Another quick build update

As it’s getting late, I thought I’d post some pics to show what we are up to.

I’m sure experts are going to rubbish my job here, but I don’t care. I’ve used the switch at the top (Red & Black wires) to switch the inverter on and off. It seemed logical to control the inverter from where the power comes out. If you don’t get it yet, see a few pictures down, this is the centre switch on the power point panel. Because the wire is so thin for the 240V, it’s nearly useless screwing it into the blocks as it would nearly fall back out. So I decided to put a crimp pole connector on the end, then screw in the connector. It seems really good, but I won’t be entering it for building compliance of the year award! You might ask, why not use thicker wire? Well – the inverter can only put out 300W max, so considering these cables are usually rated for 2400W (10AMP), I figured there was no point.

Here is the backing block to the power point. I’ve knotted the mains cable to prevent it being pulled out accidentally. The whole point of the block is to provide protection between us and the potential 240v. The sink’s position was determined by the need to have this block, so you’ll slowly see that most things (odd as they may seem at the time) are actually designed this way for a reason.

Two things to be taken from this pic, the inverter is fixed with double sided tape. Yes – I was sceptical, but this stuff is amazing! It’s red, about an inch wide and holds 30KG. Even positioning it was difficult as as soon as a centimetre of it touched, it was near impossible to move. The second thing is the fuse panel, with all of the wires. I had great plans of having the neatest wiring job, but in reality it just wasn’t possible. It’ll look neat with the cover on, but space was a huge opponent to tidiness.

Here is the three switch power panel mentioned earlier. The middle switch turns the inverter on and off. As they are a fairly power hungry device, it will be off all the time unless used – and having the switch where it’s plugged in makes that decision easy.
Also visible is the dual battery monitor. Oh yeah – this thing is sweet. It’s got alarms in case the batteries get below 25%, and because it’s where we sleep, there should be no excuse for waking up to flat batteries. The fit was so tight, there is seemingly no need to screw this down. I must say, the design of the cable on this is terrible. It comes out in line with the face, which makes it impossible to actually install flush. I’ve had to cut out more than the face plate to compensate for this design. It’s a simple hangover from their other model which isn’t flush mounted, they just didn’t think it through. It’s going to need some silicone to make it look presentable.

Because the white panel is only 90mm (not 100mm as planned) the switch panel has had to move up a bit. It’s funny how things happen, because if this hadn’t have happened, there would have been no way to fix the panel on it’s right edge. It does make it stick out like an ugly duckling against the line of other fixtures.

You can see the switch for the cabin light, and fresh water pump. The cigarette lighter is wired on all the time and will only have very occasional, deliberate loads plugged in (ie. phone charger). The other switch is spare for now.
You might ask, why have a switch for the cabin light (as it has a switch on the light itself) and why have one for the fresh water pump as it has an automatic pressure cut off.

Well, the cabin light will be able to be turned on from the back of the vehicle (if outside) or when laying down, without having to get up, switch it off, then fall back to the bed in the dark.

And for the water pump,  although it hasn’t happened yet, I can imagine if it looses just enough pressure, it will jump into action in the middle of the night and no doubt scare the hell out of us. The second thinking, is that if one of the hoses was to leak, or come off while driving, it would diligently pump our fresh water all through the back of the car until it ran dry, ruining everything and wasting a lot of fresh drinking water.

So there is some logic behind the madness after all.