Building a Campervan - Part 1

2015 Chevy Express 2500 on the lot. 

In August of last year I decided to build a Campervan.  I traded my Jeep in for a full size cargo van and began the conversion process. Vans are the most practical vehicle in my opinion.  You can haul up to 8000 lbs and another 8000 behind it easily with room to spare.  When you park you utilize all the square footage of your parking space.

Perhaps a campervan would not be the best vehicle for you, but for me it was the obvious choice. Prior to looking for a van I had looked at Class A, B, and C RVs. There were several reasons why I chose a Van over an RV.

Empty cargo hold brand new. 

• Vans are cheaper to fix mechanically. Vans are plentiful and while a Class A windshield will run you $3500 and take a professional to install, while you can get a new Van windshield for about $150. 
• Vans are sturdier. RVs are designed to be large and light. Exteriors are made of plastic, fiberglass, or sheetmetal. A van has a steel shell to protect you from the elements.
• Vans are easier to drive and park. Taking up only the space of a large car you don't have to worry about wide turns and low overpasses. You can also go through drive thrus in a Van while you would have to park most RVs. 
• Reliability. RVs are not designed to be daily drivers.  They are designed to be used about 30 days a year.  
• Horsepower. Vans are nimble enough to pass cars on two lane roads, and fly over the steepest overpasses without slowing to a crawl. 
• Aesthetics - When your parked in an RV people assume you are living there or at the very least camping. A white cargo van is plain and discreet enough no one gives them much attention and are less likely to target you. 
• Security. There are fewer windows to break on a cargo van, you can separate your sleeping quarters from your driving quarters, and people are less likely to break into something they can't see in. 
• RV's have complicated pre-installed systems that are often overkill, or not powerful enough. Good luck tracing shorts in your RV tracing wires you never saw before to change out that 'lowest bidder' modified sine wave inverter that fried your new laptop and other sensitive electronic devices. 
• Large down payment and high markup. Financiers require you place a large amount down to purchase a new RV.  Although this may be as small as 4% this is a good chuck of change on a $79k vehicle. 
• Inability to change design.  With the plumbing, wiring, and appliances already installed it is difficult to change the layout.  It will be hard to haul cargo or passengers in an RV, while a van can be easily converted in a few minutes if built modular. 

While I enjoyed having a Jeep.  It was fun to drive and you could take the doors and roof off in the summer. However the nights I would spend camping left comfort behind in place of sexy ruggedness. The ability to carry any weight with a Jeep is unfortunately very light. A two door Jeep can only tow 1500 lbs. Crawling over axle bending rocks at slow speed miles from assistance is a different sport.  It is expensive and more mechanically challenging than my taste desire. I enjoy parking my vehicle, then hiking in to explore the wildlife and terrain.    I enjoy sleeping on a memory foam mattress with a fan blowing fresh sea air on my face while I sleep.  I also enjoy being able to take enough amenities with me to fully enjoy my stay.  This means being able to go to the bathroom, cook, and clean in or around my vehicle.

So after deciding to get a low mile cargo van I started to shop.  Vans are plentiful if you look and I found a decent one at a fair price at a local dealership. I settled on a 2015 Chevy Express Van 2500.  It was a retired rental van from Oklahoma with 32k miles on it. With a small fuel efficient 4.8 v8 it gets a consistent average of 15.8 mpg.

The cargo bay was completely stripped empty with the exception of cargo dome lights and a rubber mat on the floor which suited my creative side nicely.

A note about buying commercial vehicles.
It is important to make sure your vehicle is registered as the appropriate class you are intending to use

In California commercial vehicle license plates start with 1.

it or you may pay heavily for that.

When I purchased my Van I did not realize it was registered as a commercial cargo van until the dealership requested I pay an additional $120 for my registration.  I found out the yearly registration on a commercial cargo van includes a weight charge in California bringing my yearly registration to over $400.

I did some research by calling the DMV and dealership.  DMV instructed me to find out why they were registering it as a commercial vehicle so I then called the dealership.   Apparently since they sold it to me configured as a cargo van there was no reason not to register it as anything else.

By this time a little over a month had past and I had already started to build it out as a campervan.  I found out that in order to change a registered vehicle type I needed to have a Reg 31 form completed by a certified Highway Patrol Officer or private inspector service. I found out there was one officer in my county certified and he happened to have an appointment available within a week.

