Apparently it might be harder than it looks because the white wire is the input. Unfortunately, I might have tried to start it up in this configuration and that might fry the inverter. I don’t want to talk about it.
So instead of making more electrical progress today I installed the new muffler I just received for the heater. There is an intake air muffler and an exhaust muffler. Hopefully those will quiet down the heater quite a bit.
After that job it was off to the airport. We are headed back to NH to move the rest of our stuff into storage. If you are around hit us up! We are going to try to see as many people as possible in the short time we are there.
After nearly two months of daily progress updates on the blog I will likely miss a few days over the next week. Sorry Amanda, but I’ll see you Sunday night!
I felt a little better this morning so I didn’t have any excuse to slack off. I finished up the galley drawers we’d been working on and with Sara’s help I installed the final trim piece on the refrigerator cabinet. I also did a bit of work on the furring strips that will hold the wardrobe together.
Then UPS came! She brought the AC power panel I ordered last week so I can finally get back to working on the electrical system.
The panel has an AC main, three circuits (the exact number I need), and a volt meter (that I probably don’t need but it looks cool).
The panel saves me from having to put together a bunch of individual pieces to make a circuit box.
There is some extra gadgetry here, but I would have had to put together some of this stuff to properly wire my AC system.
The box will fit nicely in the electrical cabinet, but it needed some modification as the unit needs to go where I had already had some other wires running. NBD. Just some time to cut/drill different holes for everything to get rerouted.
With the box modified, it was time to start some wiring. As I’ve said before, it is not that hard, but it is time consuming to measure, cut, crimp, heat, attach all the wires. Then if/when something doesn’t work quite right it is a process of back-tracking to see which step I screwed up! Sometimes I also make annoying mistakes like wiring something up and then realizing that I needed to put the wire through a particular hole first. It is so annoying to spend the time getting something all set and then realizing that I forgot to put the access panel on the wire before wiring it to the inverter!
Finally I have it all done. Tomorrow I will get to see if I’ve screwed anything up too much!
Here is the panel all wired with the input from the inverter and the outputs to the three circuits.
Not a lot of help from me today. We checked the refrigerator trim and found the construction adhesive we used was worthless. The trim just popped right off. Unfortunately we used the same glue on the drawer faces, but those also have a few nails and we put them in a warm room so hopefully they hold better.
So, today’s work was nearly the same as yesterday: reinstall refrigerator trim and work on the next three drawers.
The first three drawers finished except for the fancy zebrawood trim.
I realized I didn’t have any pictures and I am going to bed early so I went out to see what Sara was doing and take a couple pictures to post. She was just cleaning up.
Our pre-Super Bowl activity this morning was fairly minimal. With my cold I didn’t feel like doing too much so we picked a couple simple projects that did not require much thought.
We continued putting the trim on the refrigerator cabinet. It was the first cabinet I built. If I built it again now I’m sure I would do it much differently and it probably wouldn’t require any trim, but as it is currently just exposed 2″ x 2″ posts it needs something on it. We have four 1/4″ baltic birch pieces to cover the edges.
Can’t get clamps behind the cabinet all the way around so we had to resort to creative bracing. When we do the bottom trim and the left trim it will be all bracing and no clamps so hopefully it works!
The other project we started was to put the drawer facings on the galley cabinet drawers. If we don’t put anything on them the drawer slides show on the sides.
We are just using a mix of glue and brad nails to hold on a 1/4″ facing. Any brad nails we put in the face will eventually be covered by zebrawood trim.
Construction glue, a few brad nails, and lots of clamps.
After these small projects it was time to sit in front of the TV for a few hours. I’m sorry to all my friends in New England who will go to bed unhappy, though their well-deserved sports arrogance will surely kick in soon and they will be fine. On the other hand, I’m very happy for Chuck. I hope he will be safe because he doesn’t live in Philly now so there isn’t much chance he will die when the Eagles fans burn Philly to the ground tonight!
We are at a pretty fun stage with the van because many of our projects are noticeable in the van. It’s fun to build a cabinet, but it’s more fun to put it in!
