Baskets and Electricity

The baskets for the cabin arrived today.  I feel a little odd saying how excited I was to put them into their place.  They fit perfectly and the color is great.

I had really hoped that I could get the electrical system back in order.  I have had trouble with the super simple AC system.  Turns out it was me that was the problem, not the power cord.  I didn't realize that the red light was lit when the system was 'on.'  I was thinking that the red light on the GCFI meant that the circuit was broken.  So, all the time I thought I had some sort of problem with the GCFI, it was really just me being a doofus. 

Well, I was able to wire the Marinco port to the power cord and then into the AC outlet.  I spent several hours monkeying around with daisy chaining outlets so that I could have one inside the cabin.  In the end I decided not to do that; it just isn't worth stringing the wires into the cabin.  I'll still put the two 12 volt outlets in the cabin.  I'll have a plug in inverter in the cabin should I need it.

I installed the battery charger in the electrical compartment too.  You can just barely see the small hole I drilled into the compartment so that I can bring the plug to the battery charger.  Wasn't the way I planned on rigging it up, but it works.

Everything is coming together pretty well here.  I have a bit more 'bundling' of wires to do; I'll do that after I add the two 12 volt outlets in the cabin.

Thankfully, this is the side most people will see when they look into the galley.  I am really happy with how the 'control center' section of the teardrop has come together.

I didn't take any photos of it, but I spent quite a bit of time today working to cut the insulation pieces for the walls.  I'll cover those with headliner material and then glue them into place in the next few days.

One thing I noticed is that I can't work in the teardrop during the main part of the day.  It's just too hot to be out there on the patio in the sun.  So, it's early morning or late afternoon for me to work on the teardrop.

Finally, Some Progress I Can See!

My day started bright and early.  Went for a coffee and then dug right in.  Got the rest of the galley that had not been finished painted.

My second project was finding a way to mount the spare tire under the galley.  You can see the three bolts just in front of my drill.  I used rubber washers to hopefully keep any water from penetrating through the floor of the galley.

Three of the five bolts; should be plenty of support.

Next, I painted all the drawers and doors.  I started by painting them all blue.  I immediately regretted that decision.  I waited for them to dry and then painted them brown; which was my original plan.

The next project was to cut the hole for the Marinco power port entry.  I was very anxious about cutting the hole in the side of the wall.

There's the hole.  The problem I had to solve next was how to trim the wood on the inside so I could use the washer/nut that goes on the inside.  The walls were a little too thick.  I ended up using one of my sanding cylinders; that worked perfectly.

The port installed.

What it looked like from the inside.

Next project, install the gasket over the hinge. I taped it in place to get a feel for how large the gasket would be.

The sun was hot and it ended up helping me a lot because the gasket and the butyl tape heated up and made it easy to 'stick' in the right place.

I ended up adjusting the edges of the gasket a bit.  I bent the aluminum over the edge so that any rain would run off the drip edge.

I'm really happy with how this turned out.

Cabinets, drawers and doors, take two.

Not a good photo, but you can see how I mounted one of the four LED lights that will come on when the porch lights are lit.  Hopefully this will keep me from banging my shin into the corner at night.

Was able to install the galley light.  I really like that it is on a swivel.  That way you can aim it where you need it.

Was able to put in all the power receptacles and fixtures.  They are not connected yet; that's my big goal for tomorrow.

Close up of the spare tire mount.

The last major problem I solved today was one that had been causing me a lot of trouble.  I could not get the latch on the teardrop to connect.  I also could not figure out how to make the new handle work with the old fixture.  The first part, getting it to fit ended up being easy; I just bolted it in place.  The second part, getting it to work, not so much.  Because the latch is a blind connection (you can't see what's going on because the hatch is in the way) I could not figure out how to get the 'catch' to connect.  Then I had an idea:

I needed someone small enough to fit in the cooler slot so that when I closed the hatch they could see what was happening with the latch.  Jack just so happened to come out and ask if I needed any help.  Within twenty minutes, we had it fixed!  Now, the latch is installed and works perfectly!

As I mentioned before, tomorrow's goal is to get the electric completely done.  I'm going to go set my alarm.

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.