A wanna be wilde life image maker's bus

Guys I needed some holesaws so got some from bosch which sort of leads me, ash tray.:D

Soooo,
there needs to be a knob diversion very soon..basically who doesn't want to drive a manual gearbox with their own custom gear knob...but if one doesn't have a lathe then can one go there with some holesaws some preddy wood bits ............glue................... and clamps ........................ya know, proper bargain basement stuff a method to make something unique for a driver.

I'll try and walk you through that next


Following that leccy off grid leccy........... both .. for another day, have nowt left in tank

take care

stu
 
For someone wanting to know about leccy.read " wiring unlimited "a PDF by victron energy.it's a fascinating document.

Back to the gear knob exploits..............I saw these custom gearshift knobs and wondered if there was a way I could or we could make that for ourselves. without a lathe

.Lot's of us drive and that little bit we change gear with is one of the fundamental contact points ....it's nice when it fits your hand

here's what I did.took some small offcuts partially from my own works IE BB ply and oak partially from that bonfire I think it's wenge and also walnut and glued and clamped them together,ironically with massive clamps exerting a lot of force

_S2I0834 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

this gave me these "blocks" to work up

_S2I0836 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

The trusty holesaws came in here giving me this

_S2I0840 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

and this

_S2I0843 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

which basically led me here

_S2I0846 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

which didn't quite work stuff came off the base and some ali was added.for the crac..........I also bound in what I think is quilted oak, to form a little cap to cover the bolt that binds into the gear stick

so we ended up here......hmmm and it's finish well that would you believe is superglue............look I lark about have fun..one life liive it an all that but usiing this stuff to finish you are VERY serious your eyes hands everything is protected properly properly so .no stone unturned.



_S2I0868 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

_S2I0867 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr


_S2I0866 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

This distraction filled a gap,,,,it was raining alot and I couldn't crack on........................ so sommit tiny got made, so I could tell myself I kept pushing.

what I was trying to make was some breadbins
 
It seems sort of traditional to stuff electrics under seat bases in a Transporter I guess space is so so tight one tries to use each and every square mm. Under neath my driver's seat is a 230AH Li Fe PO4 battery the leisure battery, LB,. We chose this batt chem because of the way it can suck amps back in primarily. Sure it can also drop amps at an astounding rate, our LB can run 200A continuous, even greater for short periods. It's a beast of a thing but also being so powerful needs great care and respect when fitting.

Lithium batts are also much lighter than lead acid batts, but it's that ability to rechange fast that drew us to using it in the camper. Our particular bus is heated by diesel which again is our indoor cooking source we have a bigger than normal fridge but it's very efficient,so our power usage isn't really high. I just wanted redundancy in the leccy design. I've read so many campervaners asking why their fridge won't start, it's untrue. Also why their heater won't start it's primarily to do with voltage drop it seems So our 230AH LB is slightly on the overkill side..........That said

It's a bus to go make piccies in,I wanted to have the use of an inverter. Guys when I started this I had no idea just wot an inverter is...so as we go through all this I'm gonna try and explain in a very base way just what these leccy gizmos do. Hope it ain't partonizing not me intention at all

Our base campervan leisure leccy system is 12V so it integrates with the van's existing leccy . But all our "in house", our domestic appliances run off 230V in the UK. So basically an inverter steps the 12V from the LB up to 230V.......................which means I can plug in my camera battery charger etc etc into the bus off grid into 3 pin house hold sockets.just like in the house.

Obviously inverters can come in all manner of different shapes sizes power ratings etc even different types/ Basically the inverter's power rating will govern what size what wattage of the appliance we can use. Also the size of the inverter will be linked to the size and power of the LB powering it,

We use a pure sine wave inverter, it basically gives a high quality power supply that won't upset finiky leccy gizmos. It's made by a company called victron energy. So that lives under the passenger seat.........you have no idea how tight all this was to fit there is alot more to shoehorn it yet,

So we have a very powerful lithium iron phosphate LB 230AH and a 12 1200 VE direct pheonix inverter which take the 12V up to 230, so now we can use our household gizmos in the bus absolutely anywhere no need to be plugged in.

and that's where I'll stop for now because I want to side track and try and get out a simple way of thinking about leccy..something one can't see but has leathal potential. This sort of concept really folds well into van elelctrics and 12V

laters
 
What cameras are you using? Can you charge from 12v? You will likely be converting the 12v DC from the battery to 240v AC from the inverter, then back down to a low-voltage DC for the charger. This is not particularly efficient. My Fujis charge from USB at 5v DC so it is easier to go from 12v to 5v.
 
