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With the clearance issues all addressed under the Delica, I could start putting my plans into action. It begins with a metal box....a lockable IP65 rated metal enclosure. Capable of keeping out most of the water and dust that the outside world could throw at it. Going in the box will be this little lot; a houshold consumer unit, a 700w pure sinewave inverter and a dedicated 12v power supply/charging unit The basic idea is to have on-board power. When on the move, the inverter can supply mains power to things like laptops and any other 240v power source up to 700w. When at a campsite or place with mains power, the Delica can be hooked up to the mains which will give normal 240v power as well as charging the batteries and powering the 12V system so all the usual accessory functions can be run without draining the batteries. The reason the box needed to be so big is to have the room to house these units with space for the wiring and to allow enough air movement not to overheat in the enclosed unit. After a bit of jiggling to get the best fit and the best wiring routes, the units were placed like this within the box Working from my Dads garage, I started putting it all together on the base board Using proper waterproof glands for all wiring exiting the box, I drilled the inlet and outlet wiring holes in the positions that would suit the install best and neatest Main wiring for the consumer unit all done Black wires coming in from the right are the 12V feeds to/from the battery. White wires coming in from the bottom left are for the hook-up sockets which will be mounted under the rear bumper. White wires at the top left are for the conventional mains sockets to be mounted inside the Delica. You can see that one of the output wires comes from the inverter and the other comes from the consumer unit. I wanted to the system to be 'fool proof' so that if the inverter is being used, as soon as the Delica is hooked up to a 240V supply, the inverter is automatically switched off. For this I fitted a relay with a trigger wire from the consumer unit. As soon as the relay sensed the consumer unit getting 240V, it cuts out the inverter. I tried to wire it all as neatly as possible. Everything fused and earthed properly. The two black wires going out of the right side of the box go to the battery. They perform two tasks: 1) when the inverter is switched on, they supply the 12V feed from the battery to the inverter. 2) When the Delica is hooked up to the mains and the inverter automatically isolated, the 12V power supply/charger kicks in and sends power back along the cables to the batteries the whole time the Delica is connected to the mains. It took a good few hours to get to this stage, but it was nice to see it all coming together. All I could think of the whole time was my milk. And not having to drive to the local shop first thing every day just to make my essential morning cuppa! Sure it was more expensive than a pint of milk a day, but I wasn't going to let that get in the way of rolling out of bed and sticking the kettle on. To come.....the install in the Delica.
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speedy88
Club Retro Rides Member
"Nice Cortina mate"
Posts: 2,276
Club RR Member Number: 118
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Woah, proper workmanship going on there.
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MiataMark
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,954
Club RR Member Number: 29
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Would be interesting to see a circuit diagram and know more about the charger unit.
Very neat installation, but why 2 cables to the battery don't they both connect to the positive anyway?
Mark
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1990 Mazda MX-52012 BMW 118i (170bhp) - white appliance 2011 Land Rover Freelander 2 TD4 2003 Land Rover Discovery II TD52007 Alfa Romeo 159 Sportwagon JTDm
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Feb 27, 2012 23:40:40 GMT
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Some of these shots are out of sequence with the ones above because I had to fit/remove the box a few times while running/routing the cables before I could wire them all up to the electrical components. Working on my parents drive, the first job was to fit the box/enclosure underneath the Delica Once I'd got the box mounted underneath, I then had to decide where the cables would run. Some go to the rear bumper, some up through the floor into the cabin and some along the chassis rails to the front and up onto the battery. The black wires on the left are to fix directly to the batteries (bit of red insulating tape to designate +12V). The wires in the middle (furthest away) are the power feed into the cabin for the sockets and the wires nearest the camera on the right hand side are for the rear mounted external 240V input & output sockets. I then mounted the input/output sockets on the rear bumper. Space was pretty tight and hopefully it makes sense now why I had to modify the rear bar to sit a bit lower....giving just enough room for the sockets to nestle neatly in the space between the bar and the bumper. The left hand socket is the input...this is where you plug the lead from the mains into the Delica to power the system. The socket on the right is the output. As well as powering the sockets on the inside of the Delica, I