Lighting Up The Scene…

25 Saturday Mar 2023

Posted by in Accessories, Car Trailer, Caravan Electrics, Caravan Road Lights, Electrical, Gadgets, Maintenance, Modifications, Projects, Technical, tow vehicle, Towing, Vehicle Wiring Projects

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A while ago I upgraded the lights on our caravan by changing the functions round and added two new LED reversing lights which I can’t understand why I hadn’t done this years ago. In daylight they are bright… and at night they are really bright… retina burning bright according to reports. Reversing into a dark pitch is a lot easier and safety wise having an additional set of tail and brake lights with two large bright rear fog lights instead of the single factory 21 watt light mounted almost as low as you can get on the rear of the caravan is a vast improvement in my mind. You can read about my changes here… “Put Yer Lights On Mate…“

Following that article I had lots of people contact me letting me know they liked what I had done and considering upgrading themselves. Not a clue if anyone did, but that’s how these things go. I did have another email from a gentleman which was a bit different. Now I’ve edited it a bit as it was originally two emails and included a company name and some specific details which I’m sure they would not wish me to publish to the world…. here’s the gist of it though:

“Hi Simon, been reading your blog for a while and I read your post about upgrading your caravan lights. I was wondering if you might be able to help with something we would like to do with our trailers or could put us in touch with someone who can? We have around eight trailers that are used on various locations separately or as a group and are towed by a variety of vehicles, mostly our own but occasionally by contractors. Most of our trailers have additional side lighting powered off the trailers own batteries which are charged from the vehicle or while on site from generators. A lot of our set up and tear down is done at night and we have had issues at dark locations where the vehicles reversing lights don’t really help. Is there any way we could get the side work lighting to come on when the vehicle reverses but could be controlled from the vehicle without any additional switches or alterations to the vehicles but could be turned on and off as reversing on a public road with them on might not be legal”

From an exchange of emails, I do know what the company does and some of the sorts of places it works. They don’t always have access to mains power when setting up or tearing down and would like something that can easily be installed in a trailer without too much alteration to the electrical services. Nothing could be installed in any of the tow vehicles as the vehicles were not always their own and I first suggested a cheap(ish) remote switch that could be used by the driver to turn them on and off as required. I was told this was not an option as the remote switches would likely get lost/damaged or need batteries or be with the wrong crew, some sites they could not use any radio equipment.

Time to put my thinking cat on…

Polo…. always a great thinking cat, sadly no longer with us.

I had a bit of an idea forming. Something I’d seen on a Class A American RV (Prevost I think) was a set of spotlights set in the side panel of the RV pointing backwards and located near the front wheel. These lit up down the side of the RV and the ground to the side when reversing…. I’d thought about adding a couple of simple cheap LED lights to the underside of the caravan between the wheel and front of the caravan angled outwards by about 60 degrees mounted under the floor… so when I reversed they lit up the caravan wheel and the ground it was going over so I could see it clearly at night in my mirrors. I had pondered how to switch this on and off using the Amarok but not add any more wiring between the caravan and vehicle. So I’d already come up with a solution.

Here is what I came up with…

It’s a simple two relay set up. The two triggers for this to work are the vehicle reversing lights and the rear fog lights. The top relay in the box is activated by the vehicle being in reverse with the reversing lights on. The lower relay is activated by turning the vehicles rear fog lights on. Only when these two conditions are met, is there a circuit across the two relays switches made thus activating the work lights on the trailer.

Quite simply when reversing to turn on the work light simply turn on the rear fog lights and the work lights will come on.

Cables 1, 2 & 3 connect to the road lights. Cables 4 & 5 are for the switched load. The cost was around £15 for the components for each unit and that included Bosch relays & sockets, the die-cast box and fuse holder. I guess putting it in a plastic case and using cheaper eBay sourced relays could halve that cost.

I did also think that as an upgrade or option the relay operated by the reversing lights could be a timer relay. Set it to say 15 seconds, then when reversing you turn on the work lights and they will remain on of 15 seconds after reversing as long as the rear fog lights are on. This would give you time to reverse, pull forward and reverse again. Each time you select reverse the timer would reset and as soon as you disengaged reverse the timer would start its countdown again.

High level work lights could be a boon to reversing into dark pitches or storage sites. Image take from the internet, copyright not mine.

It was as simple as I could get it using existing signals from the vehicle that already pass through to the trailer. I guess it could be used to turn anything on using any combination of lights operating from the vehicle.

The wiring between the road lights and work lights is kept separate as I wasn’t 100% sure how the trailers power system worked and how it was connected to the road lights (if at all) The two relays were installed in a die cast box with a grommet for the 5 cables. All the trailers were fitted with one of these and apparently they have all been working fine for several months.

Why did I opt for reversing lights and fog lights?

I wanted something that would not be used generally through the day so reversing on a public road during daylight or even at night the work lights would not illuminate. Running during the day with lights on and your fog lights will not operate the working lights… and if you are running in weather that requires headlights and rear fog light… then I guess having the working lights come on while you reverse in those inclement weather conditions just makes you more visible to everyone around. So apart from that I don’t think that you will cause a danger on the road with this set-up.