I took the vehicle to the Highway Patrol Station and the officer inspected the modifications I had made.  He reported that I had to change enough in order to determine it's primary use is no longer for cargo hauling.  Since I had installed a folding sleeper sofa, table, paneling, and carpet the officer said it now qualifies as a CamperVan.  He gave me the form which I in turn drove to the dealership and they were nice enough to file it with the registration costing me nothing and bringing my registration down $200.

My insurance did not go up when it was registered as a commercial vehicle, however in some states I hear that if you have your vehicle registered as commercial you will also need to carry commercial insurance as well which can be double or more what private insurance would be.

Starting the conversion.

 The first thing I wanted to do was the ceiling and sides. I decided on a real wood look.  At the hardware store I purchased..

• Several 1" x 3" redwood boards for attaching to the metal frame. 

  

  Returning from the hardware store.

• Several 1" x 2" redwood planks
• Lots of 1/8" x 3" siding v-notch pine planks.
• Two boxes of premium aromatic cedar v-notch planks for contrast and design. 
• Titebond II or III glue.  You can remove the screws once this glue sets.  Often stronger than the wood by itself. 
• Self taping sheet metal screws for attaching wood to metal frame of van. 
• Small wood screws to hold wood in place along curved interior surface until the wood settles and glue holds. 
• Clamps.  Helpful to hold together pieces not screwed in. 

The idea was to minimize modifications to the original structure of the van to maintain its strength and damages to existing structure. The interior was designed along the curvature of the van and re-enforced by planks running perpendicular to the ceiling planks.  

After tacking the wooden supports to the frame every few feet the planks were glued together at the notch and held along the curvature of the roof with wood screws to the plank.  These were removed once the glue dried to give it a cleaner appearance.

The cargo dome lights were disconnected and placed along side the frame beams and 3/4" higher than previously mounted in the wood ceiling.

It was during this time I also ran wire for my backup camera and rear speakers so that I could easily run them in the wall space behind the wood.

At the end of the van my 1" x 3" planks did not reach all the way to the back.  This required some creative cross bracing and wood to extend the ceiling to the back.

The walls were next.  I used the same strategy for mounting the planks as the ceiling.  Using 1" x 3" planks for the vertical supports, I glued and screwed the planks along the side of the van.

Extra wood was used as supports to hold the planks tightly in their notches while the glue dried.  v-notch wood is very slim and the notch breaks easily making it a bit difficult to bend along the curvature and tack at the same time.

I alternated pine and cedar planks and the van started to smell like a forest before long.

At this point I took a break from wood working to work on several other projects to personalize my new adventure vehicle.

I added switches to control various electronic devices. Blue switch controls the amplifier for my sound system so I can turn the bass down off highway. The green switch activates the backup camera.  Rather than hooking it up to the backup lights this provides me the ability to turn it on and off manually.  These first two switches are wired to ACC so they turn off with the vehicle.

The other two switches are wired to constant 12v.  The red switch controls starter battery power to the rear electronics in the event of alternate battery failure.  This provides power to close the roof vent remotely if it is open, as well as LED lights and TV.

To prevent curious eyes from peering in I tinted the rear cargo windows dark. In combination with interior blinds they appear completely blacked out.

This had to be done twice.  The first time I tried to do it myself and I was not happy with how the tint wrinkled.  I took it in to a local shop and they had them both tinted for $50.  Unless you have access to good quality tinting, or can manipulate cheap auto store tint I recommend having this done professionally.

Cost of tinting yourself is, however, twice as cheap and half as good.

• $15.99 for enough tint for just two windows.
• $4.99 soap solution.
• $5 Squeegee 
• Time and frustration (worth a lot)

Now that the wood finish and tinting is done it is time to get started installing toys. 

Are You More Yin or Yang? Quiz

We are all caught somewhere in the Dao.  Either more on the Yin side or Yang side.  We continually fluctuate throughout our lives between Yin and Yang although through our instincts Yang usually comes more naturally to us. It is Yin that most Zen seekers find for balance. You will notice as you take this quiz many questions you may have answered differently at a different time, and you may answer it differently in the future.  This quiz will let you know where you are at this point in time.  Not which way you are moving. 

UPDATE:
Google changed something that broke my code for the quiz so I removed it. Apologies to those that never found out how Zen they are. The quiz was built upon a PDF posted to the internet by Dr Cort Curtis on his website. The quiz was just an adaptation of the manual quiz he posted below.
http://www.achangeinthinking.com/

The PDF can be accessed directly HERE, and has additional information. Alternatively, you can also take this quiz manually by printing out this PDF.

