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This is the house electrical in XPLRE — a 2021 Mercedes Sprinter 2500, gas, 170 in high roof. Two of us, a Yorkie mix, a tuxedo kitten, a grey cat, and a large dog in the garage. We hike. HVAC stays on. That is the load that sized the system.

I designed it. Brittany hid the finished hub behind a Roman clay panel once it worked. If you are building a similar 48V van, you should be able to follow this in the garage without guessing which cable goes where.

What we actually bought

EcoFlow Independence Kit, 10kWh. Two stackable 5kWh LFP modules plus the Power Hub. Not Get Set. Not Prepared. Those are other kits on the same EcoFlow page. We paid about $15k. US list on the Independence Kit (variant 39946340565065) was about $13,199 when we last checked it.

Independence is the packaged house kit: Power Hub, batteries, AC/DC Smart Distribution Panel, and the Power Kit Console. Solar is sold separately. We run two flexible black panels on the hood wrap.

The kit lives in the garage under the bed, on the right. Water and heat live on the left. The Nomadic X3 24V on the roof is the big DC load. That circuit is its own homerun: 48V out of the Power Hub, 100A breaker, 48-to-24 regulator, then the AC. I cut that cable from EcoFlow stock at the time. EcoFlow confirmed the approach. They later sold an official 48V appliance cable — use that if you are building now.

Why this kit

I wanted one vendor, one app, one console, and a 48V bus that could feed a roof compressor without me designing the inverter and the MPPT as separate boxes. EcoFlow's Power Hub is the inverter-charger, the solar controllers, and the DC-DC in one vented box. You give up modular component swaps. You get an afternoon of landing cables instead of a week of crimping a Victron wall.

We picked Independence because the load is a parked van with animals in it and a 24V roof AC running. A portable station and a 12V fridge is a different van. The 12V Nomadic's startup current was too high for this kit. That is why the AC is 24V and why there is a regulator in the path. If you are building a similar 48V system today, Nomadic's current unit is Helix 48V (no 24V Helix). That skips the regulator. Ours is still Standard 24V. The install is on the AC page.

Materials

This is what went in the garage, not a fantasy BOM.

  • EcoFlow Independence Kit (10kWh) — two 5kWh LFP modules, Power Hub, AC/DC Smart Distribution Panel, Power Kit Console, the included battery / DC-out / AC-out / ALT-IN / PV / AC-IN / RJ45 cables
  • Black 80/20 bed/garage frame with a plywood lid
  • 100A breaker in the Nomadic homerun
  • 48V-to-24V regulator
  • 48V appliance cable — official EcoFlow part if you are building now; I cut one from stock cable on ours
  • Two flexible black solar panels on the hood, plus the kit's PV IN cable
  • Ferrules for any set-screw input on the distribution panel
  • Heat-shrink (red/black plus clear for labels)
  • P-Touch labels or nylon zip-tie tags
  • Grommets / split loom anywhere a cable crosses 80/20 or a body hole
  • Dielectric grease and a serrated chassis ground (bare metal, no paint under the lug)

Same garage, not part of the kit, but you have to leave room for them: white fresh-water tank in 80/20, Rixen's Comfort Hot (hydronic, not a diesel air heater), blue/red PEX, and an induction exhaust fan for the large dog.

Tools

  • Wire stripper / cutter (light gauge and 6–12 AWG)
  • Cable cutter for the heavy kit leads if you shorten anything
  • Ferrule crimper (hex for the EcoFlow set-screws) and a hydraulic lug crimper if you re-terminate ALT IN
  • Heat gun
  • Multimeter
  • Torque screwdriver for the hub brackets — the kit includes a 1:1 paper template
  • Label maker

The battery leads and the hub interconnects are already terminated. You do need real crimps for anything you add: alternator tap, solar entry, the Nomadic run, and every AC outlet.

What the Power Hub actually is

One vented box. Inverter-charger, MPPT solar inputs, DC-DC, and the battery ports. Connection bar along the front for alternator, solar, battery, generator, and shore. Side ports for the main AC out and DC out to the distribution panel. EcoFlow's own numbers on the Power Kit family: solar input up to 4800W across the PV ports, alternator charging up to 1000W, shore up to 3000W if you add an inlet. We live on the kit, the hood panels, and the van's alternator. I did not add a shore inlet on this build.

The batteries are 48V LFP. You can parallel matching sizes — two or three 5kWh modules, or two or three 2kWh modules. Do not mix 2kWh and 5kWh on one hub. We stacked two 5kWh modules. The included stack hardware is enough if your garage is square. We used the 80/20 as the rack and kept EcoFlow's straps.

