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Camper Van Flooring Part 1: In Floor Electrical Wiring Ford Transit
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May 2, 2025
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View Video Transcript
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[Music]
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he
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w
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[Music]
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all right welcome everyone we are back to the live stream tonight we are working on the electrical uh wiring in
3:17
the floor so because we're doing uh the the thin walls and we don't have a A-Frame
3:24
structure like the adventure wagon build um we need to be creative where we're putting the cables so that that uh they
3:31
fit in the van nicely so what we're going to be doing today is I'm going to walk you
3:36
through how I'm laying out the wires what it looks like we'll go to the
3:41
drawing pad and I'll actually uh draw out how the wires are running so you can
3:47
you know play this video back you know scrub through it back and forth and find out if that's something you want to do
3:54
if it's helpful um so I'm going to do it and then you know I thought uh doing this
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live stream would be a good way to open up some questions for Van electrical
4:08
circuitry CU sometimes that can get uh it can be scary you know wiring up
4:13
your van wrong um even though it's 12vt which is not the end of the world if you
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do do it incorrectly with the high amp wires um that is something that could be
4:24
dangerous so if you have any questions tonight put them in the uh chat be happy to answer for them we're going to try to
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stay on the topic of electrical circuits um we're going to do 12vt and we're going to do 110 or 120 the household
4:37
power too um but inside the van here uh what we're doing is I'm getting ready to do
4:44
the final glue in of the floor panels or the subfloor and I did this on the adventure
4:50
wagon build and uh I really like putting the cables in the floor I know there's a lot of people that are kind of against
4:56
that um but for me it just uh it just
5:02
makes a lot of sense because you can cut out the little troughs or little wire
5:07
highways I call them in the floor keep everything nice and neat it's Marine wiring so it's double jacketed if you
5:14
get everything fused properly um there's no problem uh whatsoever with with doing
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this doing this method uh one thing you might want to do is uh plan ahead uh as
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I did in the top of the van I actually um installed called a an additional
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circuit so um I'm going to start at the top here and then I'll come down and
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I'll just explain what is going in the van uh kind of top to bottom so I'll
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walk in the van here in just a second but up top we're going to have uh we're
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going to have seven LED lights four in the back on One bank and then we have
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three with those pieces of tape that haven't been drilled yet yet uh in the front we have a uh 48volt rooftop AC
6:06
unit that's a nomatic cooling X2 48 volt then we have the traditional Max fan uh
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this is the deluxe so 7500k is the model number for it it's 12
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volts and then if we come on down um I'm going to hop in the van really quick and
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just point out what's happening above the sliding door
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all right so in a lot of Vans uh what you might want to do let me move this
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light so I can actually see my video
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screen there we go so in most van builds what you'll see
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is this section has some communication whether it's a electrical screen or
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light switches or whatnot um my original plan was to do
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that but I got to pulling the uh communication wire from uh the Webasto
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heater and uh I'm so I'm so back and forth between this um I'll I'll decide tonight
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I'll make a final decision while I'm doing this video but this blob right here um
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I'd have to do some more cutting into it and then this panel right here there's not a good way to really cover the
7:37
cables coming in here I can't run them above this because the ceiling is so tight so I think what I'm going to do is
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we're going to have both uh the ecoflow communication screen and the heater over
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here um on the fridge microwave stack that's going on this direction also
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because the ecoflow cable is um all that's 20 ft uh going from here
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up I think will be what we're going to do again I'm going to deign that later
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but just like I'm doing now you'll want to consider this the same thing this is something that you think you can uh
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you're going to be able to run the wire there's going to be enough wire and even if you get the wire there can you hide
8:25
the wire behind whatever panels you're working with um yeah so these two things
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are uh what I'm deciding tonight now what is up here
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what have I pre-wired I've pre-wired a reverse camera
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uh the back of the van all the way up through here into the uh wolf box system
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which is a dash cam system so that c ca's up here um up here we have the uh
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let's see here so we got our wo we
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have and what I do is I have a label maker and I label everything um even though I've done this before it's you
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want to label everything so this is called the 12vt 12vt front Galley spare
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so this is a spare cable for future expansion if we needed some type of 12vt supply for something that John and Susan
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wanted to put up here this is this is the spare next we have the uh
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12vt uh rigid LED so this is they they're outdoor
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lighting um so when they go to uh go outside this is their kind of
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Amber outdoor light um let's
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see and actually I think I'm correcting myself now um we're going to using this
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to switch the front Gap well let's see here you guys are seeing my thought
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process live here it's always
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fun by the way if you guys see me always going up here and looking at cables this
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is uh up here is where I keep cables going to the top of the
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kitchen galley let's see I got one two three
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four Max fan and
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four up that's right okay back here we
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have wire number four so this is their rear LED reading
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light the 12vt spare we are using this to connect to our lights up here so we
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repurpose that circuit that's what that is so that's two three is
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the uh front LED and then the 12vt rigid
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light okay that's the four so I've got four 12vt uh wires
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coming up here uh all 12volt wires for this current power supply are 18 gauge
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wires so each one of these is 18 gauge including the rigid it does not pull enough amps to be any higher than that
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so 18 gauge up here you guys can't see it but
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supplying the max van um I think we actually used a 12 gauge for that so
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that one is Let's see we just look right
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here yeah 12 gauge for that so five wires are coming across the ceiling to
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supply power to all these roof underneath the ceiling
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systems um we're not counting the power supply for the 48 volt doedic because
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it's already been routed through the wall and coming straight down now when we come over here to the
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floor uh one thing we're doing is we're running the 12vt supply for the well
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basto we're coming under here uh this is where the floor step will be and so
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there's a channel that this foam overhangs a little bit deg cre a channel within the
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step and then underneath here there's this pocket and it's a good place to uh
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hide SL store cables if you're running them over here and then
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eventually these cables when the floor is finished will come up through here and inside the kitchen gall
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our two spares for the uh W basto will be bolted to the side of the kitchen
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galy under here where the gray water tank is just in case you need to replace these fuses these fuses are not underneath the
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swivel seat which would be terribly hard to get to if those ever ever
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blew um so this I just picked up that's our Bluetooth controller for uh the
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smart temp control for the Webasto 2000 so we got these coming through um
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let me grab my phone make sure you guys don't have any questions here so
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far all right I guess I could let me go back
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down so I'm down I'm moving down we're going to zoom in here so you guys can see what I'm
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talking about all right so this big snake of a wire this is bringing most of
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our uh the other half of all of our electrical from the ecoflow system we're
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coming all the way down here so what I'm going to use as an example as we're talking about this is the distribution
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box so I'm going to hop on the big camera just real quick uh here we go so this is the
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distribution box so we got these little stickers I put
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them in here just so I can you know remember where I want things to go I print them out and then I peel them off
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as I organize everything I'm just going to take them off here for a second but for example I want this one to be the
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the microwave so over here you have uh you have household power so this is a
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breaker just like you'd have in your your house just like a normal breaker they're just a little bit
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smaller and so in this window you have your um line neutral and ground so your
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three wires for your 110 or 120 volt AC
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coming in from here over you're going to have your DC circuits you have 12 and
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then six you can control with a remote control so you can wirelessly turn these on and off and then up here you have uh
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all these circuit all these fuses up here to appropriate appropri appropriately fuse your
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circuit um these are just placeholders you can use them if you do have a 20 amp
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but you know if you have a 5 amp circuit that's pretty obvious you would replace these with the appropriate
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fuse uh and then the supply this little knockout window I'm actually going to knock out these from the
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back um and then this is going to sit back here on the left behind the
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wheel well so all these wires from here to the right this all these wires are that's
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what I'm talking about right now so we'll get back in the band so I'll just use this as a a
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reference and also John and Susan if you guys are watching this will be a good
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little reference for you in the future if you ever have troubleshooting you can kind of understand how everything's
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coming through the box um and I'm just organize these wires tonight that's pretty much all I'm doing CU first thing
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tomorrow I'm going to put I'm going to glue the floor in and then these will be sealed because if you watched the live
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live stream yesterday I need these wires in so I can put the wood panel that's upholstered in
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and then I can bolt it Eco flow to it but I got to have the floor glued in first before I can put the panel on the
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wall so there's kind of an order of operations there um so here we have a bunch of
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wires we actually have six wires and we're going to be adding some more so
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you guys can come along um as I add some more wires these are going to go through the
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floor and so let's talk about what we have um right here uh so actually I'm
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going to untape this so I made a little bit of a change
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before I when I was planning this out
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so let's see what we have get this wire out of my face
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okay um let's talk about our big chunky wires first these are our
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uh 123 wires so when I say 123 that does
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not mean 12 volts 123 means 12 gauge wire three wire which is going to be our
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um 120 volt household power uh right
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here now when you hear 110 and 120 uh it's it's the same 110 120 is the
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same there's there's a range if you ever look on the back of your microwave or device there's like a uh a little
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Dash and there's a there's a range of voltage that it can accept so some people say 120 some will say 110 it just
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depends on where you're at and what's providing power uh so this three wire is the uh
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let's see here this is 110 volt outside so 110 volt outside this is
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their outside uh outside outlet for the van so when
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they open their door they turn their inverter on this wire will come through
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here underneath the floor and this will actually be
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plugged into a electrical box that has a plug on it just a normal household plug
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so they want to do is some induction cooking outside they can do that the next one that's a 123 as
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well this one is inside so this is an inside uh wire so this wire will
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actually come through here and this one when the floor's in
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and finish we have a nice round hole right here right on the wall of the kitchen Galley this one will come up
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through the kitchen Galley and uh allow access to that uh 110
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power then as we come back over here this next one is hot water so we're
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actually going to need two wires for the hot water the main wire is coming
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uh through the floor and again it's also going to come up
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through uh the bottom of the kitchen Galley and so this one is going to be
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our switchable circuit for the hot water heater so this will go into the box
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provides the power and then a secondary 123 cable will go back with a plugin on it and that will actually turn the hot
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water heater on and off uh by the flip of switch switch box will be underneath the kitchen Galley so when you want to
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have hot water um you can just flip the switch it'll start heating it up so very
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simple all right now that leaves us with we have three wires here and we're
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going to 12vt power now these 12vt Supply is these are
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only uh these are 14 gauge on this one and
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this is our 12vt water pump and our tank LED so what I do is I
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I get a I cut a little window out on their water tank uh box we put a blue
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LED in there and when we have uh Power go to the pump to turn the
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water pump on it Powers the blue LED so anytime the water pump is on the blue LED is on
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if you're inside the van you can't see it but if you go to check the water level turn the pump on and you'll uh
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backlight the water tank it's kind a cool little hack on that uh for that now
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the reason this is so long is again we need to have one wire that provides the
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power and so this wire is providing power to the switch that'll be located
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on top of the sink so it'll be a waterproof proof switch with a blue light you push it water's on you can
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wash your hands do all that good stuff um but it turns the water pump on so you need Supply Power and then you'll need
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an identical gauge wire from going from here all the way back to the um uh the
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water tank itself so this is just the supply for that switch in the kitchen
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Galley next you're going to have uh this says 12vt light front and then this one is 12vt lights
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rear so I've got I got John and Susan uh two dimmable
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switches and uh so what this is going to do is this
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will um switch those circuits so what we'll
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do uh I'll show you guys on the computer in a second but this is just uh
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controlling the switch so this gets a little confusing so kind of go with me
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on this these two wires are the they're technically like
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one the black and the red is almost like two red wires because all we're doing is
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we're using these two wires to uh modulate the dimmer switch or the off
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and on so this is just a switch and this is just a switch so you have basically power com in and then power going
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through um if that makes sense because what I'm going to do is
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instead of switching the circuit here going and doing four wires you can uh
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lower the amount of wire you use because you switch the circuit here and then what we'll do is we'll go back we'll cut
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the wire we'll provide Power to one leg of the wire and then the other leg of
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the wire will actually uh WG go Connect into our lighting circuits that go into
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the box I know that's complicated but I will make a really simple explanation
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here in just a second when I hop on the computer so these
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two uh come into
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here okay and so we'll clean all these wires up we'll put a nice wrap around them we'll put them inside the uh
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kitchen Galley but these are all our switchable circuits we can turn our rear lights on our front lights on
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um and but then with this ecoflow system we get to simplify a lot of things so
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you see how many wires we have so let's go back to
24:49
um uh my notes because I think I'm forgetting that's why we have notes
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right let's see here okay so I promise you guys two uh I need
25:04
to do let's see
25:09
dimmer okay can make sure I answer that
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dimmer Jammer switch gosh I can't WR tonight dimer switch
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control how
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to okay um let's see what this okay who uh so ke
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ask who manufactures the distribution box is that blue SE systems okay the this distribution box is from
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ecoflow so it is part of their independence kit which is the 5 kwatt
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Hour kit I will pull up an example um it's not something that you can
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buy actually I don't know if you can it'd be cool if you could buy it independently I mean that' actually be
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kind of smart I like the Box
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um let's see here Eco flow Independence
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kit and we got the 5 kilow
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hour
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so this is the kit right here so you get this uh big unit that is
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the main unit this is the uh switchable unit um I I'll show you right
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here so this is the brains of the whole thing this is the the this is what uh
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alternator inputs solar panel battery 40 volt rooftop AC um and then power for
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the unit so this is your main this also contains your uh
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inverter um let's
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see let's see that's
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ecoflow distribution pan okay this is this is the this is
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what it
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is yeah it looks like you can actually buy it by itself that's pretty cool
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um yeah it just manages your circuits uh pretty pretty straightforward uh yeah K
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let me know if that answer your question I'm happy to go in more detail if if I
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didn't okay let's move my face over here
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somewhere so this is the flooor of the for Transit
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now I need to add a couple more circuits here that I did not add so what I need
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to add is this uh 12vt uh Heater supply
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power so I need to run a cable for that I need to
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run uh the Communication cable for the ecoflow uh a
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110 return hot water
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cable then this one is the uh this one's not that important because I'm not I'm
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only going to glue the middle panel in first and then I'll finish the the rest
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of this wiring tomorrow we get the 12vt reading light supply for the driver's
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side because I didn't do that
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yesterday um and then floor modifications uh yeah we already talked
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about these
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two so let's let me try to answer this question right here really
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quick so this dimmer switch so basically what we have is
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we've got a wire going to the switch itself so let's just say that this is the uh
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this is the light switch for the this is the
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dimmer that's the dimmer switch so you have a negative and you have a positive
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cable coming to it so what we're going to do is we're just going to connect one to one side of
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the dimmer and then one to the other side of the dimmer this Cable's going to go back to the
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that uh distribution
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box okay that's that distribution box that I showed you guys um let's see uh
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oh
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okay distribution box um so what we're going to do is so
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you see these two cables run to the back of the van so one is the negative and
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one is the positive all right so if we connected it
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like this that would be really bad because we'd short circuit it if we turn the switch on so what we have to do is
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we got to break the circuit here and then so think of this right
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here um think of this is that this is the the
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power coming into the system and then this is the switch so we got to break it because uh
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what it's controlling is it's is controlling uh one of our Puck lights in
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the
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ceiling okay so that's our Puck lights now if we took our Puck lights and we
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just connected them to these wires the light would turn on because we're getting power but we don't want to do
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that we want to make this light uh
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dim so what we want to do is uh our grounds connecting together so we can
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connect all them together that's no that's not a problem so we'll connect all them together just like
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that uh so the red is where uh that's where it'll allows us to uh dim the
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circuit so what we're going to do is we need to ground the wire right there but then
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this black wire turns into our our dimming
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wire so I'm trying to figure out how how do I explain this to you so I'm going to make it a dashed
33:24
one okay so that wire turns into uh hooks to the positive side and then
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our red wires connect just like
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normal so that's just normal and uh so that's how that works
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so you can see if we wanted to do
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this uh without doing this we'd have
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to run two more wires if that makes sense anyway try not get in the weeds let me
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know if that uh made sense to you
34:12
guys yeah so that's how lighting a dimming circuit works I'm me see if I I think I got the switch right over
34:26
here so this is the switch I got John and Susan
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and it's pretty beefy I like it um so let's see here so this is the
34:42
one I got them so I like it cuz you it's got a simple on and off you know light on and
34:49
off but then over here you can control how much it dims and if there's a a
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level you want it set you can just leave it there and then turn it off and
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on um it does have a it does tell you how to uh turn it
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into a uh three-way switch
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um
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see the dim switch sets the live
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yep
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so not to confuse you guys but this switch it's possible with that it has
35:41
three wires so this uh for my application it's possible it's
35:49
not focusing
35:54
technology there we go
36:00
so this for for this I actually might not use this wire
36:07
because and I don't mean to confuse you guys but the white one right here this one goes to the light so the white one
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in this case is the uh black
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wire with the dashes and then the red
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wire is the uh is the the red wire is the 12volt
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power so we would just cap off this black wire so we wouldn't use
36:40
this um so that's why you can take my example with so this is my example is a
36:47
two wire switch so that's how this gets confusing
36:53
because you see well Nick you told me I just only need two wires well you would just use these
36:59
two so not the ground cuz the light is already grounded
37:07
uh the lights already grounded right right
37:14
here all right what is next what is next on the list shall we go back in the van
37:21
and get to work yes all right so so any question you
37:29
guys have keep it going I love answering the questions so we're going to uh I'm
37:36
going to start cutting some cable and uh putting putting them
37:42
back let's see let me zoom out the camera yep I'm start cutting some cable
37:48
so the first one I'm going to do is I'm just going to uh pull
37:56
my uh my 123 wire
38:03
um now unfortunately this to get the the right stuff because I only put the right
38:08
stuff in my bands um there there's stuff you can get off of Amazon but you
38:14
cannot uh it you can't ver verify that it's uh that it's UL listed so you see
38:21
that UL listed so this is a full spool um this is
38:28
uh anchor wire and it's a 123 100 ft uh thing of
38:37
wire um it is very expensive but it's the right one to use um you can
38:45
buy it from uh West Marine so I'm not sure if you guys anybody's on the East
38:51
Coast I think West Marine's everywhere maybe that's why it's called West Marine
38:57
[Laughter] okay so West Marine we're looking for
39:07
123 no
39:14
123 I guess I could put wire 123
39:26
wire
39:36
so they have it by the foot so
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123 100 foot spool uh I mean it's not it's 177 bucks
39:52
I know that may sound expensive but that's that's pretty good for a good quality 12 gauge power
39:59
cable uh for your for your
40:08
van um let see and actually that wire that I
40:15
was about to cut like this that's not what I wanted to show you so let me show you
40:22
um say lows
40:27
extension cable
40:36
lighted okay so for my hot water heaters um this is what I do let me see if I
40:44
can see if I can find this for you this is a good hack for a DIY if
40:52
you're new to electrical um I know this sounds very strange
40:58
but they make these utility cords that are lighted and you can get them in I think
41:06
14 gauge um let's see if I can get him in
41:12
12 gauge so the lower the number the thicker the wire just remember
41:20
that um that's a 14 that's a
41:26
123
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123 yeah so I get this
41:37
um I get this 25-footer and but I think this is really
41:43
great in the van so these cables have a lit plug in on the end of them and what
41:50
I think is a good practice for troubleshooting is uh this is what I plug into my heaters so
41:57
I'll splice this and this wire will go into the electrical box for the
42:02
switch and so say John and Susan are in their van and for some reason the hot water is not getting power
42:10
um this is just an example purposes uh extremely rare that this would ever occur but if it did you have a lit end
42:17
of the power cable so you know if the cable is getting power or not or if it's
42:22
the water heater that's messed up and shot so you don't have to keep turning
42:28
the Braker on and off and have no clue without using a electrical meter if it's uh shorted or not so I used one of this
42:36
I plug it into the household plug on the hot water heater and then that just you can see this lighted
42:43
circuit so I do this for the hot water heater and I'll also do the same thing for the microwave and that way before
42:51
you plug in the microwave you know the plug has power coming out of it without using any type of testing device
42:58
um so that's kind of a little little hack that I
43:05
do uh okay so if we go back to this let's see
43:15
here so 12vt Heater supply um so I'm going to be using I
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already pull the roll out let see where it
43:26
went so we're going to be using
43:32
a so I get all this stuff from West Marine so this is what we're going to be
43:37
using for the hereat which is a 122 now I know that's really confusing the 12 still means the same doesn't
43:44
matter if it's 110 volt or 120 volt or
43:50
12vt um 12 the first number is the gauge of the wire inside and then the Slash
43:58
the number after it is how many wires are in The Wire uh yeah sometimes that is
44:15
confusing all right so this
44:26
one
44:33
so from here what I need to measure is I'm just going to lay the wire down because we got to go
44:39
from uh the ecoflow to underneath our kitchen
44:56
galley
45:02
and then I got a couple videos uh just quick talkover videos that of the work that I did earlier today which was
45:09
modifying the floor and so I recorded those but I'm just going to briefly go through those
45:15
because they explain uh how we're going to cover the floor
45:22
up to hide these wires
45:28
and you don't have to do this but if you can get the Kinks out of the wire before you put in the floor uh it'll keep it
45:34
from noding up too
45:39
bad okay so remember our heater is coming underneath our
45:45
step and then this will be coming through um it's going to be coming in
45:55
here
46:18
and so here I have a general size that I've given myself so that I have a
