Too much weather!

With jobs needing doing this weekend ready for the first trip of the year away I really could have done without the rain. This morning I was seriously working out whether I could get away with not doing the most urgent job, wiring for the charger to the leisure battery and putting the panelling back together, when there was a brief break in the wind and rain. A slightly hurried bit of sorting and that was done without me getting too wet.

I've also washed all the crockery and cooking stuff, repacked it and restocked the tinned and packet food. There are a few jobs I didn't manage to get done but nothing urgent. All that's left to do now is pack the personal bits and fresh food and hit the road - but there are a few days at work first!

Charging Ahead

They do say make hay while the sun shines, bit early in the year for that (although the grass is close to needing a cut) but today's fine weather gave me an ideal opportunity to complete the electrics I've been working on.

It turned into another slightly frustrating job and took all day, including a quick shopping trip, but we nearly got there. Put simply what I've done is installed a lighter socket and a twin USB charger into one of the back seat lockers. I've also installed a USB outlet between the back seats that will plug into the charger and a switch so I can power it all either from the engine running feed or from the leisure battery.

One mistake , which I'll rectify, was using too small a size of trunking to protect it all. I hadn't really thought that whilst you can just about get the 3 runs off 1.5mm2 cable through the stuff you can't get it round any corners. It'll come back out early enough and I'll go up a size.

There's one remaining job to do before it all goes back together which is to provide a feed to the leisure battery for the mains charger. It shouldn't ever be needed really as it charges when driving and my usage is very low but just in case! As the battery is in a solid compartment and it's a pain to get to I need to put a fixed feed in.

Next week will be final sorting and packing before I finally get to go away to Derbyshire.

And The Lord Said, "Let there be light!"

I've mentioned previously that I wasn't happy with the interior lighting on Dai. Basically there were just two spotlights at the back plus the vehicle interior light, none of which was that much use when during at the table or reading. Having tried some battery led lights last week (they were useless) I decided I somehow needed to get a 12v light fitted, the difficulty being the wiring.

Some lateral thinking made me realise that it should be possible to feed the wires behind the headlining from one of the spotlights but it wasn't going to be the easiest of jobs. I got a 12v led strip light ordered and made a quick call to my brother to see if he'd for a set of fishing rods (the electrician's type, not piscatorial). He hadn't, but was prepared to get some as he'd got a couple of jobs that he would need them for (he's a marine electrician).

Fortunately the light arrived Friday and brother brought the rods over Saturday after lunch. As expected it took quite a while but some lateral thinking from both of us saw a wire through with no real drama. This morning I was able to get the light wired up and fitted, I've just been out and had a look now it's dark and it lights up the interior brilliantly (pun intended).

I did carry on with the other electrics from last week for a while today but it was fairly breezy which made the job too dangerous - the tailgate wouldn't stay open! I know what I need to pick up to finish that job though and it won't take too long.