Weekend of Productivity

I made some real progress on the van this weekend. The two biggest accomplishments were to get the new stereo installed and to get the aux battery in and working.

The new stereo is a huge improvement. I ran the iPod cable to the glove box through the dash which lets me just stick my iPod in the glove box and forget about it. The stereo has a remote, which I would consider completely stupid for most vehicles, but it is really nice with the Vanagon. Now we'll be able to sit around camp and change the music from any spot where we've got a line of sight to the receiver. Also, the speakers turned out to be better than I was expecting them to be. The tiny little babies in the driver and passenger door sound like they are blown but the big guys in the back actually sound pretty good. The system even sounds decent while you are standing outside of the van with the sliding door open.

The other big project of the weekend was to get the aux battery in place. I found some instructions online that described how to use the battery compartment under the driver's seat along with a small fuse/junction point to hook the battery into the rest of the vehicle wiring harness. The install was fairly easy to get working but I've got a few concerns about what the instructions told me to do.

Problems:
- I went with a deep cycle battery from Walmart which has the perfect length and width but the height is about an inch taller than the compartment. I got around this by knocking out the little welds in the battery compartment door and removing it and then just using the interior carpet to cover the top of the battery. This concerns me a bit because I don't have any insulator covering the positive battery terminal and I really feel like more precautions should be taken around what is most likely flammable carpet installed directly under my butt while I'm driving down the road.

- I'm charging this battery off the vehicle alternator when the engine is running but I'm connected to the alternator with just a 10 gage wire. I'm concerned that if I augment my electronics too much then I might end up pulling too much current on that wire and start an electrical fire. I think I need to either install something to protect the wire/alternator from too much draw or I need to start looking at other ways to wire in the extra battery.

- I really need to do the math on my current system and see how long I can run the fans and lights that I've got as well as the 750 watt inverter that I've installed. I need to make sure that the alternator, battery, and wiring are up to the task. I'd also like to start planning for my solar expansion as well as look into other ways to charge the battery.

- I need to read more about battery powered systems in general. There is a lot to know when it comes right down to it and I feel like I'm winging it a bit too much. One improperly sized wire or missing fuse can easily start a fire and burn my baby to the ground. I don't want to push the system much until I've done my homework.

- I have no way to accurately monitor the system. I've got to install some gages to monitor charge rate, charge level, as well as current power consumption. I'm riding blind here.