Conversion equipment, appliances and supplies; w/ price & source

$670 Dometic CFX-65 12v variable rpm compressor fridge

$32 Laundry sink, free standing

I went with a laundry sink because.. I can do laundry in it. Or wash huge pots or all kinds of things, without splashing. I have plenty of vertical space, and this sink doesn't take much more square footage than other sinks I see vandwellers using, this just has more depth. Often that depth below a sink is wasted, in a lot of builds I've seen.
It's $50 at home depot but you can get it for $32 with free shipping on ebay.

$293 Cubic mini tiny wood stove

Has secondary adjustable combustion. I will also be modifying my heater booster with an ice cube relay and a small starter relay to run with engine off, connected to a thermostat. See sprinter source for details.



$174/6' Double wall 3" stainless stove pipe:

Made of unobtanium otherwise. The longer your stovepipe, the less smoke you will get. This means mounting the stove on the floor, with a straight shot upwards. I will test smoke output with reduced length.




$29 High temp silicone 3" roof fitting

Conforms to the ribs of the van, add some high temp caulk and you have a waterproof stove jack. There aren't any other products in this category that I could find in 3", this is it. Well, there's those deck fittings that dickinson uses (Expensive), or there's sailboat deck fittings which are also expensive and from what I've seen not meant for an irregularly shaped surface like the roof of a van.

$15 3" Flashing, to cover the hideous silicone flashing

I quickly realized that the wood stove was going to totally destroy any stealth factor whatsoever. Without this flashing, I'd have a conspicuous traffic cone skewered with a chimney stickin out of my roof. My solution is to hide the solar panels, stovepipe, and vent with a roof rack.



$30 Carbon monoxide alarm

Necessary for wood stove use, CO can kill you. Price has raised but you can get it cheaper. Has a lithium battery that's good for 10 years. It works, I read 12 PPM while following an old semi truck belching smoke. This unit has another advantage, you can see the current reading and it goes down to 10ppm. Most all detectors will take half an hour of dangerous CO levels before it will issue a warning, to prevent false alarms. With this, you can simply glance at it and know the CO level before being exposed to high levels.

Maxxair 00-06200K 10 Speed Ventillation Fan with Smoke Lid and Manual Opening Keypad Control 

The smoke colored one works as a skylight, the white ones are barely opaque. I chose manual opening because it's one less thing to break, it's cheaper, I don't mind changing the fan settings manually and it's one less remote to keep track of. While driving, I would likely have the vent already open and that would be enough. Although Fantastic Fan has better customer support, this has a better design imo. You can use it fully open in a downpour. It can still vent while it's all the way down. Because of the low profile, it can hide behind my roof rack. The FF can do none of these things without a massive vent cover that doesn't fold. I hear you have to either have it the Maxxair fully open or fully closed while driving to avoid damage to the lift mechanism.

$500 Aluminum Roof Rack

This is essential in order to conceal my panels to avoid theft, and to hide the roof vent and stove pipe from any nosy people up to no good. I'm considering using flat aluminum sheet to build a flange around the rack, or maybe use mesh. I put way too much thought into this decision. This is the best designed rack under $1999 for a T1N Sprinter that mounts to the gutters. Gutter mount is important imo, because I have a no-screws-in-the-roof mandate, and the triple reinforced gutters are designed to support the load, not the sheet metal roof. I was considering ponying up the $2000 for an aluminess rack, which is an insane amount of money for a metal deck imo, but I just have too many other expenses with the conversion. The aluminess rack has walls, so I could mount mesh, but I realized I can build a similar rack out of this $500 rack instead. That plan evolved into this:

Why is the American Van rack better than Vantech's H1 rack? This:

Vantech's rack doesn't even sit flat in the gutter! American Van's clamp mount seems much better designed.

$2460 Lithium bank @ 400ah, 12v 

These are not the cheapest cells you can get. Here's a writeup by Technomadia.


$599 Orion Jr battery monitoring system (BMS) 

With CAN option so I can monitor with a tablet. Yes, you can bottom balance, you can get cheap Chinese boards that have a high failure rate, you can put $12 cell modules on your terminals.. I prefer to get something proven to protect my investment, even if it does cost an arm and a leg.


Solar charge controller: TS-MPPT-60 or 45, haven't decided yet.

$72 Camco 41545 premium portable toilet

Before you say gross, it will be placed inside of a water/airtight container, hidden in a modern looking cabinet, and can be used for emergency only then hosed out and bleached. It's cleaner than a public restroom too. Looks simple and durable. More sturdily designed controls than the Dometic or Thetford curve.  I can buy two of these for the price of one Thetford. Upon analyzing the market, the Thetford curve has the most popularity and 5 star reviews, but... Go and read the negative reviews and you see a different picture. After a year the electronic water pump can malfunction, which costs around $130 to replace. You can replace it with a manual pump from Europe for $50, but still, I don't need that kinda negativity in my life.

$13 Sound Activated Music Controller 2-Ports Output 24Keys Remote for RGB LED Strip

I have had two of those white plastic controllers common on ebay burn up on me. This seems higher quality. Sound reaction works decently, and is adjustable. It's for my led strip, and you can choose between sound reactive mode, normal solid colors or white or tan light, fade, etc. 

$11 LED strip

Three years old, still works. Yellowed plastic from UV light. Looks much better inside an LED strip diffuser. Works with my sound controller

$4 Galaxy S7/universal tripod

For filming van work timelapses



$489 shipped Dual Twin Individual Folding Bunk System P/N: 960012

Expensive, I know.. It was a hard decision when I could have made something for much cheaper. Unfortunately they just don't make em any cheaper, I searched the whole web. They make a flimsier version for $200 less, might work for smaller people, but the bed has to withstand impacts if you know what I mean. I want a bed that's also a seat/couch for using my laptop. I also want it to fold out of the way for hauling cargo for my job, or just for making more space in the van during the day, say, for cooking or showering.
 I decided on this style over the really cool rollover sofa beds because the cheapest I could find one was in socal, around $800 shipped. With the dual bunk I get twice the storage space, twice the seating and sleeping arrangements, it's just a win win. It is only 32" wide but I can always diy a 1' fold out extender. 400lbs distributed weight capacity. The video doesn't show it but with the new version the bunks fold out individually. Plus there's no table legs, so you can mount it up real high.