Van Build Electrical System

Components that I will be using for my van build electrical system.

     Today we're going to go through the parts which I will be using for the electrical system on my camper van. Now, this isn't a 'how to' blog. Nope, it's only a small outline of what I will be using for my own build.

     We’re going to start with the way I will be charging my battery, because that’s the front of the van and it seems like a terrific place to begin. I have decided to charge my battery bank (all one battery of it) two ways. One is through the alternator and the other is via solar power. Now as of the writing of this blog post I don’t have any solar so we will just be doing the alternator for the time being. The alternator charges the starting battery, the one which starts your vehicle. It is possible to split that charge and allow it (the alternator) to charge a second battery. This is what we will be doing. There are many ways to do this, but I am choosing to use a constant duty solenoid.

It is an electromagnetic switch which is turned on via a ‘keyed fuse thing’. Essentially you connect it to the starting battery and the house battery then connect it to the main fuse box. Making sure that the fuse you’re using only turns on when the key turns the car on. That way the two batteries are not connected when the car is off. They are only connected when the car is on.

The wire you use to connect the two batteries is huge. Mine is 2 gauge wire as you see in the photo.  These are the connectors which will be squished onto the ends of the wire.  

You’re also going to need a really big fuse for that part. This fuse will go under the hood, but as of the this moment I’m not entirely sure where. I think it goes after the solenoid and before the house battery. .

I’m choose to put a nice giant red on/off switch to the whole system. Here is my switch. It sure is a fancy red color isn’t it? Now we will put another one of those giant fuses. See previous photo somewhere back there. That leads to a 500 watt inverter. 

Now many boondockers will be using way way bigger ones, but we are not full time and will not be bringing fridges and things. It’s going to be there as sort of a just in case. I mean the minute you don’t think you need something is the minute you need it, so here it is. .

Here is the little dc fuse box, and fuses I will be using for the LED lights and the charging stations.

Here are the charging stations and a switch for the smaller of the two.

I’m going to wire the switch in because I noticed when I tried it before that the little blue light stays on all the time. I don’t like that. I want to be able to switch it off when it's not in use.

That’s it really. We have a small system because we don’t have many needs really. We are not full timers. We will be doing this part time till we retire and then we’ll see what happens. For the moment this will do.

Oh and here is the last piece to our electric puzzle although it’s not really electric. It’s just fun.

A CB.

Yup, because well….why not.

Have a great day gang and keep the shiny side up.

Trip to the South-West part 3

     Hey again. I just love chatting with you folks. I don't care what they say about you. You're okay in my book. In today's edition we see the final chapter of our journey to the South-west.
     On our road home we drive through New Mexico and our first stop was Pueblo, Colorado. We had the best Chinese food while there. Of course after traveling for that many hours any Chinese food would be good. The next day we drove through Colorado into Wyoming, and finally stopped in Rapid City, South Dakota. We ended up seeing a parade and had tons of fun there. Our final day was driving back home to Minnesota from Rapid City.
     We had a really wonderful time traveling through the United States and hope to do more traveling as out time permits.

     Thanks to all the folks that helped to make it possible.

A Trip to the South-West via the Great Plains.

     Recently my wife and I took a trip to the south-west as you can read in the previous blog post. We had so many wonderful adventures and took a lot of great video. We took so much video that it had to be split into three parts which will be released over the next three weeks.
I know I know that sucks, but you'll just have to come on back and watch them. Just hit the subscribe button and you'll get alerted to when I upload the next one. Which will be next week at this exact time.
     In this first bit you'll get to see windmills, the bridge across nowhere, a couple of hotels rooms, the great sunny plains of Nebraska, and Kansas. You'll see some of the beautiful rolling hills of Iowa not to mention the beginnings of the wonderful granite mountains of Colorado. Will the car make it up the mountains and beyond the bear crossing sign? You'll have to hit play and find out.

     There's also a sneak peak into next weeks adventures. Fish in the desert, art from the famous Navajo painter R.C.  Gorman, & I do great and final battle with the aliens in Roswell. That's all next week. Come along on our journey and have a beautiful day.

