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Making room for WeBoost install | VBHQ Live!
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May 3, 2025
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View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music]
0:50
hey guys welcome to the live stream coming to the back of the van here and uh yeah working on Brian and
0:58
Robin's van getting ready to uh disassemble a bunch of stuff in this van
1:04
um so that I can put in the wee boost now I had originally uh these Quick Charge USB
1:12
3.0 Outlets I got two of them behind these uh Flatline
1:19
vanco um Adventure wagon compatible upper cabinets and those two USB Quick
1:25
Charge ports uh they operate on 5 volts I need 12 volts for the we boost and not only
1:33
that uh I need more current than I can
1:39
adapt the outlet to so it's actually possible to get an adapter that's a
1:45
USBC 5 volts to 12 volts uh the only problem is you the current drops and
1:52
it's just not enough to to run this so even though I planed ahead for a
1:58
upgradable we boost uh plug um when it gets down to the kind
2:03
of math on it doesn't work out but easi solution is the wee boost comes with a
2:12
switchable cigarette plug um which is actually really nice cuz it's got an onoff toggle switch on the cigarette
2:19
plug and this uh kind of cigarette lighter
2:24
plug style um you're going to be able to do all kinds of stuff you can plug in and
2:30
you know uh anything that has that style adapter to it so it does make it more
2:35
flexible since we still have two outlets one's going to remain the USB 3.0 Quick
2:41
Charge um and then it's going to have the on and off and then the second one will be this one so the 12vt kind of
2:48
lighter adapter um so we're going to put that in
2:54
but to get to that point we have to take
2:59
all these cabinets out we got to partially take out some Adventure wagon panels and I thought during this live
3:06
stream we'll just kind of it's going to be a long stream today uh we're just going to be disassembling the van um
3:12
this will give you a chance to see inside the build uh which is nice
3:18
because if you guys are wondering about this bed system the platform um anything you'll actually see me disassemble it
3:24
and I can talk uh through it as I go today um and then hope hopefully what we
3:30
can do is we can get to the point where we're going to drill one more hole into the roof of the van that is going to
3:37
have our uh antenna wire that comes from the Wei boost and then we'll be able to
3:43
mount this to the roof rack um run that wire down to this box and then this box
3:49
is going to live uh on one of these Adventure wagon panels bolted to it inside the cabinet uh the cool thing is
3:57
I'm going to do my best so that when I wire it uh if Brian and Robin ever want
4:03
to take these cabinets off because they are technically removable um as you'll see today um they can just take it off
4:10
get some more room in the bed and not have to mess with the the wee boost so we'll put that in there like
4:17
that um and then if you're just catching up with this uh kind of had a break from
4:22
the channel from a little bit was off for a couple weeks and then uh just got
4:27
charged back up to tackle this um so yeah we're back at the shop this van if
4:33
you haven't kept up with what's happened this is the uh Ford Transit it's called
4:39
the glacier build if you go to Odyssey customs.com website you can look for more details and photos on the inside of
4:44
this van um but recently we did a van Compass uh Topo 2.0 lift kit on this
4:51
with the Falcon shocks with the adjustable three-way adjustable shocks in the rear um I guess this about a 2-in
4:58
lift uh front and rear and uh rides incredibly smooth um next
5:03
thing we did was we upgraded the solar panels we didn't upgrade the wattage what we did is we took out the uh Renegy
5:10
ones that I originally put in there the footprint had changed in the market and so um since they're getting this whole
5:16
entire van I wanted to go ahead and just you know make that really nice up there
5:21
so that in the future something happens uh solar panel breaks or they go under
5:27
like a limb or a tree or something cracks it the mounting locations for the panel to
5:33
fit on the roof will be the same as what's uh pretty much on the market right now so there was a change between
5:39
the compact solar panel Dimensions U from reny and the
5:45
regular uh 100 watt solar panels now they're pretty much the same as far as I can tell on the
5:50
internet um so we did that and then we went ahead and did the first half of the
5:57
alternator install so the very hard part which was taken pretty much half of the
6:02
engine apart all of the turbocharging charge tubes air intake system and some
6:08
vacuum lines and we got all that out of the way and we went ahead and installed the
6:14
bracket uh reinstalled the AC compressor installed the brand new tensioner for
6:20
the second alternator the this is a Nations alternator put that in there uh
6:25
refitted the new uh serpentine belt and torqued everything down and it's
6:33
prepped and ready um the next thing that we got to do is we've
6:40
got I'll tilt the camera
6:45
down um also if you guys are if you guys have any questions
6:51
during the live stream we're live feel free
6:57
to ask away so you'll see down here at the bottom of the van we've
7:03
got um everything also there we go just checking the stream so down here we've
7:10
got a bunch of stuff disassembled so the challenge
7:16
is um we've got to get 54 lbs of 4 o battery wire from the
7:26
alternator to this uh offgrid power system that I built um a
7:34
couple couple months ago and uh I already know where I'm going to run
7:41
the wires so that's not the issue um what's going to be technical is
7:48
this system is so compact because I want to make everything extremely low profile
7:53
so what we're going to need to do is uh I've already kind of mapped out where this is going to come into the van
8:00
it's actually going to come up we'll have to remove the isotherm Cruise 130
