobile office

May 6, 2017

After constant rainy days, I could finally install the solar panels and the roof-top antennas for my mobile WiFi router. :tada:

While it was still raining, I mounted the panels on plastic spoilers.

100 Wp solar panel mounted on spoiler

The rain stopped in the evening, so there was still enough daylight to prepare everything: cleaning the roof, marking the position for the panels and drilling two holes for the cables: one for the antenna cables and one for the panel cables.

It was already dark when I put the SikaFlex 252 adhesive on the spoilers:

Spoilers with SikaFlex 252

Protected and covered in bubble wrap, I adhered the spoilers with the mounted panels on the alcove:

Solar panels covered in bubble wrap on the alcove

In the morning I removed the bubble wrap …

Solar panels on the alcove

… to measure the first electricity produced on my van: :electric_plug:

21.2 V on the voltmeter

21.2V. Looking good! :+1:

Edit: In October 2017, I extended the setup with another 100Wp solar panel.

So now that I had electricity on the roof, I had to get it down into the van. I adhered two waterproof cable glands (again with SikaFlex 252) on the roof:

Glands for the cables of antennas and solar panels

Time to wire up the battery and devices I ordered back in March:

Electrical devices of the solar system: battery, voltage converter, battery management system and solar charge controller

I planned the wiring based on the diagram provided by Victron Engergy in the docs for the battery management system:

Wiring diagram from Victron Engergy for the battery management system BMS 12/200

I removed the old battery from the wooden box behind the driver’s seat to make some space for the new high-tech setup.

Wooden box with old battery

First I installed the solar charge controller and connected it to the cables coming down from the roof:

Installed solar charge controller

It will convert the voltage delivered by the panels to optimally charge the battery. Its plus cable is directly connected to the battery whereas the minus cable is connected to the LB (load minus) connector of the battery management system (see diagram above).

After playing some Tetris with the remaining devices everything found its spot in the box:

Wooden box with new devices

Definitely not required but nice to have, I connected a bluetooth dongle to the solar charge controller.

Bluetooth dongle to read data from the solar charge controller

It sends some real-time and historical data of the charge controller via bluetooth to my smartphone. I enjoy observing these numbers so much. :laughing: Especially around noon when the sun was all straight up and my panels almost reached their maximum specified power of 350Wp:

Wooden box with new devices

Awesome! My solar panel is installed and ready to deliver all the power I need. :heavy_check_mark:

The only thing left for a proper office: internet. I picked the Huawei B315s-22 LTE WiFi router because it can be operated with 12V and provides two SMA connectors for two external antennas: one for sending and one for receiving data.

Based on some experiences from other van people I bought two MIMO antennas.

Antennas mounted on the roof

Mounted on the roof and connected to the router inside, these antennas deliver better signals than the built-in antennas or my smartphone.

LTE WiFi router connected to the roof-top antennas

Done: my mobile office is finally ready for the first test run. :clap:

Old Mercedes-Benz 209D transformed into a mobile office

So excited! :tada: