Small Cabinets Passenger Side

Climbing! Took the camper up to Vedauwoo 

Finished up the cabinet doors for the passenger side and installed them in the camper.  One of these is the electrical panel... super nice to close that out!

Front.  Turns out the cheap switches I got have the little key tab that keeps them oriented slightly inconsistently clocked... which is super lame.  So if you look close the three switches are not totally aligned.  Screen cover plastic to be removed once installed in vehicle.

One again... hardest part was poly finish... Athena is doing a lot of the work on this while I do electrical and other stuff.  Definitely getting better but we both don't quite know how to get a super nice finish.

Back.  Chain will keep it at 90deg when open on the electrical panel only.

I used female wire disconnect things on the meters, will add male ones on the other side. The inline switch for each should save a fraction of a Watt per meter.  I'm assuming that I'll want them all on initially, then as we get more comfortable with the system start turning them off more.  Also I have hopes of building a custom controller to telemeter and control all of this... but not really enough time now so that will need to wait.

Plywood edge with veneer stuff... looks good for a first try.

Since the doors are all plywood, we tried some veneer stripping for the visible edges to make it stain a bit nicer and look better.  Turned out way better than expected - only issue with the edges now is we need to figure out how to get the top coat smooth over the corner. Some painters tape along the under edge did a good job removing most drips but the side is still not as good a finish as it could be.

For all of these we just put top coat on the outer face and the edges, but not the inner face.  Made it easier, and also seems odd to semi-gloss the inside of a cabinet.

Electrical cabinet.

The electrical panel fit was a bit tight - I wanted this.. but did not account for extra height when you open the door due to angle.  It rubs some when opening.  I'm sort of OK with this as we don't plan to open this almost ever.  The other door fits wonderfully... so that is nice.

Still need to fill in screw holes and do some finishing touches.  End of cabinet is open... since the large storage area will close it out when we add that.  

Also hooked up the USB charger on the back benches - seems to work?  Final stuff to do in this area... the inverter remote button came with like a 15  foot cord or something.  I'm running it about 1 foot.  The extra is super lame.  Will want to order a shorter cable for this at some point (probably cheapest since I don't have the crimpers or terminals at home for RJ type connectors.)

And finally... gave another top coat to the gear cabinets, and mounted them to the truck.  While they were out took another picture of the upholstery since I didn't grab one before.

Cabinet backs.

We took the camper up to Vedauwoo for the weekend. Power system worked well, seemed like we didn't get under 90% or more with the fridge running the whole weekend.  We did set the fire alarm off while cooking inside since it was raining... so that was interesting.  Fan should be showing up soon I hope.

Athena cushing

Electrical, Start of First Benches

Lots of stuff in progress since last time... nothing finished but some stuff close I hope.

Taped out the floor-plan to check how stuff would look... Apollo came to check it out!  

We re-painted the internal steps.  Top part that used to be under carpet was just bare plywood.

Paint paint paint.

Electricals!

12V woot.  Getting some electrical stuff done so we have a fridge and some lights and such for some early trips.  Also... batteries are so expensive.  I had no idea.

 

Everything arrived!  Mostly.  Some 4AWG missing, plus a bunch of ring terminals and such.

The back of the camper (near the cab) is split into two sections... one for the fridge and one for the batteries.  Above the batteries is a small dry stuff storage area as well.  We built out this back section first so that I could orient the batteries and electricals.

Batteries and battery-to-battery charger lives here... under a small storage cubby under the back row of seats.

Door pops up! 2x 100Wh batteries.  30A charger.  Little left black panel also pops off if needed to take the batteries out.

There is a little cutout to pass cables hidden under the cabinet floor/door, passing to the main electrical area under one of the side benches.

Main electrical stuff... bus bars, fuses, inverter (right of image) and a larger fuse not connected yet that will feed power to the kitchen area.

There is the inverter!

Most of the electrical stuff went fairly smooth.  8AWG ring terminals are annoying to buy since they always seem out of of stock.  The little shunts that came with my meters had no mounting provisions... other than that... sort of OK.  Just a lot of stripping and crimping and trying to figure out where to put stuff. 

Installing into the fuse/inverter area.  This will all be nicely hidden by a bench later.

We have tree meters at the moment... 1 for battery charging, 1 for all the 12V stuff, and 1 for the inverter.  They meter V/A/W/E separately, and will be individually turn-off-able eventually.

It's alive!  Ran the fridge for a bit... works fine.  Tested charging from the truck... also works fine.  Woot.

All the meters will live on an electrical panel thing that is really just another cabinet door.  So three meters, three enable switches for them, and the inverter control pad on the door face.

Start of the electrical panel.

First cut of the electrical panel door was slightly too large.  Without a table saw its sort of difficult to trim off 1/8th inch from a long edge... so rigging some guides here.  Worked out fine in the end.

Since its the same height, I also cut the door for the under bench cabinet that will live right of the electrical cabinet.  Tried out some birch veneer for the edges of the plywood... it looks so amazing.  For open/close of these we are just going with a finger hole that you can pull.  They will be under the seats so I didn't want a handle that would be annoying on the back of a leg or something. 

Electrical Panel and the other cabinet door of this side getting some stain.

Cabinets and Benches

The cabinets got some upholstered backing. 1/2 inch foam cut to internal size, over a 1/4 ply cut to a larger size (1/2 inch around the edge) routed out on the back of the cabinets. Then spray adhesive canvas contoured to the edges. Gives a nice soft back so cams and gear won't bang around too much while driving. The padded back is removable for now. Why is this paragraph formatted differently?  Only blogger knows...