8:05
fridge we're just going to take it out uh these bed panels will be out of the way and then we can actually move
8:10
the refrigerator into this section um just kind of like lift it up pull it in
8:16
the section and then that'll give us access to drill
8:21
holes um we'll drill them will bring up the 4 o wire and then there's some vent
8:28
ports on the side of the Flatland vanco kitchen galy cabinet and we'll bring the cables right
8:34
on top of the batteries and we're going to run that positive negative cable straight in here uh on our links
8:42
distributor we're actually going to uh get some new stainless steel
8:47
bolts we're going to extend um those bolts so that we can on
8:53
these two input terminals to the uh dcddc charger that is where we're going
8:58
to input our new uh positive and negative
9:04
wires um and then uh actually take that back
9:09
we're we're going to ground on the uh we'll ground on this bottom bus bar but
9:17
then on the battery input we got a 300 amp fuse on the first run of
9:27
the uh it's technically a bus bar it's
9:32
heavy gauge 4 out wire positive the terminals and they're you know daisy
9:38
chain to all the batteries so you can kind of think of that as like a flexible bus bar sometimes people take a solid
9:45
strip of copper um drill it and then put that down as a massive bust bar connecting
9:51
all the batteries uh I'm doing it with this right here so this is what
10:00
this is what we have connecting the batteries um it's this weird shape
10:06
because we wanted to make sure we've a a battery is in this orientation and one battery and the rest of the batteries
10:12
are in this orientation so we got one 100 amp hour Renegy smart lithium and
10:18
then we have five more and so this terminal going to the next one uh you
10:25
want all of these cables connecting all the batteries to be the the exact same length so even though these back
10:31
batteries are closer together and would be a smaller cable because we used a longer cable on the first two battery
10:38
connections we have to we have to it's good practice to maintain the exact same
10:43
length connecting every single battery together so you don't have one long run
10:48
and then one short run um that's not good for charging and discharging the
10:55
batteries uh so long story short short the first battery terminal
11:00
has the input from the linkx distributor with a 300 amp terminal fuse and then
11:06
what we're going to do is on the second connection going into the second battery we'll have an additional 300 amp
11:13
terminal fuse and that 300 n terminal fuse will be what's accepting the uh
11:20
additional 4 o cable coming direct from the alternator so because this is uh being controlled by a
11:28
weight speed regulator um that charging is going to be it's already going to be regulated uh
11:37
coming from the alternator so well we don't need like these DC todc
11:44
boxes for example you you don't need an additional one because the wake speed is taken care of that if you don't know
11:50
what a weake spe weight wake speed regulator is um that is what is communicating with
11:55
the uh High amp output alternator and managing that charge
12:02
cycle so that is uh that's what we're doing on this power
12:07
system um I'm also has I also have this
12:14
uh victron energy blue smart charger uh
12:19
this one is the Bluetooth controlled so you can actually log in with your phone
12:25
and you can monitor uh the charge profiles as well as how much charge current is going to the battery and um
12:32
I'm going through and I'm just going to I'm top balancing that very last battery
12:39
uh over time your batteries will charge and discharge and even though they're
12:44
all connected together sometimes the charge and discharge rate varies and then over time it might get out of
12:51
balance and so it's necessary and
12:57
maybe this might only happen either once a year once every two or three years it
13:02
just depends on how you're using your van but they may go out of balance if they do it's not a big deal you'll just
13:09
need to uh disconnect all the battery terminals and then individually top balance or fully charge each one at a
13:17
time and your goal is to get them all at the same voltage as close as
13:23
possible um and then if you do that they're going to charge and discharge evenly together so if they kind of get
13:30
out of whack you can bring them back into uh into proper
13:37
balance so yeah this is just like a big you know uh I guess you can call it like
13:43
a PDI it's like I'm kind of doing a last final inspection for these guys so that
13:49
when they get their van they don't have any issues everything is ready to go fully charged all the systems have been
13:56
tested and um but between all the shows and the trips that we've taken with this
14:01
van um everything's already working great but while we have the live stream up
14:08
it's good to kind of talk about it because I'm sure you guys wanting to learn about all this um also this
14:15
system uh this is the system where every component is individualized so the
14:22
ecoflow that we did on John and Susan's build that one is uh
14:29
kind of an all-in-one unit the pieces aren't individual and there was one comment uh
14:36
about worrying that an all-in-one unit if one component fails you have to get rid of the whole entire system uh Al
14:42
that is true if something does happen like that
14:47
the sometimes the risk the benefits out way of the risk so the benefits is it installs easily um you know there are
14:56
replacement components if something should fail in that unit uh now it is there is probably a
15:03
headache of taking the whole unit out and having to send it back in but that's why going through a builder such as
15:08
myself kind of offsets that and gives you a little bit more peace of mind so for example I'm not going to put
15:14
something in somebody's build that I build for them that I'm not going to have some type of plan on resolving an
15:21
issue that they have in the Future No Matter What the system is if it's ecoflow or a custom off-grid power