You are right Lew it's not terribly efficient.oh I use a canon 1DX mark ii by the way. First up I have a massive batttery which I can very fast.....i'll come into that later so slight ineffiencies i'm not really worried on. 2nd there are some horror stories out there with after market chargers.and canon to the best of my knowledge don't have a lower voltage option than the mains charger the DXii ships with.they did on some of the older models mate but not the DX ii. I also have solar. .

Lewis I work in newbuild houses, I charge all my power tools in the bus phones i pad fingy head torches...........I bring home wood from work and that heats my house and our hot water,so far I haven't knocked the LB below 90%.which frankly I've found bewildering. It's that redundancy I spoke of earlier. Sure me camper has not yet been used in anger and sure my leccy system therein was not cheep..that said since I finally fired it up it's been saviing me money and I don't really worry on using the inverter in what as you say is not the most efficient way because hour by hour little things like camera battery chrgers powertools etc simply are getting replenished by the sun even in winter. And of course I have that piece of miind thing with using the manufacturers own chargers.I do have a B2B as well Lew but I'll hopefully get into that later.

I've made the old choice that isn't potentially the most efficient route Lew as above more to follow later on but so far at least the sheer size and grunt of the roamer battery has meant I worry on little.

but yeah, you are right :)
 
Leccy a simple man's way of looking at it. Think of the flow of electrons like water flowing down a pipe. We can visualize water, but we can't see said electron flow. On my particular build I have solar which charges the battery......a gizmo called an orion TR smart........a B2B a battery to battery charger and also a battery charger that runs off mains.....off the EHU electric hook up . So potentially 2 of those 3 could be charging the battery at the same time. Put that another way actually all 3 could be in use,but it's unlikely.

So then folks wonder if those 3 different gizmos will interfere with each other.well basically no.

Lets go back to my simple water 'n' pipes analogy.lets think of our battery as a bucket, which we are filling/charging with 2 or 3 sources.pipes. We stick 3 pipes in a bucket the bucket fills faster same with our battery being charged with differing sources...solar B2B (runs off van alternator) and mains . The pipes don't mess with each other ,just the bucket fills faster.same with leccy/battery.

With 12 volt circuits our cables are much thicker than with 230V. to carry the same wattage. This is because the cable has to carry many more amps W= VXA watts equals volts multiplied by amps......................
so because the voltage is so so much lower are amps get ramped up.

Going back to water and pipes......if we have a tiny pipe and try to bang alot of water through it the water get pressurized pipe is put under duress it might burst.

Similar with 12 volt cable runs.....only the pipe/cable doesn't burst it's liable to over heat.

So we use a voltage drop calculator like this

Voltage Drop Calculator | 12 Volt Planet

Use our Voltage Drop Calculator to select the correct Cable for your campervan, motorhome or boat wiring application. Auto and Marine Electrical Components from 12 Volt Planet - Cable Size Calculator
www.12voltplanet.co.uk

to make sure we are using cables suitable for purpose over the length of cable run we need.

guys as above not a sparky, what I'm trying to do is give a base mindset and linkies to reading that will give the next guy a hand with his or her endevors.

See cable is expensive so converters try to skimp fire is the worst case senario, but just voltage drop alone can be enough to stop things like fridges from working.

It's worth while me running through this stuff on a very basic level.

With a van leccy system we are dealing with a moving senario, so we have to use fine stranded copper cores in our cables,not single strands like in a house.this is because copper can "work harden" in other word become brittle with vibration.multistrand cables cope better with the vibration caused when driving.

All our connection points are a weakness......so we tend to crimp with large forces ( a cold weld) and then add a layer of heatshrink to strengthem the join. We can also bind looms in fire resistant cloth tape, which also damps noise. Supporting joints with cable glands, say in a consumer unit is also really important.

I guess what I'm trying to get out is it's just worth going the extra mile with camper leccy and after a couple or 3 years of reading I worry on the corners that inevitably get cut.
 