46:25
little bit of a little bit of slack to work with if I want to
46:31
uh change these cables up all right there's my
46:48
cable now good practice we're going label maker out we're going to do
46:54
heater uh Supply
47:18
all right so that's our heater Supply then we print another
47:25
one
47:47
okay I'm just going to Kink the wire so I've been doing is coming to the
47:53
wall where my outlet box is and then I come out about 2
47:59
fet and that's been giving me my um place where I want to actually cut
48:08
my cut my wire to
48:25
size
49:14
okay so this is our last one we had for the Webasto um and then we'll go over the ecoflow
49:21
stuff here it's a little bit of a nest Rat's Nest but that's it's just not
49:26
organize right now um but I'm going to go over it because I probably will go ahead and install all this and you guys
49:33
won't see it tomorrow uh so we're just that's why we're going it over over it
49:38
tonight okay so now we can come over here and we can cross that
49:45
off
49:52
um let's see here
50:01
uh the 110 return for hot water we need
50:06
to buy that one I don't have any more um
50:12
12vt reading light Supply we can do that one so if you guys remember over
50:20
here this is what we had what we did
50:25
yesterday
50:33
so JN have one more light that goes right
50:41
here so we're not going to use our 12 two wire because that is too heavy it'll
50:48
do a great job but it's a it's a waste of money to
50:54
um use that so so we go down to our next wire down and so this wire is
51:04
our this is our 162 this is our 16 gauge
51:19
wire okay and so this one we can just do a do a little Loop over come
51:26
down down and this one's just this one's fun cuz we can just estimate
51:33
that um that's where we want this
51:49
one okay so this one is
51:55
set so we need to come in here and do 12vt
52:04
driver read
52:23
LED and for this one you don't have to do two cuz it's going to be plugged into the back of the
52:30
light okay so that's one
52:46
in all right floor modifications for wire Timber switch control okay so we
52:52
did that all right floor modifications for wire so let's move the
52:58
camera let's get the camera into the van because you may be having to do this
53:04
in your van
53:25
uh
53:36
okay so what we're going to do here is we're going to take our masking tape that is 1 inch and we're going to modify
53:43
this foam and so I didn't cut it earlier
53:48
because I didn't think I'd need to run a cable across here uh but the Communication cable for our heater I
53:57
want to go across here um I don't want to mount this Bluetooth controller there's no
54:04
good place in the kitchen Galley there's you know you don't want to do it here and bump it going in so we're we're 99%
54:13
of everyone puts it is up here um if they have a uh like a closet we have a
54:20
fridge stack with a microwave this is where most everyone puts it or up there
54:25
but because of this length of this cable it's going to be just enough to
54:33
have it exactly where we want it so that's why
54:39
we're um putting this in the floor so let's we'll move this up here so we don't damage it when we start cutting
54:46
with the razor um let's put this stuff
54:55
here
55:02
and I'm just using this tape as my guide for when I cut
55:16
this okay and any wire that I think I might cut like these Eco flow cables I'm going
55:23
to just push them out of the
55:28
away same with this power cable this one needs to hang out up here for a
55:50
second okay so I'm looking for my big razor blade
56:24
there we go
56:30
another tool that I think you guys should definitely get are these uh
56:39
olfa razor blades I use them all over the place I mean I've got I've got a ton
56:46
of them what's nice is they're Japanese steel uh the refill blades are and you
56:52
can actually get them at Lowe's which is pretty awesome um but this one you can
56:57
tell it's much much bigger than your this is a normal size razor this one
57:05
is this one's this one's big and so this one's uh this one's also
57:11
nice because you can uh you can like for cutting foam you can extend the
57:17
blade you make it look like a machete
57:22
um anyway thought that was
57:28
helpful okay let's cut let's cut our foam
57:36
here now I do have a uh vinyl piece of lattice supporting
57:43
underneath here um when I get done with their van we'll have a trim strip that goes over
57:49
this as well uh that way they can uh it's just a
57:56
decorative strip that
58:02
um that encloses everything so
58:09
yeah all right really makes our DC to DC ecoflow cables here
58:15
they are we got to Baby them that's that's
58:21
our are charging for this system one of our main chargings
58:27
charging things for the system all right so those are safe now
58:32
now we just keep
58:55
going
59:17
okay once you cut foam like this push it uh forward and that's going to break it
59:23
Loose uh cleanly
59:37
look at that look how clean that was that's awesome okay so now we've regained a
59:46
path or we've gained a path so that we can run this
59:52
cable uh down through here
1:00:11
so that it's going to go all the way that's going to follow the ecoflow it's going to go all the way
1:00:17
over there all right I made it that long because of that wide is because I think
1:00:23
I'm also
1:00:29
since they gave us so much of the positive cable what I might do is
1:00:35
uh I don't suggest you do this but probably what I'm going to do is I'm going to modify these
1:00:42
fuses um and I'm going to it's possible that I can run this now
1:00:49
that I've made that cut I can run this all the way back to the Eco flow
1:00:56
now whenever you modify a cable you want to make sure you don't add too much because the fuse and the length of the
1:01:03
wire has already been predetermined to make this function properly but if I add
1:01:08
another two or three feet to that I don't think that's going to be an issue because if I can do what I just showed
1:01:13
you and I can now fit two wires in this channel right here um and bring these
1:01:21
back I can wire them uh
1:01:27
into the ecoflow directly and this wire that I wired over here I can just use
1:01:33
this as a spare for for something so just kind of you have
1:01:42
options okay let's see if we got any
1:01:48
questions hey going and do is uh how's your how's your ecoflow system uh
1:01:54
doing I than you had a question about it last time but I didn't I'm not sure if I answered it or
1:02:06
not okay so now I'm going to go over those videos that I uh did earlier today
1:02:14
on the floor system and just to catch you up on what I did and then we'll open it up for some
1:02:24
Q&A all right all right so let me pull let me pull up one of
1:02:37
[Music]
1:02:52
these all right let's get on the computer here so this is uh what I worked on today so I'm going to show you
1:02:58
three short videos I'm going to scrub through them so you're not going to watch the whole entire thing um all right let's see what go do
1:03:05
said so the alternator charging is what you're uh let's
1:03:24
see
1:03:31
so love the ecoflow but the um alternator charging
1:03:40
okay all right so this is what we worked on today uh so I got the sheet of Baltic
1:03:45
Birch and I took it over to the table saw and the panel that you guys saw inside the van from yesterday so that
1:03:52
is um the panel from this right side of the van so if I bring you
1:04:01
outside and we're looking at this other
1:04:15
side okay so the panel that goes on the bottom side of this wall that's what
1:04:21
we're talking about here in this video so I grabbed a new piece and then I I just came over here and I started
1:04:27
cutting it down to side size um I went through and I notched out
1:04:33
the uh the will well
1:04:39
piece then I went through and drilled all the holes for the sides and get that all finished
1:04:51
up see what my computer's doing weird stuff here
1:05:03
computer there we go um then this
1:05:11
