piratexpress1369a
Explorer
speedy recovery trish ..the seats in back do they need to have seat belts..and the bed it looks short for you ,just guessing that you are close to 6 foot tall
Unimogadventures - Our build and travel thread
- Thread starter Iain_U1250
- Start date
Iain_U1250
Explorer
We will be putting lap belts in the back and get the paperwork/compliance plate needed to have people travel in the back. This is so our kids can come with us for a time when we are overseas, but they will have to put up with a tent outside or on the roof.
The bed is a standard double bed - 187cm tall, so just over 6ft. I am 179 cm tall, so I just fit, Trish is a bit shorter. We have tested the bed and spent a couple of nights in it as well
It is comfortable for us. We did consider making the locker around the top of the bed shorter, so that we could extended the head or foot room by the 100mm of so, but felt is was not necessary. A taller person might find it a bit short, but then we don't plan on having a taller person share the bed with us
Merry Christmas to everyone, and lets hope next year is a lot better than the past two years have been.
The bed is a standard double bed - 187cm tall, so just over 6ft. I am 179 cm tall, so I just fit, Trish is a bit shorter. We have tested the bed and spent a couple of nights in it as well
It is comfortable for us. We did consider making the locker around the top of the bed shorter, so that we could extended the head or foot room by the 100mm of so, but felt is was not necessary. A taller person might find it a bit short, but then we don't plan on having a taller person share the bed with us Merry Christmas to everyone, and lets hope next year is a lot better than the past two years have been.
Bernard_Roofus
"Jackaroo of all trades"
Merry Christmas!
Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk
Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk
Iain_U1250
Explorer
Baie dankie Jochen, voorspoedige nuwe jaar vir jy and jou familie
Iain_U1250
Explorer
Progress this month has been slow and steady, a lot of thinking, design and redesign has been done. First off was finding a place for the intercooler radiator. I originally was going to put a thinner radiator in front of the air con condenser on the radiator, but there was not enough space if I wanted to fit a pusher fan to help with the air flow.
The interooler is not a simple air-air one, but a water-air interooler. The OEM air-air intercooler involves a cab lift, and a different grill due to the size and thickness of the intercooler, there is then no space for a condenser for the air conditioning. A water air intercooler is a lot more complicated, a lot more compact and is supposed to be more efficient. The intercooler consists of the barrel heat exchanger, which the hot air from the turbo is cooled by water, rather than air. The water heats up and has to be pumped around to be cooled by a separate radiator. The radiator also has an electric fan to boost airflow at low speed. The fan is only 10" wide, and draws around 6A, the water pump draws around 3A, so I decided to limit current draw by only having the pump and fan work when the air temperature is hot. Fitting the intercooler radiator on the right of the engine bay meant I had to get another intercooler radiator, one that is thicker but smaller. So I reluctantly parted with the cash and ordered another one from Frozen Boost in the US. It arrived in a week, quicker than part from Melbourne!
In order to fit the radiator on that side, I had to remake the air con/alternator bracket, to move the alternator higher up and closer to the a/c compressor. After making the necessary modifications, there was just enough space for the radiator, and since it will be attached to the chassis, I had to allow enough clearance around for the cab movement.
As part of the the new alternator bracket, I added a bracket for the fuel filters.
The next bracket to make was the intercooler bracket. After many different configuration, this is what I came up with. The bracket is attached to the mudguard support. I then got a piece of stainless steel pipe bent up to fit between the intercooler and the engine intake.
Next on the list was to fit all the ports for the boost gauge, the waste gate and the air intake temperature gauge. This involved drilling and tapping each of the ports, and then silver soldering the fittings in. The air intake temperature will be used to control the fan and the water pump.
I also fitted the oil filter, filled the engine with oil, fitted all the turbo piping and then cranked the engine over to check the oil flow through the turbo. Being a ball bearing turbo, it needs only a little bit of oil to lubricate the bearings, too much flow will force the oil past the seals. I fitted a restrictor into the oil line, and checked to see if there was too much or too little oil flow. It looks like the restrictor was necessary, are without it, there was a strong stream of oil at cranking speed, so would be massive flow at normal speed. With the restrictor in place, there was only a small stream of oil flowing out of the turbo. Like all things, time will tell whether I need a smaller restrictor or not.