We love ya.
Peace.
 The Marty's

The Road, A Dream, & Coffee

     Well, now that Elissa and I are back from our adventure to the New Mexico I will write a bit about it and show some photos. We took a bunch of video and photo’s. I won’t bore you with all of them because there’s a lot of them. I think the video’s will come later, so subscribe here so that you won’t miss a single thing.

     We started and drove to Kearney, Nebraska and I’ve already done a little video and chat about that so we can start after that. That can be found here. LINK

     The second day we finished driving through Nebraska and went into Kansas which was very flat but fun. We used our GPS and she brought us on the small county roads and highways, so we ended up seeing a lot of little towns and fields. I should mention that we were going to Tao’s, but ended up going to Santa Fe because we read a lot of bad reviews for the hotels there.

It was a ten hour drive from Kearney to Santa Fe and let me just say that’s a lot of time to be on the road.

Nebraska:

Mr & Mrs paper coffee cups from the room.

The sacred journey goes on & on.

Kansas

Beautiful open sky's,  long fields, & gravel roads. Must be Kansas

I had to take this because I'm from Winona, Mn. but this one's in Kansas.

     After Kansas we drove through Colorado and then to New Mexico. Most of the part of Colorado that we drove through was just as flat as Kansas and Nebraska. It is Colorado though so one must have photos of mountainous areas when driving through there.

Colorado:

Keep trying little one...you'll make a mountain someday.

Yours truly driving by a mountainous area.

     When we finally got to Santa Fe we found tons of construction, but we also found a joyous and welcoming community of folks.

New Mexico:

    Santa Fe:

The 'Double Cottonwood' outside Georgia O'Keeffe's Musuem

Beautiful doors near the state capital.

Beautiful doors near the state capital.

Hanging from the rafters in an odd museum outside of Santa Fe

Bison Horn found in the same odd musuem

Railroad tracks disappearing into the desert. Beautiful in it's own way.

     The road to Roswell was very nice but you know I called it the ‘Devils Anvil’, because it’s a long and flat desert with nothing but cattle. You know I never in my wildest dreams would have thought there would be cattle hanging out in the desert, but there is.

  Roswell:

Cowboy's outside of Roswell.

Cowboys outside of Roswell.

As you exit the UFO museum this is the mural on the wall.

An interesting letter regarding the exsistance of E.T.'s.

Mayan wood carvings of the E.T.'s

 While we were there we even got abducted and guess what? We got it all on video. 

     While driving back through New Mexico and into Colorado we had a blast. It was a sunny day with my happy wife and I and nothing to do but drive. It was very fun and we ended the night in Pueblo, Colorado. We had Chinese food that night and man was it beautiful, but a long day of driving will put you in a weird head space and we both slept very well that night. 

 Colorado again:

Mountains?

I think they're coming.

Oh yes. Those are mountain's.

Windmills too. I love me some windmills!

Finally after a long day of driving....bed. Lets see if there's room for me.

      The next morning we had a great breakfast and hit the road early. We wanted to make it to Rapid City, SD before nightfall. I loved the time we spent in Colorado, but I didn't really like the driving. Lot's of people pretending to be race car drivers oh well. Slow and Steady may not win the race, but it'll get you there safe and sound. There was also quite a bit of back up on the freeway because of construction.  The next state we drove through was Wyoming which means more mountains and open spaces. Wyoming is a beautiful place and I for one would love to live there for one year. Wouldn't it be grand to see Wyoming in all of the seasons? We stopped at a rest stop and found a Mammoth skeleton next to the map. I think they were trying to tell us something. "Don't get lost here or this may happen." I didn't know that Wyoming had such wonderful archeological digs and remains.

Wyoming:

No use asking this guy where to go if you're lost.

I think he needs a double espresso don't you?

We didn't get to far into the mountains we stayed east of them.

If this is east of the mountains imagine what they look like. Uffda!

