Tag Archives: Project

An Easy Fix…

23 Thursday May 2019

Posted by in Caravan Servicing, General, Maintenance, Projects

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You know how sometimes those little jobs come along that you put off as you think that it’s going to be a bit of a pain to do…. well this was one of them.

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On all three of the front windows the plastic insert trim for the rubber window surround was slowly pulling out of the corners. The worst was the front lower corners on the big central window. I’d ordered 15 metres of replacement from Leisureshopdirect.com (the part I ordered can be found here) for about 99p per metre. It was one of those jobs I’d been putting off for a while as I thought it was going to be a bit of a nightmare to do.

However on a recent jolly to Riverside Touring Park at Betws-y-Coed, one afternoon sat looking at it I decided I’d sat looking at it far too long and that it just had to be attacked head on.

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Tackling it from outside, releasing the window hardware on one side – marking where the screw holes were on the rubber in pencil first, was easy enough. Two cross head screws held in each window latch and window strut to the frame of the caravan. The join in the old strip was in the centre at the top and getting a small flat blade screwdriver under the edge was easy and the the strip simply pulled out across the top and down one side.

I started by checking the width. When you order there are two widths available and two colour options. I’d previously checked the existing strip and measured it to be about 23mm wide. On the web site it was listed as 23 mm or 25mm and available in grey air white.The replacement was however around 50% thicker making it a lot stiffer to insert.

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However it soon worked out that this additional thickness was to my advantage. I could now push the strip into the recess on the caravan side and simply run a small cross head screwdriver round the outer ‘flange’ (I had to get “flange” in there somewhere… silent nod in the direction of Miranda Hart) and flip it over the edge of the strip. The first corner was a bit tricky but my technique was improving all the time.

Once I’d completed the first section from the top down to the middle of the bottom of the frame, I re-attached the window hardware and removed the opposite side…

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This was all going terribly well! It didn’t take too long to remove the hardware from the other side of the window, pull out the old strip and continue around the frame fitting the new strip in.

I wasn’t sure what caused the original material to pull out of the corners but I guessed there might have been some stretching when it was originally installed and maybe  repeated heating and cooling over the last 8 years caused it to return to it’s original dimensions. With the new strip, I did try to ensure I’d not pulled it tight and used the handle of a large screwdriver to try and massage the strip into the corners as much as possible.

All that remained was to re-install the window hardware on this side and check for fit and finish. Everything seemed OK and Granville was summoned with his cloth…

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A light squirt of silicone designed for rubber window seals and a quick polish with a microfibre cloth finished the job off nicely.

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All totalled the main centre window took about 30 minutes to complete start to finish.  Next trip out up to Barnard Castle in a couple of weeks time…. I’ll get the other two smaller windows done.

Finally, before anyone asks, yes I did choose to do this on the warmest day in North Wales so far this year!

Overland Vehicle Electrics and Other Stuff…

17 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Caravan Electrics, Electrical, Help Guides, Maintenance, Modifications, Uncategorized

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I seem to have had an increase over the last few weeks of emails from people involved in building, modifying or upgrading Overland Expedition type vehicles. I think some of my posts must have been quoted or referenced in related forums. A lot of questions are related to roughly the same group of topics so I thought I’d produce three drawings to help answer the bulk of the questions. If you read down the comments on some posts I have answered a lot of specifics that might help.  I’ve merged a lot of the questions into a paraphrased ones…

Question 1

“How can I get my LED light bar and spotlights to come on when I use my main beam switch but I want to disable them when on the highway?”

Auto Switch Driving Lights

Link to A3 PDF – Auto Switch Driving Lights

The questions were from a number of 4 x 4 Off Road enthusiasts and Overland vehicle people. Simplest way I could come up with was using a couple of diodes (details on the drawing) Three switches… one for LED Light Bar, One for Driving Lights and one that allows you to sync the LED Light Bar and Driving Lights to the operation of the main beam in the vehicle. Flash the main beam and with the Sink Switch ON… all the lights will flash. Note… this may be illegal in some countries, so having the option to turn off the facility when on the roads ‘should’ keep you within the law…. don’t quote me on it!!!

