About OverlandSetup

OverlandSetup.com exists because the two decisions that cost the most in a vehicle power build are the two people make with the least information: how big the battery bank should be and how much solar it actually needs. Get either wrong and you either carry a thousand dollars of capacity you never use, or your fridge dies on the third morning of a trip you planned for a year.

What this site is for

Three things, in order of importance. First, calculators that turn a load list into a bank size, a panel array into daily amp-hours, and a run length into a cable gauge. Second, complete builds at three budgets with every component priced and a real running total, so you can see what a working system actually costs rather than what one component costs. Third, gear guidance that names three tiers and tells you plainly who should not buy the expensive one.

What it is not for is home backup power. That is a genuinely different problem with different products, different standards and a different buyer, and a sibling site covers it. Everything here assumes the system is in a vehicle: it moves, it vibrates, it lives in heat and cold, it charges from an alternator, and every pound of it comes out of a payload figure printed on a sticker in the door jamb.

Where the numbers come from

Electrical figures follow ABYC E-11, the standard most low voltage vehicle and marine installations are held to. Ampacity uses the 105C copper column for conductors outside engine spaces with three or fewer conductors in a bundle, and every page that could involve an engine space says that the figures derate by roughly 30 percent there. Voltage drop uses 2 x L x I x R, with the factor of two included because current travels out and back, which is the single most common omission in DIY sizing.

Product specifications are the manufacturer's published figures. Where a maker publishes a number inconsistently, which happens often with cycle ratings and charge times, the field is left blank rather than filled with the more flattering version. You can see that policy working in the power station index, where several rows are deliberately empty.

How gear gets chosen

We do not test gear in person and we do not pretend to. Any site claiming hands-on testing of forty portable power stations is telling you a story. What happens instead is that published specifications are compared against each other, prices are checked against live listings, and owner reviews are read specifically for the failure modes that specifications do not capture: whether a connector survives corrugated roads, whether an app is usable, whether a fridge lid seal holds after two seasons of sun.

Every roundup then presents three tiers, because a weekend setup, a real dual battery system and a full off-grid rig are different purchases rather than different budgets for the same purchase. Each one says who it is for and, more usefully, who it is not for. Talking someone out of the expensive option is the part that makes the rest of the recommendation worth reading.

Safety, and where our responsibility stops

Twelve volts is low voltage and very high energy. A single 100Ah lithium battery will push several hundred amps into a short circuit, and undersized or unfused cable is one of the most common causes of fire in DIY vehicle builds. Every circuit described on this site is fused at the source of power, within a few inches of the battery terminal, at or below the ampacity of the smallest conductor it protects.

That said: this is researched guidance, not an electrical certification. It does not replace ABYC E-11, your component manufacturer's installation manual, or a qualified installer looking at your actual vehicle. Any lithium installation should be inspected before it carries load and before it is left unattended. If a figure here is wrong, tell us on the contact page, because corrections to electrical figures are handled ahead of everything else.

How the site makes money

Affiliate links, disclosed on every page that carries one. If you buy something after following one we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The commission does not vary by product, so nothing on this site has an incentive to steer you toward a more expensive option, and nobody can pay for a position in a roundup. The full terms are on the affiliate disclosure page.

You will also notice that some products link to a scoped Amazon search rather than a product page. That is deliberate. Goal Zero, Battle Born, iKamper and a good deal of van-specific hardware sells direct or through dealers, and fabricating a product code to make a card look complete would send you to the wrong item. A search link is honest about what it is.

Where to start

If you are new to this, read overland power for beginners, then look at the three complete builds to see what a finished system costs at each level. If you already know what you want to run, go straight to the power consumption calculator and work forward from your own numbers.