LED Water Light Show II

New and improved 2015

I revisited the light show that hides my TV cables after getting tired of looking at pipe insulation all the time in the center.  I made many updates.

Improvements that needed to be made.

• Prevent black stuff from growing in tubes.
• Make center look better than pipe insulation. 
• Change the light show program

So here are some of the changes I made.  

• Added a little clorine to the water to prevent mold or algae from growing. (6 months successful.)
• Reassembled project using a wooden dowel for the center
• Glued lights to wooden dowel with hot-glue gun
• Re-sealed lights to tubes with water in them ( I haven't determined the best way yet, I used silicone the first time and mostly hot-glue the second.  They both held water tight, but this is the most challenging part.)
• Wrapped entire project in twine
• Flipped project so that lights are running away from the TV rather than into it. 

Make a Flashlight for Pennies

 Weekend Project

I wanted to see if I could make a flashlight out of pennies. Since pennies after 1982 are mostly copper coated zinc they have the potential of making a battery. 

What you need:

•  Pennies
•  Cardboard, or cloth (Cardboard works longer 2 days vs  8 hrs with cloth)
•  Sand paper (electric sander - best, belt sander -  dangerous.)
•  LED (light emitting diode)
•  Acid (lemon juice, or vinegar both work and are safe)
•  Electric tape (duck tape works too, scotch tape - may  be frustrating)
•  Time 

Copper Side

Zinc Side

The first step is to sand down one side of the penny.  So that no one accuses you of defacing the money it is best to use the tails side, but ultimately does not matter. 

I did not have the patience to sand these down by hand.  I placed them close together on a strip of gorilla tape wrapped backwards around a board then used an electric sander.  Cuts through copper like butter!

The first time I did this project I used thick cardboard and the flashlights stayed lit for almost 2 days.  

I also did an experiment with fabric using an old cotton t-shirt.  Surprisingly this created more voltage by .3 v, but also lasted only about 6 hours in the end because it dried faster.  I would recommend leaning toward materials more like cardboard for longer power time. 

If you are using heavy cardboard I recommend soaking it in the acid for about 30 min prior to assembly. 

Stack the pennies all the same way (all copper side up and zinc side down, or vice versa, but not alternating) with the cardboard or cloth between each.  Attach an LED with the positive terminal on the zinc face and negative on the copper face. 

Wrap this contraption tightly with tape and you have a flashlight!

Using cloth I was able to tape the pennies together first then soak up lemon juice by dipping the finished contraption in the juice to activate it. 

If it does not light up.

•  try reversing the terminals on your LED.
•  make sure there the cardboard or cloth does not stick  out so far the touch each other and short the circuit.  
•  check your LED to make sure it works
•  check the connections
•  use a different acid
•  use different insulation material

The longest I have had one of these last is 2 days.  Most seem to last at least several hours and each cell seems to provide about 1.5 v and .30 milliamps. 

My highest voltage was 1.978 v

Not very successful experiment.

Above, I attempted to insulate a bolt with electrical tape and then space the pennies with washers and used cotton material.  It provided a sad 1.4 volts and only lasted 2 hrs.

Here are three different colors.  One made with vinegar, and two with lemon juice.  All were using thick cardboard soaked for 30 min.  

Vinegar was the small red light.  It lasted almost 2 days and only stopped cause it dried out. 

The green and yellow lasted about 24 hours. 

My New Bed

Where I spend a very comfortable third of my life.

In January I decided it was time to make a new bed.  I needed to get a new mattress and felt that the investment of a boxspring would be a waste of money and loss of potential storage space. So I decided to build my own platform bed.

I sketched out a quick drawing and went to work. I visited Home Depot and purchased $100 worth of lumber.

I did not follow a recipe and don't really have an accurate list of all materials.  I just went to Home Depot and walked around looking at stuff till it came to me.

If I did make a list of what I remember it would be...

• A whole bundle of 1 x 3 slats 
• 6 1X8 slats
• 2 2x2 left over from another project
• 3 4x4 redwood boards (they are very thick and light.)
• 1 box wood screws 1 1/4"
• 2 pieces of thin formaldehyde free plywood material
• 4 fence post tops for the pillars
• 16 carriage bolts (holds the 1x8s to the post and allows for quick disassembly when moving)

Basically the 1 x 8 are attached to the 4 x 4 with carriage bolts.   I also allowed for enough space underneath for plastic tub storage 18''.

