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My head hurts.
Did I mention I hate electric wizArdry.
I think i need to buy rustymac some beer and sit down on a night and work it out. He speaks fluent electric. I'm scratching round in the dirt.
@spooky_b329 & mark90 Any of you lads have a wiring diagram for this?
I'm of the KISS philosophy and that as the stereo can be switched on or off by both the button on it and off by removal of the face plate or the button on the remote that this is over complicating things.
To save the start battery the easy option is to just wire it to the leisure battery.
Yep, my old one was wired to the leisure and I didn't bother with a relay as the head unit had an auto off after 1 hour.
I'm gonna get a rare ride on the bike in a minute but I'll try and remember to draw up a wiring diagram for it this evening.
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VB = Van battery
LB = Leisure battery
IS = Ignition switch
RS = Rear radio switch, ie the switch to switch the radio over to leisure battery power
87a is the normally closed relay connection (to terminal 30)
87 is the switched relay connection (to terminal 30)
Split charge relay not show, just the radio switching relays.
I *think* it's right trying not to be distracted by arguing kids.
It could be described as over complicating things, but I'm quite comfortable with wiring so was happy to do it for my convenience. Only needed to run one small switching wire from the rear to the relays in the dash, everything else was picked up in the dash or engine bay.
So with Marks, I'd be slightly concerned that during switching, you could either connect both batteries momentarily, or, you could lose all your radio settings/presets during switch over.
This is what I plan with mine...radio always fed from the leisure, but senses the ignition position for auto on/off, and over-ride to allow use with key out of the ignition.
[img] http://www.diymotorhome.co.uk/community/media/wiring-diagram-for-radio.423/full?d=1489006639 [/img]
The vehicle and leisure batteries are connected via the split charge/battery to battery charger during driving, so I don't see a benefit to having the radio operate from the vehicle battery.
Edit: The switched feed on the leisure side can run 'backwards' to a reversing camera, this is needed as if you leave the camera wired to the vehicle loom, it could result in the two batteries connecting through it (or the radio), if you connect it directly to your leisure battery, it will always be powered and sip precious amps.
In practice I never had any issues with mine. It was all properly fused too, not shown. I like your solution, simpler. Though I wanted to be able to run without the leisure batteries if necessary, not sure why as it never happened to be the case.
I did actually drive my old van a few times with no leisure batteries as I removed them during a refit. The leisure battery leads were disconnected (and taped up) and the feeds to the main fusebox were still connected, so as long as the split charge was connected, the radio worked 🙂 Wasn't planned but very convenient :d
cheers folks , i think ive got my head round spookys diagram and it really doesnt involve much more work than firing a lead up for the leisure battery.
I need to fire one up from the vehicle battery also triggered by the switched live which will also live under the glove box and will power my 4 cab usb outlets and ill fire the reversing camera over onto that as well most likely and that will leave only the radio on this circuit.
So you're going to run an additional vehicle feed for the USBs, and you'll need to use a second relay, operated from the radio switched live, to make these ignition controlled.
I would keep the reversing cam on the leisure side, otherwise you have the camera connected to the vehicle feed for power, and a potential path to the leisure feed due to the video cable running back to the head unit. (sorry, this is irrelevant if you have a standalone camera screen which I think you do...my camera feeds into a double din head unit.)
I was going to run a beefed up feed from the leisure and then split it out into separate feeds to radio, dashcam and 12v sockets. Dashcam will run all the time unless I unplug it, as the solar will easily keep up with it. I have one in the work van and it only gets turned off when I'm on holiday.
Interesting! When my broken ankle gets better I can get to work on mine.
88k miles, medium wheel base sprinter, with some rust spots, inside is nearly done.
https://goo.gl/photos/AaAQenGeevVjfvhM6
Mine has a Airtronic D2 diesel heater that needs some attention!
Yeah I know I need a second relay I understood how to wire that up but I was barking up entirely the wrong tree for the stereo.
Your drawing has helped immensely
I do have a separate headunit and switch for the reversing cam. I didn't want it off the reverse switch.
Woo and indeed hoo
Dash light disco is fixed.
Sorted the door switch as above and rewired all the pad depth sensors .
Lights all off.