So…. I think I might just have to install one of these on my caravan…. just in case!

Low level scene lights down the side of the trailer can be just as effective as high level work lights. Image taken from the internet, copyright not mine.

Its a fairly simple DIY job to build a box and install it without too much messing about with the original wiring. Now someone asked me about getting the orange side marker lights to flash in time with the indicators…. and remain as side markers when the indicators weren’t being used. Is this something I need to put my thinking cat on for? Let me know in the comments.

Keeping Electrons Contained…

16 Thursday Feb 2023

Posted by in Caravan Electrics, Electrical, Modifications, Technical, Vehicle Wiring Projects

≈ 3 Comments

One thing about being retired… you have way too much time to think about things. One thing that has been wandering round my grey cells for the last few months relates to an email I had September last year and it was from someone who was fitting out a van and had a few electrical issues, which I managed to help him remotely sort out the problems.

Something that struck me was an off the cuff remark about being able to separate the vehicle side electrical system and the habitation electrical system but still have them work together.

So here is my thoughts and a bit of a sketch (you all know I like sketches) on a possible but workable solution…

Taking a bit of inspiration from the world of aviation and how systems are split into individual bus systems and master bus system that can be combined and isolated as safety procedures require, I thought about how the current wiring on conversions could be improved.

Installing two fuses, one on each pole between the vehicle and habitation, would limit the maximum current between the two systems… the habitation system and the vehicle system. I’ve called these the “Habitation System Isolation Fuses”

In my sketch, the DC to DC charger is a 50 Amp unit, so I have sized the fuses at 50 Amps… (I’d actually install Tyco W23 thermal switch circuit breakers… more about that later) Fusing the positive (live) is normal, but adding a fuse in the Negative / Neutral line is not normally considered. However I have a sound rational for doing this.

Looking at the right hand side – the Habitation Side, we can see that there are two LiPo batteries located some distance apart and connected by a battery bank interlink cable. The feed from the battery bank goes from one battery via an isolation switch and 200Amp fuse to power the habitation equipment and the return is via shunt to monitor the battery bank to the opposite battery. The interlink Positive cable is fused at each end with a 200 Amp rated fuse. All that is pretty normal.

However there is the possibility that the battery interlink cable could be routed through bulkheads or the cable from the battery bank via the battery isolation switch could be routed through vehicle bodywork bulkheads to a distribution point. If this cable was to chafe, there is the potential for a direct short or intermittent / low resistance short to the vehicle ground. As this battery bank is fused at 200 Amps, you could end up warming up a bit of vehicle cabling to the point of PVC fumes filling the van or a full blown fire. Remember you can stick weld steel with 150 Amps!

By inserting a fuse in the Neutral /Negative line – the Habitation System Isolation Fuses, you have effectively fused any potential short to ground from the habitation side battery pack to 50 Amps which if a direct short will blow the fuse before any of the 200 Amp fuses have started to even warm up! Note… if your DC to DC charger is only 30 Amps then these two fuses would be rated at 30 Amps.

Could This Be Improved?

Well yes, everything can be improved. Upgrading the Vehicle Charging Isolation Switch to a double pole would mean when you are parked up, turn the switch off and the habitation electrical system is completely isolated from the vehicle electrical system… down side is some solar chargers have a trickle facility for the vehicle battery (normally connects to the vehicle side of an isolation switch to work and relies on negative continuity between the two systems)… and one day you will forget to turn it on when you are going to do a days driving.

Load sensing on the Neutral / Negative at the Habitation System Isolation Fuse would show if you had a drain from the live side of the habitation system to vehicle ground.

Prerequisite …

The big prerequisite to doing this is of course you haven’t been a cheapskate and only used one wire to supply equipment on the habitation side and used the vehicle body as the Negative / Neutral path.

Short story… someone contacts me, can’t get a device working properly. Tracing the power side, no issues, tracing the return path… some resistance. Turns out the body panel is bonded on to the vehicle and there is no electrical continuity between the body panel and vehicle neutral… so in order for the 5 watt interior light to work, the vehicle manufacturer installed a 75mm long flat beaded strap between the body panel and the section of chassis it is glued to. I recon this strap was good for about 2 or 3 amps… so when the fridge was running and the 5 amp accessory powered up the combined negative wires that were screwed to this body panel slowly heated up the bit of flat braided bonding strap installed by the manufacturer.

Morel of the story…. if you are supplying electrons to something…. also install a route for them to go home! Don’t rely on others to have done it for you. They don’t know what you were planning to do when they designed the thing!. (OK Physics majors will now be sitting upright, drawing their keyboards close and about to compose a long winded essay on why I’m wrong… Yep I got it… I know electrons, negatively charged, move the other way).

Not using the body as a conductor has been known about for a long time by the Professional Audio Boys… you know the ones on You Tube… stereo bass kicks in and the girls….. hair…. that’s a better word… jiggles about with the sound pressure driven by speakers that consume enough energy that even Doc Emmitt Brown would raise his eyebrows at ( I wonder if that where he got Jigga Watts from?)

Tyco W23 Circuit Breakers

On aircraft anything that is powered by electricity goes through circuit breakers and nearly all fall into two types… W23 / W31 or W58.