one so this is the modifications that I'm making to the floor that's going to
1:05:16
be covering the wires and so I don't know if you can see it but uh I'll draw it here on the
1:05:24
pad there we
1:05:30
go so if you're doing the flooring and your Transit you're going to have three sections of flooring flooring you'll
1:05:37
have the first main section and then there'll be a split back here at the back so we have one two and three and
1:05:45
then the second section is where the wire is going to be coming through so right here is I have that access
1:05:51
hole and then I have some uh the dots are where the foam is cut
1:06:01
out so this is where you'll actually cut the foam out and there's a space on
1:06:06
under panel number two in a Ford Transit where this uh there's a deep valley in
1:06:12
the frame of the van it allows you to run wires there so that's where I run
1:06:18
all these wires so we have that main branch that came out zigs along this and this is where it connects to the ecoflow
1:06:25
the hot water wire comes down here goes this way connects the ecoflow so all
1:06:32
that's happening under uh under this
1:06:38
panel so that's the one that I'm modifying now two things that I had to
1:06:43
do to this panel um were I had
1:06:53
to this part has to be cut off and then this part has to be cut
1:06:58
off because I I made it too
1:07:11
wide all right so other question was hey Nick I want to install a cargo slide in
1:07:17
my Sprinter van you mentioned using uh so grade eight bolts that's what you
1:07:24
want to use uh do the bolts need to go through the
1:07:30
floor all the way and Bolt from underneath uh yes so my personal
1:07:37
opinion um what what I would do is I'll draw it
1:07:42
for you
1:07:48
so let's
1:07:54
uh I have a video on this I'll try to find it really quick but essentially
1:08:00
this is the bottom of your van this is your van these are your
1:08:05
wheel wells in the back and so in this section right here
1:08:10
is typically where you're going to install your drawer slide so let's just say for example uh this is where you're
1:08:20
installing your drawer slide uh that's where I installed mine technically I was
1:08:25
trying to put two in here but I just decided to do one now here's where I bolted it so the
1:08:31
red dots are the bolts that I have so I have I had four
1:08:38
here and then I just had two back here and I did that because most of your
1:08:46
force uh lifting up is going to be on this front part you know just kind of
1:08:51
think like a like a seesaw you're going to have the force is going to be point up on here and you know it's not really
1:08:59
going to M matter in the back so I took I drilled these
1:09:04
four um are these six bolts through the floor and in Orange I'm going to show
1:09:10
you what is underneath the van that you you have to watch out for so the fuel
1:09:17
tank uh I think the fuel tank covered the
1:09:23
first two I already needed to drop the fuel tank in order to install the
1:09:29
heater so um I'm also dropping the fuel tank on uh John Susan's van to plug in the
1:09:38
robbel fuel tap so I've already pre-plan to do all that on the same
1:09:44
day um and then right here you're going to have that spare
1:09:50
tire and then underneath the van you're going to have these uh
1:10:00
cross members now you're you're probably going to have the same thing on a sprinter you'll have these like uh they
1:10:07
almost look like rails like frame rails almost so basically you kind of have to
1:10:14
navigate your way through all this and the best way that I found to do it is
1:10:20
they make a e inch uh n this might be a 16th
1:10:29
inch so I've got two special the drill bits that I
1:10:37
bought and one is so that I can go and actually
1:10:43
um so one is so that I can go and find where the holes are in the van so I can
1:10:50
take this long one and it's it's very strong and I can take this I can probe through through the floor and see if
1:10:56
it's coming out where I want it to and then when I'm ready to I use a 516
1:11:02
version of that bit so this you can see how long this is and so I do this and uh
1:11:09
that is what I I use a 516th bit um to put
1:11:17
them to drill them
1:11:23
uh let's see here let me okay let me answer this one question
1:11:30
for you really
1:11:54
quick okay so if you go on the computer you
1:12:00
can find something here it's called uh it's a
1:12:05
bolt uh the bolt markings so it tells you what grade each
1:12:11
of the bolts are so these little uh lines that you see on top of bolts that
1:12:17
is actually a grading scale so a grade eight will have this uh star pattern so
1:12:23
it's like 1 2 3 four five like six of them and then you get into the higher
1:12:30
class and I think grade eight is is what's also known as Automotive grade so don't quote me on that but that's a good
1:12:39
way to to think about it
1:12:45
um yeah so once you make it through this Maze of how you're finding out where to
1:12:52
drill your holes you don't need you don't need to bolt on everything but um
1:12:57
you know definitely the front and the the front needs to have more bolts
1:13:03
than the back does the back is more just for like locating your pull out drawer
1:13:10
slide um yep you're welcome I'm going to really quick see if I can find this VD
1:13:15
this uh
1:13:21
video dra
1:13:30
[Music]
1:13:43
all right so this is the video you want to watch this is uh the name of this video is heavy duty drawer slides in a
1:13:50
camper van conversion so I'm going to
1:13:55
let's
1:14:03
see okay so go to watch that
1:14:13
video so that video is going to go over uh what I'm talking about the two
1:14:18
bolts in the front two in the
1:14:24
back
1:14:34
um I'm trying to I'm trying to
1:14:45
see anyway I have one that is more detailed but I can't find it at the current
1:14:50
moment um all right let me get back to
1:14:55
these videos uh so modifying the floor so I did that see what else was on here
1:15:02
I think I had one more thing to look at okay here you go so this is the last video I have to
1:15:08
show you so this is a floor like it was earlier today and so what I'm doing is
1:15:14
I'm cutting out the hole to fit the wires through
1:15:19
and okay let's uh
1:15:26
so go do says I'm working on the outside upgrades I ordered the Talon wheels from Alin what do you recommend
1:15:38
for uh I mean Believe It or Not The ko2 BFG ko2s are actually a pretty
1:15:45
well-mannered Tire on the road um those are the cool off-road tires that pretty much everyone has on their van um they
1:15:52
have a good load rating but they're not as loud as you would think so the BF
1:15:58
Good Wrench ko2 tires um if you want something that's a little
1:16:04
bit uh more I think it's more comfortable but not as aggressive you're
1:16:10
going to be looking at the uh Cooper let me see if I can find
1:16:21
them we looking at the Cooper Cooper
1:16:26
AT3 let's see
1:16:38
here the Cooper at34s okay these are the two these are
1:16:44
the two tires that I would recommend so this is the one that everyone
1:16:49
loves uh the ko2 looks really cool comes in tons of sizes to fit any type of
1:16:57
wheel um this would be my number one choice it may be you
1:17:04
know depending on how uh much noise level you want it's not that loud um but
1:17:10
it's not quiet if that makes sense um but it looks awesome it's got good uh
1:17:17
good Highway use um this one that's a little bit more tame is the Cooper 83
1:17:26
4S so you're going to have a a little bit of a
1:17:31
um it's got a cool look to it but it's a little bit it's not as aggressive uh so
1:17:37
actually right here you got these two side by side
1:17:44
um yeah so it's this one which is my favorite and then this
1:17:51
one would be the I say just as good but a little bit more tame as far as uh noise
1:18:03
goes that would be my
1:18:08
recommendation um let's see exit out of that
1:18:22
video yeah so I drilled that hole in the van and then I took the took it
1:18:28
out and I went ahead and started cutting my wire