Also gave it full filters and fluids service. Quite an easy job thanks to its self priming electric primary fuel pump 🙂
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New low level lights in run off a switch direct from leisure battery to allow you to light up to get in to the power management system without falling over all the stuff that's fallen out the cupboards 🙂
The seats are an acquired taste. Personally i hate them and will probably throw a nice tasteful tartan travel rug over them when i find one.
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All the roofs back up the lights wired back in and everything's working as it should.even the power aerial - and i dinnae even have a telly, the mattress is back in. Started getting it stocked up with plates and cups etc. First trip next weekend over to laggan area 🙂
There's a lady stowaway/hostage in your van. You ganna make use of her? 🙂
That's Mrs tr. Despite having had it for 3 weeks that's the first time she's actually been able to climb up to the bed.
The ladder it came with wasn't fit for **** all.
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Found some appropriate bedding in asda today.
So we got to use it this weekend.
Stayed at loch garten on Friday night then down to laggan on Saturday
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Stayed at morlich at the car end away from what i thought was a vw t5 convention goin on.
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It must be a logarithmic gauge- although it did suck up 130quid of BP ultimate before i went (don't normally run that just thought I'd do the first tank on it to give the injectors a clean.)
What surprised me most is dispute its size it's much less stressful to drive than the 25ft coach-built i hired once. It's narrow enough to fit down b roads without panicin every time you see a car. The only time you really have to worry is in reverse or turning tight junctions- need to swing the front out a bit.
I'm sold
I'm sold too. Mrs_oab wants a camper, and im keen to go normal van not coach built. Having driven lwb high roof transits for years, my experience is like yours - much easier than coach built.
Nice. That's what having a camper van is all about.
one slight hickup at the weekend was we ran out of juice and that was even being miserly ... only had the fridge on 12v when the vehicle was running/driving and being minimal with all else. Anything more than one light on caused it to have a fit.
the 75ah leisure battery wasnt exactly at full capacity - 60% according to my smart charger and that was post battery recovery charge session.....
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thats the old battery up front with the new one behind getting a pre fitting balance charge to stop them equalising when connected. together
so i splashed out on a pair of 115ah batteries and hooked them up in parallel as after looking at hooking the fridge up to gas moutning the vents is going to be a mare due to the door rail - then the door shielding the vents when open. So solar and big batteries it is.
Solar install in may but for now a pair of big batteries JUST fits in where the old ones were 😀
and no longer do i have a black out when ever the taps turned on and the pump kicks in or the fridge is on or the heater comes on(it was -1 on friday night)
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i think i actually turned them 90 degrees since that photo as the terminal clamps went on better,
bit of a tight squeeze i did actually do some CAD yesterday before ordering to make sure they would fit. Still need to screw down the securing brackets. Whole area under those seats is vented to atmos under the van which doubles as a drain as thats also the watertank incase of a leak.
The van also came with 5 keys to operate it .... great - except that it was 1 key for pretty much each barrel on the van. so although i got the central locking and that pretty much null and voided the issue It annoyed me and i still had to carry at least 2 keys and 3 if i wanted to fill up with fuel......
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so i got on ebay and bought a set of 6 lock cylinders and an ignition barrel which came with 2 "dumb" key blanks . I also bought 3 iveco central locking fob blanks and had the dumb key pattern copied over.
I moved the electronic gubbins over to the good keys and swapped all the cylinders over - 1 in each door - one in the fuel cap and one in the glove box. plus changed the ignition barrel and we are back operating off one key for everything so i now have 2 fully functioning keys as per factory and 3 dumb no electronics keys which will be good for if we go swimming/kayaking/mtbing in the pishing rain.....
minor detail for most but something im pretty hot on now after getting locked out of a vehicle i only had one key for (but not enough to pay dealer prices to sort it .....) total cost of rekeying the whole car was 80 quid.
some little dash touches i retrieved from my little white van when it sold last week - also stole the floor mats from it too since the guy knocked me down another 150 quid from what i thought was an already fair price ..... how ever caught me in a rush as i go back to work next week so needed/wanted it off the drive and it sitting for another month and half would have meant it lost more than 150 quid in value even in expiring mot.
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hooking the fridge up to gas mounting the vents
2/3 way absorption fridges do use a lot of power on 12V. Compressor fridges are much much more frugal with power. Though they are also much more spendy to buy.
