Our first real trip with the trailer was in July. We drove from Los Angeles, to Seattle then to Neah Bay Washington for Toorcamp. Then driving home via the 101 and making a stop off at cape disappointment.
Link to press coverage of the event Toorcamp is pretty much a mini burningman for hackers, geeks and engineers. They offer classes in basic to very technical electronics and give talks that range from computer security to low level arial photography. We had a great time at the event and learned a lot from the event and from the trailer. It made me come up with a huge laundry list of items that I want to upgrade/change/fix.
Near Cape Flattery Washington. Canada is off in the distance
One of the first fixes that i made when i got home was adding some power to the headboard so we could easily charge our phones and power some random electronics and was easily accesilble from both inside and outside of the trailer. Before the only power ports were in the cabinets at the end of the bed. I added a 110v outlet and connected it to the inverter. I also put in 2 cheap 12v accessory plugs that i got off amazon for cheap. They quickly showed me how cheap they were and I pulled them out and replaced them with marine style plugs from Blue sea systems. One is a 12v accessory plug and the other is a 2 usb outlet. They work much better.
When i went to wire this up it was clear the wiring need to be cleaned up an redone and needed a fuse block. I also added the blue sea systems fuse panel and labeled all the wires with label tape and sealed it with clear heat shrink. I also started drawing out the schematics of all the electrical so i have a reference in the future. Below is the finished product for behind the headboard. This also shows the crappy 12v plugs that i have since removed. I dont have a before pic.
My next step was to cleanup the main existing fuse panel and figure out where the wiring went. The fuse panel is located in one of the upper cabinets at the foot of the bed. Its also where the inverter currently is. I am planning on upgrading and relocating the inverter in the future but its fine where its at now. Before
After
Continuing with the electrical cleanup. The existing battery is located in the tongue box. Most items werent fused or werent fused close enough to the battery so I went about quickly cleaning that up before i upgrade the battery situation. I added another blue sea fuse panel and also installed the solar control panel so i could trickle charge the battery when I store the trailer.
Before
After
One thing i quickly learned from the Washington trip is that a single battery is not going to cut it for me. I require the inverter to be on all night in order to power my Cpap machine while i sleep. With just basic 12v use during the day and the inverter on all night i was only getting about a night and half worth of power. I decided to upgrade to 2 6v deep cycle golf cart batteries. I also installed an onboard battery charger that I had from another vehicle that I can use to slowly charge the batteries when i have shore power. At that time i cleaned up the wiring better and drilled some holes in the back of the box make sure the batteries were properly vented. The 6v batteries have worked great and give me about 3-4 solid nights off a single charge. I think I will eventually add 2 more to compensate for the onboard air and fridge that are currently getting installed. Id like to be setup so we can go on a 3 day weekend and not need to fire up the generator to re-charge the batteries.