Cabinet backing stackup for #2, and finished #1

We also started to attached the benches on the right side.  These sort of had to be done early, since the electrical control panel lives under them and I need them finished to mount to meters and such.  These benches were our first time trying to apply a brush on polyurethane top coat.  Very hard to get it to look nice... seems there is a learning curve here.

Benches getting attached.

Up Next

Next up... finish top coat on the electrical panel and other door, install both, wire up the electrical panel... and that side should be mostly done! Then I need to figure out what to do about doors over the fridge and the storage above the batteries... some difficult geometry and want to be able to open these up while the kitchen table is there.

Old picture since we didn't travel last weekend... but look at that camper!

Cabinet Doors - Inlaid Cam Test

Things to spruce up some cabinet doors.

Inlaid old cam lobe test.  Looks ok... did this one without the router, will probably try to remove the bulk of material next time not manually since thats a pain.

Have two small lobes and one big on laying about... will probably use the small ones on the small back cabinets and the large one on the front cabinet if I can get this to look nice.

CAMPER! Cabinets that are almost done.

So we got a camper.  New to us, and almost new for reals... camper and truck setup from a nice local guy.  Camper is an All Terrain Camper Puma model, on top of a regular cab Silverado.   

Camper! City of Rocks.

Its a shell model with solar prewire - so basically the interior walls are finished, it has a bed setup, and wiring is run thru the wall for solar. Otherwise its empty.

Removed some carpeting on the riser things.  Athena taking out carpet staples forever.  Turns out McGuckins sells like a $30 little Japanese tiny nail remover.  We did not get that.

First item was to make some gear storage cabinets... seemed like a relatively easy first project to make sure I still known how to saw stuff.

Test Fit! Looks good. Passenger and Driver are different sizes.

Cabinets are... sort of simple.  For storing cams and gear, so we added some aluminum bars across the top to hand stuff off of.  Then a simple door, padded back, and should be good.

Testing Cams... moved upper bar up an inch or so since it had too much space.  kept other bars in place - new separation seems good.

We opted to stain most of the interior wood, and add a top coat to help protect it.  Tried a spray top coat polyurethane thing... coating is too thin.  Will use a brushed something for benches and other high use stuff.

Staining... and then top coat. 

Cabinets! Still need backing with padding so Cams don't rattle, and dooooors.  Also going to try and inlay a cam lobe into the door so that might be cool if it works.

Model for now. 

Next is finishing cabinets and starting fridge/electrical cabinet.  Turns out respirators for painting are hard to buy now days... so waiting a while on that.  Ordered most of the electrical stuff... should have working 12V system in a couple weeks. 

Red Rocks Weekend

Went on a short weekend trip to Red Rocks near Vegas. Drove up early Saturday to miss traffic, an even managed to get a camp site in Red Rock Canyon Campground... super supprizing on such a busy weekend and showing up at noon on Saturday. 

Anyway... took just a couple pics.

Walked sort of far back in the Kraft Boulders to check out Pork Chop... super super fun V3-.  View back looking at Vegas which you can just see in the distance.

Friend trying Angle Dyno... going up with right hand instead of the left had with a crimp way it seems like everyone does.

dyno dyno dyno.

Looking back up the canyon on the hike out.

Christmas in Red Rocks

We spent this christmas in Red Rock Canyon. Again... not a lot of photos! I'm getting a bit lazy about taking pictures of stuff these days.  We spent a couple days climbing in the first and second pullout areas ( Calico Hills ) as they are reliably warm and sunny. We also finally did Olive Oil!  We've done the first pitch before... but backed off after it started raining.  We were stuck behind a really fast group who where stuck behind a really slow group so it was a bit of a long day.

Selfie of course

From the top of Olive Oil 

Maybe a Utah Agave (Agave Utahensis)? 

We stayed one night in the Luxor casino.  It's the pyramid shaped one.  The elevators are really odd as they go sideways and up... so when they start/stop you get a sideways acceleration that does not feel normal.  We turned a ton of money into a 20 cent ticket that is now hanging on our fridge.

Nice view of most of the whole park.  Calico Hills on the right to Oak and Pine Creek Canyons on the left.

Thats it. We have a new black and a new blue Alien.  They are just amazing.  Also we entered the new year so that's nice.  Athena's mom got us a pressure cooker/crock pot for christmas, so maybe I'll get to cook some stews or brisket or something soon.

Thanksgiving in Indian Creek

For thanksgiving this year we headed up to Indian Creek.  It's about a 9 hour drive north east... but I had a couple days off work for the holidays.  Not many photos this time... 

Lots of pretty colors 

I got Athena a new rope... it's a bit cleaner than our old one.

Camp on night.  We found ourselves in a number of accidental Subaru advertisement type setups.

Nice view but chilly.

Athena does some sweet bouldering in her onesie. Peek is giving a sweep spot.

It was really chilly most of the time we were down there.  One of the days we met up with Athena's friends and climbed Looking Glass Arch.  We always drive past it but never stop... it seemed like a good climb for a really really cold day.

From the middle of looking glass arch.

It started snowing on us a bit.  Luckily I had on my super stylish sweat pants, long johns, and puff jacket outfit. 

The group ahead of us rapped of this. Not ideal in a number of ways...

 We had to wait for a french film crew to get down from the climb before we could start.  They said they are doing a series on the american west. They did not have much sense of humor, but the local guides they were with were nice guys.

Sweet top rope sendage.

Athena in the sun. On top of a climbing to take pictures (like the one above!)

Campsite another night.

These little poofs of grass are really neat.

There was a large area of this sandy wash type stuff.  It was full of footprints from bugs, bunnies, and deer.

Accidental advertisement #2.

I drove back alone Sunday to get to work on Monday.  Athena is out of work at the moment to continued climbing for another couple weeks.