Question 2

“Whats the best layout for connecting a solar controller / inverter / isolation switch to my battery bank?”

Overlander Wiring Diagram - 01

Link to A3 PDF – Overlander Wiring Diagram – 01

The best schematic I could come up with that is flexible for most situations. I’ve put a few notes on the drawing. The various components I’ve drawn generically…. all can be found at your preferred supplier.

Question 3

“What’s the basic layout of the vehicle fridge and leisure battery charing circuit?

Basic 13 Pin Power Loom 1

Link to A3 PDF – Basic 13 Pin Power Loom 1

This I think has come from a few on-line discussions relating to poor performance of the fridge and leisure battery charing in older 4 x 4 vehicles. I was receiving for a while a number of questions related to upgrading older installations. I also receive a number of emails asking how to add the facility of fridge and leisure battery charging to older vehicles and upgrade the 7 pin tow socket or old military lights socket.

You can download the PDF’s and are free to use for personal use. If you post them on other forums I’d appreciate a link back to this page and/or an acknowledgement.

I’d appreciate any feed back in the comments below.

Getting All Charged Up – Part 2…

26 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in Caravan Electrics, Caravan Servicing, Electrical, General, Maintenance, Modifications, Projects, Technical, Uncategorized

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Planning the Install

Remember the Six P’s… “Proper Planning Prevents Piddling Poor Performance”… or something along those lines! Before we start hacking away at the multitude of cables (and my email inbox fills up with help requests) we need to pull out the relevant electrical schematics from the handbook. Our caravan is a ‘dealer special’ based on a 2011 Swift Europa 550 fitted with a Sargent PSU.

We can see from the schematic below that the 13 pin plug enters into the caravan and terminates with two connectors – FB6 and FB7 on fuse unit C44 which in our caravan is located just next to the front draws near the water pump. FB6 is all the road lights and we can ignore this.

Socket Connections

The cables we are interested in are from pins 9,10,11 & 13 which are coloured Orange, Slate Grey, White/Black and White/Red respectively and terminate in connector FB7. We need to now look for these leaving the Fuse Unit and heading off to the PSU.

The most likely candidate will be connector FB2 with four cables going to connector P1 on the PSU. If they are all 2.5mm²  it’s a good clue these are the ones we want. We will need to check these with a multimeter though to be sure. The colours have changed too so we will need to confirm what the new colour is for each circuit.

Socket Connections 2

So that’s the input side of the Wildside potentially sorted out, now we have to find the fridge connections. Looking at the schematic for the Power Circuits we can see that the fridge is connected via four cables. One directly to Neutral and the other three to P7. We can also see from this schematic that the leisure battery is connected to P2 via a 20 Amp fuse. This tells us two things – the wiring is rated for 20 amps and we will have to upgrade the cable size from the Wildside unit to the leisure battery.

Fridge Circuit

For the fridge… We are interested in the two cables that power the heating element and on the drawing they are coloured W/B and R/Y (White/Black and Red/Yellow) and originate from connector P7 on the PSU.

Fridge Circuit 2

We have now identified on the schematics the cables we need to look for and where they run from and to. Next step is to create a new schematic using the information from these two drawings to show how we are going to connect in the Wildside unit.

To The Bat Cave…. err Drawing Board!

If you are handy at using a drawing package such as Sketch-Up or similar (I use “AUTODESK® Graphic” on my MAC) you can have a go at drawing it out, or simply just use a sheet of paper. The important thing here is you DO draw it out.. this is not an option, its a mandatory task!

TIP: If you are drawing this out by hand on a sheet of paper, it might help to photocopy your caravan schematics and cut out the relevant sections… like the fridge and stick them to your drawing to make it easier.

So here’s my efforts….

Wildside Wiring 01

If you remember in part 1 I said we will need to make five connections…. not including the neutral. Well we have the five connections. After looking at the layout I decided not to cut the current leisure battery connections to upgrade, but to install a new Positive and Neutral cable alongside the original cables. This will mean however I will need to drill a new hole in the battery box and install a sealed cable gland.