One the things I have been putting off is the modification the gear shifter. The original shifter has a pretty long throw, almost as much as I can reach without moving in the seat. I decided to modify the shifter so that it would not be such a long throw, like a "short shift" gear change I had on my Audi S4. I extended the part of the gear stick below the ball joint by 25mm. This effectively reduced the throw of the gear stick by about 40%. This was not a complicated job, just a bit of cutting and welding but getting the gear stick out without tilting the cab was not so simple. The only downside of the short shift, is that it needs a bit more pressure to change gears.
I was testing the throttle linkage, and all of a sudden the throttle bracket broke - bugger. Talking to Ben, he has supplied quite a few of these things, seems like they are fairly brittle, and can be easily cracked when putting them on the shaft. I'm not sure if I did it or the previous mechanics, but either way, I have to buy a new one.
I then turned my attention to the interior. With the stove cabinet almost finished, it was time to fit the last panel, the one for the Webasto stove control. This one is pretty tricky, as I had to find a way to mount the panel without any visible screws on the front. I attached an piece of 50x50mm aluminium angle to the bottom, and another 30x30mm piece to the side. Using nutserts on the aluminium, I could bolt through the bottom panel. The top left corner needed another piece of aluminium, so I epoxied some more nutserts in the underside to the benchtop. The only way to access the bolt is through the small opening for the stove controller.
At last, with all the panels and the controls in place, it was time to commission the stove. It took a couple of goes to get the diesel in from the jerry can below, but on the second attempt, the stove fired up. It was a great feeling to have get it working. I decided to do a bit of a test the next day. I fired up the stove at 9:17, and then filled up the pot with 1 litre of water. It took 13 minutes to boil a litre of water, not exactly brilliant, but still now so bad.
The interooler is not a simple air-air one, but a water-air interooler. The OEM air-air intercooler involves a cab lift, and a different grill due to the size and thickness of the intercooler, there is then no space for a condenser for the air conditioning. A water air intercooler is a lot more complicated, a lot more compact and is supposed to be more efficient. The intercooler consists of the barrel heat exchanger, which the hot air from the turbo is cooled by water, rather than air. The water heats up and has to be pumped around to be cooled by a separate radiator. The radiator also has an electric fan to boost airflow at low speed. The fan is only 10" wide, and draws around 6A, the water pump draws around 3A, so I decided to limit current draw by only having the pump and fan work when the air temperature is hot. Fitting the intercooler radiator on the right of the engine bay meant I had to get another intercooler radiator, one that is thicker but smaller. So I reluctantly parted with the cash and ordered another one from Frozen Boost in the US. It arrived in a week, quicker than part from Melbourne!
In order to fit the radiator on that side, I had to remake the air con/alternator bracket, to move the alternator higher up and closer to the a/c compressor. After making the necessary modifications, there was just enough space for the radiator, and since it will be attached to the chassis, I had to allow enough clearance around for the cab movement.
As part of the the new alternator bracket, I added a bracket for the fuel filters.
The next bracket to make was the intercooler bracket. After many different configuration, this is what I came up with. The bracket is attached to the mudguard support. I then got a piece of stainless steel pipe bent up to fit between the intercooler and the engine intake.
Next on the list was to fit all the ports for the boost gauge, the waste gate and the air intake temperature gauge. This involved drilling and tapping each of the ports, and then silver soldering the fittings in. The air intake temperature will be used to control the fan and the water pump.
I also fitted the oil filter, filled the engine with oil, fitted all the turbo piping and then cranked the engine over to check the oil flow through the turbo. Being a ball bearing turbo, it needs only a little bit of oil to lubricate the bearings, too much flow will force the oil past the seals. I fitted a restrictor into the oil line, and checked to see if there was too much or too little oil flow. It looks like the restrictor was necessary, are without it, there was a strong stream of oil at cranking speed, so would be massive flow at normal speed. With the restrictor in place, there was only a small stream of oil flowing out of the turbo. Like all things, time will tell whether I need a smaller restrictor or not.
One the things I have been putting off is the modification the gear shifter. The original shifter has a pretty long throw, almost as much as I can reach without moving in the seat. I decided to modify the shifter so that it would not be such a long throw, like a "short shift" gear change I had on my Audi S4. I extended the part of the gear stick below the ball joint by 25mm. This effectively reduced the throw of the gear stick by about 40%. This was not a complicated job, just a bit of cutting and welding but getting the gear stick out without tilting the cab was not so simple. The only downside of the short shift, is that it needs a bit more pressure to change gears.
