Installing SavvyVan3

Watch it first, if you would rather

Seven minutes of the whole job - what is in the box, mounting and wiring the board, and the first power-on. Watch it before you cut anything.

Play - SavvyVan 3: unboxing and basic installation guide

Before you start

It must be installed by a suitably qualified person, such as an auto electrician - our terms say the same, and this is not the job to learn on. If you would rather not fit it yourself, our installers will.

Test it before it goes near a wall. Put the unit on a 12V bench supply and check it starts. If anything looks wrong, email support@savvyvan.com before fitting - half of it ends up bonded in place.

Register your device once it is in. The SavvyVan3 carries a 12-month warranty, and registering it inside that year adds a second one free.

Planning it out

The panel is two parts, joined by 2m of HDMI and USB cable. Give each position five minutes with a tape measure before you cut - and if 2m is short, longer cables are easy to buy.

The control board is 180 × 105 × 27 mm and screws to any flat surface. Leave three sides clear for cabling, keep it reachable - it is a serviceable part, more below - and put it within cable reach of the battery and the appliances you are switching.

Think about signal while you choose the spot. The wireless lives in the control board, not the screen, so this position decides whether WiFi reaches and whether the add-ons stay connected. The case is plastic and blocks nothing; the van does. Foil-backed insulation, a spot behind the fridge, or a steel wall between the board and the rest all cost you range - and you cannot get it back once the panelling is on.

The touch screen is 15 mm deep, plus room behind for cables - 18 mm clearance, or 40 mm if you are using 180° adapters. On a hard surface the visible profile is just 1.2 mm.

If 2 metres is not far enough

Our most common question, and the answer is a good one: the cables are standard parts, so you can buy longer ones anywhere. Nothing about them is special to us.

What you need is:

Picture	HDMI to HDMI mini
Power and touch	USB micro to USB micro

Those exact cables are awkward to find in longer lengths, so most people buy the ordinary version - HDMI to HDMI, and USB to USB micro - and add an adapter. That works fine.

We do not recommend a brand - we would rather say so than point you at something we have not tested. Any decent cable of the right type is fine.

Mounting the control board

The control board is a serviceable part. It must be mounted where it can be reached, disconnected and removed without dismantling fixed furniture, bonded panels or the touch screen - for example in an electrical locker, under a seat, or behind a removable access panel. Use the 2m cables to position it away from the screen where needed. Do not mount it in a sealed or unventilated space, or near heat sources.

Screw it to a flat surface with enough clearance to get cables into three sides. It needs three connections:

1. Power. 12V or 24V to the terminals marked +/−. There is a 2A fuse built in. In operation it draws 0.1–0.3A at 12V.
2. Temperature sensors (optional). Several can share the same port.
3. One side of each appliance you want to switch - positive or negative, your choice. The board works as an inline toggle in the circuit.

The power switch

The power switch terminals are a signal line, not a power feed. Bridging them briefly tells the panel to start up or shut down. A momentary - non-latching - push button is the usual way to wire it.

The power icon at the top right of the screen is not this switch. It turns the display off and nothing else - every circuit stays as it was, and a touch wakes it again.

The second voltage input

The board has a second voltage input, which puts a second dial on the screen. On the board it is the second screw terminal down on the right-hand side. Wire it one of two ways:

• A permanent feed from the starter battery. The dial shows the starter battery’s voltage all the time, so the owner can see whether the van will start.
• A trigger wire from an ignition live. The dial shows the voltage while the ignition is on. While it is off its bars are all dark and it reads about Vehicle 1.3v, which is what the input reads with nothing on it - not a real voltage. That tells the panel whether the van is running, so a logic rule on Ignition can act on it - turning the inverter off while you drive, for example. Tell the owner the empty dial with the ignition off is normal, not a flat battery.

It is off until you switch it on: Installer Settings → Battery Settings, then tick Enable Secondary Sensor, top right. A second voltage dial appears in the left-hand column of the home screen, always the last one - under the battery, and under the solar dial if there is one - and its reading is labelled Vehicle, such as Vehicle 12.4v. The user guide explains it to the owner. Fine Tune Voltage on the same page adjusts both inputs together - more on that page below.

Switching appliances

Each of the eight switches handles up to 10A, and each can switch either the positive or the negative side of a circuit.

There is no fusing on the switched circuits - every circuit you run through the panel needs its own fuse.

Each switch has three terminals:

• COM - the feed in.
• NO (normally open) - appliance off by default, panel switches it on. This is what most people want.
• NC (normally closed) - appliance on by default, panel switches it off.

Positive switching

Connect the appliance directly to ground. Battery positive goes through a fuse into COM. The appliance’s positive goes to NO, or NC if you want it on by default.

Negative switching

Connect the appliance’s positive through a fuse to the battery. The negative from the battery goes into COM, and the appliance’s negative to NO - or NC for on-by-default.

More than 10A

Anything over 10A needs an external relay, driven from one of the switches. The switch only turns the relay on and off; the relay carries the load, so the heavy current never reaches the board. Each has its own guide:

• A 12V or 24V load - a water heater, a big pump, a compressor - goes through a 200A high-current relay.
• A mains appliance goes through a 240V solid state relay, with its 230V side wired by somebody qualified.

Kit with its own on/off input

Some kit has a remote on/off input of its own, and a switch drives it with no feed at all: wire the input’s two terminals to COM and NO, and the switch simply joins them. A Victron MultiPlus-II works this way, and has its own guide.