The three cables that we cut on P1 that are now unconnected should, in theory not be part of any circuit. However to be sure I’m going to terminate both the neutral cables (originally connected to Pin 11 and Pin 13 to the neutral point on the Wildside unit.

The cable that was originally connected to Pin 9 I’ll just crimp on a blind connector and secure out of harms way. I am not sure if this might need to be connected to a +ve supply. There are a couple of things that I’ll need to check, for example, the toilet flush always works when the caravan is connected to the tow vehicle – with or without the engine running ( handy if a quick P(it) stop is required!).

Now… To The Bat Cave!

Well it might be a couple of days as I have just ordered a few bits and pieces I don’t have in stock in the workshop… and I’m still procrastinating whether to do the install as a video to accompany my written ramblings.

Coming up in part 3. I attempt not to destroy our caravan, do a lot of crimping, consume a lot of coffee and I may be swearing a lot on camera!

Getting All Charged Up – Part 1…

25 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by in Boondocking, Caravan Electrics, Caravan Servicing, Electrical, Gadgets, General, Maintenance, Modifications, Off Grid, Product Review, Reviews, Technical, tow vehicle, Uncategorized, VW Amarok

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If you are a regular reader you may remember a couple of posts I wrote about leisure battery charging in caravans and motorhomes (Smart Alternators: how they affect Caravans and Motorhomes…. and NEC Show Roundup – it’s all technical…) and I linked to a few videos that Charles Sterling from Sterling Power has produced covering charging topics and Euro6 engines. At the recent NEC show Sterling Power were featuring a new product that would soon be available that would solve all the issues for caravan owners that were experiancing towing with vehicles that had “smart alternators” which were are standard on Euro5 and Euro6 engines and the issues around regenerative braking on Euro6 engines. Charles promised to send me one of the first pre-production “Wildside” Battery to Battery chargers specifically designed for caravans.

IMG_1127A couple of days ago I was excited to receive   a package from Sterling Power containing one of the pre-production new “Wildside” units. The unit itself is robustly constructed and weighs in at about the same as a bag of sugar – 1Kg.

It comes with a comprehensive 11 page instruction/installation manual that goes through all the steps that you need to install the units and what all the various lights and connections are on the unit itself. For anyone that is familiar with my electrical drawings, Sterling have based their installation drawings on my format so are easy to understand (in my opinion!).

I’ll state now for the record, Sterling Power have sent me this free of charge to install and evaluate and that is what I’m going to do, but I will be honest and tell you if I think there are any issues with the installation or the unit in the way that it operates.

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Looking at the connections for the unit it all looks straight forward. The circuit board is labelled  exactly as the drawings in the installation manual which is reassuring and the manual goes into the various functions of each connection and the programming of the unit.

Why this unit?

Since we had changed from using our 2006 Land Rover Freelander HSE as our primary tow vehicle to our 2016 VW Amarok Atacama I had noticed that our leisure battery was not getting close to a full charge even after towing for a couple of hours. We don’t have a solar charging system installed and relied on the tow vehicle and EHU when on site to keep our leisure battery topped up. I knew about the limitations of smart alternators and have written about them before and answered lots of emails about problems readers were now experiancing. Up to this point I really didn’t have an answer to most of the problems and I was considering going down the same route as our Australian cousins and installing some hefty cables between the tow vehicle and caravan, connected together with Anderson connectors. Works fine down under and would do here, especially coupled with one of Sterling Power’s B2B units which I had been looking at.

Now this would be ideal for us, but anyone who tows using a company car, a lease vehicle or a vehicle on a LP scheme can’t just go ahead and install stuff willy nilly. Unless it is done right, it has the potential to be a bit of a ticking bomb as well and  if I was going to recommend it as a solution there are very few people with experience to do an installation of this type. I have seen some right botch jobs on heavy-duty cabling by so-called “professionals” when installing simple winches and dual battery systems on 4 x 4 off road vehicles. Using a lump hammer, cold chisel and block of metal is NOT the professional way to crimp battery cables!

