The odd weekend

This weekend was supposed to be the weekend I got all of my 12v system up and running. Instead it was a weekend punctuated by delays and frustrations. Almost all of the stuff I’d ordered had arrived, including one tiny little box that I thought I’d ordered from California but which eventually arrived having come from Singapore.

Yesterday I set to and spray painted my boxes finding that the spray paint wasn’t really working well. It seems that it was too cold for the paint to work properly. Thus some stuff has oodles of paint that has yet to harden. Clearly I don’t need to be painting anything below 65 Fahrenheit. Pretty much the same with glues and other such chemical processes.

The smallest box, the one that came from Singapore was too small for its intended purpose so instead it became a switch box. I was going to put the wires into the box through holes but remembered I have some nifty little banana terminals. Yes - that’s what they’re called and they’re certainly not yellow nor made of a particularly delicious fruit.

Hunting around I found most of my switches from the Radio Shack sale are SPDT with a Center off. That’s no good for something that has to be switched on or off. It’s nifty for replacing three position wiper switches or something like that though. In the end I did find two usable switches. Neither was quite what I wanted. I’d have liked everything to have had the same black toggle switches as my center off switches but alas this was not to be. Not that it really matters anyway.

I put off soldering the switches in the box because my soldering iron is such a beast to work with. In the end I decided to try a different soldering iron and it worked a treat. The switches were soldered to the banana terminals. Later the switch box was screwed to the wall after a false start after which I had to redrill the mounting holes. Then the lid was popped into place. That box has a very nifty pop-on lid that requires no screws. I’ll have to see how it stands up to use. That is, of course, one reason I used banana terminals. I shouldn’t need at any point to go inside the box.

The box has two switches - one to replace the knife-switch that has operated my small ventilation fan and one to operate my brand new light assembley (the one I swore never to install). It all almost got wired to the battery too. I’d drilled a hole in the partition and passed cable in conduit all the way from the switch to the cable entrance from under the bus. Putting the cables in conduit was the usual rewarding and interesting pain in the backside.

Four boxes had arrived over the past few days. Two I painted purple to kinda match the galley and two I painted pink to kinda match the bedroom. The one I’d intended for the bedroom is probably a little too small. I’ll probably have to rethink that one. Maybe use the other box instead. Compounding that of course is my lack of the correct kind of switch.

Originally the plan had been to install two switches in the space at the bottom. That, I feel, is a little ambitious. Thus I’ll probably abandon work on that box and concentrate on my preferred die-cast metal box. Thats a lot bigger and gives me the option to install more switches. Thus I could with one box have USB charging, a voltmeter, a button to press to see the voltage, a switch to power the charger plus a switch for the light and another for the bedroom fan. That, to me, seems a far better idea.

The bathroom light cannot be wired until the bedroom wiring is done. The bathroom wiring will pass through the partition from the bedroom in order to simplify everything. I do have a few other 12v wiring ideas in mind too.

The bathroom could do with a 12V socket in which I could plug a 12V shower unit. That would be way better than my D cell powered shower unit. Aside from the D cell unit is falling apart, it means buying D cells. Rechargeable D cells are an option but my experience of solar battery chargers is pretty miserable, It takes a week and more to charge a paid or AA calls in Harbor Freight’s AA charger.

Since putting a power socket in the bathroom would need an extra fuse box then the next addition would be a second bedroom light, above the foot of the bed. That would be incredibly easy to wire in. Similarly the yet to be installed keypad unlocker could run off that fuse box. There’s already a suitable power cable running the length of the bus that could be used for it.

I had hoped to do a lot more this weekend. By the time I had got really into my wiring for the lighting and the fan in the galley, the daylight was fading. I’d hoped to have the light wired enough that I could see to finish but alas it was not to be. I have a ton of small projects that need completing - the kind of one morning job that’s going to take several weekends.

A few days ago my bridge rectifier arrived. I should have bought several to be honest. These convert AC to DC and have some very nice screw terminals that could be used with spade connectors or preferably ring connectors. Just connecting these to any solar input would be me DC of the right polarity without having to know what the polarity of the panels were. This is very, very useful for external plugin panels. Indeed, it’s so useful I might just get more at some point. It’s way over-engineered for my needs being cable of handling 60A at 1200V or something like that. I only need it for at most 2-3 amps at 12v.

As of now, my old solar setup at the front and the old batteries I used for the past year or so are now unplugged. I’ll slowly migrate everything at the front to the new battery. One task not to be undertaken immediately is to connect the font and rear solar panels and to wire one of the voltmeters in the galley to the solar output. That way, I can tell in the galley, the battery voltage and the solar voltage.

In the bedroom my aim is to keep emitted light as low as possible so the battery voltmeter will be off unless a button is pressed. That way I can leave a phone charging overnight while camping without the light from the voltmeter bathing the room in a bright red or blue glow.