We have a 160W solar panel which I mounted to our pop top............this goes via a dual pole breaker to something called a solar charge controller mounted to an ali ( aluminuim) heat sink in the drivers seat base,part of how the LB gets charged ...I've used existing holes in the base and rivitnuts both in an effort to not compromise base structural integrety and also provide a rock solid mount point

_S2I2313 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

In the passenger seat is the already mentioned B2B...........a sophisticated multistage battery to battery charger. Basically this gizmo is using the power from the alternator to ram up to 30A when the engine is running into the LB

You can see it here behind our 12 1200 inverter.....my apologies whist grafting this out I tend to be focused on doing not making piccies.not enough braiin space basically, so pics are lacking
but ya get the gist

_S2I2309 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

again i'm using an ali heat sink and rivit nuts to mount, which is clearer in the next pic. One of the concerns of the orion Tr smart is the heat it gets up to. when running flat out..so in the next piccy you can see me workaround...........I've added a bigish fan to the rear.

_S2I2481 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

I've run said fan off the LB.unorthadox....and have a manual cut off wired in just in case. The fan is actually controlled though by a heat sensing relay which is programable
like this


The B2B can actually sense when the engine is running but if it started working when not it would kill the starter battery in no time, so again I took a slightly unorthadox approach and fitted a manual kill on our dashboard.

Long and the short of it is i flick a couple of switches and the B2B does it's thing if it starts to get hot the fan kicks in and keeps temps in check,which as an aside also means it runs with greater efficiency ...it all works I've just added kill points for peace of mind.

LMAF you have no idea, hmm maybe you do from pics just how tight all this was and how much brain ache went into figuring just how to cram all this into the seat bases, we haven't covered pos and neg bus bars yet it's all incredibly tight.
While making all this I also didn't actually have a battery I actually made a fake up out of wood so I had the physical size to graft from

ta muchly for baring with me.I hope this leccy stuff makes sense.......my only reason for a campervan was a bit of luxary the old bones find a tent hard now,so much rested on the leccy working out
 
All sharp edges on the seat bases were covered in this U channel, it's not only doubling up as a second safety net for cables wear but also protects hands whilst working in fiddly spaces or mauling heavy batt in and out

_S2I2296 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

oh here's me mock up batt side be side with the real thing

_S2I2470 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr


Basically straight of the main positive terminal we have a master (mega) fuse which then goes to a main isolator switch. The isolator simply means I can kill all power to the whole system. From there that main +ve cable runs into a pos bus bar..a bus bar is a distribution point for power.much better than having lots of leads connected to the pos batt terminal.

In my case space at such a premium I used a combined busbar and fuse box like this

_S2I2310 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr


So the pos batt terminal gets linked and split to the 12V DC fuse box for lights water pump etc etc to the inverter to the B2B the MPPT bla de bla and each cable run is also protected by it's own deadicated and sized fuse it's a really nifty little space saver

On the 0V side.the negative side we also have a bus bar which is situated under the pasenger seat it looks like this

_S2I2458 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr


If you look carefully above to the right of the busbar is what's called a shunt.........the negative terminal of the LB is connected directly to this shunt gizmo and then to the bus. The shunt measures all the power going through the battery so absolutley nothiing else is connected to that neg batt terminal.....iit's an incredibly soshisticated measuring device,it runs along side a display basically bought under the name of the BMV 712 again victron. it's also blue toth enabled as all the viictron devices are here.so a whole host of parameters are viewed on a smart phone


enough for tonight

take care

stu
 
Stu not been on here much but it looks like you have been busy (y) It will be great to how you and the missis get on in your travels on the photography bus :)(y)
 
FromTarn said:
Stu not been on here much but it looks like you have been busy (y) It will be great to how you and the missis get on in your travels on the photography bus :)(y)
Click to expand...
Very but not with a camera in my hand Martin. sadly maybe that will fold back in time........I blummin hope so I was SO on the verge of the roe rut last summer and walked away to do the above.....

do hope this bus does help create the photo ops I yearn for mate time will tell

ya pays ya money and takes ya chance
 
I made some backs for the seat bases, in part for preddy reasons in part because I needed a place to mount a 12 way DC fuse box and I wanted it easily accessable. Look cramming a;; this leccy under the seats is all well and good but it's not the easiest place to trouble shoot.that said I really shouldn't have to do that much and I'm a master of removing those seats, even if it's a PITA i've done it so so many times. But the DC FB is something I really wanted to see and have access to. .........I also added the kill for the B2B fan at a later date than piccy I'll share and a cig lighter socket........a TV or some form of screen ( want some means to see and cull images biggish) will one day be mounted on the passenger seat head rest. This cig socket is it's power point. Dc FB houses 4 light circuits fuses for usb charge points cig charge points water pump wallas fridge.all those smaller circuits are fused and run from here

So here's dat :

_S2I2253 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

Lewis thank you for the likes.the leccy stuff I kinda hoped would really help someone but I felt it fell flat on it's face and I wasted time I really don't have on going through all that nice someone hit a like........................THANK YOU.

