The lithium battery for your Mercedes Sprinter.
The Sprinter is the van people build their lives in. It is the default base for serious campervan conversions and a long line of Sprinter-based coachbuilts, and it leaves the factory with a small lead-acid auxiliary battery in a DIN tray under the seat. A drop-in DIN lithium replaces it in the same space and finally gives you power you can actually live on.
The conversion van, and its factory battery tray
No van gets converted more than the Sprinter. Whether you are buying a finished professional camper, building out a bare panel van yourself, or running a Sprinter-based coachbuilt, the electrical heart of the job is the same: a leisure battery that holds enough power to live off when you are away from hook-up.
The Sprinter helps you here. It ships with an auxiliary battery provision in a standard DIN tray, usually under the passenger seat, which is exactly the format our batteries are built around. That means a TITAN DIN lithium drops into the same space as the tired lead-acid that came with the van, gives you close to its full rated capacity every cycle instead of half, charges far faster, and is built to last the life of the conversion rather than a couple of seasons.
If you are starting from an empty shell, the van conversion guide walks through building the system around the battery. For the wider picture of living with lithium on the road, the campervan battery guide is the place to start.
Sizing a Sprinter conversion
A starting point by how you use the van. Sprinter conversions tend to draw harder than a factory motorhome, because more of them are full-time builds with heating, big fridges and inverter cooking, so do not be shy with capacity.
| Build | How it gets used | Good fit |
|---|---|---|
| Weekend camper or day vanLights, fridge, phones, the odd night off hook-up | Modest | 100Ah to 150Ah |
| Full-time conversionHeating, water pump, fridge, devices, days off-grid | Typical vanlife | 150Ah to 230Ah |
| Off-grid or inverter cookingInduction hob, coffee machine, big inverter, living aboard | Heavy, sustained | 230Ah to 460Ah |
| Working van with power toolsInverter for tools, charging packs, welfare gear | Bursty, high current | 180Ah to 330Ah |
These are starting points, not fixed rules. The honest figure comes from your loads, not the van, so total them in the battery size calculator. For bigger banks you can run matched packs in parallel or step up to a single larger battery where the build allows.
Where it fits on a Sprinter
On a Sprinter the leisure battery tends to live in one of two places, and the low, flat DIN case suits both:
- The factory tray under the seat. The Sprinter has an auxiliary battery provision under the passenger seat in DIN format, and our case is built to that standard, so it drops straight in. Our terminals sit low on the case to help clear the seat frame, which is tight on some swivel bases. Keep the battery's height in mind if your seat has been raised or swivelled.
- In the build. Larger banks usually live in a cabinet, under the bed or inside a bench seat, with room to mount the charger and fusing alongside. This is the easiest home for a 230Ah or above.
Because it is sealed to IP67, the case shrugs off the damp and dust of van life. The one caveat is the RJ45 comms ports, which drop to IP32 while a cable is plugged in, so keep connected ports clear of standing water. Trays and voids vary by year and converter, and the current VS30 Sprinter differs from the older NCV3, so measure your space, including height for the terminals, before you order rather than going off a brochure figure.
Charging on a Sprinter
A conversion typically charges from three sources: the engine alternator while you drive, roof solar through an MPPT, and mains hook-up. Lithium takes all three happily and charges much faster than lead-acid, so a decent drive or a sunny afternoon puts real capacity back rather than a slow trickle.
The alternator is where the Sprinter needs a little thought. The current VS30 Sprinter (2018 on), and Euro 6 vans in general, run a variable-voltage smart alternator that will not reliably fill a lithium battery on its own. The fix is a DC-DC charger, also called a battery-to-battery charger, and we would fit a Victron Orion every time. It gives the lithium a clean, controlled charge and protects the starter battery. A standard split-charge relay does work, but it is not the most reliable way to charge lithium and some relays cause a backfeed that quietly skims around the top 15% off your usable capacity. Feeding straight off the alternator with no relay and no DC-DC is not something we recommend.
Plan the roof with the solar guide, check your existing charger against the compatibility list, and size the battery around the gap your charging cannot cover. Every TITAN carries a custom BMS, charges safely down to -30C, and comes with a lifetime, fully transferable warranty.