Temperature sensors

Switch the unit off first. Then wire the supplied sensor into the screw terminals marked °C, matching the colours:

• BLK to black
• YEL to yellow
• RED to red

Several sensors can share the port. Indoors, use the supplied mount and pick a spot with an even temperature - not above a heater or against a cold outer wall. Extra sensors are on the shop.

Once the panel is running, tell it which sensor is where - it cannot tell inside from outside on its own. That is in Additional settings, further down.

Mounting the touch screen

Best results come from bonding the screen directly to a hard surface with the supplied VHB high-temperature tape.

5 inch

Adhesive only, because of its size.

1. Cut an aperture of 123 × 79 mm in a hard surface, with at least 18 mm clearance behind for cables - 40 mm if you are using 180° adapters.
2. Connect the cables, and any adapters you need.
3. Test the unit fully. This is the last easy moment.
4. Clean the surface, then peel the tape and press it into place.

7 inch

Three options: adhesive, or a mounting plate screwed or bolted on. Adhesive gives the lowest profile; bolted is the only one you can undo. The plate is an optional extra, not in the box - order it with the screen, because afterwards is too late.

Adhesive

1. Cut an aperture of 166 × 102 mm in a hard, flat surface, with at least 18 mm clearance behind.
2. Connect the cables and any adapters.
3. Test the unit fully.
4. Clean the surface, peel and press.

Mounting plate

1. Use the plate as a template to cut the correct aperture.
2. Drill for the bolts if you are bolting it on.
3. Test-fit before committing.
4. Attach the plate to the wall.
5. Connect the cables to the screen, and any adapters.
6. Test the unit fully.
7. Clean the plate and bond the screen to it.

First startup

The panel starts as soon as the 12V supply is live. Give it up to 60 seconds to calibrate on the first run, including a few seconds of black screen after the logo - it is not stuck.

Update it before you configure anything. New features and fixes land regularly, and starting from the current version saves redoing settings.

Not coming up? Troubleshooting, at the bottom of this guide, narrows it down in a few minutes.

Connecting to WiFi

WiFi is needed for the clock, the weather widget and updates - everything else works without it. Use the 2.4GHz band where you have the choice: it reaches further than 5GHz, and range is the limitation here, not speed.

1. Tap the menu top-left and select Wifi. The page looks for networks as it opens, and Scan looks again.
2. Under Available Wifi Networks, tap your network - the one with the green + beside it. With a long list, Search networks… narrows it down.
3. Enter the password and tap Save.

It joins after a few moments and moves across to Saved Wifi Networks, where the network it is connected to has a green border and a symbol for its signal strength. The foot of the page says Online in green once it reaches the internet, Wifi Connected - No Internet in orange when it is on a network that is not getting out, and Offline in red when it is not connected. To forget a network, tap it under Saved Wifi Networks and choose Delete.

Getting into the settings

Tap the menu, then User Settings or Installer Settings. The default passcode is 123456 for both, unless an installer set their own - if you bought the van or panel second-hand, ask them.

From this screen you can also restart the panel, and Get Help opens a box that points to our support page and email address, with two buttons. Send Logs sends the panel’s logs to us. Remote Support, while you are on the phone to us, lets a SavvyVan engineer look at the panel for up to two hours, using a six-character code it shows. End Session stops it. Close only hides the box and leaves the session running: while an engineer is connected, a headset symbol sits beside the menu, top left, and tapping it brings back the code and End Session. Neither button needs the passcode, so the user guide covers them for owners too.

Installer Settings is where the panel gets set up, and the menu runs to two screens: Next, bottom right, turns the page, and Back returns to the first. The back arrow top-left of any settings page brings you back to the menu.

User Settings is the owner’s shorter menu: Display & Sound, Gestures, System Information, App Settings, Water Heater Settings, and the lists of paired devices and logic rules. Nothing that decides how the van is wired is in it, so the owner cannot undo your work by accident.

Every page, and where it is covered

Work down this list in order and the panel is set up. Every page has its own section further down this guide, with every setting on it - tap its name to jump there.

Page	What it sets
System Information	Updates, and the serial number and versions we ask for
Tile Settings	What each of the eight switches is called, its icon, and which one is a water heater
Logic Rules	Something switched for you - by another tile, a temperature, a voltage, the battery, a time, a tank or the heater
Additional Settings	Which temperature sensor is inside and which outside, the weather, and Starlink
The pairing page, last on the first screen	Adding wireless add-ons, and a battery the panel reads directly
Motor Driver, first on the second screen	A motorised awning, step or bed: its lockout, calibration and name
Dot Configuration, on the second screen after Motor Driver	What each SavvyDot shows
Battery Settings	How the panel reads the battery, the second voltage input, the low voltage cut-off, and a Victron SmartSolar
Tanks Settings	Which tanks you have, their sizes, and which valve each one opens
Heater Settings	Which heater is fitted - Propex, Autoterm or Kartt - and its automatic modes
LED Configuration	Which lighting channels you used, their names and your scenes
App Settings	The phone app’s pairing code, its icon in the top bar, and resetting the pairing
Display & Sound	Colour, tap sounds, the wake-up screen, how long the screen stays on, and the date and time
Gestures	Which screen a swipe from the home screen opens

Updating the panel

1. Make sure you are on WiFi and Online, with a decent signal.
2. Open System Information from the settings menu.
3. Tap Update Now. A Software Update box asks first - Do not switch off the device during the update. - so tap Update Now again, or Cancel.