15:27
system that I make so um but then with this system you know
15:33
if you had a component failure uh like these reny DC todc combo units if we had
15:39
one fail then we've got other one we've have a second one that's already in the van so that is that's strictly
15:46
redundancy so I did two in this van for redundancy and I did two because I wanted to boost the current
15:54
uh the rate at which the batter's recharged um
16:00
however uh Brian and Robin came on and said hey let's do a second alternator so
16:05
not only do we have 100 amps dcddc charging from this but we're also going to have the uh uh theoretical 280 amp
16:15
charging from the alternator uh now we do have a Max charge limit on these reny batteries of
16:21
300 amps uh that's our Max charge rate
16:26
that's that's as much as they can absorb absorb at a given moment but these charge boxes are going
16:33
to be monitoring the voltage and they'll throttle that that
16:39
current so um yeah it'll be interesting to see how all the components behave
16:46
together because the dcddc and mppt combo Chargers from Renegy I like them
16:52
because they're all in one unit they're Compact and they got a nice heat sink on the back um but those boxes are always
17:00
saying you know how much solar is coming in and then are we driving and it's kind of modulating between solar and driving
17:08
or both if you're driving out the road middle of the day accepting solar
17:13
and uh B uh DC todc charging
17:19
so that is all monitored through the M1 the reny M1 controller um but now that
17:26
we're going to have the wake speed in installed
17:32
uh we have a victron shunt that it's a 500 amp
17:39
shunt that's installed that is what the wake speed will um also be connected to
17:46
and so all those things are going to be tied in and then through the victron app
17:52
you'll actually be able to monitor um that charging details if it's not
17:58
captured in the room en M1 so if you're trying to do a simple DIY I know this
18:04
may sound like this is like crazy but this is the type of system where
18:11
uh they're going to be taken out on trips where they may be in one place for a couple days and in hot weather so they
18:18
want to run the AC unit and they want to be able to top off the power system in about an hour about 50% I think that's
18:26
what we kind of talked about so and able to in order to do that this is the type
18:31
of system that you would be looking forward to the ecoflow on the other hand is designed for a different type of
18:38
scenario where uh more of the current input is going to
18:44
be due to uh driving so that system for
18:50
uh John and Susan is 90 amps so we combined the 60 amp circuit and the 30 amp circuit on the ecoflow made it 90
18:57
amps so when they're ding that's 90 amps but to offset that 90 AMP limit what we
19:03
did is we installed 580 watt of solar on the roof so this van can only fit 420
19:11
watts and then John Susan is 580 so since now we have a lower driving
19:18
amp um intake or charging uh options we added more solar
19:26
to kind of offset that so there there are two completely different builds but you can see uh you're really just kind
19:32
of tailoring it to the the need of the client and then finally both of these
19:38
Vans John and Susan's and Ryan Robbins they both have sh power charging
19:43
capabilities so if you're at a friend's house RV park you can also top it
19:49
off um yeah that was just kind of a quick overview about if you guys haven't uh watched the
19:56
channel or just kind of catching up to this whole entire massive power system in here uh that's how it
20:05
works um all right I'm going to hop over the computer grab my phone to see if we got any questions and we're pretty much
20:12
just going to be hanging out in the shop taking a the uh the bed out and all that good
20:17
stuff so got plenty of time to ask questions if you guys have questions
20:35
okay we already got all of our tools set up um so we're really just taking the
20:42
mattress out we're going to take uh the Flatline vanco bed panels
20:51
out and that system is pretty cool that is a adventure wagon
20:58
compatible system so if you don't know what that is the interior of this
21:04
van uh as opposed to my 8020 boxes that I upholstered and
21:10
built uh the rest of the van is a prefabbed panel system that bolts
21:17
together with elre elre is logistical track so the
21:23
stuff that they use on trucks and vans and it has a tie down
21:30
points and if you're in the whole van life thing you've probably heard of el track and you'll see that throughout
21:36
today's video um yeah so I'm going to start taking
21:42
this stuff
21:49
out this mattress that I'm pulling out right here this is uh from Brooklyn
21:54
Bedding this is a short queen
22:00
it's very comfortable I think it's their dream foam Essentials is the name of this mattress so that's kind of what it
22:06
looks like this is not sponsored or anything like that but just so you guys get an
22:12
idea um it's a very comfortable mattress and uh yeah all this stuff
22:19
is the bed sheets and stuff are kind of for looks but since we're getting this van ready
22:26
for final delivery it's time
22:32
to get this thing knocked out okay next uh these plat L vanco panels
22:40
they're going to be they have six bolts and one thing I like about this
22:46
design was it's
22:51
modular so it does take some tools to get things to unbolt unscrew
22:59
but if you really need to reclaim your cargo van as a cargo van you're going to
23:05
be able to do
23:23
that now these pan panels I'm not sure if I mentioned that but they they are aluminum
23:58
for
25:28
for
26:20
anytime you're working around a power system understand that it's always live so what I mean by that is even if
26:27
you turn off your battery disconnect dropping a bolt or a tool
26:34
something that's going to bridge the terminals although it may be
26:39
obvious uh you know you might accidentally do that so always be
26:46
careful because it's a lot of current in lithium batteries it comes out quickly
27:00
[Applause]
