Best T25 configuration for off grid capacity & practicality

[Simon Baxter]

I'd be starting from GVW* and the published kerb weight of the Holdsworth, then looking at the weight of the batteries and the large/heavy accessories (and water?) then seeing whats left for you, clothes, food etc.

*2500kg is all you get

Stupid plate steel bumpers, swing out spare wheel carriers, side bars, bigger wheels and tyres, chipboard, MDF, fuel cans, roof racks... buckaroo partner!
I don't even like travelling with a full water tank!  Probably why I get 40mpg

[Stesaw]

I'd be starting from GVW* and the published kerb weight of the Holdsworth, then looking at the weight of the batteries and the large/heavy accessories (and water?) then seeing whats left for you, clothes, food etc.

*2500kg is all you get

Stupid plate steel bumpers, swing out spare wheel carriers, side bars, bigger wheels and tyres, chipboard, MDF, fuel cans, roof racks... buckaroo partner!
I don't even like travelling with a full water tank! Probably why I get 40mpg

What engine you got though?

[Oren Kipnis]

I can share my experience of the last 5 years of travelling 3-4 months annually with my wife in our Syncro, in most cases a long single trip throughout Europe, including non EEC/Schengen countries.

The basic layout was built in Spain, and I upgraded a bit.

Gas: 2 burner hob with a Campingaz 907 (2.8 kg) bottle. A bottle lasts more than 3 weeks, including boiling water for the coffee, and cooking a hot meal every day. We seldom go to restaurants, and there aren't any in many places that we reach. I carry 2 spare gas bottles, just because the trips are long and being far away from civilization for long.

A 65 litre compressor fridge. Current draw is minimal, and never brought me into problems, even being stationary 5 days during summer in Spain.

Diesel cabin and water heater. Theses are excellent. The trusty old Webasto fries us within 5 minutes during winter and the thermostat is set to minimum. The water heater heats up to 70 degrees C and circulates the short circuit of the engine. The heat exchanger replaced the rear heater core. This setup is also excellent in case you need to heat the engine prior to cold start. No fancy control panels, just the old type Webasto panel and a simple switch for the water heater.

2 underfloor tanks for the fresh and grey water. When travelling very remote, we carry around 15 litres more and can do 4-5 days including short showers and using the portable toilet. I invested in a good water filtering and purification system.
The shower douche connects to the water mixer tap, thus very simple.

At the moment I have 2 70Ah AGM leisure batteries (10 year old now) under the front seats, a 100W panel and a trickle charger for the storage periods. The starter battery of my Syncro is connected to the starter motor only, and the entire van to the leisure batteries. As long as these are alive I will continue using them. The alternator charges them all via a split relay. I replaced the 70 amp alternator with a 120 amp unit, but you will need to reinforce the alternator bracket if you have a WBX. I have an emergency circuit in parallel to the split relay for emergency starting in case a battery dies, and for the long storage trickle charge. This circuit saved me somewhere wild in Albania last year when the starter battery died.

I use the 500 watt inverter very seldom, still good to have. 

I recently bought a mobile amplifier aerial, to be installed soon. I will never use Starlink for several reasons.

My advice for a layout of a T25 is to keep it as simple as possible. I am in contact with people who overland now and others who did it before on trips that last 2-3 years, and their cars' layout is even simpler then mine.

Oren
 

[ChrisTyas]

One thing I will add, all the Victron stuff has a very much non-zero current draw.

When I ran a full complement of victron stuff - Solar charger, 2x dc-dc, smartshunt and a Cerbo monitor setup, the quiescent draw of it all was about half an amp, constantly! It was using more power over the day than my fridge! I was using more power monitoring my battery, than I was actually using from the battery.

I stripped it back and went back to 1x dc-dc, sacked off the Cerbo and went to a bluetooth only smartshunt (without the LCD) and it's just as functional, and I can park the van indoors without having to put the trickle charger on it to avoid coming back after a fortnight to a dead battery.