From software 2.5 a progress bar shows each stage: Connecting…, Checking for update…, Downloading… with the size and speed, Installing update…, Applying configuration…, Update complete, then Rebooting in 30 seconds…. The screen may be blank for part of the restart - leave it alone. No update available or Already on latest software means there is nothing to do. A failure shows in red with Retry and Close: No internet connection. Connect to wifi and try again., Could not download the update. Check your connection and try again., or Update files were not found / Update could not be installed. Please retry or contact SavvyVan Support. The result is kept in Notifications.

From 2.5.12 the new software is put together beside the old and only takes over once every file of it has been checked. So an update that could not be installed - power lost part way, or no room on the panel’s memory card for the second copy - leaves the panel on the software it had, and Retry is safe.

A panel on older software - anything before 2.5 - updates the old way: the button reads Updating …, the screen may be blank for up to 10 minutes, and a panel that is not online says Device is offline. Connect to wifi to update.

The same page shows what we will ask for first if you contact us:

• Device serial number.
• Appliance version, Hardware version and Software version.
• Connected Devices - the serial numbers of the add-ons we have on record for this panel.

We announce releases by email if you are on the mailing list, and every change is listed in the changelog.

Configuring your tiles

Tiles are the buttons on the main screen, and each one maps to a switch you wired: switch 1 is tile 1, and so on.

1. Go to Installer Settings → Tile Settings.
2. Choose how many tiles you have connected.
3. Select a tile to configure it.
4. Tap the icon on the right to see the full set, using the arrows to page through, and pick one.

A tile that does not exist yet: type a name into Add New Tile, choose an icon, and tap Add. It joins the picker like any other. To remove one you made, select it and tap Delete.

Advanced options for a tile

• Invert flips the icon’s on and off states - useful when a circuit is wired normally-closed, so the screen shows what is actually happening rather than the opposite.
• Momentary makes the tile live only while your finger is on it. Press and hold to run, let go to stop.
• Water Heater turns the tile into a managed water heater, with a schedule, an auto-off delay and battery protection behind it - a cog appears beside the dropdown, and its page is below. Only one tile can be the water heater, so choosing it for a second clears it from the first. Wiring a Pundmann heater to a switch through a relay is in its own guide.

They are all in the Advanced Options dropdown, which starts on None.

Water Heater Management

The cog beside a Water Heater tile opens this page. Everything on it acts on that one tile, and does nothing until a tile is set to Water Heater.

• Enabled - the switch for everything automatic below. It starts ticked. Tapping the tile on the main screen works either way.
• Schedule - an On time, in 15-minute steps, and a tick box for each day from Mon to Sun. The heater comes on at that time on the ticked days. It starts at 08:00 on Monday and Tuesday.
• Auto off delay - Off, 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes. However the heater came on - by hand, on the schedule, from the phone app, a SavvyDot or a logic rule - it goes off again that long after it was last switched on. It starts at 90.
• Charge Overflow - the heater comes on when the battery reaches 95% and goes off again at 90%, so it spends charge that would otherwise go to waste. Ticking it sets the auto off delay to Off. It starts unticked.
• Auto Off - the heater goes off when the battery drops to this, in 5% steps, and goes straight back off if anybody switches it on while the battery is still that low. It starts at 20%.

Charge Overflow and Auto Off need a battery percentage, so they are greyed out and do nothing unless a SavvyShunt or a battery the panel reads directly is paired - on a van whose battery is a Clayton Power LPS2 they stay greyed out too. From software 2.5.1 they also wait while the battery reading is more than a minute old, so a dropped connection cannot switch the heater on or off.

The owner has this page too, as Water Heater Settings in User Settings, so it is theirs to adjust once the van is handed over.

Logic rules

A logic rule switches something for you when something else happens: WHEN one thing, THEN another. The tank heater that comes on when the van gets cold, the pump that stops when the fresh tank runs low, the heater that warms the van at half six on a weekday, the buzzer that sounds when a waste tank is nearly full. This is what software 2.5.1 offers. The logic rules guide walks through every option with a picture of each, and has a list of rules worth copying.

The page. Open Logic Rules, on the first screen of the menu. It lists every rule, newest first, each written as a sentence - its conditions on the left, what it does on the right of the arrow. On it:

• Add New Rule opens a blank card, headed Add Rule.
• Tap a rule to open it as Edit Rule, filled in with what it does now.
• The red delete icon removes a rule straight away, with no question first.
• Show system rules adds the rules the panel keeps for itself, tagged System - the two Enable Auto Gas Mode makes in Heater Settings, and the ones behind Water Heater Settings. They cannot be edited or deleted here; change their setting on its own page.

Building a rule.