27:26
[Music] this third panel I'm working on is is
27:32
pretty interesting with the flatl vanco system if you go and purchase their
27:40
uh bed that's uh that's a custom mattress that they make for
27:47
this you can actually remove this panel stuff it under the bed and then
27:52
you can actually uh the custom mattress is a trifold and this is one of the
27:59
folds where you can fold it up out of the way and you can gain about a foot of
28:05
room in the van however the catch
28:10
is uh the mattress I I didn't find the
28:16
mattress that comfortable but if you're looking for
28:22
something that can fold up out of the way and go in a bag so you can remove it later there's that option
28:36
but I don't know I'm kind of lazy if I go camping in my van I don't want to be I don't want to be taking van bed panels
28:43
out to when I'm ready to go to bed so that's something that John and John and
28:49
Susan I discussed about their build is you know do you want a fix bed or something that can be kind of modular we
28:56
did make their's modular with a kind of like an IKEA bed hack but they just you
29:04
know uh they were happy with being able to just hop in the
29:09
bed and not have to set anything up
29:19
so but hey it's your van you can make it
29:24
whatever layout you want it to do to be yes so check it out that was taking the
29:29
three panels out you stuff them in your garage um now you got a ton of
29:38
room it it would be possible to take these modified rails out uh now the bump
29:45
outs here are the factory ones so we didn't do um flare space or anything like that but
29:53
the factory bump UPS will allow you to have a short queen mattress widthwise which which is about 74 in so you can do
30:01
the East West versus North South however if you did want to take these rails out
30:08
and if I came in here and built you uh we just laid some 8020 rails back on here
30:16
um you'd be able to sleep down here and have a bunch of
30:22
Headroom now um with that being said
30:29
you can't put bikes in here so before this van had an owner this design is to
30:35
be more flexible for a variety of people who want to get into this van and not
30:40
sure what they want to do so it's this build this spec build design is so that
30:46
if you wanted to do mountain bikes the bed is adjustable to where you can get it out of the way depending on whatever bikes you have if you're not doing bikes
30:52
it can take it out you can lower the bed um you can have a pull out trip so this
30:58
is a really flexible layout and um or all the layouts that I've kind of
31:04
thought about doing this is the one that kind of uh it's the one I like the
31:13
most okay let's keep trucking here
32:49
going to get these cabinet doors out of the way I will have to readjust these when I put them back in but should not
32:57
be too much of a
33:10
[Applause]
33:17
pain these are solid uh bamboo doors so that makes it really nice to work with
34:04
[Music]
34:18
[Music]
34:43
and I'm actually going to label the doors just so
34:50
I don't forget
35:03
let's adjust that camera so you guys can see in the van there we go
35:44
uh we also have some upgraded water tanks that are uh on the
35:50
way the first two that I ordered uh they were
35:56
ordered almost a a month and a half ago and they are that
36:01
company uh I guess it had some issues with um their molding
36:09
machine but I really want to review the their tanks because in this industry there's really not that many options of
36:16
places you can buy stuff and so what I did was I went back
36:22
to an original supplier that I've used their tanks before that company's
36:28
Northwest conversions so Northwest conversions had the tank
36:34
that I want in stock and so I went ahead and
36:40
just basically double the order so instead of using the first company I just left that order
36:47
open and then I went to Northwest conversions and ordered their version of
36:52
the same thing so that is actually supposed to be here either today
36:59
tomorrow uh and then we can actually start prepping to mount those underneath the
37:08
van and these are just the final upgrades of this custom build
37:14
for Brian and
37:20
Robin but I like that they were doing these tank upgrades because it's what's
37:26
really necessary and in a van like this
37:32
um I actually used a ton of lock lock TI these cabinet doors that's kind of funny
38:19
that's this is a good point you do not have to take these cabinet doors off to take the cabinets down but I need to get
38:27
access to the L track in the back um and then you know make these
38:34
cabinets lighter for me to be able to handle them easier so that's why I'm taking these bamboo doors
38:40
off they're not super heavy but two of these solid bamboo panels uh they do
38:47
make a difference uh when you are Solo doing this
39:06
yeah this is why my drill was not doing a good job is I not did not anticipate taking these
39:13
off ever again so they have a ton of Loctite on them I Loctite pretty much
39:20
anything that I can in a van I locktite
39:26
so uh the only exception of stuff that I don't lock tight in a van is the
39:32
8020 brackets uh I use a lock nut on them but I do that
39:38
because if you ever need to undo an 020
39:45
bracket uh and you've lock tighted it you've tighten it down too much you've
39:50
over lock tighted it and you're you will possibly Shear
39:55
off the head of the not the head but the threads the Allen threads um cuz
40:02
stainless is not that hard it's it's actually pretty soft um especially stainless steel bolts
40:10
for the L uh the 8020 yeah so you will you can Shear
40:15
those off and you don't want to do that
40:28
these cords right here that are inside these are 12vt
40:36
uh kind of like an underglow light um that I put in here it's nice Vibe it
40:43
also uh allows you to see inside the cabinet when you are trying to get
40:48
something out of the cabinet okay next we're are going to take off
40:54
these back bolts um once I take it off we're gonna be
41:00
loosening them so that we can gain access to the uh see what size is
41:08