The day started with Sara taking Kenai for a run. She always stops for a coffee at the end and Kenai gets a treat.
I’d like a half-caf salted caramel, vanilla bean frappuccino, please. Oh, and a milk biscotti.
Then she continued wrapping the van in reflectix.
Who’s that dog behind the curtain!?
I worked on finalizing the microwave cabinet. We wanted one thing that is truly done so we did all the trim and everything to see what the rest of the van might look like eventually. I finished up the electrical box (one trip to Ace for yet another size drill bit – 13/16″) and put on the cover, I bolted in the microwave, and I finished putting on the zebrawood trim we are going to use on our drawers and cabinet doors.
Similar technique as the ceiling. I shot brad nails into the lip of the drawer and then clipped off the top to make a small stud that would hold the trim in place. You can see the nails on the exposed left side. Then glue to actually hold it permanently.So fancy!It’s done! (Of course in the future we will likely add a door front to the top compartment, but that’s not something to focus on now.
We did some other van things, we watched a movie, and I’m sick so that’s it for now. Hopefully I don’t get full on sick and I can keep working on the van!
Not much notable progress today so here is a picture of dogs hoping they will get some moose fajita scraps.
After working out this morning I went to the electrical supply store to pick their brains about how I was planning to wire my AC circuits. I’m learning a lot about the electrical design of these systems, but there is still so much DIY that I want to make sure I’m doing it correctly.
The real issue for my design is that I have a single wire (actually three wires) coming out of the inverter. I have three separate AC circuits (most people would say that doesn’t make a ton of sense for a small van, but the wires are already there so that’s what I’m going with) and three circuit breakers. That means I need to distribute my one wire coming out of the inverter into three wires. I *think* the way to do this is to use a bus bar for each wire, but I haven’t really seen a picture of anyone doing this. A bus bar is just a piece of metal with multiple screws/studs where you can bring in one wire and then feed out multiple wires. A regular house circuit panel has those bus bars integrated into the box, but those are huge and it would be a real PITA to put that in the van. Anyway, I ended up ordering the pieces to string it together, but then I found a more expensive but complete solution. So, after figuring it all out, I canceled the piecemeal order and just bought the pre-made panel. If I’m going to overbuild the whole system and the AC circuits, I might as well just get the fancy panel already made.
It even happens to have three circuits. That will make it very easy!
After I worked on that for a while, Sara and I accepted an offer on our house with all the contingencies satisfied. That will be a relief. We had a couple deals fall through but it looks like this one will stick! We get to come visit our NH peeps one last time in the next couple weeks when we come back to clean out the house. Anyone want to help us move furniture into storage? We will provide the alcohol!
In the late afternoon Sara and I fully mounted the refrigerator and microwave cabinets. We screwed the microwave cabinet to the refrigerator cabinet and screwed the refrigerator cabinet to the floor. I guess we are committed because those things sure as hell aren’t coming out now! We also plugged in the refrigerator and screwed it into the refrigerator cabinet. This is the first whole cabinet that is permanently installed!
This evening, we futzed around with various small projects. I put our first drawer face on a drawer. It is mostly glued on so I clamped it nice and tight.
As I said, nice and tight!
Sara has continued working on her dog food drawer, but she doesn’t like me watching so I took this picture and left.
Dogs are going to be pretty lucky having their very own drawer with inset bowl holders!
So easy to lose track of time when van construction is the only order of business.
My first job today was to finish up the microwave cabinet. I had a few more electrical connections to deal with before I could call it done. The outlet took some time as I changed out the gang box behind the outlet and added ring terminals to the wires. I did not like the idea of wrapping stranded wire around regular compression screws on the outlet. I checked with the local electrical shop about getting an outlet where the wires fit in differently, but they did not have those outlets and they told me ring terminals would be fine. I also had to rewire the heater control as I had never trimmed it.
I also spent some time working on back panels for the two compartments. The top one is done and in; the lower one needs some more thought. It is not going to fit very well if I try to cover the whole back, plus I need to keep the airflow clear. I may not worry about a back for now as it will be mostly filled with the microwave.