I was looking round to see if there were other options and talking to the chaps on the Sterling Power stand at the show told me they had a product in development that might just be the solution…. and here we are!

How does it work?

I’m not going to give you chapter and verse on the internals (some of that would be guessing on my part and some is propriety information anyway) so I’ll simplify it as much as I can.

In current tow vehicles you have two connections that supply power to the caravan – one for the fridge which is only live when the engine runs and one for charging the leisure battery which is usually live all the time.  Now the problem is that as it’s quite a distance from the front of the vehicle where the battery and alternator are to where  the leisure battery and fridge are located in the caravan. The size of the cables providing the connections are key to how efficient it all works.

Nearly all good quality tow bar wiring uses 2.5 mm square (2.5mm²) cable for these circuits and they connect between the tow vehicle and caravan through a 13 pin plug and socket (or 12N & 12S in older vehicles). The problem with all this is down to good electrical ‘laws’. In essence the more current you draw through a length of cable the greater the voltage drop ( I go into a bit of techie detail about it here… Understanding Cable and Cable Sizes ) Some people go to the lengths of re-wiring the circuits in 4mm² or even 6mm² cable, which was OK up to a point… usually the point which is the connection between the vehicle and caravan. With the traditional installation what you end up with is two circuits that the voltage is usually too low to provide a good charging capability for the leisure battery and the fridge circuit that might or might not, depending on voltage drop, have some spare capacity but you can’t use it to charge the leisure battery.

Back to the Wildside unit…

What the Wildside unit does and this is really clever, is it takes over the two power circuits, aggregates them and manages the output. It draws the maximum current available through each of the two circuits and provides an output for the fridge always at the correct voltage to maximise the efficiency of your fridge and protect it from the voltage fluctuations inherent with Euro6 and Regen engines and any spare capacity on this circuit it added to the leisure battery charging circuit, steps up the voltage and provides a separate output via a four stage intelligent battery charger to maximise the charging capability to your leisure battery.

This is a very very simple one paragraph explanation, it does have a few other tricks up its sleeve though.

One feature is the “Remote Mode Select” switch option. This allows you to install a switch that will allow you to turn the unit to “Wildside”, “Boondocking” or “Off Grid” mode and run the fridge as though it was being powered from the vehicle. It is actually being powered from the leisure battery.

Take note though… Most caravans and motorhomes are fitted with absorption fridges which use a heated element that is constantly on to make the fridge work. However some motorhomes ( I don’t know of any caravans) are fitted with the more expensive and vastly more efficient compressor fridges which work exactly like your fridge at home but can’t run on gas. If you are camping off grid for a few days with an absorption fridge, then run it on gas. However if you are worried about your fridge not maintaining temperature on an hours ferry crossing or on a euro tunnel crossing then you can use the switch to keep the fridge running. The period you can power it will depend on the capacity of your battery(s)… I would not advise using it with and absorption fridge on a battery bank with anything less than 110Ah capacity.

If you do use this feature on the Wildside unit, it will protect your battery bank from discharging past the safe point by turning off the fridge when the voltage reduces and reaches a critical point that would damage your battries.

You also have the ability to specifically select the type of leisure battries you have installed – GEL I, GEL II, AGM I, AGM II, Sealed, Open, Calcium, LiFePO4 to get the correct tailored charging and maintenance program for your battery bank.

If you are fortunate to have lithium leisure batteries there are a couple of other connections you will need to check out too.

Installation Considerations…

We know what it does so how do we connect it. Well this is where it could get messy unless we have a plan.

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In essence, what do we need to do? Well we have to cut and divert the incoming pin 9 and pin 10 into the Wildside unit and connect one output to the leisure battery. We also need to disconnect the fridge from the caravan’s original control box and reconnect it to the Wildside unit. As the habitation relay is usually buried inside the original control box we need to be able to control this from the Wildside unit. There is a terminal for this (“CVan Dis Output”) but what do we connect to this to make the habitation relay operate correctly?