W58 are pop out breakers that you push in to reset, but W23 and W31 are switch breakers. W31 look like a toggle switch while W23 have a button that can be pulled out to turn it off. I like W23 style breakers….

They are made for 240 volts AC, 50 volts DC and have been around for 40+ years. I’ve flown planes built in the 60’s that still use the original CB’s in them. Now they are mostly made in Mexico or China but are all to a very well established spec and testing standard. You can get them in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7.5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 and 50 Amp ratings so you can best match them to your system. The spec sheet even tells you what to torque the cable screws to when installing. Personally I’d replace all fuses with these things…… oh yesssss…. I do like a good CB panel… pat on the back if you guess the aircraft type.

Conclusion…

Well I’m not an expert in 12 volt systems and although I have designed and worked on aircraft electrical systems, that really means nothing in this context. These are my thoughts on something that may or may not be needed but it’s how I’d probably go about doing things.

P.S.

If anyone from INEOS is reading…. I love the new Grenadier and especially the aircraft style panels…. quite happy to do some tow testing for you…. hello…. anyone there?

Something for BMW X3 owners…

08 Wednesday Feb 2023

Posted by in Uncategorized

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A while ago I had an email from a chap called Roy. I thought it was going to be an easy one to sort out but never expected what the eventual issue was.

Rather than try to explain all the steps, which is difficult sometimes trying to diagnose without actually being hands on, Roy did a fantastic job, so I thought I’d simply post the email exchange…..

Hi Simon,

I have a problem with the drivers side lights on my 1997 Bailey Unicorn caravan.

I bought a new BMWW X3 in 2020 and had a BMW tow bar and electrics fitted in the factory.

I towed the caravan with the X3 for the first time this year. After driving using my headlights for about 70 miles the drivers side lights on the caravan stopped working and I got a message on the dash telling me “trailer electrics were overloaded. Trailer not or only partially illuminated, switch off unnecessary electrical consumers in the trailer and have problem checked by your service engineer”. I switched off the fridge but it made no difference. 

I bought a 13 pin caravan plug and short piece of 13 pin cable and checked the wiring with a multimeter. I connected the black probe to the white no. 3 pin and the red probe to the black no. 7 pin and I was getting a reading on the multimeter, I then checked the brown no. 5 pin which feeds the drivers side but I didn’t have a reading (I have checked for continuity on the brown cable and that is okay). 

I continued to our destination, it was daylight, I had nearside lights on caravan and car but no drivers side lights on caravan.

When we came to leave the caravan site I connected caravan to car and all the lights were working on the caravan but after about 10 miles the nearside caravan lights went off and remained off. I found that if I tried to connect the 13 pin plug the nearside lights on the caravan came on and then immediately went off.

I took the car back to BMW and they can’t find  a problem on the car.

I took the car to a caravan dealer and connected up to one of their vans and the lights on their van all worked.

Is this a problem you have come across as I do not know and also the caravan dealer doesn’t what the problem could be.

Kind Regards.

Hi Roy

Not heard of this before, but I think I might know what may be happening.

The number plate lights are usually connected to one side or the other…. near side running lights or off side running lights. The slight load increase because of this ’trips’ the electronic load sensor in the BMW and it shuts down that circuit. It should reset when you shut off the engine and start it up again.

One quick temporary solution would be to remove one of the side running light bulbs from the orange marker lights running down the side of the van.

A longer term solution would be to swop out the incandescent bulbs for LED ones. These have a lot lower power draw. Just changing over the tail lights and number plate lights should do it.

Let me know how you get on

Cheers

Simon

Good morning Simon,

Thank you so much for your very prompt reply.

I shall take your advice and change the bulbs for led ones. I will let you know how I get on but it won’t be for a couple of months as the van is stored for winter.

Thank very much.

Kind regards. Roy

A short while later…

Hi Simon,

Just an update. I collected my car from BMW this afternoon, I asked why if there was no fault found, why I had a reading on my multi meter for the nearside but not the offside. He said that this did sometimes happen with multi meters. He got his meter that they use for MOT’s and this showed that there was current on both sides, he also did a lamp test which showed the same result. This proves that it must be a problem with the caravan so with the help of your articles I will check all the running light electrics on the caravan. Incidentally, the front sidelights and the marker lights are all led units but all the backlights are incandescent bulbs so I will take your advice and change them. Can I replace the incandescent bulbs with led bulbs or will I have to change the whole units?

The light units are available from Bailey’s.

Kind Regards

Roy

Hi Roy

Never known a multimeter to behave in that way…. you can get a voltage reading, but when you try to pass current across the connection if the connection is high resistance, the voltage will drop. That’s why testers usually have a mini trailer board with bulbs in to enable them to test the voltage when the circuits are drawing current.

The existing tail lights can simply be updated  with LED bulbs. I replaced all mine …. https://caravanchronicles.com/2021/09/09/finishing-off-a-few-jobs/ I included details for a company I used on this page. I have had mixed results buying LED replacement bulbs in the past so asked some of my readers for their suggestions for companies and this one was suggested by many people. I’ve used them a few times and the products they supply are IMHO the best quality I’ve come across.

