600 watts of van solar — built for full-time off-grid.
600W is where vanlife gets comfortable: fridge, water pump, lights, entertainment and charging, day after day. Wattonomy sizes the bank and charging to keep up, and specs the fused, ABYC-referenced wiring to match.
Wire & fuse sizes follow ABYC E-11 — each conductor carries its fuse and stays under a 3% voltage drop.
Built to ABYC standards
Gauge · fuse · volt-drop sized
Every spec sourced
Full-time loads punish an under-built system.
Run a fridge and Starlink around the clock and a too-small bank or too-thin cable shows up fast — as a flat battery at 2am or a hot wire. Wattonomy sizes the bank, inverter and every conductor to continuous use, to ABYC E-11, and shows the working.
What 600W of van solar gets you
600W in fair sun keeps a full-time rig topped up. Here’s how it fits together.
What it runs
A 12V fridge, water pump, lighting, entertainment and device charging — full-time comfortable in fair sun. Add Starlink and you’re into 800W territory.
Battery to match
Around 5 kWh of LiFePO4 at 12V carries the night plus a cloudy morning on an honest depth-of-discharge.
Charging beyond solar
Add a DC-DC charger so driving days top the bank up through cloudy or winter stretches when 600W isn’t enough.
Cables & fuses
Every gauge and fuse sized to the load and your run lengths, with the AIC checked — to ABYC E-11.
What you walk away with — free
A full 600W system sized to your appliances — battery, inverter, solar, charging
A real wiring diagram with every cable gauge and fuse
Cable & fuse sizing with the voltage drop checked for your runs
A shoppable parts list, each line traceable to ABYC or Victron specs
Building it for real? Unlock the build binder.
Free gets you a safe, correctly-sized design. The build binder gets you the documents to build it right — and prove it's right.
Printable wiring diagram, yours to keep & tape inside the van
Full parts list, every line sourced
The volt-drop & fusing calculation trail — the "why" behind every spec
The build binder is a one-time unlock — no subscription, no auto-renew.
Questions
Is 600W of solar enough to live in a van full-time?
For most full-time builds in fair sun — fridge, water, lights, entertainment and charging — 600W plus a properly sized battery keeps up. Add an always-on load like Starlink and you’ll want 800W. In winter or poor sun you’ll lean on DC-DC charging while driving; the tool shows when.
How many batteries does 600W need?
It depends on your loads and days of backup, not the panels. For a full-time 600W van the tool sizes around 5 kWh (roughly 400Ah at 12V) of LiFePO4 — sized to your real appliances.
12V or 24V for a 600W van?
Most 600W van builds stay 12V. If you add induction cooking or other big loads the tool moves you to 24V to keep cable sizes and losses sensible — and flags exactly when.
Do I need an account?
No — design free, no email. Accounts are only for saving builds or the build binder.
The standards we build to
Plain version: these are the recognized rulebooks your design is sized against, so the numbers hold up to a surveyor, an inspector or an insurer.
ABYC E-11The US standard for AC & DC wiring on boats — what a surveyor or insurer actually checks.
Wattonomy applies these standards in its calculations. It is not certified, sponsored or endorsed by ABYC, ISO, NFPA or Victron — it sizes your design to meet what they require, and shows the working.
Sized and checked to ABYC E-11. Last reviewed June 2026 — see the full methodology for the exact rules behind every number and how each design is validated.
Built by anABYC Certified Master Technician