More Electricity

I've had to replace several bulbs today - on a routine lighting test I realised that I only had one out of three brake lights working and no side-lights. That's all sorted, but while I was in Halfords I found a handy little 12V extension with a doubler on the plug end.

This means I can send power to the coolbox all the way at the back of the van and still plug my switching adapter in to power my satnav, dash cam and phone. While the coolbox draws 6A, the satnav and dash dam draw well under an amp each and the phone charger about half an amp. This means that the 10A fuse for the 12V socket should be sufficient.

It also means that I have another pretty light in the front.

Wiring Repair

I have a switched 12V doubler with a USB socket mounted in the front of the car. Using this I can plug in my Garmin, dash-cam and phone all at once. However, recently one of the sockets failed.

The double shows a red LED by each switch when they are off and a blue LED when they are on. The blue light on the failed socket wasn't coming on so I decided the problem was likely to be related to the switch.

A quick disassembly revealed a broken track. Now I may not know how to repair a broken track on a circuit board, but I know enough to realise that I could bridge the break by soldering a piece of wire between contacts either side of the break.

Soldering didn't take very long and very soon the unit was back in the van and as the picture shows, both lights are blue.

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.

It's Arrived

As my consumer unit hadn't arrived in today's post I sent a query through eBay to the seller asking where it was - the estimated delivery for it was Thursday.

Then I realised that although I had updated my address on eBay, I hadn't updated it on PayPal. Sure enough, when I checked my PayPal account, it was showing as having been sent to my old address.

I closed the query on eBay, because clearly it was my fault it hadn't arrived and not the seller. Then I changed my address on PayPal and sent the seller an email asking them to send it to the new address if it came back undelivered.

Then it occurred to me that if nobody has yet moved into the old house, the parcel might have been left in a 'safe' place at the house - we often came home to parcels tucked in 'safe' places. So I jumped in the car and drove the ten miles (ish) to the old place and sure enough, there it was on the doorstep - not very safe, but it was there and now I have it.

So I came home, opened eBay and gave them top feedback, then sent the seller another email explaining that I am a little bit stupid but everything's all sorted now.

It's a little late in the day to start fitting it to the van - and besides, I need another 16A plug and socket before I can do that - so I plan to do that tomorrow.

Cupboard Door

I have been thinking for a while that I should put a door on the worktop unit. This would create some storage space where I can hide things away but can get at them more easily than the things stored under the bed - there's not a lot of other places I can think for storing things, apart from the footwell under the back seats. Rather than just diving into cutting and screwing, I have given it a lot of thought, considering the type of door and how it should open - I even considered using an elasticated net - but eventually settled on a door hinged at the bottom and secured with a magnetic catch.

Today that is exactly what I have done.

Hinging at the bottom means I have more easy access and visibility than hinging at the side.  It also means that I can finally abandon the mucky bungee cord I have been using to hold the stove in place and replace it with a more elegant looking option.

 

Here we can see the finished article. The shock cord attached to the unit serves two purposes, it holds the stove in place but also provides protection against the cupboard door popping open while driving - especially with the potholes around here.

 

So I'm back at work tomorrow and content that I have achieved everything in the van that I had planned to do during my time off. It's true that moving home got in the way a few times, but nevertheless, it's all been done.

 

Things for the future include fitting a 12v socket in the back (mainly for the coolbox while driving) and, of course, fitting the consumer unit once it arrives, so there is still more work to be done.

The Consumer Unit

Once I completed the basic electrical installation detailed in my previous post I began to look into the other elements of installing mains electricity in a vehicle. I figured there had to be a reason for consumer units, RCDs and all the other stuff - otherwise everyone would just wire a socket to a cable and call it an installation.So I have spent the remainder of today researching consumer units and associated technology and I learned a lot.

Doesn't look complicated at all!

I had been working on the basis that any electrical outlet, including the one in my garage and those on campsites, would be fused and protected and that this protection would be sufficient. However, unless I inspect the electrical installation of every location I connect to I have no way of knowing how 'protected' they are. Also the protection needs to be appropriate to the device connected. This is why circuit breakers in consumer units have different ratings.