Cheers

Simon

Hi Simon,

Thank you for replying to my query so promptly.

Re.the multimeter, I bought a 13 pin caravan plug & a small length of 13 core cable. I have used this with my multimeter to check the current, I have tripled checked the continuity of and all is good. After “witnessing” there is current coming through at the BMW dealers, the dealer was checking using the 13 pin socket on the car I wonder if there is a problem in the 13 pin plug connection supplying current to the o/s caravan lights. I will start checking in that area first. When I took the van in for service earlier this year I had difficulty connecting the 13 pin plug and they fitted a different make for me, I.have checked the wiring in the plug and it is all okay. While I am at it I will rewire the plug.

Re the led bulbs, thank you for that address, I will order a set of bulbs & replace all the incandescent bulbs with led’s. Strange that they fitted incandescent bulbs at the back and led on the side & front, probably cost came into it.

Thank you once again for your knowledge and advice, I will let you know the outcome.

Kind Regards 

Hi Roy

Where the 13 pin cable comes into the caravan and terminates there is usually a small fuse board for all the road lights. This is a good place to check the voltages when connected to the vehicle…. as you should be able to pull each fuse and check (with the lights on of course) the voltage being supplied to the fuse from the vehicle then with the fuse inserted the voltage with the circuit ‘live’ and under load. I would not expect more than a 2 volt drop. If it’s more then possibly time to take the 13 pin plug apart.

Hope this helps

Simon

A few months later…

Hi Simon, I wrote to you about 4 months ago asking for your advice re. no offside road lights on my caravan and I thought that I would give you an update.
The caravan is a 2017 Bailey Unicorn and I tow with a 2020 BMW X3 diesel, the car has a factory fitted tow bar and 13 pin electrics. The first time that I towed with the car road lights all worked when I connected up but after about 15 miles the off side lights went out and a message came up on the dash telling me that the electrics on the car were overloaded and to speak to my dealer. They stayed off for the rest of our journey but when we came to return home the lights all worked for about 10 miles then again the off side lights went out and I got the message on the dash. 
I wrote to you and went through all the items you suggested and everything was fine, I even changed the 13 pin plug just in case there was a connection problem. 
I felt sure that the problem was with the car and not the caravan so I took it to my BMW main dealer. The technician checked everything whilst I was there and everything was was working fine, but when I got home and connected car to caravan I still did not have road lights on the off side.
My caravan was due for a yearly service so last week when I took it in I asked the caravan dealer if they would check it out, he said that they had heard of this problem. I got a call a few days later, and the workshop manager said that they thought that they had found the problem. He had spoken to an electrician and he seemed to think that I had been running with the lights on automatic, which was quite probable, he said that it has something to do with the smart alternator. His advice when connecting car to caravan was to switch of the engine and switch the light switch off, connect the 13 pin plug to the car, start the car engine then switch the headlights on (don’t use the automatic headlight function when towing). When I collected my caravan I went through the suggested procedure and the lights were fine. I took the car and caravan for about a 30 mile run and the lights stayed on all the time. Hopefully this has sorted out the problem. 
I had read on your site about the different problems people are having with smart alternators and as far as I am aware I haven’t come up against any of those, fingers crossed. I think that cars have become far too complicated and even the technicians are baffled with them.
Thank you for your advice Simon.

I’m so glad you got back to me with the results…. and even more pleased that you are all sorted!

Your email was quite timely…. I have just received an email from someone towing with a VW Toureg and he is having the same issue…. and as both auto light systems in the BMW and VW are made by Bosch….. I’ll bet it’s the auto light again.

I think this is a bit of important info, so with your permission, I’d like to write a brief article about the problem and steps taken to resolve it.

Cheers

Simon

Hmm….. I have auto lights on my VW Amarok but don’t use them…. I can feel a little testing in the near future!

So…. it was the Auto Light function on the BMW. I have checked on my VW Amarok and this doesn’t happen, I’m waiting for the gentleman that emailed me about a similar problem on his Toureg to get back to me.

If you have a BMW with Auto Light function and this has happened to you can you post in the comments as it will help anyone else when searching on Google for a similar problem.

I get a few of these type of problems emailed to me from time to time and the results never really make it into the blog. As some of them could be useful for other’s with similar problems do you think this type of posting would be useful? Obviously permission is required for me to repost and I did confirm with Roy if I could tell his story… I was going do one of my usual articles, but them thought actually the emails tell a better story just as they are.

Let me know what you think.

Is This A Growing Trend..?

30 Monday Jan 2023

Posted by in Uncategorized

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First things first… Happy New Year to you all. Ok so I’m a bit late but there you go, that’s what retirement does for you… no sense of time.

Right, I seem to be receiving a LOT and by a lot I mean 3 or 4 emails a week offering to provide content for my blog. Anything from selecting a new BBQ and the top ten best BBQ’s all the way to Best Hiking Trails in the US. They all start in a similar way…. “We love your blog and think that we have some really super articles that would fit right in with your readers“…. or something similar…. you get the idea.

