carliving.info

Hi all. These questions were asked in the vandwellers forum, but I’ll copy my answer here for others to use.

— In VanDwellers“seb_xplizit”  wrote:
>
> Hey
>
> I’m thinking about my future power setup and would love some feedback
> from you guys

Hi Seb.

Okay first things first, I’ll talk about your needs. You expressed them as:

>”I would like to be able to run/charge my laptop for 4-5 hours a day,
>while listening to music on the van’s stereo. And also charge digital
>camera batteries, my phone and a portable mp3 player every few days.
>All this, bearing in mind I won’t always be driving all that much.”

Now that won’t be much power draw at all. Your lap top will be the main power draw. Radios and sound reproduction equipment don’t use much power. Nor does recharging most batteries.

The great thing about your power requirements here is that it can almost all be done from 12 volts without having to convert it to 240 / 110 volts. Take a look at my page at: http://www.carliving.info/mycampervan/gizmosgadgets.htm
I use two voltage converters that convert 12 volt to 18 volt for my laptop computer, and a straight cigarette plug to power things like my printer. I brought a Gameboy power converter to supply 2000 milliamps / 2 amps of power to my small multimedia player.

If you were driving a bit I would say that your power needs could be met with a simple dual battery system with an isolator that disconnects the secondary battery when the voltage gets too low. It does not sound like your power needs will be massive. I think an 85 to 100 Amp hour battery will take care of them adequately with a nice surplus. That is if you can charge it daily. A typical alternator will produce about 100-200 watts of power. That’s a lot of power. Drive for an hour and your battery will probably be fully charged. Or idle for an hour and you should get the same result. But unless you will be driving anyway, this is a bad way to charge your batteries.

Solar panels are expensive. For a powerful one you could pay for enough fuel to run a car for a year or more typically. Or you could buy a generator and fuel for it for years.

But solar panels are quiet. They will last typically 20-30 years. They are unobtrusive. You can roof mount them and never have to do anything buy clean them now and then.

You also asked:
>”So… How many/what power deep cycle batteries do you think I’ll need?
>How powerful an inverter? I assume getting an inverter that’s too big
>for my needs will be counter-productive and drain the batteries >faster?”

As mentioned, I think 85-100 Amp hours should be plenty for you. You may be able to do what you need without a generator. Yeah, the bigger the inverter, the quicker it will drain your batteries.

I would suggest that you buy an affordable solar / wind turbine voltage controller to control your dual battery set up. Just use the alternator instead of a solar panel or wind turbine. Basically power comes in to the controller, which feeds it to your deep cycle battery. It also regulates the power coming out of your deep cycle so you don’t flatten that. Then if you get a solar panel later, you can plug that into the PV controller. It works out better than buying a dual battery isolator in the long run.

You asked:
>”Can I make it so that when the engine is off, the 12V cigarette
>lighter sockets, the indoor lights and the stereo work off the deep
>cycle batteries rather than the starter battery?”

Yes, and it is not too difficult. The problem with this is that most cars and vans use the car body as a negative wire. So you may have to muck around wiring in new circuits and wiring to lights and cigarette outlets. I can explain that in more detail if you like.

>Can I have a gauge to see how much juice is left in the respective
>batteries?

Yes, as mentioned by others these can be cheaply brought. I would suggest you take a look at http://www.carliving.info/12volt/index.htmlwhich will give you an idea of what you can set up. One panel I brought for $75 Australia plus delivery came with a battery gauge, 3 fused circuits and a cigarette plug outlet.

>Would it seem like a god idea to have a plug so I can plug in at
>people’s houses, RV parks and campsites to charge the batteries and be
>able to use the laptop, music etc without touching the batteries?

Yes of course. You’re from Europe right? They use a standard 10 watt plug there that’s not like your house power plug. The nice thing is that you can normally buy one from a caravan supplies shop that has a power board at the end. Typically they come with about 20-30 metre cable and about 4-6 outlets at the end. It does not look as snazzy as an external plug on your van, but it’s a lot cheaper and works just as well. Then you can plug in transformers to run your devices. Or plug in a battery charger for your 12 volt system. Or both.

>And finally, how much is a system such as this likely to cost
>(including fitting)?

Good question.
In Australian dollars I guess you are looking at:
85-100 amp hour deep cycle battery $100-120 (more expensive than USA)
Redarc dual battery isolator $85.
Installation of the battery and battery isolator will take 1 hour or less, and should cost no more than $70 to install provided you have the battery and isolator kit.
Or do it yourself. I have instructions here:
http://www.carliving.info/isolator/index.html

Control panel with battery gauge and cigarette outlet $80.
One into 3 cigarette outlet. $5 (yeah, very cheap)
Typical in car laptop power supply from ebay with delivery $30.
Installation of a power control panel. gain, 1 hour labour by an auto electrician or do it yourself.

Good quality solar power regulator - $80-125. But if you buy one you won’t need to buy an fit a battery isolator.
Solar panel - Usually about $10 or less per watt.
Typically about $360 for a 45 watt panel. Some times you will get lucky and get one around 50-65 watts cheaper per watt. Generally the less wattage, the more you pay per watt.

Now, my set up.
I have 3 x 64 watt Unisolar panels, and 1 x 80 watt panel on my main system which feeds into 2 x 100 Amp hour AGM (Active Glass Matt) deep cycle batteries. This provides enough power to run a 42 litre fridge, the laptop for 10 hours during sunlight hours and various LED lights and small appliances. Generally the fridge is not powered on at night.

I have a second power system that has 1 x 20 and 1 x 15 watt panels that power 5 vent fans and feed excess power into an 8 amp hour sealed lead battery that powers two of the fans at night. Those two fans vent the back of the fridge. This keeps it cool even when it is not powered on.