Power Hub needs air. EcoFlow's quick-start is not being cute: ventilation is required or the hub overheats. Our garage already has the dog's induction exhaust. That fan is not optional in a sealed bay that also holds batteries and a hydronic heater.

Layout before you buy

The bed is the garage lid. Do not set the kit on the floor and invent the bed later.

Open the rear doors. Electrical on the right: two modules, hub behind them, a hand's width so you can see the ECOFLOW connectors. Water and heat on the left: tank, Comfort Hot, PEX. The arched opening Brittany put in the wooden rear partition is how you service this after the plywood is on. The clay panel in the living space comes off. Service space is part of the drawing.

Do the insulation stack on the empty shell before the 80/20 goes in. You cannot spray LizardSkin around a finished battery rack.

80/20 plus plywood is enough if you leave the hub reachable and you do not bury the RJ45 ports.

Install order

  1. Strip and insulate the shell. Then frame the rear in black 80/20 and dry-fit the two modules and the hub so you know garage height before you sheet plywood.
  2. Mount the two stackable modules on the right. Level. Strap them. Leave a gap behind for the battery cables so they are not pinched against the wall.
  3. Mount the Power Hub behind them with the included brackets and the 1:1 template. Shorten the included screws if you are going into thin ply — the stock screws are long.
  4. Mount the AC/DC Smart Distribution Panel where you can still get a screwdriver on the breakers after the clay wall exists. GEN2-style panels want a flush cutout; GEN1 can surface-mount. Use whatever came in your Independence box and follow that panel's cutout, not a photo of someone else's.
  5. Mount the Console in the living space, not in the garage. Ours sits where we can see state of charge without opening the rear doors.
  6. Land the included interconnects in this order: batteries to hub, DC OUT hub to panel, AC OUT hub to panel, communication RJ45, then solar, then alternator.
  7. Run the Nomadic homerun as its own protected circuit (next section).
  8. Keep Comfort Hot, the white tank, and PEX on the left. Do not bury water under batteries.
  9. Plywood bed last, once you can still reach the hub from the arch.
  10. Clay panel after the cables are landed. Two thick black braided cables at the base. Labels readable.

Connections — use the cables in the box

The kit includes the core leads already terminated. That is the whole point of Independence versus building the wall from parts.

  • Battery cables — Power Hub battery ports to each module. Pull the rubber caps. Plug them in. Matching 5kWh to 5kWh only.
  • DC OUT — hub to distribution panel. Heavy red/black. Land DC IN + and DC IN - on the panel exactly as labeled.
  • AC OUT — hub to the panel's main breaker. Buy the 2-pole main the panel calls for (EcoFlow lists Eaton BR-type 30A/50A on the GEN2-style panel). Lock it with the hold-down bracket.
  • PV IN — hood panels to a solar input on the hub. Stay inside the voltage/current printed on your hub's PV ports. Do not mix mismatched panels on one input if you can avoid it.
  • ALT IN — included alternator cable to the Power Hub. Protect that cable with a breaker near the tap, and read the Sprinter body-builder guide (BEG) before you pick a stud. Mercedes is not Ford. Do not copy a Transit photo onto a VS30.
  • AC IN — included if you add shore. We did not.
  • RJ45 — the hub talks to the console and the distribution panel over Ethernet. Both communication ports on the hub have to be used. Empty port gets the included terminator. EcoFlow's quick-start is blunt: skip a terminator and the system misbehaves.

If you shorten a kit cable, do it once, with ferrules on set-screw terminals, and do not nick the inner insulation when you split the rubber jacket. Cut along the jacket at 90% depth and tear the last bit. Same trick on the AC OUT lead.

Label every lead at both ends before the clay wall goes on. Future you is on the side of a highway.

Communication and the console

One Ethernet from the hub to the console. One Ethernet from the hub to the distribution panel. If you add a Power Link later for tank sensors, put an RJ45 splitter on that second run and terminate the last device. We did not add Power Link on day one. The console plus the phone app is enough to see SOC, input, and the AC circuit.

Set DC output voltage during commissioning and do not change it later. The hub can feed 12V or 24V on the DC bus. Everything on that bus has to match. We kept house DC on the voltage the panel was commissioned for and ran the Nomadic as a separate 48V-to-24V homerun off the hub, not as a random load on the 12V fuse block. Do not just switch DC voltage after the fridge and lights are already on the panel.

The Nomadic homerun

This is the circuit the kit was bought for. Keep it short, supported, and labeled.

