Closer view of the solar goodies unpacked

Here are the packages as found in the store. See picture # 5 and 6 below for the panels. The items are laying on my rear cargo door that had been carpeted. I discovered the carpet in full sunlight gets very , very HOT !!  ouch ........

The speakers, two or more can be connected and they have internal batteries 

to power the speakers which can be charged with the little solar panel,

or a USB cable 

The  16 oz - 12 volt - 25 watt thermos

My iPhone inside the speakers

it can then be zipped up to look like picture above

The solar panels from picture 1 above

A little pocket to store the battery pack

Starting plumbing for the water tanks

     Well here we are again today finally getting started on the plumbing on the rear 37 or 40 gallon water tanks on the back end. As always I like to try out some new materials, plumbing parts and other knick knacks that I've never tried out before. One of my goals is to be able to quickly isolate any of the components that may need to be repaired or removed for service. Some parts of the trailer I like to have exposed, so that people who come to visit can see exactly how those parts fit together, also if there is a leak then I will be the first to see the problem.

Here is the shut off valve & a 3/4 x 3/4 x 3/4" Gator bite

I love these as the pipe just snaps together

and can come apart just as easy.

Here is the  3/4 x 3/4"  90  deg Gator bite

I love these as the pipe just snaps together

and can come apart just as easy.

Here is the blue and white valve above.

I'm thinking about installing water valves / hose bibs on or under the trailer

The top valve may be great for the rear door area

as it only sticks out 1.5" and the handle

can easily be removed.

See this handle is so easy to remove.

I'm thinking about this location at the passenger side corner

painted white or black you may not even notice this ?

Some new little Solar goodies for the road

Never being one afraid to spend good money to try something new, I found these items for sale at the local Lowe's and thought I would give them a try. If your out backpacking or in the boonies this might come in handy. I tried the speakers at the store and they were quiet loud - I was very impressed how well they worked, so I also decided to get the other stuff too. Below are the pictures from the company website, they have many more products, go and check them out.

Charger for battery pack, used with your phone or ipad

The battery pack, used with your phone or ipad

Make warm coffee cup 16oz - to 150 deg.

This is the little speaker box, has its own battery & plays up to 40 hours.

Tested inside store - works great.

A/C and DC upgrades to the trailer

I installed A grounding Bus bar to the rear of the trailer 

Below you can see in the wires running into the grounding Bus bar

This will allow me to connect the #6 wire to a ground rod. 

With the cover installed it becomes almost invisible 

I installed electric outlets under in the trailer so they are hidden from view. 

Here is the DC panel on the inside of the trailer 

The wiring from the backside of the panel 

Here is a little plug-in LED light 

It's quite bright and I'm will allow me to work on the electric system at night. 

Here is another view of the light 

On the top of the panel the wires are slowly getting connected

Here is the 360° fan connected to a second DC sub panel 

I found these little fold away cup holders and put some next to the bed

I also installed the same lights into all the cabinets

Offgrid solar trailer & other campers

FUSO EARTHCRUISER 4X4 CAMPER CAR

EXTREME 4X4 EXPEDITION VEHICLE WORLD TRAVEL CAR CAMPER FUSO 4X4 CAMPER FG HOSPITAL REMOTE TRAVEL VEHICLE CROSS COUNTRY

I found some nice videos of some cool trailers, will try to post some more latter.

First test ride of this magnificent 6x6 Actros truck by builder and owner on 18-02-2009

Earth Roamer

Earth Roamer video 2

This guy really has lots of stuff for sale

NEW for 2012 - the Kimberley Off-Road Camper Trailer with NEW Kitchen.
Watch as Bruce Loxton, owner of Australia's leading camping trailer brand Kimberley Kampers, 

explains the new features of the 2012 Camping Kitchen.
More info: www.kimberleykampers.com

This looks good also

one more final video

Slowly working on the electrical system

        It's been a long month. First I had the flu and then came bronchitis. In the meantime I was still going to work every single day and it's the busy season. So besides being behind just about everywhere I'm slowly catching  up to do a little work on the trailer. Here are some pictures that I took a few days ago before I started on the wiring project. Below are some more of my favorite Anderson power pole connectors. 

Now I have all the colors white red green and black. 

So this allows me to do AC or DC wiring. 

Here is  number 12 and number 14 wiring 

which is already red and black for the DC wiring system. 

Remember red is always the positive power side. 

Here are two super cool outlets one is able to be plugged into a cigarette lighter,

 the second is a duplex outlet that allows you to plug other things into it. 

Both are a little expensive I think around $12 or $13 each. 

I ordered a new tool the blue one on the right-hand side. 

This allows me to crimp # 14 through # 6 AWG. 

Here are some fuses and circuit breakers. 

Also some non-corrode compound for the battery cables. 