Naturally, the dogs wanted to help.
Grampa took Kenai for a ride so Tanzi claimed the bed. She didn’t even seem to mind using my tools as a pillow.When he came back, Kenai got the front seat(s). Sara recently picked up the inflatable pillow to fill the space between the seats so we can make a full dog couch there.Once I cleaned up my tools they shared the bed.
Sara spent the day securing reflectix to the back doors. We have had some of it just hanging there for a while and it needed to be cleaned up. She did an amazing job covering all the exposed metal back there. Eventually we have to decide how to finish that area, but for now at least the bare metal is covered and slightly insulated.
I don’t think we are going to get very good cell phone reception in here!Sara working in the “basement.” It is really striking how much colder it is down at floor level than up at bed level. That difference is certainly something we have to consider in how we heat the van.
I also started making legit progress on the electrical cabinet. Although I certainly don’t have a full layout, I made some decisions that allowed me to get started on some of the wiring. I have holes now for all the DC wires, the AC wires, the AC shore power, and the vent. I *think* that is all the holes I need so I can probably bite the bullet and mount the cabinet up to the wall. I also mounted the DC fusebox and measured out all the wires and crimped on all the ring terminals. The only DC wire I have not finished is the heater wire as it is currently attached to the batteries next to the cabinet. I don’t want to disconnect any of that until I can put it straight in and turn the heat back on!
The whole electrical cabinet. The batteries will go on the right; the inverter on the left.DC wires go out halfway up after attaching to fuse box. The shore power wire is at the bottom near where the inverter connection sits. AC wires go out in the middle. The vent is right behind one of the cooling grills on the inverter.
It was nice today getting to work in a warm van! The heater continues to purr/roar nicely and it keeps it toasty in there. I did order the muffler today so I will have a little more work when that arrives, but as it currently stands we can use it as much as we need.
Today again started with the electrical cabinet. I just did a little bit of setting up with positioning the inverter and drilling the vent hole. After messing with that some I got distracted and moved on to finishing up the microwave cabinet.
The finishing touches on the microwave cabinet included figuring out a way to secure the microwave itself, adding a fan to help cool the microwave and refrigerator, installing the bottom of the cabinet, which will be the piece that actually attaches to the top of the refrigerator cabinet, and working on the electrical.
First I cut a hole for the fan. The fan will blow air out the side of the cabinet into the wardrobe. The microwave instructions actually say it should have a foot of clearance, but I don’t think I have ever seen a microwave like that! At the very least, using the fan when the microwave is running will pull plenty of fresh air up from below. Pulling the air up from below will also cool the refrigerator so we will run the fan if we find the fridge is working too hard.
Simple but powerful 120mm 12V fan.Might as well keep the grate just in case our fingers ever get in there.
In order to secure the microwave I just figured out where the feet would naturally sit and then drilled holes for sheet metal screws. The screws will go right up into the base of the microwave and should hold it securely in place.
With the rest of the small projects complete I installed the base. Of course, this required a couple trips in/out of the van to ensure I was mounting it in exactly the right place. It does not exactly match the dimensions of the refrigerator cabinet and I had to make sure it both bolted correctly to the wall and sat correctly on the refrigerator.
Finally, with the base installed there was no reason to not put in the van. I haven’t yet screwed it down to the refrigerator cabinet, but I’ve started wiring it up so if I have to take it out it will be a real pain in the ass.
Mess of wires.
I got most of the wiring done. The fan had to be connected to wires that would take it to power and to a switch. The fan wires that went to power had to be spliced into the existing wires for the dimmer switch. The LED dimmer switch had connections in both directions. The heater wire had to be rerouted into the proper place. And, finally, the AC power had to be brought into the box. I did not wire the outlet yet because I’m going to exchange the outlet I bought for one that will work better with stranded wire. The electrical stuff is fun, but I take my time!
A quick test of the lights confirmed the lights were powered correctly and the fan worked.
We have tested the bed lights before, but this was the first time it was getting power through the dimmer switch and the wiring was all hooked up.