Now most enquire what my rates are for publishing articles and a few offer a flat fee right up front. One outfit in California offered to pay $800 US per article. (Hmmm I could be rich!) However I decided to do a little delving into the articles and followed some links provided. It seems that most of the articles were designed to lead readers to YouTube creators channels by recommendation and direct link, or were just plain advertising for product sponsors of one form or another. I know the YouTube rules are getting silly forcing creators to produce more and more, which is actually having the effect of reducing quality of content IMHO. (Except Graham… see below… shameless plug warning)

I have never accepted advertising on the blog, I’m not here for that and I don’t like adverts popping up when I’m trying to read something and I guess you don’t either. So I’m not going to start now after ten plus years of Caravan Chronicles accepting paid promotion stuff.

Talking Of Paid Promotion…

I have received a rash of invites to review solar power stations for either free products, percentage of sales generated or cash payment after review is published.

Having seen the number of reviews by others I decided to respond to the requests slightly differently. I agreed to do a review of their products or product line on the understanding that return shipping was paid for for all products that were sent for review. Any review may or may not involve disassembly of the product and component verification and would be covered in any article I wrote about the product and testing would be real world and not based on the advertised performance of any product.

Needles to say you won’t be seeing me review and solar power stations. I would actually like one, but all the companies and importers that initially contacted me have strangely gone silent…. I think the modern parlance is I’ve been ghosted.

Graham, the internationally renowned caravan vlogger hit the nail on the head with his video… (shameless promotion of a fellow blogger ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tNEkntgUIg Hi Graham… will that do?

What’s In Store For 2023?

Well Sue retired last year and we managed to get 46 nights away at 10 sites… It was great not thinking about how long we had before having to return home. Hopefully we will be doing much of the same, finding new places to explore on our eBikes. So look out we are on our way somewhere soon… well when I can stop fuming about the new C & M Club booking web site!

I’m also going to stop answering question/problem posts on social media. Someone asks a question, I post a reply which is then followed by dozen other posts telling me I’m wrong but not answering the original poster’s question or solving their problem is not helpful really. hey ho… if they want to change the laws of physics or rewrite a new section on thermo dynamics I’m not going to argue anymore… I’ll just point them in the direction of that amiable “hauuustralian” John Cadogan.

Oh Another Thing…

Caravan Chronicles is designed in WORDPRESS and hosted on WordPress’ own servers and has done from day one (11 years now I think) It costs about £100 per year and that seemed fair…. I just had an email though telling me that as our super super government had changed the tax rules, as from the 31st January 2023 they had to charge me VAT! so that’s £20 more going to our governments pockets.

See you on the road… or on site, TTFN.

P.S. I set up a coffee buying thing a while ago… that thing on the left…. I thought it was a bit of a fad thing….. well blow me two people bought me a coffee… cheers!

Adapting Our Bike Rack for e-Bikes

31 Tuesday May 2022

Posted by in Accessories, Amarok, Bike Carrier, Bike Rack, e-bikes, MiRider, Modifications, VW Amarok

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Getting to that certain age brings on some restrictions…. My left knee is a bit suspect and Sue’s hip is not as ‘hop’ as it was anymore, This meant of we haven’t been using our bikes as much and as Sue has now officially retired and Henry has settled in to caravanning we are getting out and about more in the caravan.

We had been mulling over e-bikes for a while and after being influenced by John & Mandy who used to live in the next “village” to us, watching Neil and Emma from Urban Vanlife and having a long conversation with a gentleman who was also staying at Wirral Country Park who had bought two MiRider One bikes for himself and his wife lead us to paying a visit to the MiRider factory in Wigan.

We had a try… and liked them almost immediately. One big question for me was would they mount OK on our existing rack above the bed of the Amarok. The guys there were great and allowed me to fit one of their test bikes and take some photos. It only needed a few tweaks here and there to accept the MiRider bikes without any issues.

Two days later we went back to pick our new bikes up. In the realities of todays internet, full disclosure – we paid full price for these two bikes, no discount, no “freebie’s” etc. so what I will say about them when it comes to a review will be honest comments.

The bikes fitted onto the racks easily, however I did want to move them forward as the existing setup was for two full size cross bikes which required some rear overhang. Moving to the MiRider e-bikes gave me the opportunity to move the bike mounts forward.

You can see the rear overhang in the photo above and the available space at the front. Sliding the rails forward and relocating the wheel mounts allowed the bikes to easily position forward of the rear tail gate.

The thing that now had me thinking was the weight distribution. The rear wheel is obviously heavier than the front, as it contains the electric motor and the battery is held in the frame forward of the pedal crank so weight across the two wheels is pretty much even. However, the overhang of the mounting rails meant the front wheel was well forward of the main cross bar.

This really could do with a support. So after putting my thinking cat on…. nope Henry wasn’t;t very helpful… In the best Baldrick fashion I came up with a cunning plan. The front of the pickup bed frame is quite strong and the strength was increased by the aluminium box that the Roll-N-Lok cover fits into.

I cut two pieces of 1.5mm steel sheet and bent them so as to fit under the lip of the Roll-N-Lok cover resting on the frame of the pickup bed and bent them to form a support under the bike mount rails. I made a couple of stop blocks out of recycled plastic to hold the supports to the mount rails.

