[DMAC]

Started on some decent storage space for the rear of the SWB.
Pics paint a thousand words. Material used 12mm Form ply.

First thing to do was make the case for the drawers and add double extension runners.


Drawers made to fit.

Drawers at full extension.


Added some carpet to the drawers and sides




LTM21 made a rear panel to mount up the speakers.


Now working on making the wing compartments.

[atari4x4]

neat work DMAC & LTM21

[DropBear8]

very neat

[trity]

looks great, how much would it weigh once complete?

[Polar_Bear]

looks more like 19mm form ply to me

[Wrinkledbits]

they look great, do you mind me asking what brand runners you used, and where to get them.

[bazook]

x2 on the runners

[DMAC]

Wrinkledbits wrote:

they look great, do you mind me asking what brand runners you used, and where to get them.

ebay ones.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Drawer-Slide ... 1c1b8bd8c8

Definately 12mm ply. Took about 1 and a bit sheets. weighs about 10-15kgs. Runners weigh almost as much as the ply.

[stockman]

How do you secure the drawer system to the floor?

[atari4x4]

stockman wrote:

How do you secure the drawer system to the floor?

sky hook?

[DMAC]

I bolted it down using the seat bolt mounts in the rear, and two screwed plates on the front.

[DMAC]

Never got around to posting the completed product.


Passenger side wing has inverter and 2X12v outlets in it.

Drivers side has recovery gear. The tie down points were good too, fridge didn't move.

If you go camping drawers are excellent made everthing easily accessible. The next mod I'd do is a box insert, to fit neatly between the wings, with a fridge slide and two more drawers vertically next to the fridge. This would be for those extended adventures.

Touring additions would be a roof basket for light gear, rear bar with jerry can holder.

For my trip I had a second battery in the trailer. This was only connected to the fridge. I ran a CTEK charger plugged into the 150W inverter to keep the battery charged. So a dual battery system not dependant on the output of the altenator. Worked a treat.

[alexvitara]

looks neat
good work

[Wrinkledbits]

well done, looks neat.

[just_cruizin]

Looks good.

Now I'm not an electrical person so I am by wrong but your running a battery off a charger off a battery off A charger and this is better then runner the aux battery start off the alternator. How is that a benefit, surely the losses would make less efficient or less effective meaning the aux battery wouldn't be fully charging

[royce]

Less efficient in the respect of amps leaving alternator arent the same as going into battery yes but the CTEK is a better charging method so youll get a 100% charge into your battery, an alternator doesnt do this so as to stop batteries always boiling dry

would be a slow process as well unless you had a massive chanrger, also would require some form of isolation

[Reubs]

just_cruizin wrote:

Looks good.

Now I'm not an electrical person so I am by wrong but your running a battery off a charger off a battery off A charger and this is better then runner the aux battery start off the alternator. How is that a benefit, surely the losses would make less efficient or less effective meaning the aux battery wouldn't be fully charging

I'm no expert howver: in terms of overall energy moved from primary battery & alternator - yes adding an inverter and charger is maybe 30% less efficient (inverter probably 85% effficient - not sure on charger).

However in terms of charging the aux battery, the charger and inverter do 2 things.

1 - The inverter (regulated) will be able to cope with voltage drop (to a point) and maintain it's output voltage so voltage drop to that point won't be a problem even if the alternator is loaded up and only outputting 12V instead of 13.8V and the 5m of cable to that point is not so much of a problem.

2 - The c-tek charger can sense the aux battery's condition and charge it at the correct rate regardless of the condition of the primary battery and load on the main system. Also if the aux battery is a different construction to the main battery (maybe it's a gel cell) it may have a slightly different charging voltage (maybe 14.4V instead of 13.8V) so the alternator won't charge it fully anyway.

Maybe in terms of energy losses a better system would be one of those dc-dc converter smart charge systems but I think they'd cost a lot more then inverter and charger (which can both be used for other purposes as well!).

[DMAC]

I could have run the second battery via an isolating solenoid connected to the altenator but as Royce pointed out the second battery wouldn't ever be fully charged. The second battery was mounted at the rear of the trailer. This amounts to a distance of 8 meters from the altenator.

The end result I wanted was a fully charged second battery. With it only running the fridge it only need to supply about 200-250 WattHour of energy in 24 hours. The out put of the CTEK is 4.5 Amps. As long as I ran the engine for 4 hours the system would balance out.

[just_cruizin]

Cool cheers for that