Electric and Other Stuff

So today was a mixture of many small projects.  I started wiring the trailer for electric.  I was a little intimidated by the idea of doing this.  I've had some negative experiences with electric in my house and have always ended up having the electricians come in and do it.  It just scares me too much.

So, today I started by testing out the various fixtures while connected to the battery.

Here are the two main interior fixtures, the dome light and the reading lights.  The first thing I had to remember is that sometimes fixtures come with different color wires.  Both of the above fixtures had white and black wires.  I just had to remember that black was hot on those fixtures.  I then connected the red wires to these terminals and all was good.  I was so happy to see both light fixtures actually light up!  Then I decided to wire the interior lights together to put them on one circuit.

The reading lights have a recessed connection, so they had to be installed onto a block of wood.  This then was screwed to a piece of hardboard, which was glued to the foam.  It all should work out smoothly for me when it comes time to cover it with the headliner.  I'm hopeful that I can put that section on in one large piece.

Here you can see how I braced the foam to the roof.  Using these planks of wood worked pretty well.  I used Gorilla Glue for the first time.  That stuff is interesting.  It's kind of like working with the extruded foam; it actually looks like that when it dries.  It also 'expands,' which regular glue does not do in the same way.

Here you can see the small pieces of hardwood that are glued to the foam.  This gave me something to 'screw' into for each fixture.

Here are the fixtures mounted onto the hardboard and foam.  You can see the channels I cut for the wires.

You can see the hole coming in from the cabin.  I just got plain lucky that the shelf in the cabin was at the same height of the counter top in the galley.  I was able to tuck the wires into the power center area very easily.

This is the hole going into the power center.

You can see how the fuse panel will fit into the side wall there.

Here you can see the two 12 volt power port holes and the small square hole is where the 12 volt battery meter will be placed.  I decided to use two steel boxes.  One will potect the back side of the 12 volt outlets and the other will be for the one 120 volt outlet that I will install after I put the power port entry hole on the outside of the teardrop.

Another big task was putting the original hinge back on.  You can see on the image above that I used the butyl tape to seal the top part of the hinge.  I then screwed into a 1" by 1".  This gave the hinge something to 'bite' into and I think allowed me to really tighten the hinge.

These clamps worked well to hold everything where I wanted it while I was screwing it in place.

Here is the 'porch light.'  These will be tied into the four small LED lights, one on each corner too. 

They will all come to a central switch on the shelf area.  I can't wait to see how these are going to look at night!

Everything worked!  I shouldn't have been surprised, but given my history with electricity, I was!  I had not had the chance to 'sit up' and use the reading lights before.  I found that leaning against the bulkhead, which is headliner covered foam, was very comfortable and the lights will work perfectly!

I thought I had done something wrong with the vent.  I couldn't get it to turn on.  Then I realized that you have to have the vent hood open for it to turn on.  It is quiet and truly moves a ton of air around.  It isn't too noisy, but just noisy enough to work for us as a white noise creator.

I also was able to fix up the drawers and doors.  I had done a poor job on their fronts.  I routed the edges of the doors and sanded their fronts properly.  

One of the last projects was installing the new screw/bolts that hold the struts in place.  These struts hold up the hatch.  It was amazing to me how much a small bag of stainless steel hardware can cost.  

Tomorrow I have to get the second half of the hinge installed and the vent and doors sealed up so that the teardrop can go out onto the concrete patio.  

How to Read Schematics; For the Non-Electrician and More Electrical Designs

So last night I started placing the fuse panel and outlets in the galley.  I marked everything and then started fiddling with the fuse panel.  I turned it over and saw this:

And this:

And this:

 

And this:

 

I had literally no idea of how to begin connecting my wires to this.  There were only tiny solder points to 'connect' to, or so it seamed to me at first look.  My logical brain said that there is a + and a - side.  The middle must be a ground.  Then I started wondering how in the heck you connect to this when the green circuit board is covering the 'inputs.'  So, I did what I've done in the past, I decided to ask for guidance on the Teardrops and Tiny Travel Trailer Forum.   Within the hour, I had several responses from kind folks who helped me understand the PDF that is on the West Marine website:

 It turns out that the two silver screws are where the 'main' lines to the battery go; slight caveat, I will be adding a buss bar to the negative line as a ground.  The center pole on the fuse panel is actually where the + wire from each circuit's load goes.  After several, very patient, posts, I now understand that this is really pretty simple, but it looked quite complicated to me when I started.  

Once again, I am so grateful to the kindness of others on the Teardrops and Tiny Travel Trailer Forum.  Their combined wisdom helped me through a pickle!

I measured things out last night and it seems that I will be able to put a 'pass through' in the cabin where all the wires will come through.  Thankfully, and by dumb luck, this will all pass below the 'counter top' in the galley.  So, everything will be clean and obstruction free.

You can see from the image above how the main feed from the cabin will enter the cabinet.  I'll run the wires then to the fuse panel, buss bar (ground) and then over to the battery.  I sketched in the 'super simple 120 volt' circuit as well.  This is so that if we have shore power, we can plug in and 'charge up' batteries, or even run appliances directly on the 120 volt current.  I will be putting one 120 volt power outlet in the cabin too.

So far I like the way this is starting to look.  It will be a fairly 'clean' look, while balancing the need to use power when you need it.  The only conflict I can see is that the cooler will not be able to be pulled out when the power ports are being used.  I think that should be fine as generally we will have the cooler out on the ground when in 'camp.'  Having a power port right in that area would allow for a possible 12 volt cooler at some point if we decide that is what we want.  

Here is what the cabinets and electrical receptacles will look like on the inside:

 

I didn't have a good picture of the inside of the cabin.  You can see, I'll have two large cupboards connected by a small shelving section.  The shelf will be wide enough to fit an iPad for those nights when a campfire isn't possible.

I'm going to use the aluminum shelf to create a 'false' bottom for the cabinets.  By doing this, I'll be able to 'hide' the hole to the power center and disguise the electrical connections for the two 12 volt outlets and the one 120 volt outlet.  The advantage of planning ahead like this is that I am going to provide an access panel to the wiring under the cabinet in case I have to make any 'future' additions or changes.  Also, as you can see from the drawing above, there will be one switch in the center to turn on the 'porch' lights.  

After a lot of research, I decided that it is way too complicated for me to try to have the side marker lights turn on with the porch lights.  It would have been cool, but way too advanced an electrical install for me.   Super Bright LED's was just the place to find four small, cheap LED fixtures.  These four fixtures will be placed, one on each corner of the teardrop, just under the frame.  I can envision how it will look when I turn them on; it's going to be way cool!

 You can see from the images above that they are really tiny, yet very bright.  They also have the added benefit of being able to be a 'replacement' bolt.  That will make the install simple.

The 'porch lights,' which I've shared before, will be really neat when added to this system.

Again, you can see that they are quite small, but very bright.  Again, the ones I'll be using will be red to protect night vision.

I researched the "Super Simple 120 volt Power System" on the TTNT forum and found this excellent, and very simple design:

When combined, the system looks like this:

Or like this:

Mine will be essentially like the one above.  Instead of simply 'terminating' at the three plug input, I will 'daisy chain' the three boxes from the surge protected power cord.

For now, I'm pretty happy with the design.  It will allow us to connect to shore power when we have the opportunity and when we are at home this will prevent me from having to take 'out' the battery in order to charge it.