Breadbins.......now a posh converter type chappie might call these aero lockers but I'm me and some way in I locked at what I was grinding out and said to my darling OMG all this work and the look like a couple a bread bins :runaway: :ROFLMAO:

This was HARD TO MAKE

First I needed something to hang 'em off.which was the oak WT I cut in a specific way eons back so it ran in a continuum from front of bus, back of the rear high cupboard. but that had to also fit with the pop top an' the slope of the roof.

this is an early pic showing that long ol' sloping cut

_S2I0768 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

Here's how that sits in bus

_S2I0805 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

_S2I0802 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr
 
I needed to add depth up top to cover all the pop top workings hence this which is basically the hanger in it's fully formed roughest state

_S2I0808 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

which with a rediculous amount of honing eventually was fettled around the stuff

here's a teeny tiny bit of that

_S2I0815 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

_S2I0814 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

The actual lockers again were made of bendy ply obviously cut so the grain runs. so here's that start point

_S2I0811 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

Can I just say here curves are utterly wicked they allow lines of sight look lush but really think if you want to go there


anyways walnut has appeared so here we go edges get wrapped in walnut

_S2I0820 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

places for invisable soss type hinges get let in.......I'd never heard of a SOSS hinge before this malarky

_S2I0821 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

10 bits of BB ply were cut to be identical to cover locker ends and dividers sort of like this

_S2I0927 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr
 
6 of the 10 became ends and dividers one end one mid point divider divider

_S2I0926 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

_S2I0924 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

Oh and in the second image wot stu calls a strip joint

stripj oints ( ahh bless my cotttons I'm so innocent) get filled with matching infill bits made of ply and stuffed with shedloadsa glue......it allowed me to make dissassenble and make but when that glue goes in and get clamps it becomes an otherworldly strong thing. Our worst case senario is a shunt at speed..............folks use self tappers to hold units together in campers.pros do that.I'm no fan

anyways back to it
here's t'other side of strip joint with infill bits.make sense? holes are for screws .belt and braces

_S2I0914 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr
 
Nice work Stu........Could have done with this thread, when I was kitting out my old race transporter.........but then again, this interior alone would have been worth more than my old coach! :eek:
 
Ha ha Glynn i've never thought of it , this interior I've made in that way.....IE monetary value...........it's sort of built for my lady I wanted it to be something she just stopped and smiled at wanted to play with sommit special in her eyes. We are 40 years in Glynn I owe her this had to be the best I could do. It's funny bro I've actually recieved 2 job offers off this madness and yet the only thing in my mind was make it just that ickle bit special. It's in an old bus Glynn not a new shiny VWT worth tens of thousands and wood didn't cost much some of it free as above, hard puttiing a price on time though mate .really hard, I couldn't make money doing this.

but then that wasn't the point ;)

Hmmm I do hope the leccy will help someone though:)
 
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Gav-canon said:
Love the Walnut trim (y)
Click to expand...
Ha me too can't beat free stuff Gav.....oh and as an aside damn it's lovely to work with,so out of my price range mate and pulled from a bonfire.love it.

One mans rubbish, is another man's gold:D
 
Stuart Philpott said:
Ha me too can't beat free stuff Gav.....oh and as an aside damn it's lovely to work with,so out of my price range mate and pulled from a bonfire.love it.