I was testing the throttle linkage, and all of a sudden the throttle bracket broke - bugger. Talking to Ben, he has supplied quite a few of these things, seems like they are fairly brittle, and can be easily cracked when putting them on the shaft. I'm not sure if I did it or the previous mechanics, but either way, I have to buy a new one.
I then turned my attention to the interior. With the stove cabinet almost finished, it was time to fit the last panel, the one for the Webasto stove control. This one is pretty tricky, as I had to find a way to mount the panel without any visible screws on the front. I attached an piece of 50x50mm aluminium angle to the bottom, and another 30x30mm piece to the side. Using nutserts on the aluminium, I could bolt through the bottom panel. The top left corner needed another piece of aluminium, so I epoxied some more nutserts in the underside to the benchtop. The only way to access the bolt is through the small opening for the stove controller.
At last, with all the panels and the controls in place, it was time to commission the stove. It took a couple of goes to get the diesel in from the jerry can below, but on the second attempt, the stove fired up. It was a great feeling to have get it working. I decided to do a bit of a test the next day. I fired up the stove at 9:17, and then filled up the pot with 1 litre of water. It took 13 minutes to boil a litre of water, not exactly brilliant, but still now so bad.
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Iain_U1250
Explorer
One of the other things I did on the interior is find and fit the stays for the overhead locker doors. The cabinet maker said he had heard from a friend about a type of spring latch at Whitworths Marine supplies, so I went down there and had a look. This is what I found, and they work great,.
The spring stays straight, and is strong enough to hold up the door easily. To close the door, all you need to do is bend the spring, and you can close the lid. All pretty easy. It has taken about a year to find a solution for this, and to find something so simple that just works is great.
With all the intercooler stuff sorted out, it was time to install the fuel filters and get the all the hoses sorted. New hoses, fittings and seals and a bit of red engine paint and there was another thing finished. I still have to fit the rest of the fuel lines to and from the tank, but it's a good feeling to fit something for the last time.
Next on the list was to paint up and fit the intercooler heat exchanger, with all the ports and fittings. It's great to be fitting things with the intention of not having to take them off again.
Since the heat exchanger is mounted on the chassis, and not the engine, I had to have a flexible coupling for the connection, I am not sure how much the engine moves, you can;t even move it a millimeter by hand, but I have positioned the coupling so that I have about 10mm of movement in and out. Hopefully this is enough, but time will tell.
One of the most time consuming things this month has been designing and fabricating the heating system for the camper. It is pretty complicated, and getting the hot water all the way from either the engine or the Webasto 90ST diesel furnace. The camper hydronic system as it is called need to have different circuits. It has two operating modes. First off when the engine is running, the engine supplies hot water to camper hot water circuit. Since the engine driven water pump will pump into the cab heater, and also provides cooling for the turbo. The shear length of the camper hydronic circuit means that I am not sure if the engine pump will provide enough flow to go through the pipework. In order to ensure there is water flowing through the camper circuit I decide to use a Davies Craig electric water pump ( Just the little 15l/min booster pump). This means that the standard coolant loop remains in place, but the EWP will provide flow into the camper loop.
When the engine is switched off, then the diesel furnace supplies hot water to the camper circuit, but that has a built in water pump. The return flow will also heat up the engine block as well. The ST90 is a 9kw heater, so would have no problem keeping the block and the camper warm as well.
Inside the camper hot water circuit there are three loops. First is the calorifier, which is the primary loop and will always have coolant flowing through it, the secondary loop is the camper heater circuit, which will take priority over the calorifier by using 19mm pipe vs the 15mm pipe on the calorifier circuit. The third loop is for heating the rear compartment where the water tanks are - just to stop them freezing when we are in Siberia It will be also in parallel but with an 8mm ball valve to restrict flow as it just needs enough to keep temperature in the back above freezing so the water tanks don't freeze.
I decided to make the manifold out of stainless steel. I found a place called Sterling Australia and they sell stainless steel at reasonable prices. After much designing and figuring, I went and bought all the fittings. The next thing was to get make up the manifold. I bought a pipe threader off ebay, it cost $60 so I was not expecting much, but it was a piece of junk, and could only do one thread on the pipe before breaking. I tried to get another one, tried all the hardware stores, engineering supplies and and trade tool shops, eventually I even tried the hire shops, but no one had one. I eventually contacted the suppliers directly, but Rigid Tools did not have one that could do steel or stainless in stock. It would be a four week wait to get one from the US. It seems there is just no call for them in these days of plastic and copper pipe for all water plumbing.
