Category Archives: Projects

More Jobs Ticked Off…

19 Sunday May 2024

Posted by in 5th Wheel, Caravan Road Lights, Donkey Creek Farm, Electrical, Fifth Wheel Company, Maintenance, Projects, Water & Plumbing

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OK we are still working on a few bits and pieces but the weather on Friday and Saturday was ideal for cleaning the outside of the 5th Wheel. So while Sue made a start on the cleaning of the nose cap, I finished the first stage of the water pump relocation project and upgraded the wiring.

At some point the original wiring had been modified to include a 10 Amp socket in the wet bay to allow the use of an external pump to fill the fresh water tank. We still wanted to use this as the original external electrical connector was missing the original plug and it was just easier to sort out the wiring. It had been modified using 6 amp rated cable to both eh internal water pump AND the 10 socket. All fused on a single 10 Amp fuse. The wiring I upgraded to 16 amp rated cable but retained the 10 Amp fuse. So there should be no issues with cable rating in the future.

You can see from the photo above some of the work involved in moving the water pump. It was originally mounted where the holes are on the vertical wall. This resonated quite badly as it is located just under the bathroom and was particularly loud at night if the loo was flushed.

So to reduce the vibration from the pump before mounting it in a different location I made a aluminium cradle to mount the pump to and sat this on rubber isolation mounts before mounting it to the floor using stainless steel bolts, washes and lock nuts….. in fact I used stainless hardware for all the mods.

The next job was to install a 0.75 L SeaFlo accumulator with the bag set to 15psi and isolate this from water knock caused by the pump using a stainless jacket flexible hose in a loop. I have another stainless hose that will be used in a future upgrade that will allow this pump to be used to draw water from a 120 litre bladder in the back of the pickup truck….. but for now that’s going to be a end of season upgrade.

The two valves [in blue] are used to isolate the feed from the water tank and the output from the pump and are a bit untidy…. these will be repositioned shortly as I’m going to add an outlet to allow me to connect a hose so I can wash off the bikes and flush the grey water drain pipe when I disconnect after dumping on a serviced pitch. I’ll also swing the pump filter 90 degrees for a bit of space saving and I’m thing about a water treatment pre filter between the tank and pump. We have a filter on a separate clear water dispensing tap the we use for the kettle or food prep…. but this would allow all the taps to be protected.

The result of moving the pump, anti knock loop and accumulator is that now we cannot hear the water pump running in the caravan. Result!

Sue working hard cleaning the front locker wall after going a grand job on the front cap above. The task of cleaning…. including the use of a tooth brush around all the door seals eventually took two whole days.

If anyone has tips about restoring the plastic handles on the lockers I’d be grateful if you could leave a comment. I’ve been steered to something called “The Pink Stuff” miracle cleaning paste by a couple of other 5th wheel owners

Let there be light…. more light in fact!

The other title upgrade was to the rear of the 5th Wheel. I have been reading up on some proposed lighting changes for articulated trailers in some countries. What used to be called front and rear marker lights seem to have gone through a name change….. these are now called “edge out lights”.

If you are parked in a straight line they are not required to be seen, but if you park at an angle exposing the edge of the trailer, the edge is required to be seen by either on coming traffic or following traffic… depending on the angle you are parked at. I’m not exactly sure how this affects things in general in the UK, but it was interesting that I picked up on the watching a couple of training videos about hitching and unhitching a articulated trailer in preparation for your HGV test.

As I understand it, if you are stopped and an edge of the trailer is exposed past the normal line of the prime mover unit and trailer straight line width then this edge must be marked with lights.

From the front our ‘marker lights’ seemed to be located in the correct position…. but I could not find out about the rear in much detail, so a quick chat with a man that knows all about this he pointed me in the right direction. Although that said he was also unclear as how this would affect 5th wheel caravans as he thought it might only apply to commercial vehicles. I did mention that the VW Amarok as most of the heavier pickups are actually listed and taxed as commercial vehicles. That brought some “Hmmm’s and Ahhh’s” into the conversation….. including “in that case you will need the ‘angles of death’ stickers in Europe….. Angles Morts”

These lights show red to the rear and orange to the front. As they are located at the widest part of the trailer…. on this side that has to include the awning frame they indicate the edge of the trailer to the rear…. and from the front the amber side also indicated the edge of the trailer to oncoming traffic.