could also then run a lead to another source like a tent or another vehicle...or just power something externally if I wanted to. All protected by the RCD's in the consumer unit. I also added a little warning sticker above the output socket....just as a precaution. I'd placed the socket here specifially so that I could utilise the indent in the bumper for a sticker. Using proper IP rated glands, the wiring comes out of the box and goes up through the floor into the cabin. One wire for the hook-up mains and the other for the inverter. Each will have a seperate socket. The reason for them being spaced apart is to that the glands would sit neatly in the indents of the floor within the cabin (i.e. not protrude through the carpet causing unsightly bumps) Here is the wiring coming through the floorpan. The orange lead is a standard hook-up lead to connect the system to a 240V supply. Checking the route the cables will take to the sockets Because the cables sat proud as they ran over the ribs in the floor, I flattened the ribs along the route I wanted the cables to go. A nice big hammer and a flat bolster were used to flatten the ribs and get some pent up aggression out of my system. Very satisfying. (the red wire on the left is the trigger wire for turning the inverter on & off from inside the cabin) Cables held down neatly into the newly flattened channel with some nylon straps Cables now heading around the wheelarch and forwards towards the panel where the sockets will be mounted. For the final fit, the cables were tucked down to sit neatly between the sound proofing and the wheelarch. Time to turn my attention to the interior sockets...
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Feb 28, 2012 10:23:25 GMT
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From the other side of the rear bench seat (it was slid forward and tipped up in the above photos) I could neaten up the cables as they ran around the wheelarch then feed it up into the side panel heading towards where the sockets would be mounted With the floor carpet now neatly tucked back down (no clues or signs of wires hidden beneath) I got to work routing the cables into the area where the sockets would go. You can see the switch on the right of the panel that would turn the inverter on & off. This opening used to house a 'slave' unit for the stereo where you could control the volume, plug in guitars and microphones etc....but seeing as I'd replaced the main head unit with a nice Pioneer MP3 player, this slave unit was redundent, so seemed a logical place to mount the sockets. The mounting/screw holes for the sockets sat in mid-air within this opening so I got onto CAD and drew up a sandwich plate which was then laser cut out of stainless steel and mounted under the opening (no photos of this I'm afraid) and allowed the mains sockets to be fixed in properly and securely. Invisible, but a much neater solution than having to glue the sockets in place which was the only other option (not for me thanks!) Inside you can see more relays, connections and stuff which were all part of the mains install but I can't remember exactly what for now? The final job inside was to wire up and mount the sockets. I managed to source some ABS satin grey ones which matched the interior plastics perfectly. For some reason they look a different shade in the photos (probably the flash) but in real life they look totally factory standard! The sockets themselves were too deep to mount, they stuck out a fair way....so I just cut them down at the back edge so they nestled neatly into the space. Took a few goes to get them to sit 'just right' but it was well worth the effort. Back in 2004, you couldn't just pop into B&Q like you can nowadays and be greeted with a whole aisle of different colour/design/finishes of sockets. It took me a lot of hunting back then to source these, but like most things, I felt it well worth the effort. One last thing (excuse the lid missing from the main box....I wasn't quite finished when I took this shot!) While I was measuring for the main enclosure, I worked out there was enough space in the area behind the bumper to mount another, slightly smaller waterproof enclosure. This was bought and fitted as a kind of tucked away 'locker' storage space where I could keep the hook-up cables and mains adaptor plugs when not being used. Because it was shallower than the main enclosure and also tucked up behind the bumper, it was very well hidden and sometimes I would keep valuables in it rather than in the cabin if I was leaving the Delica somewhere.
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Feb 28, 2012 11:31:00 GMT
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Just in case anyone was wondering why I've gone to all the bother of mounting all this stuff externally when it would have been a lot cheaper and easier to mount it in the vehicle, I didn't want to compromise any interior space. None! The interior works so well as it is and looks so good. There were some potential places I could have located this kit, but it would have affected the use of the interior...even in some small way, and it wouldn't look so nice either. Housing it all in an IP65 box means it's not going to get damp or wet or dusty or dirty. It's perfectly safe under there, so it seemed logical to me to utilise space that was otherwise wasted and keeping the interior as useable as possible. There was no other option as far as I was concerned.
