Before I begin to bore you with a brief overview of the wiring I’ve been working on. Let me show you a preliminary sketch of how the castle may look up front.
This is just a rough idea of what I will later be carving out of foam…????
Now for the boring part.
When I started thinking about the lighting in the van, it made sense to switch to a 12 volt system. I want to be able to run the lights when I’m off the grid. Plus LED lighting really doesn’t use much power.
The more I thought about all I wanted to hook up to 12 volts the more chaotic the wiring started to get. I am installing 21 lights throughout the van on various switches as well as a fiber optics (twinkling stars) headliner kit in the cab. I also ran power for a vent over the shower, power vent for a future composting toilet (either the Air Head or Nature’s Head), a 12v USB charging outlet, a water pump, and a couple extra reading lights.
I purchased a 12 volt fuse block and designated an area under the couch I’m going to build for the 12 volt system. I’ve got a bunch of wires running to this area to be connected.
The wiring needed to be figured out before I could finish insulating.
I did not like the color spectrum of the first LED lights I bought. They were a “warm white” 3200k which basically means yellow. I returned them and bought 4500k neutral white LEDs instead. The new lights are 6 watts each which is double the power of the first ones I bought. I am going to string up 12 of these together on a dimmer switch in the main living area. When I increased the power of the lights, I also needed a more powerful dimmer switch, and thicker wire. Direct current systems lose voltage quickly depending on the length of the wire in the circuit. I was surprised when I was looking up the load data online that I needed to use 10 gauge wire for my overhead lights. ????
I am learning a lot about 12 volt systems.????
Everything is pretty much in place now to finish insulating.
”The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.”
~Charles Dickens