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Project potpourri...

August 23, 2013, 12:08:45 pm

Well it seems as though my house is sold and the closing date approaches (as does the launch of our becoming full timers). In a way, it can't come soon enough. In another way, it feels like there's so much that I would like to finish on the coach before that day gets here that it comes too fast. Sadly some of the projects will have to wait, but others are imperative to bring to a close. As I tie up some of these loose ends (and there are many), I thought I would start a thread that details some of the projects I may have posted about before but are now coming to closure. Some of these may be of interest to those contemplating similar projects on their own coaches, and others be of general interest to those who want to see what this crazy man will do next (you know who you are!). I will start the ball rolling with a post about the camera project which I posted about in a thread a ways back.
Power Tilt Back Up Camera
Due to the size of the camera, I had to make quite a few adjustments to the opening where you access the camera from the bedroom. Of course I want the bedroom to be sealed from the outside elements, and it seemed like a good idea to keep the space directly behind the intake plenum sealed off from the bedroom and from the outside as well. It was a tricky project because of the curved shape of the wall behind the camera and because of having to work inside the bedroom cabinet while kneeling on the bed. Sort of like building a ship in a bottle... while I was at it, I refined the tilt mechanism mount so that could be sealed. The trim is all solid oak, not for looks so much as the fact that oak holds screws so much better than softwood. The hatch cover is made out of one quarter inch oak plywood laminated to the same fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP) material I used on the underside of the coach. The sides and top of the enclosure are made out of Starboard (think plastic cutting board). The only thing that isn't shown here is the three-quarter inch foil faced polyurethane foam insulation under the cover. There is a void behind the back wall of the bedroom which is mostly filled with expanded foam insulation. This insulation extends up to about the bottom of the cabinet over the bed. This void is used for cable runs and is sealed from the camera opening, as well as from the inside of the coach.
More to come...
Don

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Re: Project potpourri...

Reply #1 – August 23, 2013, 01:15:48 pm

Don, who are you kidding, you will NEVER consider yourself done in that coach !

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Re: Project potpourri...

Reply #2 – August 23, 2013, 04:20:38 pm

If Don ever finishes with his coach what will we read on the today's topic stuff???

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Re: Project potpourri...

Reply #3 – August 23, 2013, 06:41:22 pm

Okay, the coach will never be completely done LOL... But done for now will have to do when it's time to hit the road

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Re: Project potpourri...

Reply #4 – August 23, 2013, 08:49:21 pm

Another little one... completion of the water heater install. The old water heater had a single switch that controlled the LP igniter while the 120V A/C control was switched separately on the bottom of the bed platform. This is a bit of an over simplification because of changes in the design that moved some of the water heater components to the front and added a relay for control of the 120V A/C element. Anyway, the bedroom switch still has to be on to power the element but now the original switch powers the up the A/C and I repurposed the Antenna booster switch to control the LP... I could reverse the switches and have the "new" one control the electric heating element element but I guess it doesn't matter. The new water heater came with its own dual switch panel, but it was white, plasticky, and didn't match anything else in the coach. When I had all the tanks out, I had run some three-quarter inch PEX to use his conduit and ran a bunch of wire through it into the area at the front of the storage compartment. I had coiled it up there so all that I had to do was figure out how to get up to the cabinets underneath the sink. I just drilled a new hole into the area underneath the drawers on the right side of the kitchen cabinets and ran the wire up there which is just over the relay panel behind the inverter. It was easy once I figured out what to do and where to do it. The new water heater's DC wire bundle has four wires and includes a blue one for the lock out LED. I extended this wire and hooked it up to the red LED that was on the old water heater switch. I don't see an easy way of testing the lockout LED short causing a fault, but I figure it should work... I guess I could turn off gas at the propane tank and test one of the failure modes that way. Anyway not much to show in the pictures, but here they are anyway.

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