I install Victron on boats and am happy carrying all the principles over to the T25, hence the largest leisure battery I can fit/afford. If I go to 400Ah I gain 20cm of battery length and £300.
I will *only* install Victron on boats as when your camper sets on fire you can (hopefully) jump out and run away, I've seen too many near misses and actual small fires on boats due to "pooh" wiring or "pooh" Chinese DC gear, thankfully no tragedies so far.
Camper will be mains connected whenever not being used just as 99% of boats are so I've no issue with quiescent draw and enough capacity and solar to not worry about it on the road / off grid.
Don't understand why you would have 2x DC/DC?
Chris.

 

[ChrisTyas]

I'd be starting from GVW* and the published kerb weight of the Holdsworth, then looking at the weight of the batteries and the large/heavy accessories (and water?) then seeing whats left for you, clothes, food etc.

*2500kg is all you get

2wd 2390Kg GVW

2500kg GVW is Syncro spec, and most of the 110Kg is accounted for by the 4WD and mods for, so payload is not increased

Holdsworth furniture isn't light so a lot of the potential payload is already spoken for, I'd be surprised if all the stuff planned to be added will leave any payload other than a pair of socks and a pint of milk

Fill it up with fuel, gas and water as it is now and take it to a public weighbridge before doing anything else would be my advice.

UK will soon all be 4G or 5G apart from the most remote areas which have no signal, mast upgrades ongoing ready for end of 3G next year

Good comments regarding GVW.
As for 4/5G, it's outgoing technology before it's even appropriately applied; 'the most remote areas which have no signal' currently (still) include a huge percentage of the UK's main railway lines FFS. Current 4G Gov targets are 95% 4G coverage by 2025 but that is population coverage, not land area, we're not even at 100% 4G populated coverage yet, never mind rural areas. There will always be a legacy role for 4G/5G infrastructure but Starlink direct to cell is operating now and bandwidth will increase and latency will decrease when they start building out lower shells. And I need to work from the van as mentioned, which means I need fast charging of laptops and phones and constantly useable decent bandwidth.
Chris.
 

[ChrisTyas]

Outside of cleaning solar panels and filling gas tank, what other maintenance are you thinking of?

It's not specifically about filters and the like, it just a sense that it's a lot of kit to manage and keep reliable when one of the key things to going off grid is to keep things simple. However, you've not mentioned anything about extra fuel storage so I'm guessing that maybe you won't be so far off-grid that it will be of issue.

If however your intention is to go further off the beaten track then I'd recommend a copy of Tom Shephard's Vehicle-Dependent Expedition Guide - it's out of print now but copies of older editions are readily available if a little bit pricey.

I install Victron gear to boats where everything *has* to be easily managed and reliable, there's nothing out there more reliable or safer I'm aware of. Not intending wild camping for months, just want to be safe and not have to worry about power or heat; other thing I didn't mention is that the van acts as a kind of a hub at festivals so can be providing resources (electric for charging, lights, kettle etc, gas for cooking and hot water) for up to six people for up to a week.
I'll try get a copy of the book - I love things like that thanks.
Chris.
 

[ChrisTyas]

It’s not , it’s just not part of the accident crash zone , nothing that is removable can be . Urban myth .

Fair enough, you learn something new every day! Still wouldn't fancy a gas tank at the front though.

I don't think that's the intention.

"33litre spare wheel shaped propane tank in spare wheel holder at front (spare wheel on swing frame at rear or possibly on holder on front of van)"

Tank in normal spare wheel position, spare wheel on front or back?

Hi - yes; LPG tank in front underslung spare wheel holder and spare wheel on new bracket either vertical on front of van (struggling to find bracket as this is preferred) or on swing frame at rear door.
I think Kate's comments are still valid, but in a front end crash pretty much the only thing that has a high chance of coming out of it in one piece is the LPG tank.
Chris.
 

[cobblers]

One thing I will add, all the Victron stuff has a very much non-zero current draw.

When I ran a full complement of victron stuff - Solar charger, 2x dc-dc, smartshunt and a Cerbo monitor setup, the quiescent draw of it all was about half an amp, constantly! It was using more power over the day than my fridge! I was using more power monitoring my battery, than I was actually using from the battery.