A really handy thing for me is when driving even during the day I have my side lights on. The amber light I can see in my side mirrors and it clearly marks the end of the trailer…. in inclement weather this has become a bit of a game changer as I now can clearly see even in a lot of road spray where the back of the trailer is.

when following lorries I always notice how bright these tiny LED rear lights on rubber stalks are that stick out from the side of the trailer…. I tend to notice these before I sometimes see the rear light cluster….. these are the same… they are CE marked along with the UK / Euro markings so must be compliant with regs but they are brighter that the 5th wheels rear red side lights….. and the more rear lights I have hopefully will reduce the chance of someone getting to intimate with the rear of the trailer!

Personal note….

Thanks to everyone asking how I’m progressing….. the chemo is going well and I seem to be quite lucky as I have very few side effects to the point that really the couple I have is a mild inconvenience.

I have settled down in to a routine of having a stoma and bag…. bit of a shock to me when I had it done as it wasn’t mentioned in the pre-op that this might be an outcome….. but there again it might have been…. I was on that much medication I was convinced that I’d had a conversation for about an hour with a man stood at the end of my bed dressed in 1040’s clothes complete with trilby hat and chain smoking staring up the ward never taking his eyes of someone I could not see because of the curtains around my bed. He told me he was tasked with keeping an eye on this person as he was suspected as being a spy for the Germans.

What the hell were they medicating me with!!

Only a few days away from the big TourFest North West at Donkey Creek Farm… if you are going please drop by and say high. Sue and I would love to see you. Henry might be a bit noisy though!

A Few More Jobs Ticked Off The List…

01 Wednesday May 2024

Posted by in 5th Wheel, Blog updates, Donkey Creek Farm, Events, General, Mini Break, Projects, The Old Oaks

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Like any project, ticking the small stuff off a list is the way to move forward even if it seems like sometimes you have ground to a halt. A bit lacking on photos…. I’m temporarily unsure of their location… pilot speak for I’ve lost them! I’ll correct that in due course.

I built a new aluminium frame for the water pump and moved the pump from the original mounting position which caused a lot of noise when running, especially in the bathroom…. as we have a direct tank flush not a holding tank, this was particularly annoying if the loo was flushed at night. So now the water pump is mounted on its isolation feet on an isolated aluminium frame bolted directly to the sub-floor in one of the lockers. I also changed the piping from the pump from solid to flexible connections further reducing noise transmission through the pipes. My next step… some time this week is to install a larger one litre accumulator tank between the pump and plumbing to reduce the cycle times of the pump. Thankfully the plumbing system installed in the 5th wheel is rated for a greater pressure than most caravans and motorhomes… that’s what gives us a great shower!! so I’ll be able to match the accumulator pressure with the pump pressure to get the best out of them.

The other little upgrade was to move the grey water and fresh water dump outlets closer to the side of the caravan. They used to be set back about eight inches and required a kneeling mat and one arm dexterity to plug in the flexible waste pipes when on a fully serviced pitch. Now it’s a simple matter of bending over and I can easily access both outlets for connecting pipes…. saving the knees a bit of hard labour at my age is key. Also if dumping at a motorhome service point I can easily see if I’m in the correct position for a clean dump and not going to splash all over the place. As the Hanks say… “Let ‘er rip”

Thanks to my local nut and bolt supplier… Francis Kirk and Sons I’ve been going there for bits and pieces since 1976… I have now got a full set of stainless steel fittings… an odd collection of UNF and UNC sizes…. ready to replace all the nuts and bolts on the pull out sun canopy, replacing the original components that were showing signs of rust and starting to bind up. I also managed to get a set of tap and dies to run through all the threads before changing everything over.

We managed to get some of the picture frames mounted inside the caravan and that makes a huge difference…. along with upgrading the occasional side lights to LED dimmable units…. feels more like home with each little improvement.

Not long to wait now….