that pretty sure it's
41:17
9/16 huh
42:45
[Applause]
42:57
for
44:07
[Music]
44:35
in
46:16
I'm going to change the camera up here so once I take these out I'm going to be
46:23
working pretty much in this section over here let's see if I can get this High Enough
47:13
okay so what we have that's holding the back of these is we have an lra
47:18
2in uh bolt it's kind of like an extension and then we've gone to Home Depot and we have this 1in chrome spacer
47:25
and what that does is that off sets this cabinet so this cabinet is actually originally designed for a uh Mercedes
47:34
Sprinter and so the angle of the roof to the angle of the Ford
47:42
Transit um the way it tapers in towards the the roof is different on both Vans
47:48
it's more aggressive on a uh Sprinter that's why Transit feels more open
47:53
because it is and uh just a little difference between
48:00
between the two but if we push if
48:06
we this makes these level how whereas if we went the other way
48:13
um the uh these cabinets would be angled and it it just wouldn't look right they
48:20
go in fine that way it's just they it it just looks off doesn't
48:27
look good now I did the same concept up here
48:34
to uh to have these installed now we got to be careful when
48:40
we take this down because what we're going to do is loosen it and then we're going to shift it to the
48:46
right and we got to be ready when we move it because it's going to
48:52
pop right out of place so you're going to have you have these two studs and so we're just G to lean it and then
48:59
we're just G to shift it and they just going to come right out and then here this isn't something
49:07
I've never been able to show before this is the indig indirect LED light that's
49:12
wired in here and so this is custom wired it's got that custom wire coming
49:18
out with a barrel style terminal and that's allowing it to uh be switched on
49:24
and off by the Renegy M1
49:47
controller yep next we're just going to repeat
49:57
[Music]
50:03
so if Brian and Robin are watching this the only thing that you have to go
50:09
easy on is these uh bottom ones because it's more of a matter of
50:16
something falling out and scratching something or losing a bolt so we don't want to do
50:25
that but when you do do take these bottom nuts out and the top ones you're going to want to
50:30
put uh blue Loctite on them really want to make sure
50:37
that they are
50:47
secure cuz the van is can be violent going down the road so
50:52
we want to make sure everything's nice and tight doesn't rattle out of PL out of
51:05
place now I'm hoping I only have to take off three or four ceiling
51:12
panels to gain access to where I want to locate these
51:22
wires then keep your hand on this and keep it pushed in
51:30
and now we can actually come over here on the right we're going
51:43
to take out the right elra bolt we're going to hop on the
51:52
left and we're just going to pop out the lift just kind of Falls
51:57
out um again we want to make sure we have tape on these so we
52:05
can locate them when we put them back in so I've got two pieces of tape here and
52:11
then let me put two pieces of tape the tape is just going right behind the
52:18
slot and even if you don't put the tape on
52:23
there is only one way that this cabinet is going to go in it's a very
52:31
precise uh cabinet it's specifically designed
52:37
for L
52:45
track and I would have the the interior lights on but I've disconnected the
52:51
power system because I'm I've disconnected the battery so I can
52:57
top off all their
53:06
charges so even though this wasn't planned uh I mean I pre-planned to put the Wei boost in uh it was more on me
53:14
that the amperage of these Outlets I couldn't
53:20
convert I kind of thought USB Quick Charge was going to be able to uh like I could use a buck boost or something like
53:26
that to to change it but
53:31
um if I was doing this install from the start this is exact this is exactly how
53:38
I do it anyway
54:03
so now I'm just trying to find a home for this cabinet in the shop so it does not get scratched
54:12
up there we
54:18
go there's also another company that I like
54:24
um so Vander Moon which is sold by robber Vans they have a soft touch it's a hard
54:33
cabinet but it's soft touch on the outside and it can go right in it's padded it's
54:40
got a little bit different uh um storage compartments and stuff
54:45
like that but these panels on the back of the van if you guys have seen them in other stream they are from that company
54:57
all right now we are taking out see
55:11
here so now we can actually disassemble the Venture wagon panels so you can see
55:18
this is the two USB Quick Charge ports that I installed these things are
55:24
awesome so look at this you got four uh ports you've got a 65 watt PD
55:30
connection and then you got a uh 3.0 QC which is the Quick Charge and they're
55:36
individually switched so you can um you can put your iPad or MacBook
55:43
Pro in here plug it into the 65 watt hit charge and just leave it up here in the
55:49
cabinet to charge so that was the kind of the original plan but today what we're doing is we're taking this bottom
55:56
one um actually I'm going to get the wee
56:01
boost out and we're going to uh yeah you're going to actually see see how I kind of think through these things
56:08
and put this stuff together
56:29
so here is our wee boo kit I'm not sure if that angle you can actually see everything but we got our box we've got
56:36
our antenna that's going to be mounted on the roof we've got our cables so we're going to take this out individually we're going to kind of play
56:43
around to see where this would fit best
57:04
um let's
57:10
see now I got to find where I put there it
57:17
is okay go grab my phone so I can see if
57:24
you guys have any questions yeah feel free to
57:29
ask questions what is what the live stream
57:34
is all about okay so we are going to take
57:45
a cigarette lighter socket adapter we're going
57:51
to install it it's really really easy all this stuff Universal pretty much
57:58
