aVANger Build

[bdosborn]

My wife finished the shower curtain for our doggy pool shower. I took a quick shower in it this morning and it works, I used about 1.5 gallons of water. I think the dog pool might have a small leak in it so I'll have to sort that out. I was worried that the shower curtain would leak but it seems to be watertight. I still need to put together a drain line so for right now I'll just drag the dog pool out and pour the water into our grey tank.





The shower curtain tends to stick to you; I don't think I'd want to use it on a cold day.

Bruce

[Bezoar]

I like the shower setup! Must pack away quite small and weighs very little!

[bdosborn]

Yup, so far it has worked out great.
Bruce

[bdosborn]

I finally got the microwave installed. By some miracle it fit nicely in an upper cabinet; I just took the door off and built a mount for it. I'd like to say I planned it that way but I just got lucky:




I tested it out with microwave popcorn and the results were acceptable. Here's what the microwave draws when its running:


Bruce

[featherliteCT1]

Looks great!

Your Cerbo GX shows 1038 watts being drawn by the micro wave.

1. Does the microwave surge and draw more watts at start up?

2. What is the watt draw indicated on the sticker on the microwave?

My “900” watt microwave draws about 1400 actual watts, with no surge.

My “400” watt microwave draws about 875 watts, with no surge.

[bdosborn]

1. Does the microwave surge and draw more watts at start up?

2. What is the watt draw indicated on the sticker on the microwave?

1. Not that I've noticed but the Cerbo probably isn't fast enough to catch a surge. I have a 2kW inverter.

2. The owners manual indicates 950W draw and 600W delivered. I didn't know they were so inefficient but what are you going to do?

Honestly though, the hit on the battery isn't bad at all and we probably aren't going to be running it very long. I had some leftover pizza from a restaurant on our Telluride trip and that's what got me off my butt to put the microwave in. They're perfect for that kind of stuff.

Bruce

[featherliteCT1]

Thanks for the info. When boondocking, I regularly use my little 400 watt microwave to heat morning coffee for about 2 minutes. Very convenient.

[bdosborn]

I've been holding off on finishing the space behind the drivers seat till we know how we really want to use it. Every time we camp we'll think of a new way to organize things. We needed a space for our shoes at night; we have a shoe organizer on the back door but that doesn't help for the shoes we're wearing when we go to bed. Enter the Thule Rooftop Tent Organizer. It's perfect for getting our shoes off the floor so we don't trip on them and it hangs into the recess of the wall nicely. Empty it and you can roll up during the day although I doubt we'll do that.



I bet this would hang nicely below a teardrop at night and it's water resistant....
Bruce

[bdosborn]

I added an outlet in the kitchen cabinet so we can easily plug in the induction stove while its sitting on the exterior table. These last few additions are in response to a to-do list generated after we've taken a trip in the van. This is why I urge people to camp in their rigs while they are building, its hard to anticipate the fine details but it all becomes clear after you've used it a few times:




Just search for flanged outlet (*not* inlet) if you're looking for this type of a plug. This is inside the van so it won't be exposed to the outside, maybe some splashes of rain if the sliding door is opened. I wouldn't mount this in a location that is exposed to the weather.

Here's a sneak peak of our 12V HTPC that lives inside the cabinet over the foot of the bed. No rust drives here; 10Tb of SSD storage. More to come when I figure out how to take decent photos of everything


Bruce

[bdosborn]

We tried out the Sunbeam mattress heater that Santa brought and it worked great. We had to turn the heat setting down to 2 out of 12 as anything higher was too hot. Ours has the heating elements across the entire length of the pad, from head to toe. We ended up using about the same amount of power as we would running the roof vent fan all night, about 400 w-hrs. It's a 120V load so you have to run it off the inverter and I was surprised how manageable the energy use was. It was a very windy night with temperatures in the teens. I turned the diesel heater down to around 50F and we were very comfortable. I don't have a very big diesel tank so the mattress heater will definitely help extend the heater run time. It's now a permanent addition to the van.


Bruce

[bdosborn]

I got a T-mobile 5G Home Internet Gateway last month and I've been pretty impressed with the performance in the van. I get anywhere from 200-300 mbs in urban areas down to 10 mbs at Quartzite last month. It was unlimited data @ $45/month when I got it but the price just went up $10 or so. I use it as for load sharing with our cable internet service at home. I was going to use Starlink on the van as we we're happy with the residential service at our cabin but so far T-Mobile will work for us at 1/3 the cost. The gateway runs on USB C so I plug it in to a 12V laptop charger and set it on the counter by the slider window when we stop for the night. I'd shut off our cable internet but T-mobile uses CGNAT that makes remote access tough for some of the services I run at home.



Bruce

P.S. I think the honeymoon is over, speeds have dropped quite a bit down to 80-90 mbs during the work week T-Mobile puts the internet gateway on the bottom of the service priority list, with cell phones being the first in line. It's still a good option for traveling but not a replacement for our cable service at home

[ElwoodWander]

Your build experience is answering a ton of my questions! Thanks a lot.

I have the HR Transit, 148WB, standard-length box and I'm trying to fit a 600W array and a MaxxFan on top.

Do you think your solution would work as well reversed fore/aft -- with the 100W panels and fan up front?

Thanks,

Elwood

[bdosborn]

It would fit without any issues but some guys on the Transit Forum have had issues with turbulence causing the vent lid to rattle when it's in the front. You might have to put a fairing on the roof rack to settle it down. That's on my list of to dos - I want to add a fairing.

DIYvan has a roof adapter that goes across the ridges in the roof to give the fan a flat mounting surface. Its expensive for what it is but it makes it easy to do a waterproof installation. I used one and would fork out the money again if I did it over.
https://diyvan.com/collections/roof-vent-adapters/products/ford-transit-high-mid-roof-vent-adapter
Bruce

[ElwoodWander]

[quote="bdosborn"]I used unistrut for the rack, and I probably won't use it again. Not that it didn't work well, the components that you need to put it together are expensive and it took forever to get from Amazon.


Would you recommend another rack supplier?

[bdosborn]

So it all comes down to how much you want to spend. Commercial van racks are expensive; I see a lot of the Flatline van company racks on Transits and they're $1,700 plus shipping. Now that I know what hardware to get I'd use unistrut again as I still saved a ton of dough with that approach. You definitely want to go very strong with any rack you use. We were in a wind storm on a trip and the van ceiling was shaking a scary amount while we were driving. That's why I want the fairing...

Bruce