I only took one trip today to Ace because the machine screws that came with the fan were not long enough for my installation. I got the right #8 machine screws, but for some reason I then grabbed #6 nuts. Perhaps I have a compulsion to go to Ace every day because now I have to go exchange the nuts in the morning. That will guarantee me at least one trip tomorrow! When this is all done I’m going to add up the number of charges I have at Ace. It’s going to be ridiculous.
My original plan today was to focus on the electrical cabinet and that is how the day started. We put the cabinet in a couple times to determine where the bolts would attach to the wall. We also cut the final piece of installation that will go behind the cabinet. This project led to a trip to Ace this morning to get a few parts for this project and a couple others.
As we were getting going on this project, UPS showed up with a special package. The package contained our longer heater exhaust pipe, which we were not expecting until tomorrow. As you may remember, the kit came with a 1m pipe and I decided we needed something longer to route the exhaust either across the van or more toward the back. The exhaust pipe available at the auto parts store did not work correctly so I had to order the $$$ pipe from the heater distributor. With the new pipe in hand our plans changed to see if we could get the heater finished up.
In order to put in the new exhaust, we had to unbolt screw the heater from the floor under the refrigerator cabinet. It’s a good thing I decided to make the cabinet larger because it definitely requires some space to work. While I was up above pulling up the heater and disconnecting the exhaust, Sara was below pulling the pipe down and pushing the new one back up. All in all it was not a difficult process and we got everything put back together well.
I sometimes criticize Sara for her lack of diligence in taking pictures. Funny how she didn’t miss this one.Heater unscrewed from the floor and propped up just enough to access the hose clamp on the exhaust pipe, which I made sure to orient so it would be accessible from this side.
With the new pipe in place, it was time to figure out where to route it. We looked at how/where it would go toward the back of the van and we looked at how it would go across the van. We decided to take it across the van to exhaust near the passenger rear tire.* I used a few attachment points to secure the exhaust as it crosses the van. Needing some extra materials to secure the pipe led to another trip to Ace.
The van barely has enough clearance to get around on the creeper!Two of the attachment points for the exhaust pipe. This may look like it hangs down a ways, but the gas tank and various other parts hang down close to a foot further.The end of the exhaust blowing out right in front of the wheel.
It took a few tries to get the attachments right, but at least for now they are pretty solid. Our plan is was to see how we liked it there so we could still change it up if necessary.
With the heater install finished I went back to thinking about the electrical cabinet. The components of the cabinet sometimes heat up and need some fresh air so I have been debating how to ensure there is enough airflow. I finally decided to add yet another hole to the van floor to pipe in some fresh air directly. During my second trip of the day to Ace I stopped at the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore and found a nice 2.5″ flexible hose that will work well. I think it might have been a hose to a shopvac or something similar. It was a lucky find because I have not had much luck finding good flexible tubing for various projects. Shopvac hose had never crossed my mind!
When I was eventually ready to drill the hole, I discovered that I did not have the right size hole saw. I have 2 3/8″, but the tube wasn’t going to squeeze in there. Trip #3 to Ace! $14.99 for one hole. (I will have to put another hole int he electrical cabinet so it is actually $14.99 for two holes!) Good thing the hose at the ReStore was only $.50. After drilling the hole I cleaned it up with a file and painted the bare metal.
The hose will go into this hole and draw in fresh air from the outside to the electrical cabinet.
We have to wait for the paint to dry before messing with the hose more, so we decided to take the plunge and do up the wiring to test the heater. I was really just focused on getting the heater installed and was not really plan on a test run, but I couldn’t think of any good reason to put it off. I pulled the rheostat off the microwave cabinet and gathered the rest of the heater wiring. We pulled the batteries into the van and wired them together. One battery would be more than enough to power the heater, but I want to keep them working together to ensure they work at the same level and end up with the same lifespan.
Three batteries in parallel with the heater wire hooked up through a 25A fuse.Checking the instructions to figure out where the eight wires go on the rheostat. Fortunately I only had to hook up five of them. I just used temporary connections for now as I have not even trimmed the control wire.