In the end, I contacted the local engineering workshop, and after chatting to the foreman, he found, hidden in their back room, some dies that they have not used in years that could put a thread on the stainless pipe.
In order to get the lengths of the custom pipe correct, I decided to make up all the lengths of each individual pipe using 19mm plastic conduit, this way I could have a hope of getting things correct. I picked up the pipe late this afternoon, so will find out soon whether I am able to build something with millimeter tolerence or not.
The final success story for the week is the control system for the electric air compressor. Like all things, the system is complex. The main engine driven air compressor will handle most of the load, but during start up, I need to boost the air supply, as the truck will not move until there is enough air pressure in the tanks to release the park brake. The electric ARB compressor puts out about the same amount of air as the engine compressor. The big difference is that when the air system gets up to operating pressure of around 8.5 Bar, the unloaded valve opens and the compressor freewheels down to around 7.5Bar.
The ARB compressor need to charge the system up to 7.5Bar, then switch off, and only come back on when the pressure is below 7.0Bar. The pressure warning light on mine comes on at 6.5Bar, so I need to keep the pressure above that.
A simple pressure switch would be ideal, but things are never simple. I got a pressure switch that closes at 7.0Bar, but there was quite a wide difference between switching on and off, around 2 Bar, which means it doesn't work. for what I want. I contacted Air Brake Systems and they came up with this solution. It is called a Bendix D2 Governor valve. It is part of a truck air brake system, so is build to last. The D2 is also adjustable, so after a bit of adjustment, it comes on at 7.5Bar and goes off at 7.0Bar, perfect.
The is a bit more plumbing involved, as since there are two compressor, I had to add some non-return valves into the supply lines of each compressor, so that the when either one is not running, the air would not leak out of the other compressor. All of the components I got from Air Brake Systems to ensure they are meant for use in a truck air systems, not just relying on the ARB's cheap little non return valve. I tested the ARB and D2 today, and everything seems to work fine, it cuts in and out like it is supposed to do. Whats more, the ARB compressor by itself can get the system up to pressure in the mandatory 5 minutes required by the Australia regulations. Once I start the engine, I will be able to see if I got it all right.
The final thing today was to clean out the right hand fuel tank, and start working on the fuel system. I was surprised by the amount of dirt, bits of wood, metal shavings and sand in the fuel tank, but sloshing around 10 litres of diesel and I think I was able to get most of it out. I then rigged an electric pump to circulate the diesel through a CAV filter between the tank and a bucket. At the end of the day no dirt was coming out of the tank, so I put in another 10 litres of diesel and left the pump to circulate the fuel around the tank through the fuel filter for anther hour or so whilst I cleaned up the workshop ready for next week, where maybe I will get the engine running for the first time in 4 years.
The spring stays straight, and is strong enough to hold up the door easily. To close the door, all you need to do is bend the spring, and you can close the lid. All pretty easy. It has taken about a year to find a solution for this, and to find something so simple that just works is great.
With all the intercooler stuff sorted out, it was time to install the fuel filters and get the all the hoses sorted. New hoses, fittings and seals and a bit of red engine paint and there was another thing finished. I still have to fit the rest of the fuel lines to and from the tank, but it's a good feeling to fit something for the last time.
Next on the list was to paint up and fit the intercooler heat exchanger, with all the ports and fittings. It's great to be fitting things with the intention of not having to take them off again
.Since the heat exchanger is mounted on the chassis, and not the engine, I had to have a flexible coupling for the connection, I am not sure how much the engine moves, you can;t even move it a millimeter by hand, but I have positioned the coupling so that I have about 10mm of movement in and out. Hopefully this is enough, but time will tell.
One of the most time consuming things this month has been designing and fabricating the heating system for the camper. It is pretty complicated, and getting the hot water all the way from either the engine or the Webasto 90ST diesel furnace. The camper hydronic system as it is called need to have different circuits. It has two operating modes. First off when the engine is running, the engine supplies hot water to camper hot water circuit. Since the engine driven water pump will pump into the cab heater, and also provides cooling for the turbo. The shear length of the camper hydronic circuit means that I am not sure if the engine pump will provide enough flow to go through the pipework. In order to ensure there is water flowing through the camper circuit I decide to use a Davies Craig electric water pump ( Just the little 15l/min booster pump). This means that the standard coolant loop remains in place, but the EWP will provide flow into the camper loop.
When the engine is switched off, then the diesel furnace supplies hot water to the camper circuit, but that has a built in water pump. The return flow will also heat up the engine block as well. The ST90 is a 9kw heater, so would have no problem keeping the block and the camper warm as well.