The original Pin 10 lead that we cut and diverted into the Wildside unit, the other end of this still goes into the installed control box and this will operate the habitation relay. Remember we disconnected the fridge power lead from the installed control box and reconnected it directly to the FRG+ output on the Wildside unit so all it does now is operate the habitation relay.

So summing up, we have to cut 3 cables and re-terminate 5 ends into the Wildside unit. This of course does not include the neutral connections which will be easy and straight forward.

Other Considerations…

The installation of the Wildside unit must be easily reversible so it can be moved to another caravan at some point in the future.

We must also use the correct size cables to connect to the leisure battery as we will now be charging at higher currents than was possible before, the original cable that was installed in the caravan to connect to the leisure battery may not be of a sufficient rating.

We must document the changes properly so that at some point in the future someone can follow what we have done incase they have to fault find.

We must make sure all the connections and general installation are done to a high standard to ensure the installation is safe.

Finally we must be able to do the install without invalidating any warranty on the original installed control unit (i.e. not opening it up) and retain functionality of all the elements of the caravans electrical system. It’s no use installing the Wildside unit if half the electrical features of you caravan don’t work afterwards!

IMG_1130In Part 2…

In the next part I’ll go through the manufacturers electrical schematics of the caravan and show how to find and trace  which cables we are going to look for when we do the install and how we produce a simple drawing showing the changes.

I’ll also come up with a quick check list for all the additional bits (cable, terminals etc) that we will need for the install.

All wrapped up…

29 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by in General, Maintenance, Modifications, Projects, Technical, Tips

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One thing we had noticed using the caravan all year round was the front wall between the caravan interior and gas locker and the window shelf above it always seemed noticeably cooler than the rest of the walls of the caravan. The cupboard under the front draws also was a lot cooler even though it had a blown heating pipe running through it. I’m not sure if it’s just a perceived thing that we think its cooler or if it’s down to the fact that the insulation in the front dividing wall my be a little thinner.

In an effort to try to cure this, I had been on the look out for some sticky backed foam insulation. Searching round the web gave a few results, but it was mainly for sound insulation rather than thermal insulation. However I did eventually discover Foam Solutions UK in Nantwich, Cheshire that offered a whole range of foam for various uses. When I started looking I wanted something that was anti-static and fire-retardant as it was being installed in the gas locker. Foam Solutions UK had just the product, a fire-retardant foam sheet that was designed for use under engine bonnets. I emailed Carole at Foam Solutions UK and she kindly sent out some samples, including a piece of the under bonnet material. A quick measure up and I ordered enough for the front gas locker and to cover the wheel arches inside the wardrobe and under the fixed bed.

First task was to empty the gas locker and give it a bit of a dust out…..

SPB_5D_097647I thought I’d work from both sides into the middle where most cutting would be required. I’d have to make sure non of the gas pipes would be covered so that they could be inspected when it came to the annual service. I also had to make sure that the safety labels and notices were visible, so a bit of careful peeling would be required.

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Measuring the first section, the foam was cut with a straight edge and a scalpel in an Exacto knife. I’d taken a couple of large pieces of cardboard to cut on to make it easier.

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It didn’t take long to get the first few straight cut pieces installed. One thing though, the sticky back is really sticky and it took a bit of manoeuvring to get the pieces into the locker without sticking them to anything they touched.

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I made sure that I left enough gap to inspect the gas pipe or to get to any screw heads that might require checking for tightness in the future. Peeling the labels off in one piece was a bit of a chore… I will probably try to get new ones at some point in the future.

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The completed locker….

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… and the underside of the window shelf….

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After a bit of a sort out and removing some stuff we haven’t used for a while (saving a couple of kilo’s in weight!), everything was replaced back in to the locker.

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The next job will be to do the wheel arches inside the caravan.

Lucky or what!