  1. 48V out of the Independence Kit Power Hub (battery-side / 48V appliance path — official EcoFlow 48V AC cable if you are building now).
  2. 100A breaker in the path, mounted where you can reach it from the arch. Not in a drawer.
  3. Voltage regulator, 48V down to 24V.
  4. Nomadic X3 Standard 24V on the roof. 2 AWG or the 24V DIY-kit harness, fuse at the source as Nomadic specifies. Connect the LCD before you hit the unit with power so you do not blow the internal fuse.

Support that cable. Do not let it saw on an 80/20 edge. Grommet the floor-to-wall pass. The roof end of this job is on the AC page.

MaxxAir dumps the first pass of ceiling heat. We still leave the Nomadic on when we walk away.

Alternator charging

The kit includes an ALT IN cable. Use it. Add a breaker in that cable near the chassis tap so you have a manual off and so the cable is the protected thing, not the van's mystery fuse.

On a Sprinter, open the BEG, find the approved customer connection / auxiliary tap for your year, and do not invent a stud because a forum photo looked close.

Ground the high-current negative to bare chassis near the tap, not onto the starter-battery negative post. Paint is not a conductor. Wire-brush the pad, serrated hardware, dielectric grease, no washer between lug and metal.

In the app: set alternator charge current so you are not cooking a stock gas-van alternator on a summer idle. We turn charge-while-idling off for short around-town drives and on for road trips.

Solar

Two flexible black panels on the black hood wrap. Cable into the Power Hub PV input with the included PV lead and a proper roof/hood gland so the sheet metal does not chew the jacket. Any brand of panel can land on those ports if you stay inside the printed V/A limits.

Reserve the highest-current PV input for alternator if your hub uses PV1 as the alternator path (GEN2-style hubs do this). Put the hood array on the remaining solar input. Read the label on your hub. Ours is the Independence Power Hub that came in the kit — match the sticker, not a photo of a later 5kVA box.

Grounds

EcoFlow treats house ground as floating from chassis unless you bond it. We ran a short heavy ground from the hub ground stud and the distribution panel to a new chassis point in the garage, paint off, serrated, grease. If the main negative ever fails, that bond is the return. It is also the path a short uses to open a breaker instead of finding Brittany's faucet.

Settings we actually use

  • Discharge floor high enough that a surprise cloudy day does not flatten the bank to zero with the AC running. EcoFlow's own note is 20% if you care about cycle life.
  • AC input current — only matters if you add shore. If you ever plug a 30A inlet into a house 15A outlet with an adapter, cap the app at 15A or you open the house breaker.
  • Alternator current — half the alternator rating is the usual starting point. Listen to the van.
  • Timeouts — the console and idle AC/DC timeouts will eat the bank if you leave everything awake. Set them.
  • DC voltage — set once. Do not touch it again.

What this bank actually runs

  • Nomadic X3 Standard 24V on the roof (the homerun above)
  • MaxxAir reversible fan in the living space
  • House lights, USB, water pump, the ordinary 12V stuff on the distribution panel
  • Kitchen loads Brittany actually uses (microwave, Breville) on the AC side of the panel
  • Comfort Hot's pumps and controls — the heat is hydronic, the kit just keeps the loop alive
  • Induction exhaust in the garage

We did not put e-bikes or a 1800W induction range on this page because that is not how we cook. If you add those, size the AC breakers for the load: 20A on the hungry outlets, GFCI in the wet zone, stranded wire into a pressure-plate receptacle, not a house outlet that only takes solid.

Commissioning

  1. Visually check polarity on every lead you landed. Battery caps off, then on.
  2. Terminators in every unused RJ45.
  3. Console up. App paired. Confirm both modules report.
  4. DC voltage set. Loads still off.
  5. Bring the distribution panel up one breaker at a time.
  6. Nomadic last: LCD first, then the 100A, then the unit. Confirm the compressor starts without the hub complaining.
  7. Walk away for an hour with the AC on and the rear doors closed. That is the test, not a screenshot of 100% SOC in the driveway.

Gotchas

  • Independence / Get Set / Prepared are different kits. Match the receipt.
  • Both RJ45 ports need a device or a terminator. This is the silent failure that looks like a dead system.
  • 12V rooftop AC on a 48V kit fails on startup current. We went 24V for that reason.
  • Do not clay over the hub until the circuit works. The panel is finish, not structure.
  • The large dog is in the garage. The induction fan is not optional.
  • Do not change DC bus voltage after commissioning.
  • Do not copy a Transit CCP2 photo onto a Sprinter. Open the BEG.
  • Shortening kit cables is fine. Nicking the inner insulation is not.

The van this kit lives in is on the conversion page. The roof compressor is on the AC page. The shell the garage sits in is on the insulation page.