1. Tap Add New Rule.
2. Under WHEN, choose a Type and set what it watches. The editor only offers the Types the van can use at that moment:
   • Tile - Tile no. 1 to 8 is on or off. Acts the moment that tile is switched, on the panel, from the phone app, from a SavvyDot or by a rule.
   • Temperature - Sensor Inside, Outside or Water Heater goes above or below a figure from -20°C to 50°C. The sensors are the ones placed in Additional settings.
   • Voltage - Input Onboard or Ignition goes above or below a figure from 8.0V to 16.0V, in tenths of a volt.
   • Battery - the state of charge goes above or below a figure, in 5% steps. Needs a SavvyShunt, or a pack the panel reads directly.
   • Time - At an hour and minute, in five-minute steps, on the days chosen with the button at the end of the row: Every day, Weekdays, Weekends or any mix, ticked in the Days box.
   • Tank relay - Relay S1 (Gas), R1 or R2 is on or off. Needs SavvyTanks.
   • Tank level - Tank goes above or below a level, in 5% steps, for the tanks set up in Tanks Settings. Needs SavvyTanks.
   • Heater - the heater set to a source and a setting - Gas, Electric level 2, Diesel Auto, or off - from any route. Heater state - what it is doing: burner, fan or element running or stopped, or a Fault present or cleared. Both need a Propex, Autoterm or Kartt heater, and follow the model chosen in Heater Settings.
   • Extras - the gas: LPG level goes above or below a level, in 10% steps, or the LPG bottle is on or off, whichever add-on gauges or switches it. Needs SavvyTanks or a Propex.
3. Under THEN, choose a Module and set what it does:
   • SavvyVan - Tile no. 1 to 8 is on or off.
   • Tanks - Relay S1 (Gas), R1 or R2 is on or off.
   • LED - Light, All lights or one by name, is on (half brightness), off, a saved scene, or - with All lights - Max brightness to a figure.
   • Extras - the LPG bottle is on or off.
   • Heater - a source set to on, off, Auto or a level, exactly as a press of that button on the Heater page.
   • Buzzer - Short beep, Long beep or 3 long beeps.
   • Notification - a message of up to 120 characters, shown on the screen and kept on the Notifications page. Error dialog - the same message full screen, until somebody presses I Understand. Tap Set message to type it.
4. To add more, tap Add Condition or Add Action. A rule takes up to three conditions, joined by and (all of them at once) or or (any of them), and up to three actions, carried out in order - four rows in all. Remove Condition and Remove Action take the last row away.
5. To have it wait, set Delay, on the THEN line, from Off through 1 minute to 8 hours. When the wait is up the rule acts only if its conditions still hold.
6. Tap Save. The panel says New Logic Rule Added., or Logic Rule Updated. for an edit, and the rule works straight away. Cancel throws the card away.

How rules behave.

• A reading rule acts once, as the reading crosses the figure, and not again until the reading has come back past it by half a degree, two tenths of a volt, 5% of a tank or 2% of the battery. One whose condition is already true acts on the first reading after the panel starts or a rule is saved.
• A switch rule acts on the change. A Tile, Tank relay, LPG bottle, Heater or Heater state condition acts the moment the thing changes, and a Time condition once in its minute, on its days.
• With “and”, the rule acts when the last of its conditions comes true, and a Time condition only counts during its own minute.
• A rule sets rather than flips. A tile already on is left on. A relay or the gas bottle the panel cannot read at that moment is left alone.
• Onboard is only measured on a van where the panel reads the battery itself - Shunt Type Voltage Sensor with Enable Battery ticked in Battery Settings. With a SavvyShunt or a battery the panel reads directly, use Battery instead. Ignition is the second voltage input, always measured. On a trigger wire from an ignition live it reads about 1.3V with the ignition off, which is what lets a rule tell parked from driving.
• One rule can set off another, so check a new rule against the others, or two can switch each other back and forth.

The card checks a rule before saving it. Without a delay, a rule cannot switch the tile, relay or bottle it watches - You must use separate Tiles for a new rule. - and two actions cannot switch the same thing. A Time condition needs at least one day ticked, and a Notification or Error dialog needs a message. The owner sees the same list in User Settings but cannot add, change or remove rules.

Additional settings

On the second screen of the menu. Three things live here - four on a panel built to a customer’s own branding - and the first is worth doing on every panel.

Temperature Sensors Installed. Every sensor on the °C terminals gets a box - Sensor 1, Sensor 2 and so on - with its reading underneath. A new sensor does not know where it is, so use the dropdown under each one:

• Inside - the temperature in the van.
• Outside - the one on the outer wall.
• Water Heater - a sensor on the water heater, if you fitted one there.
• None - fitted, but not shown.

Each place takes one sensor. Give a second sensor a place that is already taken and the first one goes back to None.

Not sure which box is which sensor? Hold one in your hand for a minute and watch which reading climbs.

Enable Weather Widget puts the forecast - today and the next five days, each with its high and low - along the foot of the main screen. It starts ticked. It needs WiFi, and it does not appear while the panel is offline.

Enable Starlink Menu adds a Starlink page to the side menu, for a van with a dish. It starts unticked, so a van without one has no empty page, and ticking it puts the page in the menu straight away. What the page shows is in the Starlink guide.

Customisation ID appears only on a panel built to a customer’s own branding. Leave it alone unless we have given you an ID to enter - it is part of a trade build, not something to change on site. Deploy fetches that customer’s own set-up for the panel, which needs WiFi, and restarts the panel 30 seconds after it lands.

Pairing add-ons

Every wireless add-on is added the same way, and so is a battery the panel reads directly. It all happens on the pairing page, the last icon on the first screen of the menu. Once it is open, Scan is on the right.

1. Power the add-on first. Each add-on’s guide says what its light shows when it is ready to pair.
2. Tap Scan, and give it a few seconds to look around.
3. Tap the green + next to the add-on. It moves across to the saved list on the left.
4. Wait for the symbol beside it to turn blue. That means it is connected.

Each result shows its signal as Good, Fair or Poor. Poor is worth fixing now, by moving the add-on or the control board, rather than once the panelling is on. With a long list, the search box above it filters by name.

In the saved list, a SavvyShunt, SavvyTanks, SavvyLights or SavvyDot has a cog beside it that goes straight to its settings page - Battery Settings, Tanks Settings, LED Configuration or Dot Configuration. The delete icon beside any device removes it at once, with no question first. Pairing a SavvyShunt, a battery or a Clayton Power LPS2 also sets Shunt Type in Battery Settings for you, and pairing a heater sets Heater Model in Heater Settings.

