Our first MADCTY online course is live.
MADCTY Education / Field Note
Our first MADCTY online course is live.
This one feels like a milestone — not because we suddenly became an education company, but because the van build is starting to produce something useful beyond the van itself.
The first course is called From Zero to 48V: Van Electrical Foundations, and it starts with one of the most important, intimidating, and misunderstood parts of a modern camper van conversion: the electrical system.
Preview the Deck
Course 01
From Zero to 48V
Van Electrical Foundations for people who want to understand the system before they build, buy, or hire someone.
Includes:
- course lessons
- slide deck
- workbook
- worksheets
- calculators
- build-readiness supplement
Why this exists
As part of the upcoming Transit build, we’ve launched our first online education course.
The goal is not to turn everyone into an electrician overnight. The goal is to help regular people understand what is going on behind the panels, under the bed, inside the electrical cabinet, and inside the decisions that make a van safe, usable, and reliable.
This course was built around the same kinds of questions we’re working through for our own van: how much power do we need, how do batteries and charging sources work together, what does 48V actually change, and how do we document a system well enough that it can be understood later?
Foundations
Understand the numbers.
Volts, amps, watts, watt-hours, kWh, battery capacity, runtime, inverter losses, and why 48V changes the current flowing through the system.
Systems
See how it all connects.
Batteries, solar, alternator charging, shore power, inverters, 12V loads, monitoring, fuses, wire sizing, commissioning, and documentation.
Build Readiness
Turn learning into artifacts.
Worksheets, calculators, decision records, and build-readiness supplements help move the course from theory into actual planning.
What it teaches
The course walks through the foundation of a 48V camper van electrical system.
- how volts, amps, watts, watt-hours, and kWh actually apply in a van
- why 48V systems are becoming more common
- how batteries, solar, alternator charging, shore power, inverters, and 12V loads work together
- how to think about fuses, wire sizing, grounding, monitoring, commissioning, and documentation
- what changes when a personal van build starts moving toward a repeatable professional process
Course materials
More than just a slide deck.
The course includes companion materials, worksheets, calculators, and build-readiness supplements to help turn the lessons into real planning artifacts — not just theory.
The point is not just to understand a 48V system.
The point is to understand the decisions behind the system well enough to document, review, troubleshoot, and eventually repeat the process.
What comes next
This is the first course in a larger MADCTY education series.
As the van comes together, we plan to create additional course content around the systems, materials, workflows, and decisions behind a four-season camper van build.
- van planning and layout
- insulation and subfloor systems
- hydronic heat and hot water
- solar and roof planning
- cabinetry and interior systems
- plumbing and water management
- winterization and four-season design
- tools, workflow, and build documentation
- customer handoff and business-ready conversion processes
The bigger idea
We’re not just building a van.
We’re documenting the thinking, the tradeoffs, the mistakes, the research, the systems, and the decisions behind the build so that other people can understand what goes into this kind of project.
Some people may use the content to build their own vans. Some may use it to better understand a van they are buying. Some may use it to make smarter choices when hiring a builder. And some may simply follow along because they are curious about what it takes to turn an empty cargo van into a capable, four-season camper.
This first course is the starting point.
It is also part of a larger experiment: can MADCTY become not only a van build and adventure project, but a useful education platform for people who want to understand the craft, systems, and decisions behind modern camper van conversions?
We’re going to find out by building it in public.
Course is live now
From Zero to 48V — Van Electrical Foundations
Start with the foundations of a modern 48V camper van electrical system.
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