When we were building the bus at our house, power was never an issue. Even in the ridiculously hot summers of Phoenix at over 110℉. We plugged in all of our power tools to the house and ran our bus air conditioners off of the solar and battery all day
Wiring for Overhead Lights
We finished the first part of the insulation (Ceratex) and the furring strips. Before we could move onto the rest of the insulation (Roxul) or putting up any structure, we had to get the wiring in place for all of the overhead lighting.
When we last shared our progress with
Bus Automation: Testing Out What We've Learned So Far
Warning: Seriously nerdy stuff lies ahead. Proceed with caution.
This week we have an update on our "bus automation" project. Last time we introduced the technologies that we were exploring as well as some of the hardware we intended to use for experimentation.
I spent some time configuring and learning
Paint Update and Bus Automation Intro
Paint Update
As many of you recall, we dropped the bus off to our painter in Mexico in mid-June to get painted. Mexico has had very heavy rain in this last monsoon season. This is very good for Mexico - very bad if you want to get a bus painted.
DC Power Part 2: Testing, Running Cable, Generator Hook-Up
Last week, we put the converters, relays, and fuses on our board and got it wired into the supply side. We did some preliminary testing to ensure that everything was connected correctly.
This week, we finished wiring everything up. We ran the control wire for the "backup" system power, ran
DC Power Part 1: 48V to 12V Converters, Relays, and Fuses
After getting the A/C power mostly squared away and tested, it was time to tackle the 12V DC "house" power side of things. Most modern motorhomes actually have three discrete electrical systems powered by two separate sets of batteries. The first electrical system is to power the vehicle part
Victron Quattro 48/5000/70 Inverter Part 2: Charging & Testing with Our Air Conditioner
In our last post, we went over our process for selecting the Victron Quattro inverter. We discussed a few of the benefits offered by this inverter as well as gave an overview of how we wired everything. Now we finally have enough of our system hooked up to run a
Victron Quattro 48/5000/70 Inverter Part 1: Overview and Test
We finally have all our electrical connections wired up and our BMS working. It is time to fire up our Victron inverter and see if everything works! Before we do that, we will explain why we decided on this particular inverter, briefly recap how we wired it up, give a
REC BMS: An Overview & the Setup
We are starting a four-part series on our major electrical components. In this series, we will share our research and thoughts as to why we selected REC BMS, the Victron Quattro inverter, the Victron Color Control GX, and the Victron Smart Solar MPPT solar charge controller. We will also go
A Hacker's Take on RV House Batteries: Part 7.5 UPDATE to Supply Side Wiring
We want to give a huge thank you to all the folks who take the time to provide feedback and advice on our build. Thank you! We read every comment and consider every idea. When folks bring up potential issues with safety, we pay particularly close attention. A couple of
A/C Power: Part 2- Wiring the Circuits
After wiring the inverter to the 120V load center, we were ready to wire up all of the A/C circuits. We have seen many bus conversions and RVs that only have a couple of A/C circuits. But, we would like to be able to cook something in the
AC Power: Part1 - Installing a 120V Load Center
After wiring up the supply side of the system, it was time to actually prepare to send that power somewhere. We decided to start with the 120V A/C side of things. Our starting point was to map out where we need 120V in the bus and how many different