What each add-on is called in the list is below, along with the equipment the panel pairs with directly. Its own guide covers wiring it and what its light shows when it is ready to pair:

Add-on or device	Listed as	Its guide
SavvyShunt	SavvyShunt	Pairing it
SavvyTanks V3	TanksV3	Pairing it
SavvyLights	LED_V1	Pairing it
SavvyStance	StanceV2 (SavvyStance on a first-generation sensor)	Pairing it
Propex heater module	PropexV2	Pairing it
Autoterm heater module	AutotermV1	Pairing it
Kartt diesel heater	MVK-U7902 BLE - the heater’s own controller, with no module from us	Kartt guide
SavvyDot	SavvyDot- and four characters (SVMiniScreen on an older dot)	Pairing it
Motor Driver	MotorDvr_V2	Pairing it
Clayton Power LPS2	CP- and two pairs of characters, such as CP-8E:58 - it then asks for the PIN on the LPS2’s own screen	Pairing it
Victron SmartSolar	Its own name, beginning SmartSolar - it then asks for the charger’s 32-character key	Pairing it
A battery read directly	Its own name, by make	Each make has a guide, listed under Power

Battery settings

Installer Settings → Battery Settings - the page is headed Battery Management - tells the panel how it reads the battery. Shunt Type is the choice: Voltage Sensor for the panel’s own sensor, SavvyShunt, or Direct to BMS for a battery that talks to the panel itself. The rest of the page changes to suit. None of it is in User Settings, so the owner cannot change it by accident.

Whatever the Shunt Type, Enable Secondary Sensor, top right beside it, is the second voltage input. It starts unticked.

On Voltage Sensor:

• Enable Battery puts the voltage dial on the home screen. It starts ticked; untick it and the rest of these settings disappear with the dial.
• Fine Tune Voltage nudges the reading up or down in 0.1V steps, if it disagrees with a meter you trust. It applies to both voltage inputs.
• The low voltage cut-off, below.

Low voltage cut-off

The panel can drop circuits on its own before the battery gets too flat. It is off when the panel arrives, and worth two minutes of setting up. Three controls:

• Emergency shutdown on low voltage - the tick box that arms it.
• A dropdown for what it switches off: All Tiles, Tile 1 only or Tile 2-8. It starts on None, and on None nothing happens however low the battery goes - so this is the one people forget.
• Emergency shutdown voltage - the figure it acts on, in 0.1V steps. 11.0V to start with.

Tile 2-8 is the usual choice: it sheds everything but the first circuit, so whatever is on tile 1 stays up. Below the figure you set, those relays open. It acts once on the way down and re-arms as soon as the voltage recovers, so a battery hovering around the number will not chatter. It watches the leisure battery only - the panel’s own voltage input. The second voltage input never sets it off, so turning the engine off on a van wired to the ignition sheds nothing.

When it acts, the owner gets a message on screen that also stays in their notifications - the user guide tells them what it means.

On a SavvyShunt

With Shunt Type on SavvyShunt, the page asks for the battery’s Capacity. Enter the capacity you can actually use rather than the number on the battery; the SavvyShunt guide has the figures by battery type. Reset History wipes the battery history.

The usable share of the battery is what goes in, because batteries do not like being emptied: 80% of the total for lithium, 60% for AGM and 50% for lead acid. Type it as a whole number and tap Save.

Battery Charge Offset shows the correction the panel applies, and Reset Offset sets it. Tap it with the battery full: that makes the current reading 100%, and the panel adjusts from there as the battery charges. Do it again after fitting a new battery or moving the shunt. With no shunt paired, the page says No Shunts connected. instead.

Inside the pack

With Direct to BMS and a battery connected, the page shows Battery Name: and the battery’s name, with its maker’s logo. If the panel does not recognise the name, a Vendor dropdown lets you choose the make. A Clayton Power LPS2 shows here too, and pairing one chooses this setting for you. Reset History wipes the battery history. With no battery connected, the page says No Device Connected.

There is also a Battery Data button, and there is more to see than the pack as a whole - as much of it as the battery reports:

• How many cells there are, and the average cell voltage.
• Every individual cell voltage, and the cell voltage delta - the gap between the highest and the lowest, which is the number that matters.
• Whether the balancer is working, and how hard.
• Cell resistances, the pack’s temperature sensors, and its state of health and charge cycles.

All Data and Cell Details, along the bottom of the box, swap between the full table and the cell-by-cell grid. On a battery that does not report its cells one by one, Cell Details is greyed out.

Most of the time nobody will open it. It earns its place when a cell starts drifting from the others, which is usually how a lithium pack begins to fail - and you can see that on the van’s own screen instead of needing a laptop and the battery maker’s app.

A shunt cannot show any of this. It measures from outside the battery, so it knows what is going in and out and nothing about what is happening inside.

With a Victron SmartSolar

Once a SmartSolar is paired, a Solar Charger strip appears along the bottom of the page, whatever the Shunt Type:

• The charger’s name, with Connected or Offline beside it.
• Max Solar Watts - the size of the array, set with the arrows in 50W steps, from 50W to 2,000W. It starts at 400W. The solar dial fills against this figure.
• Re-enter Key - opens the keyboard for the charger’s encryption key, which shows beside the button. With no key it reads not set in red, and the charger cannot come online until one is in. Type the key here without spaces - unlike the first time, this box does not ignore them, and if it does not like the key it simply opens again. Solar key updated. means it took.
• Show on pages - puts the solar dial on the home screen, under the battery - and a SOLAR card on the battery page too. It starts ticked.