Attached to the 1x8s are staggered 2x2 for the slats and plywood to lay flat against. 1x4 were used for the slats.

In order to give the shelves a more Zen appearance I changed my design to make the columns of the headboard go through the shelves at the last moment.

I purchased an LED strip from Amazon for $12 that i used to illuminate the underside of the bed.  Attached the fence post toppers, and stained with several coats of Polyshade to add a nice plastic shine and protect the wood.

For the plywood I wanted something durable, but not as heavy as construction plywood.  I found some formaldehyde free plywood that was lighter, and without the smell of formaldehyde.

Here is the finished bed.  I have been sleeping on it now for four months and it is still sturdy.  Since I live in an apartment right now I am very happy that it is so light.  If I had a house I would have used much heavier construction materials so it would last the test of time.

Update: One year later the bed is surprisingly stronger than I thought it would be considering the light materials.  When I moved apartments it was incredibly easy to break down, light to move, and quick to set back up. I simply folded the plywood pieces off, unscrewed the slats,  removed the carriage bolts.  I can store up to 8 large storage containers underneath.

LED Water Sound Light Show

LED Water Sound Light Show

Last weeks project was using my Arduino board, some C++ examples, and a strand of WS2801 addressable RGB LEDs.

This project was completed using mostly spare materials I had around the house.

Needed for project

•  Drill with large drill bit (1/2 inch?  I used a 3/8 because i did not have a 1/2 inch bit)
•  Plastic Tubing - (I used a shower rod cover made of thin plastic.)
•  Electrical Tape
•  3/8 inch clear tubing
•  Water
•  Arduino Uno or other chipboard/controller for ws2801 lights. 
•  5V power supply
•  1 strand (20) ws2801 LEDs
•  Water pipe insulation (for appearance)
•  Misc cutting tools.
•  Sparkfun Spectrum Analyzer Shield or something else made with MSGEQ7 chip to analyze audio signals. 

Put LEDs in place.

Drill holes in your tube where you want your LEDs to be.  I placed one on each end of the tube, and down the length of the tube created holes opposite each other so the water looks as if it is flowing in a spiral.

Be very careful not to shatter your plastic when drilling.  Sometimes starting with small holes helps.  In this case I used a torch to smooth the holes where they were fractured. Heating the plastic also helped push LED's through where the hole was too tight.

The WS2801 lights fit tightly in 3/8 inch tubing.  It might be a good idea to seal them with silicon after filling them with water so they do not pop off and pour one ounce of water over your electronics.  The lights themselves are waterproof, but your Xbox sitting under your display is most likely not. I wrapped the tube with electrical tape over the connections between the light and clear tube
.

Aesthetics

After I completed my initial spiral I was not impressed as it did not have even a remotely finished look.  I returned to Home Depot where I found some foam pipe insulation.  the color was a dark grey and I felt that would make the center pipe of the display blend better.

Finished Display

Here is a small video of the finished display.  The output from the TV audio runs to the spectrum analyzer shield and sends back 1 column of data, a number between 1 and 100 representing the strength of the signal.  The line in the code below that reads "if(Counter > 5){" causes the lights to move faster every time it encounters any signal higher than 5 otherwise it will slowly cycle through all the colors in silence.

 Arduino Code:
Here is the sketch I used, it is a modified version of the one by Adafruit that can be found HERE.

// Comment
#include "SPI.h"
#include "WS2801.h"

int spectrumReset=5;
int spectrumStrobe=4;
int spectrumAnalog=0;  //0 for left channel, 1 for right.

// Spectrum analyzer read values will be kept here.
int Spectrum[7];

//WS2801 strip = WS2801(32);

int dataPin = 11;
int clockPin = 13;

//WS2801 strip = WS2801(32, dataPin, clockPin);
WS2801 strip = WS2801(20, dataPin, clockPin);

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  spectrum_init();
  
  strip.begin();
  strip.show(); // all off
  
  //rainbowCycle(5);
  
}

int pos = 0;

void loop() {
  // Some example procedures showing how to display to the pixels
  
  //colorWipe(Color(255, 0, 0), 10);
  //colorWipe(Color(0, 255, 0), 10);
  //colorWipe(Color(0, 0, 255), 10);
  //rainbow(10);
  //rainbowCycle(5);
  unsigned int Counter, Counter2;  
  readSpectrum();  
  
