Short answer: there are three ways to get a 12V system built: buy a pre-wired board, wire it yourself, or pay an auto-electrician. A board takes the fiddliest wiring off your plate and arrives tested, but someone still has to install it. DIY suits a simple DC setup if you're handy and follow the manuals. And whichever way you go, the 230 V side is a licensed electrician's job.
What does a pre-wired board actually give you?
Take Exotronic's Coorong Series as the example. It's a Victron MultiPlus-II 3000VA inverter/charger, a SmartSolar MPPT, an Orion-Tr Smart DC-DC charger and a BMV-712 battery monitor on one powder-coated aluminium chassis, all pre-wired, tested and documented.
What that means in practice:
- Tested: each board is function-tested before it ships.
- Documented: each Coorong comes with a detailed wiring diagram, including example connections for solar panels, the starter battery and AC loads.
- Protection built in: a 400 A MEGA main fuse, a 12-blade fuse block for DC loads, 70 mm² double-insulated power cable, and safety-switch protection on both the incoming and outgoing inverter circuits.
Exotronic's Karijini is pitched the same way, pre-wired and factory-tested to cut install time and wiring errors. The bigger Yulara arrives with every Victron device already connected and tested.
Exotronic's case for a board is the risk of doing it from scratch: a multi-component system takes know-how, the right tools and hours of labour, and in their words, "Mistakes in cable sizing, fuse selection, or termination can lead to voltage drop, overheating, or even fire."
What do you still have to do yourself?
More than people expect. A board is the middle of the system, not the whole thing. You still have to:
- Mount it. These aren't small. Exotronic give the Coorong Landscape as 1150 x 355 x 170 mm and 33 kg, and the Karijini Landscape as 1200 x 355 x 170 mm and 33 kg. The Coorong comes on a pallet, and the driver won't unload it. The smaller Noosa 50 Plus (no inverter) is 450 x 335 x 95 mm and 6.6 kg.
- Connect the battery. On the Noosa 50 Plus that's M8 bolt terminals.
- Run the solar and starter-battery cables to it. On the Coorong, solar goes to a red Anderson and the starter battery to a grey one. On the Noosa 50 Plus it's blue for the starter battery and grey for solar. Same maker, different colours, so go by the labels on your board, not by habit. (More in our Anderson plugs guide.)
- Size the cables and fuses outside the board. Exotronic's warranty policy puts it on the installer to build in the right fuses, circuit breakers, low-voltage protection, alarms and isolators. Our fusing guide covers the basics.
- Connect the 230 V side, if the board has an inverter or a shore-power input. See below.
Exotronic are upfront that installation is on you: they don't install or supervise, and the buyer and installer are responsible for the design, location and access.
What does the warranty cover?
Exotronic warrant their pre-wired boards for 60 months from the dealer's invoice to the original buyer, covering the board and what's built into it. It doesn't cover how the wider system performs, or the installation into a vehicle, boat or building.
Two conditions worth knowing before you pick up a spanner:
- Installations should comply with the relevant Australian Standards and safety regulations.
- Installations not done by competent persons, or not to Exotronic's guidelines, may void or limit the warranty.
So a board doesn't remove the need for skill; it moves it to the connections in and out.
Who can do the 230 V side?
Any board with a MultiPlus-II in it has 230 V on board. Victron's MultiPlus-II manual says it may only be installed, and its settings only changed, by a qualified electrical engineer. It also warns: "A dangerous electrical voltage can occur at the input and/or output terminals, even if the equipment is switched off", because the battery is always there.
In a van or caravan, fixed 230 V wiring is a licensed electrician's job, board or no board. Exotronic's pages talk about "competent persons" and Australian Standards rather than naming a licence; our guide to 230V in a van or caravan covers what the regulators say.
When does DIY make sense?
If your system is DC only (a battery, a DC-DC charger, a solar controller, a fuse block and a few circuits), plenty of handy people wire it themselves. The rules are the ones in Exotronic's warning: get the cable sizes right, put the right fuse in the right place, and make every termination properly. Follow each maker's manual for cable and fuse sizes, and don't guess.
DIY gets harder quickly once you add an inverter/charger, several charge sources, or a monitor that has to see every amp. That's where a board starts to earn its keep. We've installed plenty of MultiPlus-IIs and Victron chargers the long way, and the wiring between them is where the hours go.
When is an auto-electrician the right call?
- The vehicle side. Wiring a DC-DC charger into a modern vehicle's electrics is a job of its own. Our smart alternators guide explains why.
- You're not confident sizing cables and fuses for big currents. Voltage drop, overheating and fire are the reasons not to wing it.
- You want it signed off. If the warranty depends on a "competent person", having one do the job is the simplest way to meet it.
And the 230 V side needs a licensed electrician regardless.
Can you mix and match?
Yes, and it's often the sensible middle. A pre-wired board installed by an auto-electrician (and a licensed electrician for the 230 V side) gets you the factory-tested core and a professional install, with less labour than building it all from scratch.
Where do I find them?
Exotronic's boards come in several sizes: the Coorong Landscape ($4,219.95), the Karijini Landscape ($4,889.95) and the Yulara ($6,989.95). For smaller setups there are also Exotronic's pre-wired battery boxes. They're all in power systems.