Aaron Tolley
Why did you decide to convert a van?
We run a small family business (trailmaps.com, @trailmapsart on Instagram) selling art prints and posters to adventure athletes such as mountain bikers, runners, and cyclists. As a family of three who travel to events to display and sell their artwork throughout the country, we had some very specific needs for our van conversion.
Firstly, we needed to be able to fit 2-3 bikes in the back, and it needed to be able to sleep 3 comfortably. Finally, the majority of events that we attend rarely have any electrical hookup, so we needed to be able to park in a field for 5 days using off-grid electricity to power laptops, lights, a fridge, and accessories such as a card machine to take payments.
How has Nohma helped you?
After speaking with a few other people who have converted vans in the past, we kept hearing the same advice. Don’t skimp on the electrical system! We took this advice and contacted Nohma who actually gave us a very competitive quote for a top of the range off-grid system which included 3 leisure batteries, 3 solar panels, a smart DC-DC charger and an inverter.
Without this list I think we would have been going backwards and forwards to DIY shops which would have dragged out the job. Instead, we had everything we needed to make the whole electrical install a one-time piece of work. We even managed to do the majority of the work indoors, linking up the elements of the system onto a pre-designed plywood box which we would then carefully install into the van, connecting the 12v cables for lights and power, the solar panels, and the DC-DC charge cables from the starter battery.
How are you finding your electrical system?
Since completing our campervan in April 2022, we have spent around 4 months exploring, and now call our van (Stacey) our second home. We still haven’t connected the electrical system to any mains power source, running everything solely from the smart charger and the panels on the roof. We can monitor the whole system from a smart phone application to check power usage, and so far have had no problems or issues with any of the equipment.
I have very little experience with electrics, but with the system diagram from Nohma and the well written know-how in the The Van Conversion Bible, I got to work and surprised myself with what I could achieve without the help of a professional installer.
Aaron Tolley, Trail Maps