  Counter = (Spectrum[0]/10); 
  //Counter = ((Spectrum[0] + Spectrum[1]+ Spectrum[2]+ Spectrum[3]+ Spectrum[4]+ Spectrum[5]+ Spectrum[6])/7)/10;
    Serial.println(Counter);
    if(pos > 256 * 1){ // 5 strips 25 colors 
      pos = 0;
    }

   if(Counter > 5){ 
    pos += Counter;
    pos += 2;
    rainbowCycleOne(pos);     
   }
   else{
    pos += 2;
    rainbowCycleOne(pos);
    delay(20);
   }
  //} 
  
  /*
  for (pos=0; pos < 256 * 5; pos++) {     // 5 cycles of all 25 colors in the wheel
    rainbowCycleOne(pos);
  }*/
}

void rainbow(uint8_t wait) {
  int i, j;
   
  for (j=0; j < 256; j++) {     // 3 cycles of all 256 colors in the wheel
    for (i=0; i < strip.numPixels(); i++) {
      strip.setPixelColor(i, Wheel( (i + j) % 255));
    }  
    strip.show();   // write all the pixels out
    delay(wait);
  }
}

// Slightly different, this one makes the rainbow wheel equally distributed 
// along the chain
void rainbowCycle(uint8_t wait) {
  int i, j;
  
  for (j=0; j < 256 * 5; j++) {     // 5 cycles of all 25 colors in the wheel
    for (i=0; i < strip.numPixels(); i++) {
      // tricky math! we use each pixel as a fraction of the full 96-color wheel
      // (thats the i / strip.numPixels() part)
      // Then add in j which makes the colors go around per pixel
      // the % 96 is to make the wheel cycle around
      strip.setPixelColor(i, Wheel( ((i * 256 / strip.numPixels()) + j) % 256) );
    }  
    strip.show();   // write all the pixels out
    delay(wait);
  }
}


void rainbowCycleOne(int j) {
  int i;
 
    for (i=0; i < strip.numPixels(); i++) {
      // tricky math! we use each pixel as a fraction of the full 96-color wheel
      // (thats the i / strip.numPixels() part)
      // Then add in j which makes the colors go around per pixel
      // the % 96 is to make the wheel cycle around
      strip.setPixelColor(i, Wheel( ((i * 256 / strip.numPixels()) + j) % 256) );
    }  
    strip.show();   // write all the pixels out
    //delay(5);
}

// fill the dots one after the other with said color
// good for testing purposes
void colorWipe(uint32_t c, uint8_t wait) {
  int i;
  
  for (i=0; i < strip.numPixels(); i++) {
      strip.setPixelColor(i, c);
      strip.show();
      delay(wait);
  }
}

/* Helper functions */

// Create a 24 bit color value from R,G,B
uint32_t Color(byte r, byte g, byte b)
{
  uint32_t c;
  c = r;
  c <<= 8;
  c |= g;
  c <<= 8;
  c |= b;
  return c;
}

//Input a value 0 to 255 to get a color value.
//The colours are a transition r - g -b - back to r
uint32_t Wheel(byte WheelPos)
{
  if (WheelPos < 85) {
   return Color(WheelPos * 3, 255 - WheelPos * 3, 0);
  } else if (WheelPos < 170) {
   WheelPos -= 85;
   return Color(255 - WheelPos * 3, 0, WheelPos * 3);
  } else {
   WheelPos -= 170; 
   return Color(0, WheelPos * 3, 255 - WheelPos * 3);
  }
}

void readSpectrum()
{
 
  byte Band;
  for(Band=0;Band <7 data-blogger-escaped-analogread="" data-blogger-escaped-and="" data-blogger-escaped-band="" data-blogger-escaped-spectrum="" data-blogger-escaped-spectrumanalog="">>1; //Read twice and take the average by dividing by 2
    digitalWrite(spectrumStrobe,HIGH);
    digitalWrite(spectrumStrobe,LOW);     
  }
}

void spectrum_init()
{
    //Setup pins to drive the spectrum analyzer. 
  pinMode(spectrumReset, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(spectrumStrobe, OUTPUT);

  //Init spectrum analyzer
  digitalWrite(spectrumStrobe,LOW);
    delay(1);
  digitalWrite(spectrumReset,HIGH);
    delay(1);
  digitalWrite(spectrumStrobe,HIGH);
    delay(1);
  digitalWrite(spectrumStrobe,LOW);
    delay(1);
  digitalWrite(spectrumReset,LOW);
    delay(5);
}