After two weeks of discussion, research, purchases and head scratching, I now have all the parts for the planned system ready to install. The decision was made to move the main battery into a separate place with all the rest of the electrics. This means extending the cables from the starter and to the earth. It also means I now have under the passenger seat a s toolbox. Great stuff!
Wiring was also a big question. 6mm, 16mm. 50mm, colour coding, copper or tinned copper... I ended up going to another mate who knew about this stuff and asked for help. In exchange for my help building a log store for their house, I got all the advice I could ever need and a load of parts at discounted prices. I then installed the whole lot myself, with my mate looking over my shoulder. That helps me a lot for future problem solving.
Most of the main parts came from a company called 12 Volt Planet, with a bunch off eBay once I'd finally got the plan sorted. I asked on a Facebook group for 12v camper electrics and got some really helpful replies. These helped me to draw up the wiring diagram below.
I made a couple of mistakes straight away whilst purchasing stuff. I got so focussed on output of each part of the system, that I forgot to keep an eye on individual item dimensions. This created complications during the install period and meant I had to adjust planning accordingly. The solar panel was great output and dual sided, so redundancy built in, but it was too big! The Lithium battery was way bigger than I thought too. Oops 😏
My mate, Chris, who is a real electronics genius helped me with the planning and install. he has knackered both his hands and has some serious health issues these days unfortunately, so can't do the fiddly work, but knows the process inside out. So over a few days, spread over a couple of months, we slowly worked on the install. Once it was all in place, I was supposed to test it to see how it works, but so far two sets of plans have been changed last minute and so the test phase is still to be done.
Hey ho, a trip to Scotland needed I think.