We analysed the first plans drafted in VoltPlan's free electrical-system planner. The DIY mobile-electrics scene has quietly settled on a new standard: storage-first, lithium-only, DC-bus-on-12V, with USB taking the seat that the inverter used to occupy.
Percentages refer to finished plans (those where at least one component was placed). See methodology at the bottom.
98% of plans run their DC bus on 12 V. The inverter pathway — which adds an AC layer on top — appears in only 18% of plans. Modern appliances (USB chargers, LED lighting, 12 V fridges, induction-friendly cooktops) have made AC genuinely optional in mobile builds.
One in three plans wires in dedicated USB charging — the 5th-most-placed item across the whole dataset, ahead of the alternator, MPPT controllers and mains chargers. Builders skip the AC detour entirely: 12 V bus → USB → phone, no inverter in between.
89% of detectable first-pick batteries are LiFePO4. Lead-acid, AGM and gel barely register in new DIY plans. Five years ago this ratio would have been reversed.
Battery banks appear in ~92 % of finished plans, solar PV in only ~59 %. DIY builders treat storage as the foundation, not the add-on, and add panels as needed.
Median plan: 2.4 kWh of LiFePO4 paired with 200 W of solar — roughly two 100 Ah / 12 V batteries plus two monocrystalline panels. A clear emerging blueprint for the entry-level build.
The top-decile plan stores 7.7 kWh or more, and the largest plan in the dataset packs 31.2 kWh fed by 1800 W of solar. That is small-house territory built on van-grade hardware.
Median plan size: 9 components, top decile reaches 15. Whether for a weekend van or a permanent off-grid cabin, the structural complexity is remarkably uniform.
The most-placed components include the LiFePO 200 Ah battery, Victron's SmartSolar MPPT 75/15, the Blue Smart IP22 mains charger and the Orion-Tr 12/12-18 DC-DC charger — exactly what the open-market price competition has driven down to commodity.
Share of finished plans containing each component class. Hover a row for context.
How often DIY plans wire in dedicated USB charging — versus how often they include a mains inverter.
Use-case mix, measured at plan-start (the entry point the visitor chose).
The dense cluster sits at 200–400 W of panels and 2–4 kWh of battery — the modern weekend-van archetype. Outliers up to 1800 W and 31.2 kWh point at permanent off-grid installations being designed with the same toolset.
Most-placed components, ranked. Two patterns: (a) Victron dominates the active-electronics shortlist (three of the top ten), and (b) the rest is generic-LiFePO + monocrystalline, exactly what the open-market price competition has driven down to commodity.
For magazine and podcast use. Tested for length and tone across four angles.
Tech / sustainabilityMost self-designed mobile electrical systems now run their DC bus on 12 V — the inverter has become an option, not a requirement.
Consumer-tech pressUSB now appears in roughly twice as many DIY mobile-electrical plans as the inverter does. The 12 V bus charges the phone directly — no AC, no wall wart, no conversion loss.
Camper / vanlife pressAcross self-designed mobile-electrical builds, lithium iron phosphate has all but replaced lead-acid as the first-pick chemistry.
Marine pressBuilders are sizing storage first and generation second — about six in ten plans include solar, but more than nine in ten include a battery bank.
Sources. Snapshot of all electrical plans drafted in VoltPlan, plus matching site analytics for the same window. Snapshot taken on 2026-05-04.
Dataset size (for reader judgement only — not for headline use). Site analytics during the window: 5,402 site visitors and 2,610 plan starts (any entry point). Production database during the same window: 119 plans saved with at least one component placed. Component-, battery- and solar-distribution percentages are computed over those 119 saved plans.
Saved-plan undercount. Only plans the user explicitly saved reach the database. People who build a plan locally and close the tab without saving are invisible to us, so the saved-plan count is a floor, not a true completion figure. We therefore do not report a visitor-to-completion conversion rate. Sample size for the percentages is small — treat figures as directional, not statistically tight.
Use-case split applies to plan starts, not finished plans. The use-case category (camper / boat / off-grid / generic) is captured at the entry point the visitor chose. The saved-plan dataset is not classified by use case, so we do not cite use-case-specific percentages on the finished plans.
"DC bus on 12 V" vs "pure DC". Plans are tagged 12 V when at least one 12 V DC component is present. AC voltages are not in scope of the analyser, so a plan can carry both a 12 V DC bus and an AC pathway via an inverter — those ~18 % with an inverter are a subset of the ~98 % with a 12 V bus, not a contradiction.
No PII. Owner IDs, share tokens and free-text descriptions are not exported beyond aggregate counts.