More connectors and in-line fuses. 

Here is a simple fuse block. 

This fuse will be installed inside a panel and allows the fuses

 to be automatically reset when needed. 

The rear of the fuse panel and how it's wired. 

The complete tool layout selection. 

Stay tuned for what will be installed in the next few days.

Doing the lords work part 6 - follow up

         Well I was expecting to bring you nothing but good news on my follow-up. However I received some bad news with a panic phone call or text that the flower bed was leaking water into the church building. OMG was the impossible happening, was there a sprinkler pipe running through the building that was actually causing the leak ? I was 110% sure that my design was absolutely fail safe. Since I had supervised 98% of the operation I was not sure what could've gone wrong ?




        Of course right away the unqualified dumb ass $100 per hour "White" Gardener gave his unsolicited opinion. Oh my God I just knew it, this project was too difficult to complete for you guys. The church should have hired a real license contractor to do this project. Ha ha ha I was right after all. I just told you so. ( Since he did not like anybody getting into to his area - stealing his work.)

      Well if you remember I had left the crew in charge of installing 6 sprinkler heads exactly like above with some 1/2 gallon per hour drip emitters. What could possibly go wrong it was 10,000% fool proof ? Well do you know what went wrong, the dumb ass unqualified, over paid white gardener showed up while the plants were being installed. So he told the crew that the 1/2 GPH drip emitters would not be enough to water the plants. He told them, here are 50 little plugs that you can put in their instead, their useful for keeping the bugs out but will let the water flow freely when you bury the 1/4" plastic tube. 

Failure analysis !!!

     So did you figure it out yet, what the problem was ? As you can see from above each head - wide open can put out 141 GPH per hour. With three heads running for 20 minutes each, guess how much water was being pumped into the flower planter. Yes you are 10,000% correct 141 gallons of water were being pumped into the flower planter to water 10 little plants that could easily be watered with less than 2 gallons of water, and this was being done 3 times per week.

     Do I want to kill an unqualified dumb ass $100 per hour "White" over paid Gardener YES !!!

Even though I am a white guy too, its hard to imagine that a Licensed professional gardener could be such a stupid dumb ass who has a license ? His over watering of the same planters had caused $30,000 in damages of water damage and mold inside the 2 class rooms a few summers ago.

How many trailers are there with mood lights

          As you can see the wall paper is almost up, the lights are slowly being installed and the mood is coming to hit the road soon. I will have to check with the power meter, but I believe as you dim the lights you are using less power, however it is not a 1 for 1 power reduction. This dimmer was featured on a different date in the blog and also has a remote control option, as who needs to get out of bed to dim the lights ? The dimmer system was around $40 if I can recall properly. Each bulb uses approx. 50 watts. I have 2 fixtures one on each side, but 1 fixture at 50% power is enough light for the trailer.

Lights at full power

I did a little test, there are 15 light levels

Lights at 50%

Lights at 25%

Only the bright blue LEDs are on

and they are very bright indeed 

Lights are at about 10%

More progress with the Porta Potty

     Finally almost done, today I installed the 3" blower fan , listed at 135 cu ft per minute, the wall paper and the upper cabinet. Click the picture below to go see the blower link. However my blower is 12v at 2.9 amps as I got it 6 months ago.

I again used some of my favorite connectors from Anderson power pole 

to connect the power for the fan.

I also installed a 12v button as a on/off switch.

Below you can see how the blower is installed,

with a 3" flex pipe through the floor.

The fan is also plug and play.

A 5 amp in line fuse & fuse holder was also used.

As you are sitting on the Prota Potty all the good fumes 

are sucked to the exterior front door.

My revenge if someone disturbs me @ wrong moment.

This is the only low tech item on the trailer,

The toilet works great with peat moss or fresh sawdust,

I was looking for a way to keep dump fees down,

which I only see going up, up & away.

I can't decide on decor to hide Porta Potty ?

I can't decide on decor to hide Porta Potty ?

I can't decide on decor to hide Porta Potty ?

Maybe gray looks the best ?

My favorite lens on my wish list, Canon EFS 10-22mm

      I have read so many good reviews about this lens, so for talking pictures for OverTheTopCargoTrailer which has lots of tight spots, this would be a great choice.

Features

• Excellent optical quality and true wide-angle coverage with select digital SLRs
• Superior AF performance and speed, with full-time manual focus by simply turning ring
• Close-focusing to 9.5 inches -- fill the frame with subjects as small as 3.6 x 5.4 inches
• Relatively compact size and light weight for an ultra-wide zoom lens
• Inner focusing system (no front element rotation); length doesn't change if zoomed
• Circular aperture design -- natural highlights, even stopped down two stops
• Electronic diaphragm -- manually-set apertures stay constant from f/4.5 thru f/22

Here are the Amazon reviews