Inside the camper hot water circuit there are three loops. First is the calorifier, which is the primary loop and will always have coolant flowing through it, the secondary loop is the camper heater circuit, which will take priority over the calorifier by using 19mm pipe vs the 15mm pipe on the calorifier circuit. The third loop is for heating the rear compartment where the water tanks are - just to stop them freezing when we are in Siberia It will be also in parallel but with an 8mm ball valve to restrict flow as it just needs enough to keep temperature in the back above freezing so the water tanks don't freeze.
I decided to make the manifold out of stainless steel. I found a place called Sterling Australia and they sell stainless steel at reasonable prices. After much designing and figuring, I went and bought all the fittings. The next thing was to get make up the manifold. I bought a pipe threader off ebay, it cost $60 so I was not expecting much, but it was a piece of junk, and could only do one thread on the pipe before breaking. I tried to get another one, tried all the hardware stores, engineering supplies and and trade tool shops, eventually I even tried the hire shops, but no one had one. I eventually contacted the suppliers directly, but Rigid Tools did not have one that could do steel or stainless in stock. It would be a four week wait to get one from the US. It seems there is just no call for them in these days of plastic and copper pipe for all water plumbing.
In the end, I contacted the local engineering workshop, and after chatting to the foreman, he found, hidden in their back room, some dies that they have not used in years that could put a thread on the stainless pipe.
In order to get the lengths of the custom pipe correct, I decided to make up all the lengths of each individual pipe using 19mm plastic conduit, this way I could have a hope of getting things correct. I picked up the pipe late this afternoon, so will find out soon whether I am able to build something with millimeter tolerence or not.
The final success story for the week is the control system for the electric air compressor. Like all things, the system is complex. The main engine driven air compressor will handle most of the load, but during start up, I need to boost the air supply, as the truck will not move until there is enough air pressure in the tanks to release the park brake. The electric ARB compressor puts out about the same amount of air as the engine compressor. The big difference is that when the air system gets up to operating pressure of around 8.5 Bar, the unloaded valve opens and the compressor freewheels down to around 7.5Bar.
The ARB compressor need to charge the system up to 7.5Bar, then switch off, and only come back on when the pressure is below 7.0Bar. The pressure warning light on mine comes on at 6.5Bar, so I need to keep the pressure above that.
A simple pressure switch would be ideal, but things are never simple. I got a pressure switch that closes at 7.0Bar, but there was quite a wide difference between switching on and off, around 2 Bar, which means it doesn't work. for what I want. I contacted Air Brake Systems and they came up with this solution. It is called a Bendix D2 Governor valve. It is part of a truck air brake system, so is build to last. The D2 is also adjustable, so after a bit of adjustment, it comes on at 7.5Bar and goes off at 7.0Bar, perfect.
The is a bit more plumbing involved, as since there are two compressor, I had to add some non-return valves into the supply lines of each compressor, so that the when either one is not running, the air would not leak out of the other compressor. All of the components I got from Air Brake Systems to ensure they are meant for use in a truck air systems, not just relying on the ARB's cheap little non return valve. I tested the ARB and D2 today, and everything seems to work fine, it cuts in and out like it is supposed to do. Whats more, the ARB compressor by itself can get the system up to pressure in the mandatory 5 minutes required by the Australia regulations. Once I start the engine, I will be able to see if I got it all right.
The final thing today was to clean out the right hand fuel tank, and start working on the fuel system. I was surprised by the amount of dirt, bits of wood, metal shavings and sand in the fuel tank, but sloshing around 10 litres of diesel and I think I was able to get most of it out. I then rigged an electric pump to circulate the diesel through a CAV filter between the tank and a bucket. At the end of the day no dirt was coming out of the tank, so I put in another 10 litres of diesel and left the pump to circulate the fuel around the tank through the fuel filter for anther hour or so whilst I cleaned up the workshop ready for next week, where maybe I will get the engine running for the first time in 4 years.
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canals1164
Observer
Iain
It looks like your attention to detail is endless, the result is going to be brilliant. I hope that you are recording all the detail of electrics and air systems, after two years my biggest problem is remembering why or what that cable was used for!
great build and as always interesting posts.
Good luck with finishing the build.
It looks like your attention to detail is endless, the result is going to be brilliant. I hope that you are recording all the detail of electrics and air systems, after two years my biggest problem is remembering why or what that cable was used for!
great build and as always interesting posts.