What I don't want to happen.

Having worked out that I absolutely have to have some additional protection, I had to work out what I need. So the first place I looked was on camping supply websites. The most popular unit being sold was a unit containing an RCD, a 16Amp MCB and a 6Amp MCB. A little research on various other sites taught me that the RCD detects differences in the current passing through the device in each direction and breaks the circuit if the difference is over a specified amount (30mA seemed a popular amount).
MCBs are miniature circuit breakers which break the circuit either if too much current is being drawn or the switch is thrown manually. The 16A MCB is designed to protect the mains sockets, the 6Amp protects the lighting circuit. This very informative video explains how an MCB works.

So there is little point me relying on a 16A MCB to protect a 6A lighting circuit which would clearly fry before the current reached anywhere near blowing the MCB.

It took me a while to find an accurate wiring diagram - it seems that the experts are  hesitant to provide this kind of information, perhaps understandably - but after looking at a few images and watching a few videos, I am now completely confident that I can safely and accurately wire up a consumer unit.

The prices I have seen range from £5.00 for a used one (that looks like it might have been on fire at some point) up to £47.00. These have all been the same type, with an RCD and two MCBs. I have settled on £16.00 which gets me a new unit with the right MCBs.

This is what I have ordered, £16.28 including two MCBs of my choosing.

This means that I should have a fully operational and safely protected electrical installation in time for my camping trip in June - only 5 weeks until the Speedway World Cup in Kings Lynn.

Note: Again this isn't a 'how-to', it's a 'how-I'm-going-to'. If I get it wrong, it's my fault. If you copy anything here and get it wrong then it's yours. #justsaying

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.

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.

Lower Bed

I have reduced the height of the bed by 11.5 cm - which is strange, because all the measurements were in inches when I built it. My able assistant today was my son Robert, who has assisted with measuring and cutting, gluing and screwing. He made the first measurement and as he works in centimetres, we stayed with them.

It was a simple case of measuring between the bed and the highest point of the folded back seat to work out how much we could reduce the height by, then removing that amount from each of the six vertical pieces of wood that make up the bed frame and the end support.

The end result is much better. Sitting on it is easier and leaves plenty of headroom. Lying down on it is easier too - I don't feel like I am climbing up onto it any more. There is not enough space under the bed now for the plastic storage box, but for now I can stack two on top of the bed frame. I hope to add sides to the bed frame and hinge the top so I can use the space underneath for storage.

This should now allow me to use the van during the day when I'm at work. Sometimes my back is bad enough that a lie down helps a great deal. At home that's not a problem, but at work it obviously is. With the bed at its previous height, getting on to it was difficult when my back was really bad, but now it should be easier, so hopefully I will be able to spend the occasional lunchtime lying down and easing my back.

I just hope I don't nod off and sleep through the afternoon.

Excellent VW Caddy

Also on eBay recently was this excellent VW Caddy conversion. On the outside it looks to be in great condition, with nice paintwork, alloy wheels and a bonnet protector. To me it definitely doesn't look its age.

Ignoring the cab (which I generally do), the back of the van is a fairly standard layout, with the bed down one side, storage down the other side and a small space between. The bed is a sofa during the day, with a cushion attached high on the side of the van - presumably to avoid banging your head. The laminate flooring is nicely edged with angled tread-plate aluminium, while the sides and roof are nicely covered in carpeting material. 

The rear doors both sport hinged tables, which are secured by hook-and-eye when not in use. This is a great way to create a safe surface for a stove when using a small van. It solves the twin problems of ventilation and headroom, without resorting to expensive and heavy slide-out units. Also visible in this picture are the mains sockets, which are presumably attached to an inverter.

The LED lighting in the roof and the worktop look to be sufficient to light the back of the van while being small and unobtrusive - and, of course, being LEDs, they will be less of a drain on the battery.

The TV and DVD player sits nicely between two small storage units and the worktop gives plenty of room for a laptop or a wash-bowl - or somewhere to rest a plate at mealtimes.

