This DIY camper solar wiring diagram and parts list is perfect for ground-up electrical installs into campervans, skoolies, or expedition vehicles. This system is most suitable for systems that do not have a pre-existing house electrical system installed.
This diagram features:
- 2000W Inverter Charger
- 200+ Amp Hours of Battery Storage Capacity
- Up to 520W Solar Array Capacity
- Alternator Charging at 60A
- Shore Power Charging/Passthrough
Not quite what you are looking for? Check out other system setups here: https://www.explorist.life/solarwiringdiagrams
Note from Nate: It’s no secret that Battle Born Batteries and Victron Energy are sponsors of the work I do here at EXPLORIST.life. Both of those brands make top of the line, high-end equipment and in my opinion, is worth every penny.
BUT… I have seen time and time again people trying to design systems with less expensive equipment to fit within their budgets (rightfully so. I get that.) but struggle with budget-friendly system design including proper fusing, wire sizes, fuse choices, busbars, component placement, switches, and everything else necessary to build a high-end system. This is why I’ve made this diagram.
This diagram features high-quality fuses, busbars, wires, and lugs with highly efficient wire routing & system design with decreased redundancies that will accommodate most of the popular and less expensive Inverter/Chargers and other components I see people using like Renogy and AIMS.
This is the Honda Civic of camper electrical systems. It won’t win any high-performance races, but it will get you from point A to point B in a safe and reliable manner.
History of Changes to this Page (Click to Expand)
Post Published Jan 8, 2021
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
HOW TO USE THIS PAGE – VIDEO
This orientation video will show you how to best use this page to build your DIY Camper Solar Setup. It’s a quick watch but I think it’s pretty important.
DIY Camper Van Wiring Diagram

DIY Camper Solar Parts – Shopping List
The list below is a consolidated parts list for this entire system (Minus the solar charging leg, which is listed at the bottom of this blog post).
For the ‘Quantities’ in the below shopping list, each singular component is listed a quanty per each, wire is listed a quantity of feet, and heat shrink is listed as qty 1 = 2.25″.
For Example:
Qty 1 – Inverter Charger means you need to purchase 1 Inverter Charger
Qty 3 – 4/0 Wire means you need 3 feet of 4/0 wire. This may mean you need to buy 5ft from the product page
Qty 5 heat shrink means you need 5 pieces of 2.25″ heat shrink. This means you’ll need 5 x 2.25″ pieces of heat shrink for a total of 11.25″ of heat shrink.
Camper Solar Parts Detail
The section below will tell you where each of the parts from above fits into the wiring diagram. This is quite lengthy, but if you are having trouble seeing the diagram or just want more clarification that the diagram above doesn’t deliver, hopefully this will help:
Order of Operations for DIY Camper Solar Install
Coming soon
Jay
Wednesday 29th of June 2022
If I want to not have the alternator charging option, would I just omit those parts? Or is that required in this system? And if I wanted to upgrade to a 3000w inverter charger, would that just be a swap or is that going to change anything else?
Thanks for all the help!
Mike
Tuesday 31st of May 2022
Hi Nate, I am going to use this diagram for a camper trailer that doesn't have an alternator. Do I still need the dc-dc battery charger and everything for alternator charging? Also If I am only going to use (2) 100w panels do I need to change fuse sizes? Thank you for everything
Liam
Monday 30th of May 2022
Hey Nate, great work on these blogs posts and wiring diagrams! This is extremely helpful to a beginner who is getting ready to design and install a new electrical system on an old slide in truck camper. I have a couple of quick questions:
1) Based on my electrical needs we would really only need 100ah battery, 200watt solar panel, and a 1000watt inverter. Do you have any recommendations on a 1000watt inverter-charger for lithium batteries. I was looking at this Freedom XC, thoughts?
https://grapesolar.com/product/1000-watt-pure-sine-wave-inverter-charger-12v/
2) Would there be any benefitsor disadvantages to a combined DC-DC charger with MPPT such as the Renogy DCC50s?
https://renogy.com/dcc50s-12v-50a-dc-dc-on-board-battery-charger-with-mppt/
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Páya
Sunday 22nd of May 2022
Hi Nate! We’re using your diagram but we have a hard time figuring out the chasiss area. When I zoom in even on the one we purchased I can’t read the description on the parts. Could you please explain what exactly is going on in the area where the two negatives from the batteries and the negative bus bar are meeting and then grounding? It looks like some fuse? And what is the positive wire going from there? Thank you!
Kip
Wednesday 18th of May 2022
Each of the Renogy components have a battery temp sensor. Do I run all three to the same location? is there a better way? And what is the best way to attach a temp sensor to a battery? I am using a single 12v 200Ah lithium battery.