Looking forward to Tourfest North West in a three weeks time, 24th May – 27th May at Donkey Creek Farm and meeting up with some of the bloggers and vloggers I’ve followed over the years. Thankfully no one will recognise Sue and I so we can sneak off if it gets too rowdy . I believe it is now fully booked so if you wanted to go you will just have to wait until the next one.

A few days after that we are off to The Old Oaks at Glastonbury…. it’s been a few years since we were there so it will be nice to go back and see all the changes and improvements they have made. Hopefully we can get back out on our bikes again as well.

A Few Little Jobs Done…

03 Wednesday Apr 2024

Posted by in 5th Wheel, Caravan Electrics, Caravan Fault Finding, Caravan Servicing, Donkey Creek Farm, Electrical, Fifth Wheel Company, Maintenance, Modifications, Projects, Technical

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It seems such a long time since I posted anything.

Last time out with the Dreamseeker I noticed that the charging voltage when we were hooked up to the truck was only about 12.1 to 12.3 volts as measured in the Dreamseeker battery box.

I know that the VW Amarok puts out 14.6 to 14.8 volts, measured at the 13 pin socket AND indicated on the digital voltmeter I installed in the dash. So it was time to do a bit of investigating.

After measuring the resistance of the charging circuit and fridge circuit it was clear there was a bit of an issue. First stop was to disassemble the Dreamseeker’s 13 pin plug. All became clear…. The cable had been terminated in the socket with soldered ends and were suffering corrosion (solder very dull) and cable degradation….. the copper conductors when stripped of their insulation were black. All in all not good.

I wanted to replace the whole 12 core cable with a replacement but unfortunately I didn’t have a length in stock long enough. I usually keep a length suitable for replacing the cable and plug on a normal bumper tow caravan.

The simple solution for the time being would be to cut back as much as I could and install a new 13 pin plug with correctly crimped ferrules on the cable.

I cut off the old plug and stripped back the protective cover from the cable allowing enough to shorten the individual conductors to the correct length and inspect them for internal corrosion before crimping on the ferrules ready for termination.

The torque setting for these terminations are listed as a minimum of 5Nm to a max of 8Nm so I set my torque screwdriver to 6.5Nm. A happy medium I think.

The new plug was reassembled and I could get on with testing it. At the Amarok I measured 14.7 volts on the leisure battery circuit (same on the fridge circuit) and at the leisure battery I measured 13.9 volts and 9 amps charge, which considering the two 110Ah AGM leisure batteries are at the rear of the Dreamseeker I was happy with the loss.

Something I’m going to try…

While I was doing all this I started thinking (I’d also just seen the price of 13 core trailer cable per metre!) Why are we using this cable?

I have a length of woven kevlar cable sleeve (used in the aviation world) and I could thread my own cable…. upgrading the 1.5mm2 to 2.5 and the 2.5mm2 to 4mm and the “cable” would… (actually is…. as I have made one up now)… a lot more flexible than the existing product as it allowed the individual cables to move and slide past each other. I also used marine grade coated copper cable, so no corrosion of the strands.

4mm2 cable was a bit of a faff to terminate in the commonly available 13 pin plugs, but I believe the genuine ” German Jager manufactured plugs are acceptable for 4mm cable and they even have a crimp terminal version. So I’m going to do a bit more investigating as if I can get 4mm2 leisure battery and fridge circuits from end to end, that will reduce the voltage drop… which is always a step forward.

I’m also looking again at a high current circuit using Anderson connectors between the Truck and 5th Wheel. Currently I’m thinking of a 50 amp circuit with a 30 Amp DC to DC charger installed in the Dreamseeker…. ready for the battery upgrade. (along with a solar install, when I can find a suitable company to work with on that project)

Tourfest Northwest… as arranged by “The Caravan Addys”

Sue and I will be at Tourfest Northwest hosted at Donkey Creek Farm near Warton in May (24th to 28th) drop in and say “Hi”……” see you in a bit“

Happy New Year…

01 Monday Jan 2024

Posted by in 5th Wheel, Blog updates, Donkey Creek Farm, Gadgets, General, Projects

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Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you have a great touring year ahead.

I’d like to take this opportunity to give you a bit of an update on my personal circumstances and a look forward to a couple of projects I’m planning to kick off our year.