When I was feeding in the second piece on the right hand side I had to take it out to curve it to get it in position. When I removed it I spotted something stuck to the bottom edge ( I did say it was really sticky!)….. it was my Wedding ring! I thought I’d lost it somewhere between our last stop in France – Camping Risle Seine and reaching home back in October 2012. It could have so easily dropped through one of the various vents in the floor in the couple of thousand miles of towing since then, but there it was, stuck to my piece of insulation.

So another little job crossed off the list. I’m not sure how effective it will be, only time and a bit of cold weather will tell. It might very well be a placebo thing…. but as the supermarket slogan say’s “Every Little Helps”.

Contact Info: Foam Solutions UK, Haymoor Hall, Wybunbury Lane, Nantwich. CW5 7HD or  http://www.foamsolutionsuk.co.uk or telephone 01270 842 228 or email Carole: carole_395@fsmail.net

Don’t forget you can follow Caravan Chronicles on Twitter and Facebook… the link do-hickey things are on the left hand side.

How big is yours?….

25 Saturday May 2013

Posted by in General, Maintenance, Projects

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OK so you are driving along following your sat nav and you come up on a road restriction. Right, hands up those that can tell me the height, width and length of your towing vehicle and caravan? No hesitating now!

Hands down. I’ll bet not many of you could. Not wanting to appear on YouTube as the next “fail” trying to extract my caravan from a low bridge or narrow road, a while ago I made a small ‘aide memoire‘ to stick on the back of my sun visor.

In the Caravan Chronicles office we have a Brother QL560 label printer that just happens to come with a bit nifty label creating software and it only took five minutes to produce a label that Leonardo would be proud off….

Creating the caravan size label

Creating the caravan size label

I included all the relevant sizes for the tow vehicle and caravan and the total length of the combined outfit. It is thermally printed on a self adhesive label and securely attached to the rear of my sun visor. Here’s a close up:-

Caravan Screen Size Label Close Up 01

So it’s easy to check on both the tow vehicle (it’s amazing how many car parks have a barrier that I can only just squeeze under!) and on the caravan. It also gives me the total length of the outfit when coupled.

So if you have nothing to do this weekend because you’re not away in the ‘van, get the handbooks out for the tow vehicle and caravan and make yourself a label.

In the next version I make I might include the tyre pressures and axle weights too. Although then it can become a bit cluttered… maybe another label for the passenger side…. Hmm.

Safe towing this Bank Holiday weekend everyone.

S

Let there be light… part two

01 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by in General, Maintenance, Modifications, Projects

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A bit of a dark corner

A bit of a dark corner

Illuminated with success installing the additional light above the cooker (see Let there be light…. or at least a bit more light!) there was another area that needed some light shed upon it. The corner adjacent to the main door of the caravan, where the drop down TV resides is, as we in the north of England call it “a bit dimpsey” ( a bit dark) This is evident when you have to get a torch out at night to see to adjust the controls for the water heater and blown air heating system. It would also be handy to be able to switch on a bit of light when entering the caravan in pitch blackness. I suspect that caravan designers don’t work at night therefore only ever see the requirement for illumination when ‘accent lights’ are needed to show off their latest feature. However, handily they had installed a light switch for the awning right next to the door so upgrading this to a twin switch would allow us to switch on the new light from outside and at least partially light the doorway while we got inside and turned on the other lighting.Caravan_Chronicles_100_3250 A bit of swift keyboard action soon had a twin switch ordered from Leisure Shop Direct soon had a replacement CBE twin switch on its way to us.

I sourced a suitable 12 volt 10 watt light from B & Q…. it’s intend to be a cabinet light run off a small transformer. The first step was to remove the existing switch from the fitting. CBE fittings are great in the fact they are so adaptable and easy to work on. A small flat blade screwdriver to pop off the front trim and remove two screws soon had the switch free to work on.

Cabinet light from B & Q

Cabinet light from B & Q

The next step was to install the light. This involved drilling a small hole for the cable to pass through into the space above the light where the cable could then be routed behind the 12 volt TV socket and Mains socket in the cupboard above. I needed to remove the existing 12 volt socket and aerial connections to get access to the duct that runs down to the cabinet that houses the heater. There are already a number of cables running down this route, so I guessed that there would be an easy way through. A large nut tied to a length of fine cord and lowered down easily found its way through and I could pull it through the switch opening. Tying the other end of the cord on to the wire from the light allowed me to pull the end of the cable through the switch opening.