One mans rubbish, is another man's gold:D
Click to expand...
Always good to re-use, to good to burn ;)
 
After a hell of alot of poncing about we get here and the realization that all this was just to make a couple a bread bins

_S2I0854 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

hinges and carriers yeah more walnut getin:LOL:...get fettled

_S2I0922 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

_S2I0923 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

and also a bonkers catch mechanism starts to become made...which you can in part see above

ply hooks let into the oak

_S2I0911 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

4 of these get glued inside the locker doors

_S2I0913 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

each of these gets a type D wood insert nut fingy

_S2I0916 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

if we couple what you can see above with this you should be able to figure how the sliding spring loaded catch mech works...leastways from the inside

_S2I0918 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr
 
From the outside all it now needs if a finger hole to pull catch to open, obviously walnut again but also took the liberty of a shaving of oak in the base............as ya do.........TBF there is a ware aspect being pondered

_S2I0878 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

_S2I0880 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

_S2I0883 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

Lockers are hung off some big ol 8mm rivitnuts and look like this part done and in place

_S2I1127 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

Catch mech is designed so any vibration braking etc makes it tighten ,it's all good it works

lol aero locker photo op:LOL:

_S2I1124 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

I am writing this bosh bosh bosh show and tell.the sheer hours on this were insane utterly insane so so much grind in these.

By the way seen as this is the first time you have seen a degree of wood fiinish..the whole shebang has been coated in rustins waterbased out door gloss wood varnish......coat after coat after coat after........ so far I'm very impressed, it seems to really cure out hard. I really didn't want solvents in a tiny place where we will sleep so went water based. I like this product really like it!!
 
I'm going to stop here...........with a bread bin above what has become known as the plinth...you can see the start of it below as 2 vertical bits of walnut. the plinth is basically my control panel for all the leccy....................................wallas thermostat inverter remote BMV 712 cig charge point USB charge point, 3 light switches and water pump 2 230V sockets running off inverter 2 of mains EHU............oh and sneaked in a deadicated made to measure place for shaz's phone

_S2I1116 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

nuff for tonight

ta for reading take care
 
I know see what you mean by it being a graft Stu. o_O



:clap:
 
Gav-canon said:
What if she changes her phone :exit:
Click to expand...
Phone and phone holder becomes stu's
and she get's to walk
no hardship(y)

mate where ever ya going to go,.............................you know already I'm going to run with it :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

Ok she can change her phone and nah she don't have to walk I'm messing Ironically I just bought her a cheepo few quid plastic phone holder that goes on the dash......she uses the phone to tell me what all the electrickery is doing Gav........everything is bluetooth mate, we can see how many amps are in the LB how long what we are using will last for , how much solar is going in how much the B2B bungs in frankly it's nuts mate, but bunging the phone in it's swanky wooden holder seems to be charging at night mode now.................

ya know wot they say bro it's the thought that counts;)
 
Dale. said:
I know see what you mean by it being a graft Stu. o_O



:clap:
Click to expand...
Only a bit of graft mate.but hopefully that will fold back in time, it was really hard walking away from the roe rut last summer to do wood Dale I so wanted camper done, That one is the one thing that will haunt me a while ,I daresay, I was so so close and I've been chasing that rut for a few years now.

wildlife image making is such a dance Dale even when one has a dominant buck pinned down and it seems everythiing id right it doesn't mean one gets the yearned for images you know this from the kingfishers nowt is given,still tough stepping back though
 
Did you have plans or were you planning 'on the go', sorry if you've mentioned this and I've missed it.
Only ask because if I draw plans it'll take me far longer to finish than if I 'wing it', as I keep changing my mind, downside to OCD and being an Engineer :LOL:
 
Gav-canon said:
Did you have plans or were you planning 'on the go', sorry if you've mentioned this and I've missed it.
Only ask because if I draw plans it'll take me far longer to finish than if I 'wing it', as I keep changing my mind, downside to OCD and being an Engineer :LOL:
Click to expand...

And... we're back to the Millward!!! (No real plans, just a couple of coats of looking at and pondering!)
 
Nod said:
And... we're back to the Millward!!! (No real plans, just a couple of coats of looking at and pondering!)
Click to expand...
Nod educate me , what's the Millward? There's nothing worse than missing out on a giggle cause something flew so far over my head, it's above the fluffy white clouds. Forgive me being thick :D
 
Gav-canon said:
Did you have plans or were you planning 'on the go', sorry if you've mentioned this and I've missed it.
Only ask because if I draw plans it'll take me far longer to finish than if I 'wing it', as I keep changing my mind, downside to OCD and being an Engineer :LOL:
Click to expand...

No plans as such Gav............. it's sort of weird how I work.......I don't use a tape that much Ie don't measure. much at first yes but once base formats are in place I sort of work off the physical space.......... this was done with a work up from card templates to thin ply templates to trim routering the actual "piece".