First…

… A HUGE thank-you yo everyone that messaged, email and posted about my cancer diagnosis. Things started off OK and I had a stent installed in my colon to stop it blocking and started chemotherapy. Before I got two cycles of chemo completed my body decided it didn’t like the stent and for what ever reason decided to try and pass the stent to the nearest exit. This resulted me being blue lighted in to Manchester Royal Infirmary on a Saturday afternoon. 24 hours later I underwent an emergency Laparotomy to remove the stent now firmly stuck where it shouldn’t be and part of my transverse colon was removed at the same time. Basically the section where the tumour was. A further five days on the High Dependancy Unit followed and another 13 days on a surgical ward. I remember very little of any of this…. basically I was on another planet drug wise. Apparently it was touch and go a couple of times as my colon was leaking into my body.

Part of the surgery included a colostomy, so now I’m learning to live with that. I was released home late on Christmas Eve so got to spend Christmas with Sue at home.

So far I’m recovering as planned. My body strength is slowly returning… I lost a lot of muscle mass bing in bed for nearly a month. My weight has dropped by around 31kg… so if you see someone dressed in 1980’s gear… it could well be me wearing some of my old stuff. I decided against the platform shoes and petrol blue patch pocket pants though!

I go back on the 10th Jan to The Christie Hospital for checkups and to see when I can resume my chemo treatment.

ONWARDS!

So we are still planning to attend Tourfest North West in May at Donkey Creek Farm and I’m looking towards our first trip away sometime towards the end of this month hopefully. It will only be local and for a couple of days initially.

Future Projects…

The first big one is a bit unusual. I want to add electronic side view mirrors to the Amarok. These are two screens that mount vertically on each of the A posts and link to cameras where your rear view mirrors are. However I’m adding a twist. I want to mount the rear view cameras on each side of the 5th wheel. This would mean that when looking to the rear view mirror on the passenger door of the amaro I not only see the rear view from the Amarok door mirror but also the rear view from the camera mounted on the side of the trailer. Not a big gain driving down the road you might say, but there are two huge advantages. The first is I will not need to fit extension mirrors to the Amarok when towing as the installed cameras and internal A post mounted screen combo will give me the required view coverage required by law. This has already been accepted and approved for commercial vehicles and coaches and is in use on the road already. To comply with regs though these will have to be connected via a Suzi between the trailer and truck. You cannot have wireless devices.

The second is when reversing I will always have a view down each side of the trailer no matter what angle the Amarok is the the trailer. This has huge advantages when reversing into pitches as effectively there will be no blind side reversing as the combination of rear and side view cameras will always allow me to see the three sides of the trailer.

The next project really is one I came up with while in hospital. My last ‘job’ was ground op’s supervisor at Manchester Airport, a job which occasionally meant I had to oversee the ground start of engines, push backs etc. To do this we used a head set plugged into the aircraft so we could talk to the flight deck. This got me thinking…. I have several Dave Clark headsets from my flying days and thought about adapting these for ground comms between someone directing reversing and the driver.

We have tried mobile phones, cheap hand held radios working on DMR Chanels and a couple of HAM handhelds programmed to an obscure frequency that hopefully won’t get me into trouble with the authorities , as my radio licence is for aviation operation, I gave up my ham licence in the late 70’s.

It’s just an idea that may or may not work out… I have the kit and all it will take is a bit of soldering and making up a small circuit board to get everything working. As I am on restricted duties ( can’t lift anything heavier than a cup of coffee or a ham sammich) for at least ten weeks, sitting at my bench in the workshop is not an issue and it gives me something to tinker about with for a while.

The third project is to get a 12 volt 50 Amp service from the Amarok into the 5th wheel. This is in preparation for installing a dc to dc charger if we decide to move over to lithium. If not we can still install a DC to DC charger for the current AGM battery bank we have. The move to lithium is not yet a proven case for us as we currently don’t do much off grid.

Lastly is installing a couple of big solar panels. Initially this will be to keep our current AGM batteries charged, so thinking about 800 watts should do it and this could be increased in the future. One thing we do have on the 5th wheel is plenty of flat open roof space. At this stage I’m thinking of flexible panels bonded to the roof rather than ridged panels as they weigh a lot less.

