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.

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.

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.