Good luck with finishing the build.
Iain_U1250
Explorer
I have loads of wiring diagrams, which I will eventually get laminated and stuck on the inside of the various cabinets with description of each fuse and wire. I have also put some "Moose Tags" on each wire in the control panel / distribution box, so that if a few come loose, I can see what they are for.
Since I will be re-wiring the rest of the truck as well. I will have a book of "single Line diagrams" - one for each circuit, in the camper there are 40 circuits, and and 70 in the truck. Currently all hand drawn, but I may find some software to do proper drawings, might make it easier to modify.
One of the good things about going with a steel frame/aluminium clad camper, is that you can run all the wires to the various cabinets through the roof and walls. I studied Rob "Whathehelisthat 1 and 2 " build for long time, and bought books on wiring for campers and solar systems. There are loads of wires and fuses everywhere. The wires are way oversized for the current they are draw, and all distribution wires have circuit breakers, and individual appliance wires have fuses protecting each wire. A short should blow a fuse or trip a circuit breaker lone before anything bad happens. I have tested each circuit by connecting the positive and negative wires together. So far a fuse or circuit breaker cuts the current instantly. I know I have gone overboard a bit, even the camper seats are electric!. I have bought 150m of double insulated wire, and it's all gone into the camper somewhere, along with about 40m of very heavy wire for the big current items, and that is double insulated welding cable for the most part and is also oversized, and each battery has a fuse on the terminal. I have bought another 800m of various colour automotive wire for re-wiring the truck, all I can say is that there is a hell of a lot of wire in my truck
. There is one other addition to the stove I still have to install, that is a heat shield/splash back to protect the occupant of the seat (and the seat) from the stove. It will be hinged along one side, and fold over the top of the stove when not in use to protect the stove - don't want and falling objects to break the glass top. I'm also thinking of adding an extractor fan into the hatch above the stove.
I agree Rob, it takes about 2-3 minutes before it produces any heat at all, and then slowly warms up. Once it is warm, it stays hot for quite a while. I'm not sure how the X100 works, I think the diesel furnace melts some sodium with then circulates around transferring the heat. Our main kitchen will be outside when it is warm, and will use a smaller portable stove, might be gas, or metho, or petrol, we will have to see what works for us.
We will have a kettle, been hunting for a little 1200W or lower one, but since we have a Nespresso machine, we don't boil water that often anymore.
After our problems with inverters on our trip around Australia in the Land Rover, we have decided to use the inverter that was replaced under warranty (We got a 2000W 8Zed one to replace the 1500W 8Zed) and will build that into the little cupboard next to the toilet. We realised that having redundancy is a good thing when it comes to things we use often. Our main inverter is a Latronics 1600W, this is a massive thing, weighs a ton and we went for the "ruggedised" option, so hopefully it will hold together. The new one will be a back-up. We will also have a Projecta 1000W square wave inverter in the rear kitchen, just because we have it lying around, and Trish like to use mixers and slicers and wants some power outside.
graynomad
Photographer, traveller
We have a Birko 800W kettle, it's actually a food heater I think but works well as a kettle. Slower than 2400w of course but ok and better than sucking 100A from our batteries.
It's good to have redundancy, we didn't really do much in that regard but do have 2-3 other small inverters around the place that could be used at a pinch.
And where does all that wire go eh? It's amazing how much you use.
It's good to have redundancy, we didn't really do much in that regard but do have 2-3 other small inverters around the place that could be used at a pinch.
And where does all that wire go eh? It's amazing how much you use.
Have you seen these 12v induction cookers http://www.ecopot.com.au/Contents/Page/Induction/The_Range haven' t tried one myself bot looking to add one to the new camper,
Iain_U1250
Explorer
We look at them each time we go to the camping show. They have smaller ones as well, 800w IIRC. I could calculate the efficiency of each fuel, but LPG seems most efficient, unless you have enough solar to recharge the massive current draw. We bought the diesel stove as we will always have diesel and it doesn't produce any fumes inside the camper. We saw it on A GXV Unimog and Ron the owner said it was great, a little slow but really good for cooking on. We will test it when we get back from our weekend break
Look at the specs of the one in the photo, it's variable , set it one 500w and any reasonable inverter will handle it, remember that induction cooktops are very quick and will boil water in less than a couple of minutes, so in theory power draw should not be too much. It will only be a backup for our webasto though to make coffee with our stovetop espresso maker and toast on the griddle, things the webasto is not great at.