I could run for 3 days with a battery bank the same size as yours with no need to recharge. Lights, radio, water pump the only other draws.
More reading and maths says stuff the 12v .
Run the 12v through an inverter an use the 240 it'll draw a fraction of the amps even accounting for inverter inefficiency i should still be quids in over running 12v biggest benefit being the 240 has a cycling thermometer inline. The 12v just goes on and off.
Running it off gas isn't out of this realm i just need to recess the vents into the body work which is more fab work to do neatly than i have time for right now.
Came to a similar conclusion with fridges... the modern 240V A+ (and A++) fridges are way more efficient than the expensive 12v ones, so run an inverter and you're away.
On top of that, if you're running from solar, you get the power when you most need it.
Regarding Solar, if you're thinking of semi flexible panels, it's worth checking as I found that 80w ones actually work out cheaper per watt than 100w ones and being smaller, are easier to find spaces around rooflights etc to mount.
That said, I've just checked ebay to try and give you a link and the panels I managed to get for £65 a pop are now closer to £85 a pop, so maybe I got lucky.
We were up at the Gisburn PMBA Enduro at the weekend, arrived Friday and left Sunday evening. The solar panel was a god send. The rain was torrential all the time but the panel kept the battery well topped up. The diesel heater and fan was running all the time. Fridge was running on gas.
I was planning to fit 1*100 watt panel between my sky lights and that leaves room for a second if so needed 80 watts makes it abut tught.
How ever I'm not changing the fridge as that means major interior mods to the units as almost all compressor fridges are quite a bit bigger. Will bear it in mind next time i build 🙂
Next step currently will be to get the water pump and timing belt changed and when I'm doing the solar in a couple month i will also be changing the split charge system as it's no where near man enough which probably caused my issues with the fridge when the engines running.....Was still draining leisure battery with the engine running.
The front to back cables are only 2.5mm^2 which will be causing a serious voltage drop. Should be 16mm^2 + especially more now with the big batteries which could draw alot of current after being parked up for a bit.
If you've got the cash go for one of these instead of split charge, much better and actually a proper multistage charger
I run one of these plus have 2x100w solar and 2x110ah batteries. Pretty much never run out of power. I do have a 12v compressor fridge though. in summer the panels pretty much keep up with the fridge use on their own.
Yeah more chance of me changing the fridge than one of them happening.
But the ring rscdc30 battery to battery charger might as it can also used in place of the solar controller.
I think spooky has one of those in his daily.
I guess modern vans need that set up anyway or the canbus/smart alternator goes crazy
Maybe silly question, but do you find you really need to run a fridge? Occasionally in midsummer it might get a bit warm but not often. It's not like anyone takes one bike-packing.
I'd assume if you were away for multiple days in a van then a fridge allows more options for food. Bikepacking (or touring as it really is) limits what you can carry so a fridge isn't practical...with a van that has space and carrying capacity it makes more sense and allows far more days away before resupplying is required.
It's nice when your in France not to have to buy milk and butter daily. It's also nice to have a cool post ride beer instead of having to run down the shop buy em and drink em in one hit because once they go warm they won't cool down again.
And like dick says. If I've got the space and the fridge came with the van I'm gonna use it.
Never had one before mind. And when bike packing my diets different. This things more a home from home.
Think of it as a disagreement with holiday homes taking homes away from the locals and empty houses don't spend money meaning community's suffer. At least here i spread my custom around lots of areas(areas i may not have visited if i had to pay for accommodation before anyone points out the obvious non spend) and put money into the area via shops/cafes/pubs/restaurants/campsites/attractions while I'm there
Well glad i followed spookys advice and got ontop of all the brakes sharpish
Stripped them down last Thursday and cleaned all sliders before applying ceramic lube liberally (fyi don't use copper slip on sliders kids- when it heats up it dries out and goes sticky can cause more issues) and cleaned/lubed/wound back all pistons to ensure they were free and working.
All 4 brembos units working at 100%
Then driving home from a long weekend i was about 2 mins from my house just coming out the village and was met by this nugget on a blind corner (no doubt driving god's on here can see through walls though)
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Raging. He didn't even seem to have drifted-ive seen folk cut the corner occasionally but this guy was fully tracking the corner on my side ffs.i was stopped by the second screenshot....He didn't stop he swearved i thought that was van dead as he didn't seem to even be trying to stop.