The design means I can still remove the cover for the Roll-N-Lok to service it and I don’t need to use any tools to remove the brackets if I want to remove the whole thing from the pickup bed… just the 4 Thule key locks to release the whole bike rack from he mounting pads.

I gave the two brackets three coats of spray-on truck bed liner and let them harden for a couple of days before installing. Hopefully this should be enough.

All in, I think it looks OK and the functionality of everything still works. The bikes are secure with no flexing in the mount. We still have room for a narrow roof box or mesh cargo tray between the two bikes if we need more room. I always have the option of moving the bikes to one side and mounting a standard Thule roof box if we really get pushed for space.

Another little thing we can do is plug the bikes in to charge while travelling. I’m not sure how handy this will be, but its there just in case.

I hope this gives you some ideas for e-bike mounting options of your own. For us, it’s next stop Bridlington for a few days to do a bit of testing.

Has Bailey Built Our Perfect Caravan?…

11 Wednesday May 2022

Posted by in Bailey of Bristol, Caravan Designs, Caravan Review, General, Reviews

≈ 12 Comments

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You know by now I don’t do caravan reviews. I leave it to people far better at it than myself. I have however over the years written a few articles about caravan design ( Never admit to being a caravan designer ) and waffled on as we looked around pondering the merits of changing our caravan. We kept ticking boxes…. but never enough boxes to actually go for it and buy a new caravan. Well a few months ago I received the marketing info from Bailey about it’s 2022 caravans and to be honest I only gave them a cursory look through. While we were away recently I started looking at what they’d sent out. I also had a link to a video done by the excellent Lee Davey (Twitter: @TinTent ) Bailey’s brand ambassador about the Bailey Alicanto Grande Porto

A full link to the Bailey of Bristol website with details is here: https://www.baileyofbristol.co.uk/touring-caravans/alicanto-grande/alicanto-grande-porto/

A few things that tick our boxes straight away are the centre wash room and larger bed (more room for our cat!) and the generous wardrobe space. One of our (Err… Sue’s) comparisons is always how much hanging rail space has a caravan got when compared to our current Swift caravan… and the Alicanto Grande Porto has three wardrobes which add up to slightly more rail space we currently enjoy.

Image (c) Bailey of Bristol

A key box ticker for me though is the great through locker at the rear of the caravan. There are very few caravans that offer external lockers on the off side, which is really where you need your ‘stuff’… be it mains hook up lead, waste water pipe, waste hog, fresh water hook up kit etc.etc. When setting up I find I’m always having to walk between the off side and front gas locker or near side lockers to get all my bits out. I can see that with the Alicante Grande range being able to store all that stuff in a locker on the off side will be a great feature. The only thing that you would have to be careful of is putting too much stuff in at the rear of the caravan, but Bailey have you covered to a large extent by having the gas locker close to the axle centre line and not at the front which always requires some counterbalancing by the designers you will have greater flexibility when loading.

So what else is ticking the boxes for me?

Well, you see the small lockers either side of the bed… Bailey show them with books in…

Image (c) Bailey of Bristol

Well to me these are shoe lockers… for some reason we always seem to have a collection of shoes by our caravan door and nowhere to store them without the usual routing through dozens (I may exaggerate here) of shoes that don’t belong to you to find one pair that is actually yours. That is a box ticker right there!

Another tick is where the powered roof vent is installed…

Image (c) Bailey of Bristol

….right above the stove top and above the microwave. It would have been ascetically pleasing I guess to install it on the centre line of the caravan, but for efficiency as close to above where all the steam and smells are created is as good as it gets (an extracting cooker hood would have earned a gold star not a tick… but they are getting close!)

Oh… here’s another one…

Our current caravan has the usual three gas and one electric ring… the only problem is that the electric ring is lower than the supports for the pans on the gas ring. This severely limits the size of pan you can use on the electric ring. Hurrah… The cooker has been redesigned, OK I know it’s not Bailey that have done this… but someone somewhere had a lightbulb moment and the electric ring is now raised up and you can use a larger pan. Small things I know, but it’s the small things ticking boxes that turn something from being good to being great.

While we are in the kitchen… finally a microwave that doesn’t have the spinning plate of doom. I always have the vision of our microwave plate sliding out and landing edge on to the glass cover of the hob breaking it each time we open the microwave door after travelling.

A quick visit to the bathroom…

Most mid bathroom caravans take advantage of the ability to close off the area from the rest of the caravan by having a door that is dual function… closing off the living area or the bathroom. Not unique I know but Bailey seems to have created a huge sink and toilet area even with the door closed and a massive area when the door is used to close off the living area. Enough room to swing a cat…. not that I would ever swing our cat Henry round! With the pocket door to the bedroom closed, it makes a great changing area with plenty of ‘elbow’ room without having to close window blinds each time.

I know it’s not a ‘first’… but top marks too for installing a roof vent in the shower cubicle… an easy way to vent all the steam when using the shower. Something lacking on our current van.

So what have they missed out on for me?