Finding the key in VictronConnect is in the SmartSolar guide.

Your add-ons’ own pages

Four pages on the menu belong to an add-on, and each is set up in full here. Leave any page for an add-on the van does not have. Wiring and pairing each add-on is in its own guide.

Tanks Settings

The page is headed Tanks Configuration. What sits at the top depends on the panel:

• A standard SavvyVan3 has an Enable switch. Turn it on for SavvyTanks.
• A Sargent, CBE or BCA version has a dropdown in its place - Disabled, SavvyTanks or Onboard - because those panels can also read the van’s own water sender. Onboard is that sender. We switch it on before a panel leaves us, so a standard panel only has it if we set it up for an onboard sender.

With SavvyTanks, the page has a column for each tank: Water Tank 1, Water Tank 2, Water Tank 3 and Gas Tank. Each has its own Enable switch, and only an enabled tank appears on the main screen. Tanks 1 and 2 and the gas tank start enabled; tank 3 starts off. For each tank you use:

• Type, on a water tank - Fresh Water, Gray Waste or Black Waste.
• Source, on the gas tank - Tanks reads the gas level from SavvyTanks, Propex from a paired Propex heater module. Only the modules actually paired are offered.
• Capacity - tap the box, type the size as a whole number and tap Save. It is what lets the screen show litres as well as a percentage.
• The unit beside it - L or Gal for water. The gas tank reads in Kg.
• Relay - 1 or 2, if you wired a valve to one of the module’s relays. Choosing it here is what makes tapping that tank on the main screen open the valve. A relay belongs to one tank, so choosing it for a second clears it from the first.

The gas tank has no Relay choice with SavvyTanks V3: the solenoid links to the gas tank automatically. Only the older SavvyTanks V2 module shows one there.

With Onboard, choose the sender under Onboard Water Sender Type: Sargent, CBE_PC100 - the standard CBE probe, read through the CBE version’s interface board, so a standard panel cannot use it - CBE_PC200, or BCA. A CBE version arrives set up already. The onboard sender reads fresh water only; grey and black water need SavvyTanks alongside it.

A BCA sender measures pressure rather than level, so it has to learn the tank first, and both ways start with the tank empty. BCA sender calibration mode chooses how:

• Automatic, the default - tap Reset with the tank empty, go back to the main screen, and fill the tank. The panel learns the level as it fills.
• Manual - tap Set Empty with the tank empty, fill it, then tap Set Maximum.

Heater Settings

The page is headed Settings. Heater Model is the choice, and pairing the heater’s module - or a Kartt heater itself - makes it for you, so on most vans this is a check rather than a job. On a Propex, check it properly: pairing chooses HS2000, and with the wrong model the heater behaves oddly rather than not at all.

• HS2000E - a Propex that runs on gas and electric.
• HS2000 - a Propex that runs on gas only.
• Propex (electric only) - no gas at all. It uses the 3-pin electric cable only, so the gas connector and the solenoid wiring do not apply, and there is no LPG level on screen.
• Autoterm - the Autoterm diesel heater, through its module.
• Kartt - the Kartt diesel heater, which pairs with the panel directly, with no module from us. It works as the Autoterm does: Fan and Diesel, levels 1 to 10, and Auto. The Kartt guide covers pairing it.

All five are listed on every panel, whatever is paired.

Below the model sit the tick boxes for that model’s automatic modes. Choosing a model sets them to a starting value:

Model	Its tick boxes, and how they start
HS2000E	Enable Auto Electric Mode ticked, Enable Auto Gas Mode unticked
HS2000	Enable Auto Gas Mode unticked
Propex (electric only)	Enable Auto Electric Mode ticked
Autoterm	Enable Auto Heat Mode ticked
Kartt	Enable Auto Heat Mode ticked

• Enable Auto Electric Mode adds an automatic setting to the electric element on the heating page. The panel then picks the level itself - higher the further the van is below the temperature asked for, and off once it gets there.

• Enable Auto Gas Mode has the panel open the gas whenever the burner calls for it and close it again when the burner stops - including a bottle somebody opened by hand for the hob, which closes the next time the burner stops, while one closed by hand as the burner runs stays closed. It does not add an Auto setting to the Gas button: a Propex burner is simply on or off. Ticking it adds two rules the panel keeps for itself, which Show system rules lists on the Logic Rules page; unticking it takes them away.

  Unticked, the gas is the owner’s to open and close, from the gas bottle on the heating page. Turning the heating off leaves the gas as it was, and so does the end of a scheduled run. A scheduled Gas start only goes ahead if the gas was left open - otherwise the panel skips it and says Scheduler could not run as gas bottle was not open.

• Enable Auto Heat Mode is what puts Auto Heat on an Autoterm’s or a Kartt’s heating page. Leave it ticked.

Whichever heater it is, give the van a sensor set to Inside in Additional settings. It is the temperature the heater works to, and an Autoterm or a Kartt will not burn diesel without one.

The QR code on the page, Scan for Setup Instructions, opens setup instructions on a phone.

LED Configuration

The page for SavvyLights, headed LED Configuration. Pair the SavvyLights module first.

