If the van is the office, power is the payroll — and Starlink draws far more than the laptop it serves. Wattonomy sizes your bank and solar around the working loads first, with cloudy-week reserve so a grey Tuesday doesn’t cost you the day.
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
A dead battery on a cloudy week is a lost workday.
Solar makes nothing overnight and far less in winter — exactly when bad weather makes Starlink draw more. Size for the best Sunday and you’re offline by the worst Tuesday. Wattonomy sizes the bank for real working days, adds charge-while-you-drive, and sizes every cable and fuse to ABYC E-11.
What a working rig has to get right.
Income loads first, sized honestly — then comfort.
Working-day energy
Starlink (the biggest line), laptop and phone, lights and a fridge — summed as real Wh, income loads sized first.
Cloudy-week reserve
Days of autonomy in the bank, not hours — so a grey stretch doesn’t end the workday.
Multi-source charging
Solar plus alternator/DC-DC so you can drive to recharge when the sun won’t — the resilient combination.
Cables & fuses
Every gauge and fuse sized to its load and your run lengths, to ABYC E-11.
What you walk away with — free
A validated system sized to your equipment — not a one-size kit
A clean wiring diagram with every cable gauge and fuse spelled out
Cable & fuse sizing with the voltage-drop checked for your run lengths
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
How much power does Starlink use off-grid?
The standard dish draws roughly 1–1.5 kWh a day — far more than a laptop — and more in bad weather. The tool treats it as the biggest line in the budget and sizes the bank and solar around it; the Mini draws far less if you can use it.
How much battery and solar to work remotely from a van?
Work loads blow up a weekend spec — enter your real kit and the tool sizes a bigger bank and array, with cloudy-week reserve and drive-to-charge, instead of the undersized first build most people regret.
Will solar alone keep me online?
Rarely year-round — the tool is honest that solar makes nothing overnight and little in winter, and sizes alternator/DC-DC charging as the backup so reliability doesn’t depend on the weather.
Do I need an account?
No. Design the whole system free, no email required. Accounts are only for saving builds or the printable build binder.
Is this just trying to sell me a kit?
No. The parts list is vendor-neutral and standards-referenced — buy the components anywhere. We make the design, not the markup.
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