we're going to unscrew this from from behind the panel then we're going to install this 12vt
58:04
Marine which just Marine just means it's got a bunch of seals on it right there and then that is what is
58:11
going
58:17
to plug into here so we'll have and it's either going
58:24
to be one I'm not sure yet we'll figure this out out it'll go in here and see now this actually has an onoff switch so
58:31
I was going to hardwire this in here but this is you want things to be modular in a
58:36
van if I hardwire this then
58:43
um you know if you wanted to take this out this would be hardwired into
58:50
here so I did buy the kit so that you I
58:56
can hardwire it but I've already I've already fused everything and it's not
59:02
even about fusing it this is a simple solution it's a
59:08
cigarette lighter plug and an adapter with an onoff switch it's nice you can
59:13
take it out just reuse this this is the hardwire kit so all of
59:22
this it's got to be packed behind this panel somewhere and i' I don't even know if there's room so this um I just bought
59:29
it just in case but it looks like we're not going to do this so this is not going to happen this
59:38
simpler solution is going to happen not only do you get to power the wi boost when you're not using the Wii boost you
59:44
can repurpose this for uh another U you can still use it use B Port you can just get one of those
59:49
adapters like they have for cell phones um okay Beauty about the
59:54
adventure wagon panels we can take them out and we can make changes so what we're going to
1:00:04
do is we are going to let's see where we want where we want
1:00:09
to start taking this apart
1:00:31
you're going to want to have this uh style drill adapter because it's if you
1:00:36
use an allen wrench it is a pain in the butt to get this whole thing
1:00:42
uh unscrewed it's doable [Applause]
1:00:50
but still a pain if you want to do it quickly
1:01:04
[Applause]
1:01:19
[Applause]
1:01:29
[Applause]
1:02:26
[Applause]
1:03:00
if you guys are just joining we are installing a wee boost this is an upgrade to Brian and
1:03:07
Robin's Adventure van
1:03:12
so this is one of our spec builds that was that Brian and Robin are the new
1:03:18
owners of so we did a van Compass 2.0 lift
1:03:26
um we upgraded to a different footprint of 100 watt solar panels on the roof and
1:03:32
we are doing a we boost right now uh as well as we've already done half of the
1:03:38
second alternator install the second half um is kind of part of this whole
1:03:45
electrical phase right now where we're going through and doing these more technical
1:03:51
upgrades um but right now we are
1:03:59
we taken our Venture wagon panels off that's the system we're using right
1:04:04
here um and we're going to be doing some different wiring and my
1:04:11
microphone is getting caught all right so we got to be careful with this panel because it's been a
1:04:17
minute since I connected this all the wiring back
1:04:23
here all right excellent all
1:04:30
right if it was
1:04:38
possible see what I can do can I lay this
1:04:47
down all right looks like we're going to have to disconnect this so check this out this is actually a I probably didn't
1:04:53
cover this in a live stream but when I build stuff I build it so that I
1:04:59
have uh number one access and then two when I have access to the panel I have
1:05:04
connectors that I can pop off and you know fix something like this um
1:05:12
so we're doing an upgrade this panel I drilled for two USB Quick Charge ports and two barrel connectors for the 12volt
1:05:19
indirect lighting for the cabinets the Flatline vanco uh kind of airliner
1:05:24
cabinets over here I'm using wo connectors and what this is going to allow me to do is all I got to do is pop
1:05:31
two of these pins off and then I'm going
1:05:38
to so actually what I'm going to do let's see
1:05:47
here I'm undo the negative one and then I'm going
1:05:52
to take out the positive ones that way my positive connector even though it's shut off it's safe here so it's not
1:05:59
going to short if I accidentally let that wire come around then over
1:06:05
here what we're going to do is
1:06:11
simply let's see here I think we'll do the same thing
1:06:44
so this one I'm actually going to do differently because I don't want to do I want to disconnect those let's
1:06:49
see on
1:06:56
okay there we go so see with the wo connectors I just took apart my whole
1:07:01
panel now I can take this somewhere and work on it
1:07:06
um and probably what I should have done was figure out where we want to mount
1:07:13
this but this is pretty self-explanatory I can't me mount it here because we got the L TR I don't
1:07:20
want to have it here because I got the lip from The Airliner cabinets there's no room up here so so we're going to
1:07:26
neatly Mount this just like that so this will be where our wee boost is now we
1:07:33
got plenty of ventilation for these heat fins uh we've got our antenna coming out the top and then we're going to be able
1:07:40
to uh route that through the back of the panel um I'll probably get fancy and drill a
1:07:47
hole through here so that the cable come right through the panel and we won't have this random
1:07:53
cable uh wrapping around let's see if that is possible before
1:07:59
I take my words [Music]
1:08:05
back okay no I have to walk that one back because you see how there's this support
1:08:12
here this it's okay to bolt this here the problem is the support the wire will
1:08:18
go straight through here so that's not going to work and I don't want the we boost to be over here I want it just to be over here cuz we need to keep this
1:08:25
area nice and tidy compact so we're going to leave it just
1:08:30
like this and it's only a 1ft run but that'll make sure that we don't have to
1:08:37
actually uh cut any of the panels we're going to
1:08:44
run that wire straight up through here so the next step is to take this the next step is to take this
1:08:53
uh this panel pel up here off so we'll take this one off Runner wire up over up
1:09:02
through here drill ho in the roof and then we'll put one of those gland fittings that we like to use and do that
