Wiring is Finished

Above are a couple of pictures from the inside of the cabin looking at the electrical panel with covers removed.  There are eight 12V fused circuits. In hindsight perhaps I over killed it a bit on the design of the circuits. I probably could have done the job with only four by clumping multiple devices together on a single circuit. Now that it's done, however, I am very happy with how it turned out and if there is ever a problem with a fuse blowing it will be very easy to isolate because every circuit only has one or two devices on it. I'm also glad I provided plenty of room in the front for placing the fuse box. By spreading things out I was able to keep it looking fairly neat and simple to see what's going on when troubleshooting a blown fuse. In the left picture above, on the far left wall you can see a switch plate that has been connected to the wires but not yet fastened to the wall. Here is a view of it after it has been fastened to the wall:

The wall is only 1 inch thick and I found that the switches are deeper than that. In order to get them to fit I had to make a deeper pocket by adding the thickness of the switch plate. It is made of 3/8 inch plywood. I have a pair of switches like this near both  doors. One switch turns on the porch light just above the door so if you want to get out at night you can switch the porch light on from inside before you open the door. The other switch turns on the dome lights inside the cabin. If you are getting in at night you can reach in and turn on the dome lights before you enter. These switches are located less than a foot from the door so with the door open you can easily reach in to hit the switch. They are also near the head of the bed so that you can easily turn on the dome light from under the covers while you are laying down from either side of the bed.

I wanted to show you what the wiring looks like on the outside. On the driver's side outside wall of the trailer is a waterproof shore power connection which I bought at camperworld. Near  it you can see a yellow romex wire that goes over the top to feed two 110V outlets, one in the galley and the other in the cabin. From the battery you can see a red and a black pair of 8 gauge wires. They travel from the battery underneath the trailer where they enter from below through holes drilled in the framing. All of the smaller gauge black and red wires have now been tested and when I fasten in the insulating foam I will put them all into channels and give them some order. I realize that right now it kinda looks like spagetti. The amazing thing is everything worked when I powered it all up. All the outlets were live, the lights all switched like they were intended, and even the battery tender was wired right and started charging the battery as soon as I plugged in the shore power and turned on the 110V switch.

Progress on the Bench and Electrical

This is the framework I made at the front of the teardrop to house the electrical system. The left compartment will be for 12V system and the right compartment for the 110V system. The shore power will come in through the front of the far right wall. In this picture the hole has not yet been cut. The top blue box is for the 110V fuse and main switch and the box just below it will have a power outlet which will be used to plug in the battery minder/charger.

This is a view of the same area however I have installed the cover and removed the access panels which are held in place with 4 magnets each. I want to point out some components.
1) This little metal box contains a 15 amp 110V fuse.
2) The master 110V switch is in the same unit as the fuse. I found this switch and fuse unit at Lowes.
3) This is a 110V convenience outlet into which the battery minder/charger is plugged. This outlet is wired in parallel with the other 110V outlets in the trailer.
4) This is the battery Minder/Charger. It will charge the battery when the trailer is plugged into shore power. This unit also desulphonates the battery automatically. Cool! It has indicator lights when your battery is low or if a cell is dead.
5) Oops looks like I skipped 5.
6) This is the main switch for the 12V system. This switch is rated for 40 amps it is wired directly to the positive post of the deep cycle battery using #8 wire. It was a bear soldering #8 stranded wire to the terminals on this little switch.
7) This is a 40 amp thermal breaker that automatically resets.
8) This is the 12V fuse box and grounding bus. I will show it in a later post after I have connected the circuits and added the automotive fuses. The grounding bus is connected to the negative battery post with #8 wire.

Here you can see the panel cover with the access panels in place. The panel forms the back rest for the bench. (someday it will have cushions.) I asked Cheri to take a shot of me sitting on the bench. I have plenty of headroom, I was just scrunching down to peer through the door.

In the photo above the bench is stowed. You have a good view of the piano hinge, the three metal mounts into which the legs are fastened when the bench is in use, and if you look close you can see the bolts on the top left and right which hold the bench in the stowed position. They bolt into the wall on either side.