The new twin switch with the awning cables and the new light cables installed

The new twin switch with the awning cables and the new light cables installed

It was a simple matter now to remove the old single switch from the mounting plate and pop in the new twin switch. I transferred the awning light wires over to the new switch. Next I crimped two spade terminals on to the wire and pushed these on the the connectors on the back of the second switch. I slid some heat shrink tube over the terminals of the new light to finish off with (not shown in photo).

Next, I now needed to pick up a 12 volt supply. As I’d just pulled the cable straight through from the light to the switch, I could break into the cable anywhere to supply power. The best place would be in the top cupboard and take a feed off the 12 volt TV socket. I used a couple of ‘piggy back’ spade connectors to make the connection and included an automotive ‘in line’ blade fuse holder with a 2 amp fuse on the positive lead. As the light was only 10 watts, the current would only be 0.8 to 0.9 amps, so a 2 amp fuse would be fine. The cable that came with the light fitting was rated at 5 amp so I don’t anticipate any safety issues. The only downside is it’s a bit of a fiddle to get to the fuse holder as you have to remove the 12 volt socket. Last job was to check everything with a multimeter before turning on the power.

Before....

Before….

After....

After….

To complete everything only took around 45 minutes and the whole project cost under £15. So now when we come back to the caravan in the dark, we can easily turn on the awning light and an interior light before entering the caravan…. and when in the middle of the night I am prompted by an elbow in the ribs to increase or decrease the heating I can simply turn on the light without dazzling.

When I first thought of this little project, I did start looking at LED fittings to save power for when we are just running on battery. As the light is only for occasional use, the power issue is not critical. The cost of a similar LED fitting would have been around £20 to £25 (at the time of writing) however, as this fitting uses a standard “G” type bulb. I can buy a replacement LED bulb for around £6, so in the near future, it will be a simple task to replace the bulb with a LED unit and it will still be less than a similar LED fitting. My friend Peter ( “Bailey Oklahoma” for those that follow the caravanning forums) has good contacts for LED replacement ‘bulbs’ for use in caravans.

Cheers

S

The Glazing Caper…

10 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in General, Maintenance, Modifications, Projects

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One of the things we both liked about our Sterling Celebration 550 was the drop down TV storage compartment. It ment we could just simply drop the TV down when we needed it and push it up out of the way when we didn’t. It could be safely transported in its stowed position, so no need for  a bag to put it in or a place to store it when travelling. Best of both worlds, or so it would seem.

We did notice a drawback, to improve the sound quality, Avtex had installed bi-directional speakers, that is they face forward but to improve the sound, they also have a grill at the rear and use whatever surface is behind the TV to reflect some of the sound. Now this is absolutely fantastic if your TV is mounted against a wall. Ours was mounted in front of a hole. The other thing that was also slightly annoying was the fact that if you had the blind down during the night, it tended to get rattled a lot as the quilt would get caught in it so it was always pulled up at night. This then required who ever was up first, if they wanted to open the front blinds and not disturb the person sleeping had first to drop the blind with the same silent skill as a Ninja.   Continue reading →

Our first project finished..

03 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in General, Projects

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Sue and I went down to the storage place this morning to do a little work on the caravan. We had wanted to install an electrically heated towel rail in the caravan since we were at Chirk last December, as the towels didn’t dry too well just hung over the washroom door. Plus it looked a little unsightly.  I had ordered one via the internet and it had arrived a couple of days earlier. I’d got all the fittings ready in the work shop, so it was just a matter of getting down there and doing it. I took a camera with us and I’ve written it up as a project… so if you want to know more, it’s all here on the Installing an electric towel rail page.

On each trip, we find out a better or improved way of doing something, and the last trip out we decided that the cleaning stuff being in one of the top lockers was a waste of good space. Continue reading →