As most caravans are used on pitches which are designed with EHU bollards, water taps and waste outlets to the rear of the pitch… I still think that you could save punching holes in the sides of caravans to install water and EHU connections. With the Alicanto Grande Porto‘s design, you could install the electrical and water connections in the rear locker on the off side and have an access hole in the floor for your cable and water pipe. Rather than a 25 metre electrical cable you may be able to get away with only carrying a 10 metre cable. American RV’s and travel trailers have been doing this sort of thing for years. OK I know that for the electrics there are a couple of regulations that need to be catered for, but I’m sure they are not insurmountable and I’m also sure that not having to create holes to install and seal expensive “connection boxes” for power and water could be a cost saving.

The caravan comes with two (in the case of the Porto) ALKO wheel locks. I’d much prefer the Bailey Nemesis Wheel Lock to be supplied instead… or at least an option to choose between the two as a zero cost option when buying a new caravan.

Sue would really really like a hair/makeup mirror… one that can be articulated… maybe with lights…. and a perfect place would be for us on the TV mount in the bedroom. We don’t have a TV in the bedroom and maybe one of those useful accessories could be an optional illuminated mirror and mount to fit on the TV do-hicky…. I’m sure Sue wouldn’t mind if it had “Bailey” branding on it either!

Summing up…

I’m not going to go on about the onboard water tank, built in WiFi, it’s security features, Al-Ko ATC and flashy coloured lighting… I’ll just turn it into just another magazine style review if I’m not careful, but I just wanted to point out some of the things that have been ticking our boxes and made us take notice.

Thanks for reading all this… you get a tick in the box for that!

If you own a 2022 Bailey Alicanto Grande Porto, I’d love to hear what you think about it…. and if we see you on site… can we pop in and have a nosey round…. We’ve not been able to see one in the flesh yet!

Just a quick one…

08 Sunday May 2022

Posted by in Accessories, Caravan Electrics, Electrical, Modifications, Off Grid, Projects, Technical

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Lithium Upgrade for a caravan

I’ve had quite a few people email me asking for more information about the Victron system for a caravan that I was planning mentioned in the previous post. As this seems to have generated a number of questions, rather than give detailed answers to each one I thought I’d post the drawings. For the moment it’s on hold but here are the drawings.

While Victron would seem the obvious choice, there are a number of recent new products from Sterling Power that have rekindled my interest in the project…. watch this space.

A Few Mods and Updates…

08 Sunday May 2022

Posted by in Accessories, Gadgets, General, Maintenance, Reviews, Tips, Water & Plumbing

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After our recent trip to Meathop Fell it was time to say goodbye to an old friend. We have had our leisure battery since 2011 and for 11 years it has given us great service. For the last year or so I have thought hard about converting over to Lithium and drew up plans for a high capacity charging link between the tow vehicle and caravan and converting the caravan over to a Victron based system. However I think that for this caravan it would not be worth it.

We had bought a 120Ah Numax battery (left one above) from ABS and it had worked well, even now it still hold a charge and is sitting in my workshop on trickle charge waiting for a project to come along. I went back to Advanced Battery Supplies and opted to go for a 120Ah AGM. It wasn’t too expensive and hopefully it will give us years of service like it’s predecessor. I’ve used ABS for batteries a number of times over the past 12 or so years and can recommend them. I’m not sponsored by them and I paid for the battery but I have found that for me they give sensible advice and great service. That’s why I’m happy to mention them. You can call in personally or they do ship overnight ordering from their website – https://advancedbatterysupplies.co.uk

Battery taken care of now it was time to head into the workshop for a bit of construction….

Henry’s Conveyance Contrivance…

If you have read any of my posts over the last few years you will know that we have Siamese cats…. well sadly Oscar our health and safety officer passed away a while ago leaving us with just his brother Henry. Up to this point we have always had a cat sitter whenever we were away but June has now retired and honestly we could not face the thought of leaving Henry in a cattery or on his own with another cat sitter. So, a couple of exploratory trips up to the caravan for an hour just to let him sit in it and explore round lead us to a two night stay at Burrs Country Park…. only about thirty minutes away from home, that went well and so did the next trip to Meathop Fell. It was now time to build Henry a suitable transport platform for the vehicle.

Henry keeping an eye on the goings on at Meathop Fell

After a bit of head scratching I came up with this….

I built it out of 12mm Ply and painted it grey. I used an off cut of black car carpet to cover the top and sides and a couple of lengths of pipe insulation on the edges where it comes into contact with the car seat and door. To secure it I used the ISO FIX points and it takes less than 30 seconds to remove or install. Without Henrys carrying cage it’s a handy place to put things and the space underneath come in super handy for all my bits that I normally have rolling around on the floor behind the drivers seat. It’s high enough for Henry to be able to see out around in all directions and there is still enough space for two people to sit on the back seat and use the seatbelts if required.

We have used it for two trips now and Henry seems to like it. The rear windows are heavily tinted in our Amarok which will cut the heat from the sun and we can open the rear window for fresh air as required. We are looking round for one of the stick on baby sun screen thingy’s if we think the sun is going to be too strong. Of course we would never leave Henry in the vehicle unattended for more than a couple of minutes… the only time we have done this is while we were hitching up the caravan. If you know Siamese then you know they can be noisy talkative beings…. so far he’s not had anything to say about it. Is that a good sign?