1:18:33
trough for the wire Highway and then just going through and double checking
1:18:39
connections and then that got me to where we are today or
1:18:52
tonight and guys if you haven't already make sure you guys check out vanb Builder hq.com so we've redone the
1:19:00
website it is refreshed ready for you guys to check it out so uh that's my brother and I if you
1:19:06
guys are wondering who else is in the photo and so Jamie is the editor that
1:19:11
curates uh all this stuff on the site um does a good job at putting all these
1:19:17
articles together so so it's pretty much my brain of
1:19:23
van knowledge distilled in more of an organized way for you guys to you know
1:19:29
consume it in a blog post um and a lot of the shows that we go to I have a lot
1:19:35
of photos from there you know builds from the shop uh and there's just a lot of good articles to help you with
1:19:43
um just Van van stuff like what Ford Transit is the best
1:19:49
low medium high roof and if you haven't also checked out
1:19:56
at the top of the page there's something called a DIY van build cheat sheet so that is a free cheat sheet for you guys
1:20:01
to help you out with your DIY van conversion it's essentially an Excel sheet with over 250 items uh there it's
1:20:09
the last three years of all my Amazon purchases for the shop that's been organized into an Excel sheet and it's
1:20:17
got all the links for Amazon on it and you guys can use it to help you out it's got fuses solar panels mc4 connectors
1:20:25
uh lots of electrical stuff some items to help you connect 820 if you're doing
1:20:30
that as well as water pumps Plumbing PEX a crimpers um and then
1:20:38
tools so some of the weird tools that actually use in the shop are on that list as well so so definitely uh check that out
1:20:46
if you haven't um yeah I'm just going to paste this website into the
1:20:53
chat you guys hop on over there when you get some free time and uh always got to mention
1:21:00
Odyssey custom vans if I can pull up the right link so Odyssey custom vans this
1:21:05
is my professional van building business so not the YouTube the YouTube is
1:21:11
separate so you're watching van Builder HQ which is where I teach you to build a van and help you answer
1:21:17
questions Odyssey custom vans is when you give up and I build your van for you
1:21:25
I mean that in the nicest way possible um when you need some guided more guided help I will I will build your van for
1:21:32
you now sometimes we have vans for sale uh currently we have an adventure van for sale uh we took this to the
1:21:39
adventure van Expo and Chad nuga Tennessee and uh it has all kinds of
1:21:44
stuff in this van this Van's fully loaded you can check it out we do a
1:21:49
little mini tour we've got some photos on it um since I took these photos I've done some really cool topographical uh
1:21:57
map uh topographical map graphics on the van so they look really cool um I'm not
1:22:03
sure my Instagram has um has that information so I'm you know what I'm not
1:22:10
logged in on here but let's see if we can pull that
1:22:19
up o Kil thank you so much thank you for the
1:22:26
you are very welcome yep love helping you guys out on the uh on the van
1:22:41
stuff all right I think actually might be able to access a couple photos on
1:22:48
here oh there is there is a another company but they are not they do air
1:22:55
streams and stuff like that um but Odyssey custom
1:23:04
vans
1:23:23
Instagram
1:23:31
where is the where is the Instagram I haven't really used it that
1:23:36
much so I don't think it's actually populated
1:23:50
yet see Customs where's Instagram
1:24:18
H hold I'm trying to find
1:24:23
this okay that
1:24:28
is
1:24:39
profile all right this is on my personal account but you guys can you guys can see this photo I
1:24:45
think so it's got uh topo map covering the hood which everybody likes that's a
1:24:51
cool thing to do and then I did a Topo with the van logo on the back so this is
1:24:57
the one that is for sale and if you want to get in touch
1:25:03
with me and do a custom build there's a link right here says click here to schedule a call you click that calendar
1:25:11
pops up pick a date pick a time go over a little intro question over here and it
1:25:19
go on my calendar and we'll chat on a phone call all right guys about five minutes
1:25:26
um I'm going to see if you guys have any more questions and we are going to call it an end to the stream tonight so a
1:25:32
little bit shorter of a one um I need to off camera finish up time
1:25:37
these wires and then head out but
1:25:43
um yeah let's see if we have any more questions come
1:25:50
through these are really good questions tonight by the way
1:25:56
and before you leave make sure you are subscribed like this video share it and
1:26:01
turn on that notification Bell um that is how you're going to not miss the live
1:26:07
streams uh and I probably will do a poll to see
1:26:12
when you guys like the live streams i' I've been doing them later at night so like around the 8:30 time because I just
1:26:18
I feel that's the most as I've been doing the live streams that is when uh you guys tend to
1:26:25
interact and ask more questions um during the day like the lunchtime or
1:26:30
around there uh there's you know everybody's working so I can I can understand that
1:26:38
but um yeah the the end of the day is good because I Prett much have wrapped up what I've done earlier in the day and
1:26:44
I can just kind of come in and do something that I can cover in about an hour but
1:26:51
uh yeah um questions let me know guys do
1:26:56
you have any
1:27:08
questions by the way if you haven't checked out the peace love and vans video um
1:27:17
should definitely check that out so that was in a uh Dade City
1:27:26
Florida and it's an awesome
1:27:32
awesome so we've got Troy from nanov Van and he's just got a super nice custom
1:27:40
build very detailed uh craftsman style build and um we hung out at this event
1:27:48
and uh him and Danny came to the save Expo which is the South East
1:27:54
Adventure vehicle Expo and that event was awesome as well so we got to hang out both times so it's cool making new
1:28:01
friends and and hanging out at shows uh I really enjoy that um there's actually not that many shows this year uh the
1:28:07
Chattanooga show for adventure event Expo is not on the calendar I mean it's not on their website so I think they've
1:28:13
dropped that location unfortunately so that's why I wanted to hit up save Expo
1:28:21
um oh thanks thanks kill I will see you guys in a future live stream thanks so
1:28:27
much for watching
1:28:35
tonight yeah but this build's nice um so we actually hung out in their van at the
1:28:41
Save Expo uh in the afternoons just you know just making food hanging out and
1:28:46
it's it's a very cozy van as you can see a lot of nice warm wood tones you got
1:28:52
the brick the Mason jars uh it's a cool van it's super
1:29:03
cool all right guys one minute do we have any questions before I end the stream
1:29:11
tonight and also if you have questions for future streams uh that you don't get to put in
1:29:17
the chat put it in the comments and then I'll go through those and see if I've got a lot of comments I have to get to
1:29:23
so be on that um there's a lot of questions that have come through so I'm
1:29:28
working on those but uh asking the comments and I can see those and it might be a future
1:29:41
video all right that's going to do it yeah check out this van this video it's called peace L Vans uh 2024 it's on the
1:29:48
van HQ YouTube channel um guys that's going to do it for me tonight thank you
1:29:54
so much for watching stay until the end again make sure you subscribe like it share it ask me questions for the future
1:30:02
live stream and uh yeah we're going to wrap it up we'll see you guys in the next live
1:30:08
[Music]
1:30:22
stream
#Campers & RVs
#Vehicle Modification & Tuning
#Vehicle Repair & Maintenance