Tag: Modifications
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Nerd Post – Controlling Refrigerator Fans with a Microcontroller
No travel on this post. Just nerd stuff. 🙂 We’ve been mucking around with the refrigerator since the campervan was new. Coachmen didn’t vent the fridge properly and issued a service bulletin to correct the venting. My glorious dealer claimed to have fixed the issue. I discovered that not only did the dealer do a…
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Scope Creep – Rebuilding the Rear Cargo Area
What started out as a solar project ended up as a carpentry, upholstery and sewing project. Scope creep, for sure. We haven’t been camping in a couple of months and don’t have any big trips planned until fall, so now is a good time to creep the scope. Coachmen did a great job of hiding…
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Rooftop Solar – Magnetic Mount
A year ago I bought a couple of portable solar panels, thinking that they would be useful for charging the batteries in cases where we camp more than a couple days in one spot. At the time, running the engine didn’t charge the batteries very quickly and running the generator was (and is) far too…
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Prototypes …
When I’m building stuff that doesn’t quite turn out right, I have a ready-made excuse: “It’s just a prototype … if it doesn’t work, we can throw it away and start over.” So here’s my latest round of not-quite-right prototypes. New table: The campervan came with a tiny, near useless 12″ x 28″ table and…
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Pop-Rivets and HDPE
The Coachmen Crossfit/Beyond comes from the factory with about a foot of empty space behind the drivers seat. On our first trip, we simply piled random stuff in that space. That didn’t work too well, so I built a small cabinet with flip-down panels that I hoped would make that space more usable. The cabinet…
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Keeping my Lithium Battery Warm
If you are familiar with lithium batteries (LiFePo4) you know that they are not happy when they are cold. Charging a LifePo4 battery when the battery is below freezing or storing it below -4°F will damage the battery. Some batteries have built-in circuitry that cuts off charging at damaging temperatures and some have built-in heaters.…
