The final solar connection just inches away

      Only one more last final connection to go. You see I finally had to breakdown and drill one hole into my roof Ouch - that really hurt !!! When I found this connector I felt confident I could get a pretty good seal. This is a special connector 3/4" inch nut for # 10 solar wires with MC 4 cables. It has a rubber washer with 4 holes on the inside that allows for the wires to be put through it and then it can be tightened to make it absolutely a watertight seal.  Now I'm just praying the solar panels produce some power :-) when the sun comes out.  Just checked and the panels are reading 113 volts DC at 11 am , so far so good.

I really should not tell you this secret, but since i'm such a nice guy here it is ..... The special nut.

My first and only hole in the roof OUCH !!!

I used a extra piece of solid copper wire to fill the last hole

Here is the inside view

For those of you who can't click the link above

here it is for you

Two RO bottles inside the cabinet

       This will give me 4-5 gallons of ready made pure filtered reverse osmosis water, if I need more then I can always store some extra inside 1.5 liter plastic water bottles. It's set up so that when I connect to a water source with my 3/8" homemade plastic hose "like right now" it does everything by itself. The second rear hose bib also would fill the 80 gallon water tanks. I have 2 different systems set up and can use the water like ballast to balance the weight of the trailer front to back if needed.

       The 2 bigger cuts in the base are because the tanks have big blue plastic valve covers sticking out 1" to pressurize the tanks. It was too hard to cut them along the back wall which was my first choice. Oh well , don't tell anyone, it's hidden inside the closed cabinet.


       If you want to know exactly how much water it takes to make 1 gallon of fine RO water, the answer is about 6-7 gallons as some of the water goes down the drain, or in my case back into the larger storage tank while on the road. It takes about 80 minutes to make a gallon of RO water.

Now it's official - the most powerful endless water heater in any cargo trailer

       Now it's official, I have the most powerful endless water heater in any cargo trailer :-)) It was a little hassle to get it to fire up and I had a little panic that it would not work. The trick was to keep turning the water on and off a bunch of times until the gas filled the lines. Five seconds on , then 1-2 sec off about 6-8 times did the trick. Again this is the Bosch GHW 1600 P =  propane - it goes from about 25,000 Btu to 120,000 Btu. The main reason I like this unit is because it does not require the usual 120 volt electric outlet to supply power to the heater. The pilot light starts when it detects the water flowing through the heater at .5 GPM to 1.1GPM.

This bottle is just a temp connection for testing purposes 

so if your a propane expert don't worry

This bottle is just a temp connection for testing purposes 

the heater will require 2 bottles to operate properly

as it will pull a max of 120,000 Btu,

in cold weather below 40 - 50 deg - if the bottles are 1/2 empty

the tanks will freeze over, I have been told by the propane dealer

Stay tuned for the propane water heater

       I hope that today you guys won't mind the pictures are absolutely all over the place. I took some with my phone and I can only email them to myself 5 at one time so they got all messed up and all jumbled up. Sorry about that, but I  hope that everybody will take a close look  for some ideas on what's going in. Maybe when I finally get done with this project, I will go a little bit more into detail with all of the tools I used used and how some of the parts for put together. 

Here is the 3/4" PEX piping  with some of the fittings I'm using

Below are more PEX connectors and also the blue drain 

is for the reverse osmosis filter system 

Here is some of the finished PEX piping with the clamps

Here is a close-up shot of the front water heater with the flexible waterlines 

The big view of the water heater again

These are the 1/2" water lines going in and out of the heater 

You can see I've installed a in line water filter to the cold water on the right side

Here is the plastic waterline 3/8 inch size 

This is the part to make my do-it-yourself hose 

Here is my finished 25 foot new hose,

can easily be expanded to 50 or 100 ft

I insulated the underfloor PEX water lines 

The gray valve is the main PIA of this project ,

I really had to jam the metal cap on there it did not fit properly, 

Selling a plastic tab that would fit, well that is totally impossible 

The under floor drain pipe

Oops here is the trailer is taking a leak :-(

It is the excess water from the RO process 

While making reverse osmosis filtered water 

About 3 gallons go down the drain for every gallon of filtered water that is made 