Unusually for me… and the blog, I might have to partner up with companies to get a couple of these projects completed as at the moment I’m not in any shape to go crawling round the truck or the 5th wheel. We will see how that progresses though.

Thanks again..

So again a HUGE thank you for all the emails, messages and comments. I apologise if you emailed or posted comments with technical questions and I haven’t replied, but I have been out of it for a while. A huge than-you too to the people that have bought me a cup of coffee via the link. I’m well on the way to covering the cost of paying for the hosting of the blog and domain name for another year.

Both Sue and I hope you all have a fantastic New Year and have a fantastic touring season. Stay safe and hopefully we will see you soon on a site somewhere.

Rack’em Up…

14 Thursday Sep 2023

Posted by in 5th Wheel, Accessories, Bike Rack, Bikes, e-bikes, MiRider, Modifications, Projects, Sutton-on-Sea

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One of the huge advantages of having a 5th wheel caravan over a bumper pull caravan is the payload and space. It’s as good as a large motorhome… we have around 960Kg of payload available to use. One thing we wanted to do was move our two MiRider e-bikes into the ‘garage’ locker of the 5th wheel. Although I built a great rack for the VW Amarok towing a 5th wheel means I had to take that off. When I designed it I aways wanted it easily removable just in case I ever needed the full capacity of the pickup.

The garage space in the Dream Seeker is big enough to fit the two bikes without having to remove any wheels. On the pickup we already removed the seats and dropped the folding handlebars so this is the same with the garage space. I needed something that would allow me to ‘wheel’ the bikes in keeping the front wheels straight and at the same time retaining either one of the bikes in an up right position while the second bike is loaded.

I wanted something that could be installed and removed easily and could also be used in my workshop to store the bikes if required.

After a bit of mooching around the workshop I initially thought of using an old bike rack we had for the rear of our Land Rover Freelander…. a day spent disassembling and reassembling resulted in a heavy and awkward contraption that didn’t really do anything I wanted except hold the bikes.

Mk II

OK, time for coffee and a rethink. Day two. A flat sheet with rails seemed like a good start…. with a small end wall to stop the bikes going in to far…. extend the rails up the wall to hold the front wheels upright would work. I needed to leave a gap for part of the steel chassis of the 5th wheel…. a plan was forming… more coffee.

I’d worked out that if the bikes were 250mm apart, with the pedals folded and the handlebars folded they would pass each other with ease. I off set this slightly so the edge of the plywood would lie flat right next to the rear chassis cross member and left a gap so the short rear chassis rail would pass through the middle. The front wall was tapered either side so I could install the rack through the door vertically and then twist it 90 degrees to lie flat on the floor. To hold it in place I fabricated 4 aluminium plates that would drop onto the existing bolts in the rear chassis crossmember. These bolts were just long enough to allow me to drop a plate on and a second nut. This way I didn’t have to touch the original bolts… they were still to the factory torque.

I thought about clear coating the stand…. then thought about a brush on wax shaded to match the Dream Seeker’s woodwork…. In the end I use some old exterior white hard coat gloss… several coats in fact. One less old paint tin in the workshop! I think that it looks OK and installed in the garage looks bright and clean… for the moment!

I added a ratchet strap, secured at both ends and cut short enough to allow me to hold the bikes down but not get in the way when loading or unloading.

To stop the two bikes pulling together a simple length of oak with a round cut out in each end holds the bikes 250mm apart.

Fitting into the Dream Seeker was easy enough and I installed the fixing plates once I was sure everything fitted in OK.

The bikes fit in perfectly and are held securely. For security I have taken measures that secure the bikes directly to the chassis in two locations and with the bikes in the garage make it damn difficult to even get access to try and defeat them. Obviously I’m to going to show this.

Bikes installed…. and still a bit of space to fit locate the two seats and bike helmets. So off to Sutton-on-Sea soon to test them out!

P.S. While I was at it I also installed two 240 volt sockets in the garage so we can plug the chargers in if needed. Although my preference for safety is to charge the bikes outside the Dream Seeker. I installed the sockets near the opposite door so they will reach the bikes while they are under our awning…. or allow us to power an electric griddle plate under the awning. Always thinking.