Tempting Fate…

In the eleven years we have been at our storage site we have never had any break-ins but it’s aways in the back of your mind…. and couple that with us sometimes leaving Henry in the caravan while on site I decided a little security upgrade was required (there are others but I’m not going to tell you about them!) I’d looked at the various offerings of additional door locks and after some thinking… and several coffee’s decided to go for the Milenco Door Frame Lock Version 2 offering that allowed us to operate it from inside as well.

I ordered it via Amazon ( https://amzn.to/3sHywnd )and it arrived within two days. It was easy enough to install but I ‘upgraded’ the interior fitting with a custom stainless steel strengthening plate…

The stainless I used was 1.4mm tooled finish, cut to size and drilled using the template provided with the Milenco lock. After measuring the location, I bent the stainless on my sheet bender in the workshop. I chose the location as this was the strongest part of the door frame where the existing door lock was located and would help protect the original lock so a small extent. Ideally I would have liked the arm to have been a bit longer so it covered up the keyhole for the original lock. But I’m happy with it.

Down the drain…

Long time readers will remember that several years ago I wrote a post about how we solved our connection to the drain while on serviced pitches. After ten years of use It was time for an upgrade and I had seen the COLAPZ products and thought it was a rather nifty idea. Having a mooch round the web I ordered directly from the website https://colapz.co.uk/?ref=yjXJSsLdBkh5d and opted for the Flexi waste pipe kit – 8 pipes for £55.

The first use was great and easy to set up. No modification was needed to my original manifold that connects to the caravan and it seems to drain OK….

However you can alway improve on things…. and if you have ever watched any Youtube videos about American RV’s then you will know that for their ‘stinky slinky’s’ they have a few upgrades…. I ordered one from Amazon….

Camco 43041 15′ Sidewinder Plastic Sewer Hose Support – https://amzn.to/3Fp2elM it cost £44 and came all the way from the great state of New Jersey. It comes with a carrying handle and honestly is really easy to use. I just stretched it out and lifted the pipe on to it. It is designed for a 4 inch sewer pipe… but as I was using basically a 2 inch version it would allow the hose support to stretch even further… I bought the 15 feet version and I recon it would stretch to 20 feet without any problems.

When we were packing up, I ran all the remaining hot water down the sink to flush the pipework out… including the Colapz pipework and honestly when disconnecting everything it really wasn’t that dirty, but breaking it down into individual lengths makes it easy if it does need a brush through it (which you get by the way in the kit).

Again we are not sponsored by either of these two companies but the links above will earn us a few pennies that will help provide biscuits for Henry. You wouldn’t want Henry to mis out on biscuit treats would you….

After all he can’t survive on just belly rubs…. I know it’s blackmail but EVERYONE said you need a cute kitty to get more views!

A Bit of a Milestone…

01 Saturday Jan 2022

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Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and the big guy brought you some wonderful gadgets for the RV… yep I’ve been watching way too much stuff from across the pond.

This month Caravan Chronicles celebrates ten years of irrelevant blogging and I designed an eye catching logo… and you can see from it, that I’m not very good at designing logo’s.

I have been asked if we have any “merch” with the Caravan Chronicles logo and….. no. I really can’t see why anyone would want a mug or tee shirt or even a sticker with Caravan Chronicles emblazoned on it. I can’t see my eye catching 10 years of CC logo being any different so there won’t be any mugs, pens or stickers with that on it either. Sue and I did have a couple of shirts with a logo embroidered on for wearing at the caravan shows… but they are now used as coveralls when we are doing a bit of DIY and they are really good for that.

Milestones…

Well I guess I could tell you that in ten years we have had over 42.3 million page views and been read in almost every country in the world…. the one that amazes me is somone in the Marshall Islands reads it… I had to look that up on a map!

Over 2400 of you have left nearly 4000 comments and I have received over 44,000 emails of which about half weren’t trying to sell me something or asking me to help out a recently deceased Nigerian business man’s widow.

In the ten years I have stuck to my ‘no paid content’ through out and have turned down requests for paid reviews. I have been sent a few things to review… some have been returned and some given away… which reminds me the first person to say “Hi” at the next camp site can have an Eco Camel Shower Head.

I do however have an “Amazon Associates” thingy which is great, Amazon pays me and it doesn’t cost you a penny… it all comes from Big Jeff… and as he can afford to go into space I think he can afford to shell out a few pennies to allow me to pay the wonderful people at WordPress to keep this blog up and running. So if you want to encourage Big Jeff to pay me a bit more… use any of the Amazon links in the Caravan Chronicles shop… and buy anything you like.

What’s planned for the future?

Well I am thinking about some sort of smart Q & A system on the blog. I spend quite a bit of time answering technical emails and quite a few cries for help and maybe a searchable Q & A system would work. Only thing is I don’t know how to do it in WordPress so some research needed along those lines. If you have any thoughts on anything that would improve the blog or would like to see let me know in the comments.

So I’d just like to offer a genuine big thank you all for ten amazing years of support and both Sue and I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year and safe travels.