1:09:08
um so now we're going to take this box we're going to take this we're going to put on the workbench so we're going to
1:09:14
get to that second but while we're here see it looks like since that we
1:09:21
boost the electrical connector comes out the bottom we're going to have a nice little wire
1:09:29
run here we'll take our new plug and
1:09:34
it'll kind of go into here and then we'll have probably like a some type of
1:09:40
holder for this extra wire so that it can go right into
1:09:46
there um that way Brian and Robin can actually remove
1:09:51
the wee Boost from their van so you might want to be able to do that for for security reasons so say you know you're
1:09:58
doing in a hotel for the night you want to take some expensive stuff out of your van like this this is pretty expensive
1:10:04
this wee boost can pop out of its holder and you can take this whole wee boost um
1:10:11
well you can take it out and use it for something else you know you can uh get another antenna and I guess
1:10:17
you could use it in a different spot anyway the point is you can take this out undo the wires and then when you get back in your
1:10:24
van you can just snap it back in
1:10:30
place while we're here let's go ahead and we've decided that this bottom one
1:10:36
is what we're going to uh where we're going to put this so we can do that live right now on camera
1:10:42
it's just like this and we got the bottom one here this
1:10:50
one and so we're just going to take out our negative
1:11:01
and these actually positively clip in here so that's a good thing so I'm
1:11:07
actually going to need a pair of flathead screwdriver to pop these clips out
1:11:37
all right so the one the bottom one is the one we want to do we got these
1:11:43
little uh plug protectors and we just want to
1:11:51
gently pop this clip out
1:12:02
there's like a little pin that you
1:12:07
depress there you go all right remember what's positive and negative it's easy on the wires that are
1:12:14
marked but um after we take this out we want to have this one in the same
1:12:20
orientation it doesn't have to be but I I like stuff to be the same Orient ation
1:12:26
um I want the words to line up up and down when I put the uh second one in so
1:12:32
watch how easy this
1:12:43
is okay so that's our Quick Charge 3.0 Port taken out probably use that on something else
1:12:51
right here this is what it looks like behind the scenes of the uh upholstery that we cut out now this
1:12:58
is ex very this is what you want to do when you drill this hole out do not drill from the front you want to drill
1:13:05
from the back and what you want to do is you don't want the fibers to catch you're
1:13:12
going to drill until you feel like you cut through the wood you're going to stop take the little piece of wood out
1:13:19
it'll kind of peel off of the Upholstery and then you'll still have this flap of
1:13:24
fabric and then you're going to take a xacto knife and then actually cut the rest of it out of the way this Marathon
1:13:30
fabric some uh I guess all of it but it has a Teflon fiber in some of these
1:13:37
different um products and these fibers alone alone along with whatever other
1:13:44
fibers are using the whole saw will grab and since they're so this is such a
1:13:50
strong resilient fabric it'll grab and it'll actually rip out and you'll have this thread that'll pull through the
1:13:56
whole entire thing and uh yeah back in the day I I did that and uh that's just
1:14:03
a pro tip you know be very careful when you're cutting this stuff out you don't want to ruin a whole entire panel that you just upholstered and have to go back
1:14:10
and and rework it um and again these things are man these things are super
1:14:16
simple so they're just plastic they got this little plastic
1:14:23
uh part so now we have a cigarette lighter and we're just
1:14:31
replacing and just get that in
1:14:43
there we just want to visually make sure that the words are
1:14:49
nice and straight and then we can actually put
1:14:54
our so one side's uh if one side's smooth
1:14:59
and one has teeth you want the teeth facing in and that'll kind of help it
1:15:07
grab and then just hand tighten as tight as you
1:15:14
can okay so now we've converted that for our we
1:15:19
boost and it just looks very normal then back on the back side what we'll do
1:15:25
is we're going to take that wiring harness that we have we're going to just take our
1:15:31
positives snap that back on and then we'll take our negatives and a pro tip is you can take
1:15:39
a pair of pliers and then just kind of might want to pinch down on this to just
1:15:45
get a really nice connection and then there you go that is pretty much our panels done um now we can actually move
1:15:52
on to taking out the other panels so that we can drill a hole in the
1:15:59
ceiling
1:16:04
and keep up with the install let's see to start
1:16:21
next when you're taking out these L Trak on a vual wagon or just your own if
1:16:27
you're kind of doing the same thing always kind of keep one screw
1:16:35
uh in there so that this doesn't fall and scratch or Dent or ding anything in
1:16:41
your van
1:16:48
[Music]
1:17:07
okay
1:17:38
can we get this out without taking it let see if we can loosen this
1:18:01
maybe I think we can do it let see here go nice and easy we just going to slip
1:18:08
it out if that didn't work we'd have to take this out which
1:18:13
is it's behind the refrigerator and I don't want to do
1:18:21
that okay now we've got access to our roof you kind of see behind the scenes
1:18:28
all our wiring up here for the 12vt wiring for the van we've got Barrel
1:18:34
connectors um our circuit for the we boost and Quick Charge as you guys
1:18:40
already saw and now we're going to going to make our way over here on
1:18:48
this side I'm going to start taking out the 3M
1:18:56
thinset and sure if I can get the camera let's see if we can read to the
1:19:02
camera get you guys a view up under
1:19:17
here yeah it works out so right here is where all the solar
1:19:24