Are you passing the footage on to the plod? It's the only way nobs like that will learn.
Phone 101 but due to my own lights reflecting off the nuggits plates i don have a plate.
They said they would put it in the system and bare it in mind if there were other similar complaints against similar cars in the area.
Well as far as i see the vans never had a belt pump thermostat or fan belt change since new. All stamped up 2005.
So it now has shiny new belt, tensioners , rollers , waterpump , thermostat and fan belt.
Felt like i was taking bits off the van for ever just to find the timing chest !
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At its most disassembled !
Is there a Big End in that photo??? No idea what it is, but it is a cool name for something in an engine.
Is there a Big End in that photo?
Bloody hope not.
Video footage is impressive, little disappointed there was no audio, I might have learned some new words...
Raging. He didn't even seem to have drifted-ive seen folk cut the corner occasionally but this guy was fully tracking the corner on my side ffs.
Guess he thought the roadworks were still in place (assuming that's the bridge like). I find it's usually worse on the opposite direction. That looked chuffing scary!
Yeah, you really need to take that line in a 30 zone...
Squirrel...where is the video footage...have I missed a link?
Spooky i sent it to save on Facebook
No big ends dickbarton.
It's just the clean end of the block . No ancillaries or waterpump or belts etc - nor intercooler , rad , front clip or bonnet.......
ah ha .
Found the rusty bits.
The offside bumper support bracket when lightly tapped with my rubber mallet appeared to be mostly made of rust and fresh air..... photos later.
yay . Break out the plasma cutter and welder - brackets now rebuilt and solid again. if it shall rust again i well make some new ones out of box binky style.
because of this and some repairs to the rad brackets + waiting on paint to dry still not restarrted the van after timing belt 🙁
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It's not a trail rat project unless i get to wield a welder in a haphazard manor.
Loving the plasma cutter(just a cheeky) . Makes life so much nicer than trying to hack rot out with the grinder. Just run the plasma up the edge of a ruler- really nice straight edge to run a burr over and perfect to weld to.
All because someone didnt bother to replace the arch liner....
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Post plasma - 3d cad patch design weld and kurusted. Was actually a complex multi piece patch due to the contours and limited shaping facilities at mine. - having checked out the prices of replacements on line I'll be making some box section units to replace these if they ever need doing again.
Also wire wheeled and kurusted the chassis legs - not because they were bad but because old flakey paints worse than a rusty surface as it traps water and dirt against it causing localised heavy corrosion.
So it got wire wheeled , kurusted then undersealed.
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I also did the edges of the battery tray and the cab mount sections - although these got wire wheeled - kurusted - primered and are ready for some fresh red when i get back
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One of the new neighbours who wasn't here for landy gate seemed to be having a minor coronary at this stage and was down asking me about what i was up to......
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When yer crank pulleys stuck and you have not got a ribbed pulley pullers - ooh err matron.
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Check the nick of that aux belt.
Finally got my wiring sorted out as per discussion on previous page. It got little more involved...
1) When I pressed the over-ride switch (far right) to turn on the radio without the key in, the power feeding back down the switched positive resulted in the dash becoming live and the fuel pump priming 😯 So had to add a diode which is essentially a 'one way valve' for electricity.
2) Realised I would lose the auto-dimming screen when the lights are on, (quite useful with a large screen as it also switches to a dark theme) this didn't need another relay, just a positive feed to another switch (2nd from right, not yet labelled) which then supplies 12v to the illumination wire.
3) Had to add a second relay to keep the 12v 'reverse gear' signal separate from the leisure system (radio flips to a rear camera in reverse)
There are a few other bits in there, a 3rd relay for a rear flood lamp, permanent supply for a dashcam, and supply for a wireless camera transceiver that takes a video feed from our horse trailer.
[img] http://www.diymotorhome.co.uk/community/media/dash-wiring.431/full?d=1492807114 [/img]
Smart.
I work for iveco if you ever need info
Trailrat could we have less pics of rusty bits of van and more of your mrs please?
How much are people paying for leisure batteries?