• The eight channels start named One to Eight. Tap a channel’s icon to switch it in or out of use: a light means in use, a red cross means not. Only channels in use appear on the lighting page, so take out any you did not wire.
• Tap a channel’s name to change it - Kitchen, Bed, Awning, whatever you call them out loud. The name shows only while the channel is in use.
• No. of Scenes - how many scenes the lighting page offers, from 0 to 4. It starts at 2, named Barbecue and Bed time; tap a scene’s name to change it. A scene’s light levels are set on the lighting page itself, not here.

Motor Driver

For a Motor Driver, which opens and closes one motorised awning, step, bed, pop-top or side pod. Motor Driver is the first icon on the second screen, after Back, and the page is headed Motor Driver Settings. With no Motor Driver paired it says so and points you to the pairing page. The Motor Driver guide has its wiring and lockout.

The first time it is opened with a Motor Driver paired, a Before you calibrate box asks you to check that the motor has its own limit switches, that the mode matches the motor, and that you have read the instructions; tap OK.

Calibration Settings, on the left. Each shows -- until the Motor Driver has reported in.

• Duration - how long, in seconds, the motor runs for one full opening or closing.
• Max Current - the current, in Amps, above which it stops early.
• Mode - 2 wire. 3 wire is listed, and is not supported yet.
• Lockout - Active on Contact or Active on Separation, to match the sensor. With no sensor, BLK linked to BLU and Active on Separation.
• Save Values sends all four to the Motor Driver, and wants all four set. Nothing changes on the Motor Driver until you press it.
• Auto-Calibrate asks first, then opens the mechanism fully and closes it again, with the current limit off, and fills in Duration and Max Current from what it measured. It reads Calibrating… while it works, and Stop cancels it. Keep everyone clear.

Duration and Max Current are greyed out until it has been calibrated. After that, tap one to type a number greater than nought, then Save Values - and never set Max Current above 5A.

Motor Function, on the right:

• Preset: - Awning, Bed, Generic, Pop-Top, Side Pod, Step or Unspecified.
• Custom: - your own name, shown instead of the preset. Clear empties it.
• Current Status, the lockout light, and Close, Stop and Open - the owner’s controls, for testing. The owner has them on Motor Driver in the side menu, which appears once a Motor Driver is paired.

SavvyDot

Dot Configuration, on the second screen of the menu after Back and Motor Driver, is where a SavvyDot - a small round touch screen - is told what to show. It needs software 2.5.1 or later. Pair the dot first: on the pairing page, Scan finds it as SavvyDot- and four characters (SVMiniScreen on an older dot); tap the + beside it. The cog beside a paired dot on the pairing page opens the same settings.

1. Open Dot Configuration. The page is headed SavvyDot Settings, with a tab for each dot paired - pick the one to set up. With none paired it says No SavvyDot paired and points you to the pairing page.
2. Tap Choose on the empty slot - or Change on a filled one - and pick what it shows: a Tile, a Tanks tank, an LED channel or a Scene, Levelling, the Onboard or Ignition voltage, a Heater source (Heater: Gas, Heater: Electric or Heater: Diesel, one for each the heater has), or the Battery. The next empty slot appears under it, up to five. Only what the van has is offered, and anything already in a slot is greyed out. The bin icon empties a slot, and the ones below move up. A Propex or an Autoterm can have a heater slot; a Kartt cannot.
3. Press Deploy - it flashes while there are changes to send. The panel says Deploying… with a percentage, then Deployed.

A new dot needs a software update, and its first Deploy does it - Updating SavvyDot firmware…, then Restarting SavvyDot…, about five minutes in all, finishing on Firmware updated to the new version and deployed. If the update fails, the rest still deploys, but a heater slot stays blank until the dot is updated - the panel says Deployed - SavvyDot firmware not updated in red, so press Deploy again. Renaming a light or a scene reaches the dot on the next Deploy; a tile’s slot shows its icon only.

A dot’s heater slot changes the set temperature and switches its heat source, never the fan. A tap on a dot switches a tile rather than holding it, so do not give a dot a Momentary tile. How the dot is powered and used is in the SavvyDot guide.

App Settings

The phone app pairs by scanning the QR code on this page, under Scan to pair your phone. The owner has the same page in User Settings. With no phone paired and no internet, the page shows Connect to wifi to pair your SavvyVan to the mobile app where the QR code would be, and so does the popup the link icon opens - get the panel online first. App features start switched off on a new panel, and until they are switched on there is no pairing code yet: both say Turn on app features to pair your phone, the GroupID reads Created when app features are turned on and Reset Pairing is greyed out. Tick Enable App Features in the popup the link icon opens and the code appears. On the page:

• App Status - App features disabled, No phone paired, Paired, disconnected or Paired, phone connected, with the link icon beside it in grey, orange or green.
• GroupID - the pairing code the QR code carries.
• Show task tray icon - puts the link icon in the top bar, so the QR code is a tap away from any screen. It starts ticked. Leave it ticked: unticking it switches the app features off as well, and ticking it again does not switch them back on - that is Enable App Features, in the popup the link icon opens.
• Reset Pairing - asks first, then unlinks every paired phone at once and makes a new pairing code, so each phone has to scan again. The right button when the van is sold; the wrong one for taking one phone off, which is done from that phone.

What the app does once it is paired is in the phone app guide.

Display & Sound

On the second screen of the menu. The owner has the same page in User Settings, so it is theirs to change later - but set it up now, because one setting on it is a battery decision.