is coming in and I like to do an individual roof penetration
1:19:30
for each one of my wires um that
1:19:37
way if you mess up one or catch one you're not having to take the whole
1:19:43
thing out Pro tip there's these corations on
1:19:48
the roof where this stuff is recessed and the goal is you want to not
1:19:55
do the one that's protruding down you want the one that's protruding out and that way when it rains the rain goes
1:20:02
over that corrugation and drains out as opposed to as opposed to puddling in the
1:20:07
place you drilled the hole so right here I don't know if you
1:20:13
can see that so we got these four we're going to skip this and we're going to come back and right where my finger is that is where we're going to install
1:20:22
um the next wire so we're going to mark it and then we're going to come around
1:20:30
and just verify on the roof that we're going to uh be all right
1:21:07
yep so everything looks good that is where our we boost will come out for the sealant we're going to use
1:21:15
in the roof um I always use a black RTV sealant and then I've got a whole
1:21:25
box of something called waterproof cable gland kit with
1:21:31
gasket now I've got the solar memorized I don't have the
1:21:45
uh the wee boost cable the diameter of it so to get the diameter of the wee boo
1:21:52
cable what we're going to do is get a pair of calipers and yeah we're going to
1:21:57
figure that
1:22:19
out all right so this is what we're using we got black RTV silicone instant
1:22:27
gasket and then we've got this which is our Glen grommet kit
1:22:58
now just like with the Ford Transit antenna any antenna network cable you got to be
1:23:06
careful not to pinch it and you also can't modify it so for
1:23:13
example we need to have a gland fitting that can accept this coming through the
1:23:19
whole gland and not mess with this uh connect
1:23:24
on the
1:23:52
end so the one that I just picked up I think it's the 4 mm to 8 mm in this kit
1:23:58
it's called a pg9 and so we've got our
1:24:04
cable and the next thing that we have is this is our connector
1:24:10
so um let's see if get my can't see if I'm in
1:24:23
frame yeah so right here if we undo this we've got the cap
1:24:29
that compresses the seal but we're actually going to pull the seal out we'll we will reinstall it
1:24:36
but the seal man look at that that is
1:24:43
perfect so how to see how this seal we pop it out and now we can
1:24:49
actually this can fit through then we can push the seal over
1:24:56
and hopefully this will go over [Music]
1:25:02
this well that might not
1:25:13
work it looks like I'm going to have to do a different method I thought this
1:25:18
would work all right let's go and hop on the
1:25:23
computer
1:25:29
I think I might have to order something different
1:26:00
all right guys we're on the computer bam there we go scan strut this is what I
1:26:05
think we're going to have to purchase so this right here this cable seal
1:26:14
black all right so if we order it we'll get it
1:26:19
Sunday it's hard to see but there's a slit right here there's a slit and what
1:26:26
this going to allow it to do is we can come over the cable and clamp down and
1:26:33
that's going to allow us to have a nice seal um it's too risky to do it the way
1:26:39
that I was anticipating doing um I didn't think the collar on
1:26:45
this cable would be uh the part that actually screws down
1:26:50
onto the box for the connection would be that wide um it just is now I actually let's see if I can go
1:26:58
my spare parts so I do have one but it's not the
1:27:06
right one so we got to do it the right way so we are going
1:27:12
to yeah we're going to go and going to order it right now
1:27:34
all right let's pull this camera back
1:27:47
out all right guys you can kind of see what it's like custom building Vans
1:27:53
where we have one solution and it's not actually the perfect solution but since
1:27:59
we have the opportunity to do the perfect solution we're going to pause um we're going to order that we'll
1:28:06
come back to this uh so we're going to go to another part of the project we
1:28:11
have a bunch of stuff to do uh fishing the 4 o cable and all that stuff so
1:28:17
we're just going to pause this we're going to move to another part um it won't be in this live stream we'll come
1:28:23
back to this so it's kind of in order uh but yeah want to make sure you guys are subscrib to the channel hit
1:28:30
that notification Bell I go live random throughout the week so I don't want you miss a live stream and also check out
1:28:36
the DIY van build cheat sheet so if you guys are checking out the build you see wo connectors um the some of the Renegy
1:28:45
components uh bolts Fasteners brackets stuff for the ad20 water pumps uh
1:28:51
batteries solar panels if you want to check out the last three years of my Amazon purchases that have come to the
1:28:58
shop the DIY vampo cheat sheet is for you now the cool thing is it's
1:29:03
completely free it's just a guide to help you out with um all those parts and
1:29:09
uh it's got over 250 curated items they're all organized into different categories and um I think it'll help you
1:29:16
with your van build it'll help you save time and money going to one spot it's got all the Amazon links and uh it's
1:29:23
nice and convenient um there's more stuff that's going to be added that later but right
1:29:29
now head on over to Van Builder hq.com download the DIY van build cheat sheet or click on the link in the description
1:29:35
below and you can grab it put your name and email address and uh it'll go right to your inbox and it's free so check it
1:29:44
out that's going to do it for the stream today guys thanks so much for watching if you have any questions that weren't covered during this live stream put
1:29:50
those in the comments and uh we'll check on them in the next video but uh yeah
1:29:55
we're going to sign off today we'll be back with the we boost um the hole in the ceiling and all the good stuff on
1:30:03
the next live stream so hope to see you there
1:30:29
[Music]
#Vehicle Modification & Tuning
#Vehicle Repair & Maintenance