After hooking up the rest of the wiring and connecting everything it was time to cross our fingers and turn on the power. Sara put in the fuse and I turned the dial. The heater immediately came to life and started blowing…cold air. That was to be expected, of course, because the fuel line was still empty. The instructions don’t say anything about need to prime the fuel line so we just kept waiting. Under the van we could hear the fuel pump clicking so we knew it was getting power.
After 90 seconds the heater had not started so it reset. It goes through this stage twice and if it does not fire, I’m not sure what happens. I know if you try again too soon it will lock you out. I was hoping we would not find out. We waited, fingers still crossed. It was about this point that I remember I was going to at least have the fire extinguisher on hand when we started it the first time. Oh well. A few seconds later it started blowing cold air again. Outside we started to hear a fairly loud noise so we opened the door to check it out. The exhaust pipe was now blowing out a good cloud of smoke so it must be getting fuel and burning!
WE HAVE IGNITION! WE HAVE HEAT!
As the heater started to warm up, the air blowing out the heater got quite warm. Certainly warm enough that you could not keep your hand directly in front of it. I’m sure it will still take a while to warm a cold van, but it definitely works!
Sara: “Can you see my hair blowing?”
After it warmed up and ran for a while the exhaust cleaned up a lot. I suppose this is to be expected as it is a regular gas-burning engine. The exhaust is still surprisingly loud, though this is widely reported so I shouldn’t really be surprised by it. It is just one of those things that you don’t know how loud it is until you hear it yourself. We will definitely have to buy the muffler kit. Inside the van we can’t really hear the exhaust but outside it is quite loud. If we were in an area with other people I could imagine them being rather annoyed.
This was such an exciting step. We can now work on things in the van with our own efficient heat source and we are one major step closer to being self-sufficient out on the road! At the very least would could comfortably spend nights in the van without worrying about freezing to death or waking up to a cold morning.
*After firing up the heater and seeing how much exhaust the heater actually emits, we changed our minds on where to route the exhaust. Having the exhaust on the passenger side right behind the door means we might get it back in the van when we open the slider door or if we crack the slider door window, which we expect to do often when we cook. So, before we finish things up we are going to figure out how to route it to the back of the van.
I know it was a reasonably productive day, but I can’t tell you exactly what all we did. It was a ridiculously nice January day with temps near 50 deg. and the sun shining. If we can’t be out snowboarding already, at least we have good van-building weather!
My focus today was on the microwave cabinet. With the refrigerator cabinet in the microwave cabinet, which sits on top, is the next logical step. For a cabinet that seemed mostly finished, there were a lot of little things to work on. The cabinet will attach to the wall with 1/2″ furring strips that bolt to the wall. These were installed on the wall, but I had not yet decided how to attach the cabinet. In the end I decided to just attach them directly to the cabinet with glue, one nail, and two screws for each edge. Now the furring strip is solidly attached to the cabinet and when we are ready we can just bolt it back on the wall.
I also worked on the electrical connections in the cabinet. As you may recall, this cabinet will have the switch for our bedroom lights, the rheostat for the heater, and a 110V outlet for the microwave. I will also end up adding a switch to power a small 12V fan to help exhaust refrigerator and microwave hot air.
Fitting the electrical outlet to the electrical box.The electrical box with dimmer switch, rheostat, and outlet box. The wiring will obviously have to be done after it is installed because the wires are in the walls!The wall in front of the bed on the driver’s side (which will be Sara’s side of the bed). It has the light switch for the four LED lights over the bed and the heater control.
Somewhere in there I also recall working on a couple pieces of 1/4″ birch plywood that will be back panels for the cabinet. We were not sure how we would add a back to the cabinet but we are just going to throw in a small panel to cover the insulation on the wall.
During all my messing with this cabinet Sara kept plugging away at finishing pieces. There are still plenty of pieces to stain and/or polyurethane. She is also working more on her custom dog food drawer, which has a specially designed cover to hold the dog bowls!
Speaking of the dogs, they enjoyed spending another day on the bed. We get a kick out of seeing them up there, though it is probably not in our best interest. We may have to learn to sleep in the driver/passenger seats because they are pretty sure the bed is now theirs.