     We finally did make it to Rapid City, SD and man was it a fine time. The first thing we did after checking in was go for supper and a couple of beers. We went to a place called Firehouse Brewing. If you want a good bison burger and you're in Rapid City go here and don't forget the beer. They have great beer, and are connected to a separate wine house which has live music twice a week. If you're there check them out as well. You never know maybe you'll see some good live music.

     The Spirits were with us because we ended up in Rapid just in time for Native American day. It's a day to honor the Native people and their Ancestors. Many towns and cities are replacing Columbus day with either Indigenous Peoples Day, Native American Day, or First Nations Day. I, for one, am all for it. There was a parade, and a Pow Wow. I got some video of the parade but not the Pow Wow. Only one photo turned so I have that as well.

South Dakota:

  Rapid City:

Firehouse Brewing

Photo of the parade.

                                       

     Finally, we made it home and our two lovely ladies were quite happy to see us. 

Thanks for popping by and don't forget to comment. Oh and before I forget next weeks entry will be the video's of our journey. I still have to put them all together in a nice neat package.

Peace

It's good to be home.

"Oh were you gone? Hm, didn't notice."

Ms Marley doesn't like her photo to be taken.

Motorcycles, Museums, and Tattoos

A couple of weeks ago I went on a longish (for me) motorcycle ride to the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. My mother in law, sister in law, her boyfriend and I went a total of two hundred miles. I did take some video footage of it for your viewing pleasure.

Let's start by chatting about the bikes involved. I'm going to begin with mine because it's the coolest. Well, in my opinion and I'm writing this so....
I have a 1999 Yamaha Vstar 650. Here's a photo.

                                                                  Her name is Daisy.

My sister in law rides a 2012 Victory Highball here's a photo of hers.

                                          It's pretty too, but well I'm a little partial to Daisy.

Her boyfriend has a very cool 2012 Harley Davidson Street Glide, and although I don't have a photo of it you'll be able to see it in the beginning of the video below.

We started at the house and went down Rochester County 9 toward St Charles, Mn. It's a very nice newer country road. There are many little rolling hills, farmer fields, small patches of forest and plenty of sunshine. It's a joy to ride. Continue on nine till it stops then take a left.
Taking a left puts you on state highway 74 which will meander around some long curves and bring you into Whitewater State Park. Which by the way is one of my personal favorites in the whole country. You'll see various species of trees, birds, bluff country, happy people, and streams. It's worth a special trip just to visit this park. If you go don't forget to see 'Inspiration Point'.
74 curves you around and takes you to the small hamlet of Elba, Mn which as of 2013 had a population of 155 souls. While there we stopped for deep fried cheese curds and root beer at Mauer Brothers Tavern and Grill. Pretty good curds and they have 1919 root beer. You'll love it.  They have outside seating with a great view of the bluff, humming birds, and the fire tower.

Turn right on East Center St. which doubles as Winona County Road 26. This black top is so new it looks slippery. You're going to have a blast riding the long twists and turns under old trees which stand like statesmen inviting you to enjoy their shade. Now eventually 26 ends and right there you're going to want to take a left onto highway 248. 248 will bring you by farmland, hills, and by the town of Rollingstone.  Keep going till you get to Highway 61 and then a right will bring you roaring into Winona, Mn.  The Minnesota Marine Art Museum (or MMAM for short) is down on the River Road which will be a straight shot after you take a left on 14. Cross the tracks and keep going it'll be on the left.

We went to see their sailor tattoo exhibition. Which really was pretty cool. If you're in the area it's still going on and will be till December of 2016. While you're there be sure to visit the Monet, the Hudson River School, and the many others. It has some of the best you will see and is amazing to find in Minnesota. One of the reasons to visit our fine state is to visit this museum right on the Mississippi. Here's a link. https://www.mmam.org/

On the ride back we took highway 14 and the beginning part of 14 is fun and very curvy. If you're a beginner you might want to bone up on your curves first or just go slow and easy like me. The latter half of 14 is in need of work and is not smooth at all, but it is still a nice drive.

Check out my video of the adventure here.

 

Thanks for popping by and I hope you have a terrific day!