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MiataMark
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,954
Club RR Member Number: 29
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Feb 28, 2012 12:33:57 GMT
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It's OK don't worry about the diagram, not something I'll be doing soon. Thinking of building something similar into the back of a Discovery 2 where the seats fold into the boot side. Yes good idea to run 2 cables, but both black? Mark
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1990 Mazda MX-52012 BMW 118i (170bhp) - white appliance 2011 Land Rover Freelander 2 TD4 2003 Land Rover Discovery II TD52007 Alfa Romeo 159 Sportwagon JTDm
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Feb 28, 2012 13:16:25 GMT
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Great updates as usual.
Homebase for those sockets - I chose the exact same ones in my conservatory which was built in 2004.
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Feb 28, 2012 15:03:16 GMT
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[Yes good idea to run 2 cables, but both black? The black wires on the left are to fix directly to the batteries (bit of red insulating tape to designate +12V). Also, it was a LOT cheaper to by 10m of black heavy duty cable which was more than than enough for both runs than it was to buy 10m of black and 10m of red (the smallest roll they did in this gauge) and have at least 5m of each left over. Homebase for those sockets - I chose the exact same ones in my conservatory which was built in 2004. You know, I think you are right. I'd spent quite a while driving around to various places (trade electrical wholesalers, various DIY stores etc... until I found the 'right' ones. Homebase certainly rings a bell now you've mentioned it.
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MiataMark
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,954
Club RR Member Number: 29
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Feb 28, 2012 15:58:02 GMT
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[Yes good idea to run 2 cables, but both black? Also, it was a LOT cheaper to by 10m of black heavy duty cable which was more than than enough for both runs than it was to buy 10m of black and 10m of red (the smallest roll they did in this gauge) and have at least 5m of each left over. Homebase for those sockets - I chose the exact same ones in my conservatory which was built in 2004. You know, I think you are right. I'd spent quite a while driving around to various places (trade electrical wholesalers, various DIY stores etc... until I found the 'right' ones. Homebase certainly rings a bell now you've mentioned it. Sorry, I posted before I read your later post, but given your attention to detail... I have the same sockets in doors as well, in different colours. Although some of mine are breaking down. Mark
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1990 Mazda MX-52012 BMW 118i (170bhp) - white appliance 2011 Land Rover Freelander 2 TD4 2003 Land Rover Discovery II TD52007 Alfa Romeo 159 Sportwagon JTDm
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Feb 29, 2012 22:02:06 GMT
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Yeah - mine too. I didn't mention that. back on with the thread.......
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Mar 20, 2012 18:42:40 GMT
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next!
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2001 HONDA CT110 (NOT RCV)
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Clement
Europe
ambitious but rubbish
Posts: 2,095
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Mar 20, 2012 21:08:16 GMT
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I just read this instead of eating. I'm glad I did, especially considering I like eating! I'll be following this, I have a little idea of the finished article but not in the details and apparently, details you are very good at. I can't wait for the next updates
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Rescued from Page 8... we need more Delica passion
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Ich habe kein Geld!
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jo0lz
Part of things
FucT FiAT
Posts: 321
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Apr 17, 2012 22:14:59 GMT
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The next chapter of Delica ownership is where I attended the Malvern Meet (the only Delica meet I ever attended that I didn't organise myself). .... The worst Delica meet I'd ever been to and from now on, it was going to be done my way! ;D NOT WroNg there MaTeY... Oh what a meet that was Delica Convoy Traffic Jam GRiD-LoCK on the Worcester ByPass How we didn't get pulled by the FuZZ that day I'll never know Jo0Lz
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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Sept 3, 2012 21:07:50 GMT
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Can we get more of this? I love the attention to detail, and I'm beginning to think I need a Delica! :-)
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Sept 3, 2012 21:30:41 GMT
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Can we get more of this? I love the attention to detail, and I'm beginning to think I need a Delica! :-) I know that Bruce is quite busy with work and life in general at the moment, and what spare time he has is being directed towards the Land Rover and the Lotus - however, I'm sure that there will be more installments in the future. ;D
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