wet wet wet 2

C post is drying nicely and hatch D posts remain dry although its not really rained much! Did I just say that in winter in the UK 😂

Electrics Board

Decided to make a dedicated ply board to mount the sterling unit, fuses etc. 

6 mm ply board cut and s couple of costs of white emulsion to tart it up!

I'll be using the old sterling unit to work out what needs to fit where 

Sterling unit

12 v accessories fuse box unit

Bus bars positive and negative

Leisure Battery cut off switch.

Sterling Power unit update 2

Been a couple of weeks and batteries are getting charged! No sun so can't check anyway!

The sterling unit defaults itself to ""custom"  even tho I manually reset to sealed battery! I guess I'm missing something!

Looking at the sterling wiring instructions I Checked as couldn't remember if I'd taken the positive battery cable direct to the old sterling unit. I have! So that's not the problem, however it's charging batteries fine so it drops lower down the " why" list!

wet wet wet

Seems the T6 are a nightmare with water ingress!

I've had problems from the start B & C posts near side. B post damp at bottom. C post soaking from halfway down. Rear hatch OS also gets wet!

Copious reading of T6 forums has found this fault common! 

So easy option: possible water ingress because of lining carpet going under the rubber seals and wicking thru! 

Removed the os part of seal from the rear hatch, trimmed cloth back refitted seal. Looks like a result last few days lots of rain. The lining has not got wetter in fact it's seems to be drying out! 

Checked this afternoon all most dry!

So onto the C post! I'd removed the inspection panel above rear seat belt mount removed insulation. Damp not wet but the lining cloth was drenched. So round two, removed the sliding door rubber on the right as you look in the lining completely soaked as said, trimmed the excess off squeezed he seal closed then refitted. 

Time to sit back and wait for next downpour .............fingers crossed!

Sterling Power B2B update

After a few trips to work noticed the auxiliary battery seemed low on charge than previously.

The remote gauge was showing that the leisure battery was low on charge and flashed up in red. It was not starting up either. Forced it would fire up then go back to "SLP" yep sleep!

Emailed Sterling and it was suggested to wire in the ignition live feed to the unit.

My T6 is a 2016 but euro5 engine so want sure. So this done the unit fires up within the allotted 60 secs. 

The leisure battery was still showing red and had lost a few volts in charge!

Investigation time! 

Checked the obvious wiring and connections etc all ok.

Bit of head scratching found the issue!

I've yet to swap over the van 12 v electrics to a new fuse box ( one trauma at a time 😂) but took the cover off and after a bit of head scratching and volt meter checking suddenly dawned on me I'd transposed the two live feeds on the Sterling unit 🙄

So swapped the feeds no more red lights and the leisure battery is getting it's share of power! 

All I need is some sunlight to check the integrated solar charger is working! The light flashed briefly which I take as it is at least monitoring. I did a factory reset so I guess it was when the unit checked itself! 

Final check will be tomorrow on drive to work.

Changing over Sterling Power B2B unit

Sterling Power B2B unit have added a combined Solar Panel Controller to its product. Which having read up and overall pleased with the performance of the old unit I decided to fork out for this new model. Not cheap at nearly £300 retail but some searching on internet found me a deal for £225.00 delivered! That'll do nicely. 

It was more or less a straight swap, the old remote dash unit does the job, so I can monitor at a glance still. Battery cables layout slightly different but easy to follow pictorial instructions. 

Fired the van up, no explosion! Result! 

Still had to set type of battery but the improved layout of the function buttons made that easy as well. It needed a few minutes to adjust and start working but all went well.

It seems the new system uses less energy, and if alls well it powers down the dash board. 

Things to sort:

As the new unit has the MPPS controller I'll need to re wire the LED lights into the system. These were powered direct from the solar panel via old MPPS unit.

I've bought a new fuse box for that reason again an updated version which has led warning lights on each fuse should they fail, making life a lot easier! 

So will sort that once I've finalised where I am going to mount the sterling unit prior to rebuild. Probably higher than currently to make life easier to service adjust etc. 

We're going for a 4' 6" bed which will give us about 10"  of storage at the side.

Along the length of the bed. The bed will be positioned high enough to allow the fridge to fit underneath and to the front of the van, offside is where the Propex Heater is, nearside the Leisure Battery is housed. 

The rest of the space under the bed will house pull out boxes for storage and a full kitchen unit that will slide out to the back under that rear hatch, band possibly pull out fully to use under fiamma awning , using baynet LPG fittings for cooking etc. In either position.

This means that we won't need the 2 RIB single bed/ seats a shame but a proper bed will be better for our aging bones! Both front seats swivel so we still have seating when parked up but we might also build the bed so that it can be turned into a sofa during the day. Sort of depends how high it has to be for the fridge!

Removing the old units

So it's starting, weather not been great but I've removed the old units on both sides of the van, and boxed up what I can whilst some things stay in the van. 

Ordered a new Sterling Power battery monitor, this one has built in MPPS controller for the solar panel and also looks after the stop start/ regenerative braking system. The old one does the job but not quite, more suited to the pre T6 fancy electrics.

Also fitted a new main battery 85 amp suitable for the van but old OEM was only 65 amp. Bit of a squeeze but got there.

On that note:

To be able to change the battery yourself you need to keep the 12v electrics working whilst you change over. A search in YouTube found the way, quite simple really! A pair of jump leads and a slave battery! 

Connect jump leads to the main battery terminals and the corresponding slave battery before removing the main clamps from the battery, be careful to isolate live terminal I used a rag. Remove old, insert new, hook it up then disconnect the jump leads. Job done no loss of info and all instruments/ radio/ windows all working perfectly.