Getting A Slide On…

04 Friday Aug 2023

Posted by in 5th Wheel, Accessories, Amarok, Maintenance, Modifications, Projects, Tow Vehicle, VW Amarok

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After our trip out to Donkey Creek Farm I started procrastinating about the slide out bed we used to have in the Amarok. Did I need it… was it worth it….. should I put it back in? Well my body kind of made the decision for me after loading and unloading some heavy boxes from the bed reaching over the opened tailgate it kind of said “We ain’t doin’ that again big boy“.

I had to set about working out how to install the base of the slider in and around the Reese 5th wheel hitch and where it could be mounted. It also needed to be raised up 35mm so it would pass over the 5th wheel hitch cross rails and still allow me to pull the pins so the hitch could be lifted out if required.

I got lucky…. with only having to cut out the rear cross bar the slide bed would fit and the original mounting holes lined up with the holes I drilled in the truck bed when I first installed it. Next step was to fabricate some spacers to raise it to the correct height.

I just happened to have a couple of blocks of high density poly in black so cut 4 100mm long by 35mm wide slats to fit under the frame and drilled 10mm holes through them for the mounting bolts. A quick trip to Francis Kirk – my local engineering fastening company. (I’ve been going there since 1976 for all my fastenings) got me four M10 grade 8 bolts of the correct length… I even splashed out on coated ones and nylock nuts.

A test fit of the sliding frame allowed me to see where I needed to cut so it would clear the hitch. A bit of quick work with a four inch grinder and cutting wheel and it slid in without any problems. I needed to remove the original locking pin system and a couple of coats of black rust preventative paint on cut areas that I’d smoothed off with a fine grinding disc soon had the sliding tray ready to be fitted again.

I did a couple of other mods that allowed the ray to slide out further. Previously it only came out about an inch past the tail gate, now it comes out about 10 inches which will have a great advantage… more on that later.

It was now time to refit the decking and do some trimming as required so it would fit around the hitch.

I cut the sheet so that the section in the truck would remain in one piece and if I needed to the hitch could be lifted out and the cut section replaced giving me a full size sliding bed once again. I do like having options!

The trimming was actually quite easy. The board is Phenol faced marine ply and quite easy to trim. I gave all the edges, especially the new cut edges several coats of clear brush on wax and let it soak into the ply. I’ve found that this is usually better than any polyurathane edge sealant when it is in an area that is prone to dinks and abrasion. The wax penetrates quite a lot and soaks into the layers protecting them from water.

Everything was given a spray and rubdown with Boeshield as a protective against the elements and looks as good as the day I installed it.

Next little job is to find two waterproof boxes to mount on the sliding bed either side of the hitch for my recovery kit and straps. This is why I wanted to make the slide tray come out further than it originally dis so I would have better / easier access to the two “fingers” either side of the hitch.

I need some low profile narrow boxes 200mm wide, 200mm high and about 600mm long with a hinge lid. I did start looking around at what is out there but I suspect that they might need to be fabricated out of aluminium diamond tread plate.

A couple of bonus things…. there is enough space under the 5th wheel hitch to allow me to store two of the “Really Useful Box” company’s boxes under the hitch which will be fairly secure when the slide tray is stowed.

The second is there is now enough room under the sliding bed to be able to store some kit and it pulls out far enough for me to sit the Cadac on for a bit of tail gate BBQ’ing.

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.

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.

“Put your lights on mate…..”

28 Saturday Aug 2021

Posted by in Accessories, Amarok, Caravan Electrics, Caravan Road Lights, General, Maintenance, Modifications, Projects, Technical

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How many of you have driven behind a vehicle in less than ideal conditions… going dark, raining or foggy… and uttered those immortal words “Put you lights on mate” in the vein hope it will do some good only to approach a bit closer to find that the lights are on and are less effective as a couple of Ikea tea lights in jam jars. That is the feeling I get with a lot of caravans. In my opinion a lot for rear lights are less than ideal. In this day and age some of the drivers out there need all the help they can get as they even struggle to notice a big white box in front of them in bright sunshine let alone in inclement weather or in the dark.