This valve that goes on top of the expansion tank is also impossible to find 

The water filter system just temporarily attached to verify that it's working 

The RO storage tank, just temp hook up, about 1.5 gal maybe

have decided to install 2 tanks inside the cabinet

This is a little different part only 1/4" to make my do-it-yourself hose 

I found this alarm only $25 - great deal at Home Depot

This looks like something new , a great timer

I am think about this faucet as I do not like the cheap plastic faucet

that came with the RO system

I am also thinking to use this CSST for the gas / propane installation

Another easy connector I liked

Water is finally coming

         It's been quite a while since the start of my project, but finally I have begun to make all of the water connections. So far I have set up the system so that the cold water now runs from my house hose. The 2 x 40 gallon interior water tanks are also ready to be connected and to be filled with water. The 12V - 3 GPM  water pump has now been installed and connected to the electric system. My final water connection coming soon will be the hot connection to the endless water heater. I have been switching between snap together PEX connectors and brass fittings which are clamped on with a special tool. If you like the compression ring - I would strongly recommend you get the one handed tool. After that is completed, I will try to connect the propane for the water heater. That should be lots of fun since I purchased the parts about a year ago and I hope I can find everything that I need to make the gas connection. 

Here is the underside of the faucet, it was a MAJOR - PIA 

to connect as in total there were 11 connections, would you believe it ? 

All connections were made reaching sideways 18" into a 4" 

space behind the shower fixture wall that allows

all the pipes etc.

Here is the faucet, I got this because of the almost 6ft long metal sprayer

the faucet is rated at 1.7 GPM - supper low flow

Here are some snap or push together connectors for PEX & copper

The connectors for the water pump

The underside with brass connectors & the end cap 

allowing me to test the system

The 2nd under the trailer shut off valve / hose bib

Close up of the brass connectors & metal band clamps

The connection to the front water tank

Here is the planned reverse osmoses water filter & and 2nd tank

Top of the tank and inspection cover

4 Cabinet door locks

Cabinet locks magnet used to open doors

in the right spot they stick to the wood

Interior view of the cabinet locks

2 locks yet to be installed

The 10 year smoke alarm 

it has a battery 4 x regular size

On my next trip I will also get this alarm for explosive gas

Problems with LED lights

        Okay here is the lesson, never believe what you read on the manufacturers label. The package on the left is the $35 LED dimmable bulb. The green package on the right is the $30 non-dimmable bulb. Today I also decided to test the power usage. As soon as I got the package unwrapped I already ran into problems. So here we go with all my problems !

The $35 dimmable bulb - never got tested

Problem can you see the difference already ?

The dimmable bulb on the right is fatter and does

not fit inside the fixture , Grrrrrr !

Not very professional for a $35 bulb

The dimmable bulb on the right is fatter and does

not fit inside the fixture , Grrrrrr !

The power output of the fixture on high was about 18 watts,

that includes my TV at about 5 watts.

As I turned the power down on the dimmer -

the watts did not decrease,

so maybe that is what they mean with non dimmable ?

These little rechargeable  LED lights were also using a few watts

maybe 2-3 watts each

Not to bad for 2 lights and the TV in the off position 9 watts

vampire load on my system

Here is the reading from the 2 standard 50 watt bulbs - 20 for TV and 2 above lights 

is equal to 60 watts, but the reading should be 120 watts.

So again you can see 2 x 50 watt halogen are only using 60 watts,

what is up with that ?

Maybe this reading is really .81 amps x 120 volts ?

that would put it at about 97 watts -

much closer to the 100 watts 2 bulbs should use ?

The thing that I did notice however was that my dimmer switch

 did reduce the power of the 50 watt halogen on what almost looked like a 1 to 1 ratio,

as the light also goes down, but at least some good news