All Wired In

I couldn't wait. Impatience is one of my weaknesses. I decided to bring everything into the living room and get it done this evening.

I was rather surprised when I opened the plug socket and found that the earth lead had come loose - this was a better way of finding out than an electric shock.

This is likely to have been because the wire was pulling on the earth cable so I made a note to leave the earth lead longer than the others when I rewired it.

It was pleasing to see that the suppliers had included a wiring diagram. This meant that I didn't need to go back onto YouTube to remind myself of where each wire went. 

The picture above is the unit with all the wiring finished. The next job was to screw it to the inside of the unit.

With the consumer unit fitted snugly up against the shelf it is easily accessible to turn it on and off - which is important because all of the instructions I have read say that it should be switched off before plugging it in on site. So I made sure all the switches were off, connected the other end of the lead to the 13A adapter and plugged it into the mains.

The green light in the picture below shows that everything is working. I flicked both the RCD and MCB off and on again and they both cut the power, which means I have wired everything up correctly.

So Tyrion is all ready for plugging in on site, safely protected from current leakage, short circuits and overloads.

The next project I need to tackle is lighting.

Electricity

Yesterday it occurred to me that I should be able to add mains sockets to the van without too much difficulty. I mentioned in yesterday's post about curtains (as opposed to the other half a dozen posts about curtains) that I was going to look into this.

Today I am blogging from inside Tyrion with my laptop charging on one of his mains sockets.

I don't yet have a consumer unit with RCD and MCBs in, but I have my eye on one or two on eBay and it will be a simple thing to add to what I have already, but here's what I have got...

I found a new shop in Bradford called Dickinson Caravans and as their website suggests, their accessory socket has hundreds (if not thousands) of parts and accessories for caravans and campers. I had a decent browse around looking for ideas and realised that I could start off with something that's effectively an extension lead with style (to paraphrase Toy Story).

I picked up a 16A plug and socket for seven pounds and considered a length of orange 16A mains cable. When I saw the price I decided I would probably have something at home that would do.

Wickes set me up with a switched double socket and mounting box for less than three pounds and as this was the end of my shopping means that the whole installation has cost just under a tenner.

In the garage at home I found a ten metre (ish) length of 2.5mm three core cable which if my memory serves me should have a rating of around 20 to 25 amps. As mains hook-ups on sites are 16A and the standard mains socket is 13A, this cable will serve more than adequately. It's not orange, so I hope sites don't have a rule about that.

I fitted the cable to the sockets first then pushed the mounting box against it to make sure it would close. The cable is quite thick so I had to make the hole in the back quite a bit bigger to get the front to screw on.

With the mounting box fixed to the side of the worktop I drilled a hole in the wood to match the hole in the mounting box. It's not a very tidy job, but isn't visible with the sockets in place so not an issue.

Then I passed the cable through the hole and wired up the socket and that was that end completed. I fitted the plug to the other end of the cable then used a multimeter to make sure everything was connected.

This was a very important step and I'm very glad I didn't skip it because the earth wire had come loose in the socket which meant that if I had plugged something in it would have worked, but it wouldn't have been earthed. Very dangerous.

As the picture shows, with the earth wire reconnected, everything checked out okay. At this point Tyrion was ready to take to a site and plug in (assuming they didn't ask about the consumer unit, that is). However, I am not going to be spending as much time on a camp site as on my own drive so I made a short adapter cable which means I can plug him into an ordinary 13A mains socket.

Remembering that the blue socket cost around three pounds and the mains plug and cable were already in the garage, I saved a few pounds making this myself rather than buying one in the shop. This plugs into an ordinary mains socket and Tyrion's blue cable plugs into this. That's how my installation is little more than an extension lead and why the whole thing cost less than a tenner.

As you can see from this picture, the cable at the moment just comes out from between the back doors rather untidily, but it's weatherproof and does the job until I decide to add an external plug and a consumer unit.

Also in this image you can see the other thing I picked up at Dickinson - a red rubber ball cover for my towbar. It's supposed to protect your caravan in case you accidentally bump it against your towbar, but I bought it because I liked the way it looks - and because it's red.

Note: Do not work with mains electricity unless you know what you are doing. I am not an electrician. This post is about how I have done something and is not intended as a how-to for anyone to copy. If I had electrocuted myself or fried my van today, that would have been my fault. If you do the same after reading this, it will be yours. #justsaying.

More Curtains

The 'found' curtains I used for the front of the van have been changed. I had four large terracotta-coloured curtains and realised that if I used two of those for the front, I could cut the other two into smaller sections for other windows.

The cardboard panels in the back windows have been falling out recently - the cardboard has soaked up some moisture from somewhere and lost some of it's rigidity, so I decided that it was time for a change.

I now have hand-sewn curtains at the back windows. To attach them I used net curtain wire which I have screwed to the inside of the doors - this meant actually drilling into my van, which was something I wasn't keen on initially, but after the first couple of holes I didn't think much about it.

Mrs suggested using another wire at the bottom of each window to stop the curtain flapping and this works perfectly (please excuse the dirty back windows, Tyrion is overdue a wash).

The success of these curtains made me want to try more, so I replaced the black curtain along the offside of the van. I used another net curtain wire, again screwed to the metal of the van, and ran it above both the windows on that side. As the bed presses up to this side of the van there is no need for a lower wire, which is good because it would block access through the sliding door on that side when in 'car mode'.

This left one single red shiny window infill. I thought about replacing this with a curtain but quickly realised that this was right over the worktop where the gas cooker would sit. I don't think having a fabric curtain that close to a gas burner would be a good idea, so I removed the infill, placed the fabric between it and the window then pushed the infill back in place. A quick trim with scissors left my GMB logo still visible on the inside, but the outside now showing black fabric.

So I have terracotta fabric front and back and black fabric down both sides. A very productive day's work.

Table Still Stable

It's been a hectic time recently but I still found time to clip my worktop in place and drive around for a while to see if it stayed where it should.

I am happy to report that it did.

Feel free to ignore the cardboard boxes ready for a run to the recycling centre.

Stable Table

My multi-purpose worktop has been very successful so far, but the issue I had with it was movement while driving. It was held in by a bungie cord which stopped the top part from moving but the bottom kept sliding out.

The easy answer would have been to attach it to the inside of the van with brackets, but it has to be removable so this wouldn't work for me. Instead I have used toggle clips (I didn't know they were called that until I found them in B and Q and read the name on the packaging). I have riveted an angled piece of tin to the interior trim in the back and riveted the hook to this tin. The toggle clip itself is simply screwed to the bottom of the unit. To prevent the toggle clip popping open while driving I have popped a split pin in the holes.

This sounds fairly simple but I had to cut holes in the trim using my dremel then cut and shape the tin, drill and rivet the hook and then put it all in the van so I could accurately mark the holes for the toggle clip screws. It was time consuming and for someone as inexperienced with tool work as I am, a bit of a challenge, but I finished it and it works.

Once again the craftsmanship is well below the standard anyone would expect from a tradesman, but as DIY done just for me, it's a pleasing thing to look at and it does what I need it to do.