Our caravan like a lot of other Swift caravans looks great from the rear with nice big lights and reflectors. Reflectors are good if the following driver has turned his headlights on and not been too busy texting and simply relying on the DRL’s to light the way. The big reversing lights will surly let the driver and anyone else behind know you are reversing… but about as useless as the aforementioned Ikea tea light in a jam jar when reversing at an angle into a pitch at night. The rear fog light however deserves a special mention… the single rear fog light…. can you see it… the tiny Lego brick sized rear fog light… the red thing in the middle down low… difficult to spot on a stationary caravan in daylight let alone from a distance on a road in fog. Mind you when that bit of wire in the bulb warms up it will blind you… honestly it will…. eventually… when you get so close because you didn’t see it from ten metres away.

Its time for a change. An upgrade if you will… to allow me to shine a beacon of light towards all that follow. But… and here’s a the big thing… I have to keep it looking nice. Everyone likes a nice rear don’t they.

OK, I searched for all the replacement options. Swift don’t make it easy. The two panels that the lights are mounted in don’t come out, well not easily and I was cautioned about even attempting to remove them. Changing to smart round LED lights was out. Then it struck me… the reversing lights could become fog lights and I would install new reversing lights. I’d towed a trailer a while ago that had football stadium sized reversing lights and wow what a difference it made. One of the first things I did with the Amarok when we got it was to install LED work lights under the rear bumper as reversing lights and that was a huge improvement so I ordered another set from the same company as I’d fitted to the Amarok.

A bit more searching I found the exact lenses for the existing lights in red to turn the reversing lights into fog lights.. it was actually cheaper to order a pair of complete lights than it was to order two replacement red lenses… I’ll never work that one out.

Ok how was I going to wire this lot up. I made a couple of brackets that fitted under the caravan allowing me to mount the reversing lights up close just inboard of the rear steady jacks. This would offer a modicum of protection from road debris thrown up by the tyres. These could be wired to run off the old fog light which would now become a junction box and the reverse lights would become the fog lights, so simply switching the reverse light and fog light cables over at the road light fuse box in the front of the caravan would have everything working correctly.

I also angled the reversing lights out slightly. I wanted the centre of their light pool to be along an extended side line of the caravan so that looking through my mirrors down each side of the caravan would be the centre of the lit area. This hopefully would provide the best angle of illumination when reversing and performing a reversing turn onto a pitch.

“Hang on lads… I’ve got an idea”

Cue the music… no, no doors were blown off during this mod. Right what if the new rear fog lights could be my brake lights when they weren’t being used as fog lights?

A simple diode blocking bridge using two diodes could do this quite easily. Routing through my electronics spares I found a bag of 10 Amp diodes which would easily cope with the task.

For a quick solution I used two strips of terminal block and built a quick blocking bridge. What happens now is applying the brakes powers up the brake light circuit and the fog lights. The diode in the fog light circuit stops me back feeding current to the tow vehicle fog light circuit.

Turning on the fog lights powers up the fog lights and the diode in the bridge stops it powering the brake lights in either the caravan or back feeding to the tow vehicle. Really simple and when testing I didn’t have any canbus or other errors thrown up by the VW Amarok’s management system. The existing (and original) brake and tail lights work as normal.

I’ll have a look at coming up with a better solution than using two lengths of terminal strip and probably build something in a small electrical project box so it can be mounted securely.

As far as I can tell the changes I’ve made all fall in line with the lighting regs for trailers. While I’m 99% sure, there is always the possibility that I could be corrected and shown the error of my ways and point out I have missed something in my reading of the regs. I’ll let you know.

The next thing…

I’m trying to find some good quality bright LED replacement bulbs for all the rear road lights. I have some, but I suspect they are not correctly marked. If anyone has any recommendations for replacement 25W and 5/25W bulbs that they deem are good options to look at, especially if they are correctly marked, please let me know in the comments. If you are a company that sells LED replacement bulbs and think they are the good enough to pass the Caravan Chronicles testing department (we don’t actually have a testing department… its just me) then challenge me to break them!

Safe travels everyone… and “PUT YOUR LIGHTS ON MATE”