Me base design process was looking at hundreds if not more images /videos of van builds. Not all transporters.basically everything I could ram into my tiny brain.............having an RIB bed limited options Gav, but I wanted to see as much as possible before making. anything.

We then talked alot bud.....shaz wanted a bigger than normal fridge, T's normally use 50L weaco we have 65

I wanted curves for lines of sight the way they can meld around shapes ie drivers seat malarky I stole ideas and made stuff up. I sleep on designs Gav dream 'em if ya like.

I dunno if I'm OCD..I always knew this would NOT be furpect : a lad on a workmate in a garden is never gonna match the accuracy of today's tech, Mind it's hand made in brutal heat to seriously cold.......................... so it was always gonna be slightly wonky .:runaway::runaway:


But I'm cool with that. (y):LOL:
 
Stuart Philpott said:
No plans as such Gav............. it's sort of weird how I work.......I don't use a tape that much Ie don't measure. much at first yes but once base formats are in place I sort of work off the physical space.......... this was done with a work up from card templates to thin ply templates to trim routering the actual "piece".

Me base design process was looking at hundreds if not more images /videos of van builds. Not all transporters.basically everything I could ram into my tiny brain.............having an RIB bed limited options Gav, but I wanted to see as much as possible before making. anything.

We then talked alot bud.....shaz wanted a bigger than normal fridge, T's normally use 50L weaco we have 65

I wanted curves for lines of sight the way they can meld around shapes ie drivers seat malarky I stole ideas and made stuff up. I sleep on designs Gav dream 'em if ya like.

I dunno if I'm OCD..I always knew this would NOT be furpect : a lad on a workmate in a garden is never gonna match the accuracy of today's tech, Mind it's hand made in brutal heat to seriously cold.......................... so it was always gonna be slightly wonky .:runaway::runaway:


But I'm cool with that. (y):LOL:
Click to expand...
Thanks for that, there's something special about handmade and being a one off is very special too!

Look forward to the next updates.

Google - Allen Millyard, he's an engineer, tinkers with motorbikes etc... that'll fill you in on Nod's referance.
 
Stuart Philpott said:
Nod educate me , what's the Millward? There's nothing worse than missing out on a giggle cause something flew so far over my head, it's above the fluffy white clouds. Forgive me being thick :D
Click to expand...

Sorry, Stu. Allen Millward is a builder of (mainly motorcycle) engines who specialises in adding cylinders as well as creating one offs using a cylinder (or 2!) from a multi cylinder one. The results he gets look as though they came from the factory despite him using very few measurements, preferring to do things pretty much by eye. Worth Googling him and watching the youtube videos but be prepared to fall down a wormhole and lose several hours of valuable van-building time! Here's a link to his 'tube channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/AllenMillyard?app=desktop

ETA... Gav and I have talked about him via PM to avoid derailing/hijacking your thread but the apparent similarity between his and your methods prompted me to mention him in the thread.
 
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Millyard............... Millward :LOL: damn I struggle with letters, what is so weird is one day I can't see it for love nor money ,next day clear as crystal, no rhyme or reason does my head in:runaway:. Thanks both for the comeback.

Nod I maybe said this to Gav, here in this very thread.................................... thread derails simply don't bother me...don't ever worry on derailing a thread of mine. Bud I know there's maybe a manners thang a kindness to a fellow member at play, but please worry not. Honestly mate I find so so often really interesting stuff emerges from derails.....I like 'em frankly and I can always go back to topic:)

Gav welcome mate....I have no training .NONE...........and we have never had much ( look I'm rich as hell in many ways mate but not sort of money wise) so I've always made stuff sort of needs must bro I guess I have that mindset that if we get our heads down and graft we can achieve things. Those things might not be purfect but that really doesn't matter it's the fact ya dug in and had a go........if it's your personal best that rocks. If it's not go look in a mirror go back have another go. But if it is your best then noone can do more

Mate derailing my own thread but it is a toggin forum.that's my approach to wildlife image making............if it's the best I can do .that's ok.but if it isn't I'm hauling meself over the coals,but it's not a negative.it's diggiin' at the mistakes to be better next time Tis a good way to learn being honest with your self you understand that don't you?