• Choose Background Colour - tap or drag on the wheel, and the panel changes colour as you go. It starts blue, and a very dark choice turns the buttons grey so they can still be seen. It saves when you leave the page.
• Enable Tap Sounds - a click on every tap. It starts on.
• Default Wakeup Screen - the screen the panel wakes up on. Last open screen, the default, is wherever it was left. Home is the main screen, and Brand is the converter’s own page on a panel built to a customer’s branding. With a battery the panel reads directly - other than a Clayton Power LPS2 - there is also Battery, and with SavvyTanks, Tanks. If the one chosen cannot open, it wakes on Home.
• Day Screen Timeout and Night Screen Timeout - how long without a touch before the screen sleeps. Day is 07:00 to 20:00 to start with, and night is the rest; the Day Hours row below them moves it - tap either time, step the clock and tap Done. They start at 2 hours and 2 minutes. Tap one, choose Seconds (1 to 600), Minutes (1 to 240) or Hours (1 to 24) and set the number with - and + - or choose Never - then tap Save.
• Set date/time - for a panel that will spend its life offline. Set the time and date with the arrows and tap Save. On WiFi the clock sets itself, and a panel that is online keeps the internet’s time instead.

The screen is the thirstiest part of the panel, so on a van that lives off-grid, keep the night timeout short. Sleeping the screen switches nothing off.

Gestures

On the second screen of the menu, and in User Settings too, so the owner can change it later. It sets which screen a swipe from the home screen opens.

• The page is a compass. Left, right and down each have a dropdown of screens - Battery, Tanks, Lights, Heater, Levelling, Starlink, Wifi and Notifications - and Off. The picture above each dropdown shows the screen it will open, and a choice saves at once.
• Up reads Home (always) and cannot be set: it is the way back.
• Battery, Tanks, Lights, Heater and Levelling are offered only on a van with the equipment to open them. Starlink, Wifi and Notifications are always on the list.

A drag about a quarter of the way across the home screen, or a quarter of the way down, opens the screen set for that direction; a shorter drag springs back. From there, a swipe up - or the opposite way - comes back home, and nothing else swipes. It ships with nothing set, so a panel you do not set up behaves exactly as before.

Troubleshooting

Everything above is the job when it goes to plan. If it has not, start here.

What a healthy start-up looks like

Watch it once - knowing the order turns a dead panel into a five-minute diagnosis. Shut it down properly (or, if it has stopped responding, pull the power), put the power back, and you should see:

1. The green light comes on at the control board.
2. The screen’s backlight lights up - no picture yet, just the screen waking.
3. The SavvyVan logo.
4. Black again for a few seconds. This is the part that catches people out. It has not crashed; it is still coming up.
5. The main interface.

If it does not start

The two cables between the board and the screen do two different jobs, and that is what makes this quick to narrow down:

• USB brings the screen to life - backlight and touch.
• HDMI gives it something to show.

So a screen that lights up but shows nothing is a different fault from one that does nothing at all. Work down in order:

What you see	What it is
No green light on the control board	No power getting to it. Check the fuse and the 12V feed first
Green light, but the backlight never comes on	The USB cable - unplugged at one end, or faulty
Backlight on, but the touch does nothing	A charge-only USB cable. It has power but no data lines - see cable lengths
Backlight on and touch works, but no picture	The HDMI cable
The logo appears, then it never reaches the interface	A fault we need to look at
12V is present and a power cycle still gives no green light	A fault we need to look at

The last two rows mean it comes back to us. That is not a fob-off - there is nothing useful left to try in the van, and the sooner it is with us the sooner you have it back. Start at report a fault, and send the logs from the passcode screen (Get Help, then Send Logs) if the panel gets that far.

Everything else on that list is a cable or a fuse, and both are fixable where the van is standing.

If it starts but misbehaves, update it

The table above is for a panel that will not come up. Anything else - an odd reading, a page that will not load, a control that has stopped responding, something that worked last month and does not now - starts with an update.

Many reported faults are already fixed in a later release, and updating costs ten minutes against hours of fault-finding. The changelog lists what each version put right, so you can often spot your own symptom.

Settings → System Information → Update Now, on WiFi, and let it run to the restart - updating the panel shows what each stage looks like.

If the problem survives an update, tell us - and we will know it is not something we have already fixed.

If WiFi will not connect

If it will not connect or stay connected, the user guide has the full list - signal, mesh networks and iPhone hotspot quirks.

If a temperature sensor does not appear

Look in Additional settings first. A sensor that is listed there but set to None is working, and simply has not been given a place on the main screen yet.

If it is not listed there either, check the wiring and restart the panel.

If a scan finds nothing

A scan that finds nothing stays on Scanning … rather than saying so. Go back to the add-on and check its light: nearly always it is not powered, or not yet ready to pair. The light table in each add-on’s guide says which. Then leave the page, come back, and scan again.

Specification

Supply	12V and 24V systems, tolerant to 30V
Fuse	2A, built in
Draw in operation	0.1–0.3A at 12V
Operating temperature	−20°C to +60°C
Switches	8, up to 10A each, positive or negative
Control board	180 × 105 × 27 mm
Screen depth	15 mm, plus 18 mm clearance behind
Screen profile	1.2 mm visible when bonded
Cut-outs	123 × 79 mm (5”), 166 × 102 mm (7”)
Screen to board	2m supplied - HDMI to HDMI mini, and USB micro to USB micro. Longer cables are standard parts you can buy anywhere
Wireless	2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n, plus low-energy wireless for add-ons

Where to go next

• SavvyVan3 user guide - living with it day to day, and what each screen means
• Register your device - adds a second year of warranty to the panel, free
• Fitting to a Sargent, CBE or BCA system? Those have their own guides, and the wiring is different.