I like this van very much. The build quality is good, showing a lot of thought and attention to detail. The van looks cosy but not cramped and the tables on the rear doors save valuable inside space. I have a single criticism, which is that there don't appear to be any curtains. The windows in the back doors are tinted, but not blacked out. Privacy would have to be addressed to use this as an overnight van. However, that could be sorted fairly simply and once done, this van would be pretty much the perfect micro-camper.

Mercedes Box Van 'Camper'

I saw this curious Mercedes box van 'conversion' for sale on eBay and just had to share it. I wonder who, if anyone, would bid for this. 

There is no entry from the cab to the living space and looking at the images, a four-step staircase is necessary to get into the back. This clearly won't fit in the cab with the driver, so I guess you have to try and open the back door (somehow) and drag the steps out before climbing up in.

The bed looks about the right size for a ten year old, unless the scale of the image is wrong. The furniture seems to be a mixture of home-made out of timber and reused domestic cabinets - and some things that are a combination of both.

The back door wouldn't look out of place on a terraced house, but looks incredibly out of place on the back of a box van. However, it fits very well with the wood framed windows, which look like they might have been pulled out of a skip.

The full-size sink and drainer could come in handy, as does the four-ring gas hob, but both look rather out of place in the back of a wagon.

Overall this 'camper' looks very spacious and comfortable, but the back door and windows look ridiculously out of place. While these could potentially be replaced with something more in keeping, the height of the rear door is not something that could easily be changed, so for me this would be unusable.

Road Rage

This morning I was driving MyRedVan to work and became the victim(ish) of a road rage(ish) incident.

I let a couple of vehicles out of a junction in stop-go, rush hour traffic, then almost immediately had to stop to let a bus pull away from a bus stop (it's in the Highway Code that if the bus isn't in a lay-by, you are supposed to stop and let it pull out).

The chap in the blue VW behind me clearly decided that in spite of the volume of traffic, I was somehow slowing him down significantly. He flashed his headlights to get my attention, then once I was looking at him in my mirror he made an up-and-down gesture with his hand that every male on the planet would immediately recognised.

Perhaps he had read the 'please leave space for my wheelchair' sticker in the back window and decided that I would be easy to intimidate, or perhaps he thought that a Kangoo could only possibly be driven by an elderly person or a woman. Either way, he seemed surprised and not best pleased with my reaction - which was to grin at him and wave. I may have restricted mobility, but I'm not about to be intimidated by an impatient bully.

Once the traffic started moving again he stayed well back - so far back, in fact, that he was barely visible in my mirror. I'd like to think that my charming smile and wave pacified him, or that he thought I might just be crazy enough to reverse into his pride-and-joy in a fit of anger. However, it was more likely that he just slowed down to use his mobile phone while he was driving to explain to his boss that he was going to be late for work because of the slow-moving little red van in front of him.

I strongly believe that people shouldn't be able to drive how they like, berating others aggressively, and get away with it. It's bullying, plain and simple and bullies on the road are as bad as bullies anywhere else and I believe that they should be treated with utter contempt.

Next Project - Lighting

The next project I am going to try in the van is a two-switch lighting system, with one switch by the left sliding door and the other where I can reach it from the rear doors and from the bed. Many people are familiar with the two-switch system from hallways in their homes - moving either of the switches will turn the light on or off.

The wiring for such a system is simple, you just have to make sure you used double-throw switches. These are switches that have three connections which 'make' according to the position of the toggle. This excellent image from a guitar pedal website, http://www.cubisteffects.com/ makes that clearer:

Add caption

The wiring diagram for the system is shown below:

Put simply, the live feed from the battery is connected to the centre contact of one switch. A twin wire is run between the two switches and connects the outer contacts to each other. The centre contact from the centre switch is connected to the +ve side of the light (or lights) and the -ve side of the light is connected to the vehicle chassis. This will make the two switches control the light in exactly the same way as a domestic hallway two-switch system.

The difficult part for me is going to be working out how to mount the switches so they are where I need them to be. Again, any advice or suggestions are welcomed by comment or by email to myredvan@outlook.com.