LMAO I was about to post wood but went into flickr and this stared back god what a dance this lady led me on.she still looks like a ruddy corgi:ROFLMAO: 'Cause she makes me giggle she goes here

_S2I3704 PK HO smj by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr


The plinth aka control panel sneaks in between the breadbins and the WT 2 slaps of walnut with a rebate to take the BB ply and then 4 type d wood inserts snagged in to the rebate to give me a means of removing the front ply bit to play electrickery

so here's that sort of in place

_S2I1139 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

The phone holder on the side and varnish:

_S2I1150 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

_S2I1153 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

_S2I1156 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

gizmos being added to the front

_S2I1146 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

Preddy much the whole thang

_S2I1140 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr
 
Nod, i wanted to show the rear cupboard rear doors can't find much........ya know that one cut one bit of wood, so all the grain runs true it's that. It's a bit of a tightrope walk , one has to somehow get a jigsaw bit in ..I did that with 3, 2mm (think it's 2mm smae width as jigsaw bit overlapping drill holes and then one cut with jigsaw. At that point Ii thought I'd won and only had to inlet the SOSS hinges,which in the doors with 1 mm or 2 wiggle room between success and failure was tough but not undoable. Then came the dawning " oh you can't get a router in there to do the big bit..............that 's going to be done freehand with a right angled contraption fitted to a dewalt driver there are no words to describe how hairy this was and humbly I apologize for lack of better images

_S2I2560 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

_S2I3107 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

I'll add in the first piccy of this post you can also see my water rated lockable 2 way dual pole consumer unit........this houses a RCB and 2 dual pole MCB's 6 an 16A 6A runs the mains batt charger 16A the 2 230V sockets both off mains hook up
 
Vintage Racer said:
Blimey Stu......all those 'gizmos' are making it look more like a space shuttle! :eek:
Click to expand...
I might appear that way Glynn but it's not it's a base off grid system to provide water heat a cooker lights and some power points... and means to charge and store energy to power it all

Dats it in a nutshell .......simples ............ the aside is I'm intoxicated by it ......LMAO I best not extrapolate that :LOL:
 
Great project and nice to see one being done to such a high standard.

A camper conversion is something I have been dreaming about for some time yet is very unlikely to actually happen, so consider me rather jealous!
 
bass_junkie83 said:
Great project and nice to see one being done to such a high standard.

A camper conversion is something I have been dreaming about for some time yet is very unlikely to actually happen, so consider me rather jealous!
Click to expand...
Dave first up ta on the kind words. 2nd and way way way more important.......I was a careworker for maybe ten years sometimes if things were bad I'd pull obscene shift s to look out for me cared for lad,ya know when things were hairy.i'm not looking for kudos or nowt like that, what i'm trying to get out is at the end of each and every month, no matter how hard I'd tried no matter how many hours I pulled I had no idea just how the bills would be paid.that's with growing me own food making instead of buying all manner of resourseful stuff, life was always a struggle. The ONLY reason i've said all that is it sort of explains how much of a ruddy pipedream a camper is to me bro........and that folds back into you with me saying never say never mate.

Davey we have scraped this together bit by bit over a goodly while.stuff has run out of warrenty before it got fitted or tested just sat somewhere stashed waiting, LMAO that's why itwas no hardship being so unbelievably slow with the wood ....it's taken eons to snag all the bits.

Me point is this build the van the whole shebang is an utter pipe dream, to me................ but if ya dig in for long enough then maybe little dreams can become reality. , that's my point :)
 
Here's some more leccy this is the power house 230AH Roamer lithium iron phosphate battery.......which wasn't in the country when I equppied the drivers seat base hence wood mock up

_S2I2465 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

This is where it will live

_S2I2462 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

I fashioned up a bit of oak up front the back of which is visble in piccy above to sit as far forwards as possible it had to be routered to slot into the seat base to house the main isolator. I added some walnut a ring to push that isolator just a few mm more forwards everything is so so tight here

_S2I2280 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

and we ended up here

_S2I2521 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

I now need a means to secure said batt so made up this card template

_S2I2524 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

turned card into ply and stuck several identical bits together with big old clamps honed them added some dense foam and a couple of holes with a washed glued at base to take a couple of bolts ( which are visible in the isolator piccy along with lock nuts )

_S2I2525 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

_S2I2527 by Stuart Philpott, on Flickr

giviing me a slightly unorthadox battery mount which works to my individual build

TBC
 
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