{"id":266,"date":"2019-09-05T11:02:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T11:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vandwelling.net\/?p=266"},"modified":"2021-04-15T14:02:03","modified_gmt":"2021-04-15T14:02:03","slug":"12v-wiring-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vandwelling.net\/?p=266","title":{"rendered":"12v Wiring Chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I begin to bore you with a brief overview of the wiring I\u2019ve been working on. Let me show you a preliminary sketch of how the castle may look up front.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"30EA5DB5-EDB6-497B-B9F9-3AF52A702365.jpeg\"<\/p>\n

This is just a rough idea of what I will later be carving out of foam…<\/span>????<\/span><\/p>\n

Now for the boring part.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019m off the grid. Plus LED lighting really doesn\u2019t use much power.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019s Head), a 12v USB charging outlet, a water pump, and a couple extra reading lights. <\/span><\/p>\n

I purchased a 12 volt fuse block and designated an area under the couch I\u2019m going to build for the 12 volt system. I\u2019ve got a bunch of wires running to this area to be connected.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"5A0F7EF8-415E-4304-8724-1BB94F2390FA.jpeg\"<\/p>\n

The wiring needed to be figured out before I could finish insulating.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"225D6CDA-2D73-44BB-84FC-DA2D194C1144.jpeg\"<\/p>\n

I did not like the color spectrum of the first LED lights I bought. They were a \u201cwarm white\u201d 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. <\/span>????<\/span><\/p>\n

I am learning a lot about 12 volt systems.<\/span>????<\/span><\/p>\n

Everything is pretty much in place now to finish insulating.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201dThe 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.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

~Charles Dickens<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I begin to bore you with a brief overview of the wiring I\u2019ve 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 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “12v Wiring Chaos”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vandwelling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vandwelling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vandwelling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vandwelling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vandwelling.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.vandwelling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/www.vandwelling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vandwelling.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vandwelling.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vandwelling.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}