I stripped it back and went back to 1x dc-dc, sacked off the Cerbo and went to a bluetooth only smartshunt (without the LCD) and it's just as functional, and I can park the van indoors without having to put the trickle charger on it to avoid coming back after a fortnight to a dead battery.

I install Victron on boats and am happy carrying all the principles over to the T25, hence the largest leisure battery I can fit/afford. If I go to 400Ah I gain 20cm of battery length and £300.
I will *only* install Victron on boats as when your camper sets on fire you can (hopefully) jump out and run away, I've seen too many near misses and actual small fires on boats due to "pooh" wiring or "pooh" Chinese DC gear, thankfully no tragedies so far.
Camper will be mains connected whenever not being used just as 99% of boats are so I've no issue with quiescent draw and enough capacity and solar to not worry about it on the road / off grid.
Don't understand why you would have 2x DC/DC?
Chris.

 

I'd usually go overkill as well - I even have a 300AH battery sat here unused from another job that I could swap into the T6 to replace the 200Ah one. But I've never come even close to using the 200Ah one, even the 20 minutes taken to swap the batteries over would be a waste of time.

I've got two Victron Orion "30A" DC-DC chargers because they're a bit rubbish, and were the most powerful ones I could buy at the time.
Initially I fitted one - I usually go camping about 30 minutes away from home, so with just 1 hour round trip of driving I wasn't replenishing what I'd usually use on a weekend. They claim "30A" but within 5 minutes of use they drop down to about 22A because they're not very efficient and get stinking hot. Victron have released the 60A model with remote vsense now, which is what I'll fit when I build the next van.

[ChrisTyas]

One thing I will add, all the Victron stuff has a very much non-zero current draw.

When I ran a full complement of victron stuff - Solar charger, 2x dc-dc, smartshunt and a Cerbo monitor setup, the quiescent draw of it all was about half an amp, constantly! It was using more power over the day than my fridge! I was using more power monitoring my battery, than I was actually using from the battery.

I stripped it back and went back to 1x dc-dc, sacked off the Cerbo and went to a bluetooth only smartshunt (without the LCD) and it's just as functional, and I can park the van indoors without having to put the trickle charger on it to avoid coming back after a fortnight to a dead battery.

I install Victron on boats and am happy carrying all the principles over to the T25, hence the largest leisure battery I can fit/afford. If I go to 400Ah I gain 20cm of battery length and £300.
I will *only* install Victron on boats as when your camper sets on fire you can (hopefully) jump out and run away, I've seen too many near misses and actual small fires on boats due to "pooh" wiring or "pooh" Chinese DC gear, thankfully no tragedies so far.
Camper will be mains connected whenever not being used just as 99% of boats are so I've no issue with quiescent draw and enough capacity and solar to not worry about it on the road / off grid.
Don't understand why you would have 2x DC/DC?
Chris.

I'd usually go overkill as well - I even have a 300AH battery sat here unused from another job that I could swap into the T6 to replace the 200Ah one. But I've never come even close to using the 200Ah one, even the 20 minutes taken to swap the batteries over would be a waste of time.

I've got two Victron Orion "30A" DC-DC chargers because they're a bit rubbish, and were the most powerful ones I could buy at the time.
Initially I fitted one - I usually go camping about 30 minutes away from home, so with just 1 hour round trip of driving I wasn't replenishing what I'd usually use on a weekend. They claim "30A" but within 5 minutes of use they drop down to about 22A because they're not very efficient and get stinking hot. Victron have released the 60A model with remote vsense now, which is what I'll fit when I build the next van.

That's cool - realised I put Orion Tr in the spec sheet but it would be an XS mounted in the engine bay; the XS is a huge step from the Tr range, big % jump in cost also but worth it for current limiting to to protect the aternator if nothing else and necessary for intelligent alternators. Most larger boats have marine alternators which are often intelligent; not 'intelligent' in the Euro 5/6 LV sense but high output with dedicated outputs for starter and leisure batteries so discrete DC/DC boxes are often not required.
Chris.