I hope I answered all of your questions and more.

Cheers,
Romana S.

With another week end looming I have a few projects for my bus.

I have quite a few small electrical devices such as a small portable printer, a Psion7 hand held computer, a back up laptop and a few other things that use 12 volt power. To make their batteries last a long time, they like to be fully charged at all times. So, I plan to install a 4 outlet cigarette socket into a cupboard where these appliances can live. Connected to a switch, I can simply flick a switch to charge up these devices on sunnier days when I will have excess electricity generated.

The second project is to finally connect my electric water pump to the power system as well. This should be fairly simple.

Another project will be measuring up one of my benches in order to put a new bench top on it. This is going to be the hardest project. I welcome any tips that people have. The first stage will involve measuring the space I am going to put the bench top in to and going down to the hardware store to buy the bench top. I am seriously considering forking out for a fake granite bench top which will cost me $250. But if I can get a nice wood veneer one I’ll go for that instead. Particularly if I can get it cheaper.

Then the hard part will be measuring and cutting holes to install the new sink and stove. Both the sink and stove are brand new, and have nice smoked glass lids that pop up or down. This means that I can use that space as bench space when they are not in use. I have tried this before, but the job I did sucked because I cut the hole for the hot plate too big. The template for it was too big! So I am going to whack each on to a bit of cardboard, use a texta (marker pen to Americans) and trace around them. Then measuring and looking at the sink and stove and their card board cut outs I will trim the cut outs too so that only the space that will hang below the bench top will be cut.

The actual cutting will use a jig saw. That is always fun because I am not brilliant at cutting straight. I kind of curve it a bit. So I will use a series of clamps and a bit of straight wood as a guide.

Once I get the bench top done I then need to piss fart around with rebuilding the actual bench below it to raise it to the same level as an adjacent bench.

It will all be fun and games, but in the end I should have a professional looking bench with my new sink and stove installed. I will be sure to take photos as I go.

Cheers all,
Romanadvouratrelundar S

Okay, it is  known fact that fuel is getting more expensive. I recall the days when I was in uni when the first Gulf War hit and I was peeved because I was paying 66 cents a litre. Now days petrol is typically $1.66 a litre, and that’s just in Australia. In Europe it is a lot more expensive, just under double that. In England they were paying about a 1.09 pounds a litre in 2006, given the exchange rate that’s about $3 Aussie dollars a litre.

So there is no denying that fuel is getting more expensive. So, what are the options? What is working effectively for us all?

Now biodiesel is an option for a diesel engine. My bus has run on biodiesel before with no problems. However I have found that biodiesel in Australia sells for about the same price as diesel. This is because the companies who produce BD know that people will pay that 5 cents a litre less for a little cheaper fuel. Also, if you produce fuels in any large amounts, the government sticks all sorts of taxes on it. I think that Bio-diesel will take a while to catch on.

Hydrogen is something to consider. I envisage a day when you can re-engine your car or van with a hydrogen engine, a water tank, a small compressor and a hydrogen tank. Solar panels or a plug in would power the water splitter when the vehicle is not being used, and the compressor would compress the fuel. Alternatively hydrogen stations would be just like petrol stations, allowing you fill up just like people fill up on LPG. In fact I envisage that the whole hydrogen powered car industry could work a lot like the current LPG industry.

Then there is electric. This is the most attractive form of car motivation that I have seen. Being a big advocate of solar power I watch the solar challenge races from Darwin to Adelaide every year on TV. One year a bunch of high school students from Adelaide built a car using a conventional car with an electric engine and a relatively simple bank of solar panels in a rack that covered the entire footprint of the car. It was as long and wide as the car, but flat and raise over the car. The car itself could have had that rack removed and it would look exactly like a normal car again.

Now the big kicker into the fantastic for me was that this relatively simple car conversion managed an average speed of 60 km/h - 37 m/ph during the entire trip. Now that’s not bad. And technology has come a long way in the 9 years since then.

All this is well and fine, but on the small scale, what can we as van dwellers do?

Bio-Diesel sounds very attractive. It’s just used cooking oil. Yep, get in touch with some fish and chip restaurants, ask to collect their used oil (they will probably be happy to do that as quite often they have to pay to dispose of it) and then store the oil, filter it and whack it in the fuel tank. Well that is as simple as it has been explained to me. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I suspect that it is not as simple as that.

I see some problems with this for the van dweller. First, finding the time. Second, building the relationships with suppliers. Third, storing it. Fourth, doing this all as you move around. You may as well by a bit of land, set up your bio-fuel plant and become the next oil baron.

I can see this working on a small scale if you can secure small supplies of used oil, filter it straight away and use it straight away.

Hydrogen. Hmm, yeah, if you have an LPG car or van you are half way there. But running everything on 12 volts or from inverters may be tricky. A 12 volt system to split hydrogen and oxygen from water ill be easy. Been there, done that, made some really nice flames from it. But compressing it all into a tank. Anyone know of any good reliable 12 volt compressors that will last and won’t ignite the fuel? I bet we could adapt those little air compressors we use for inflating tyres on the road.

Solar. Hmm, yeah, I wonder about moving a 3.4 tonne bus on an electric engine. How big a battery bank I will need. How much extra weight it will be.

I could see this working on smaller vans. But the issue is cost. You’re going to need thousands of dollars of solar panels on the roof of your van. I’m talking maybe $10-12,000 dollars of solar panels here. Sure, you won’t ever have to pay for petrol again. That is until one day you arrive at your van after a short walk to find some one has nicked your solar panels, or the van. But to me, this is still the most attractive way of motivating around. Or a solar powered hydrogen system.

The other alternative. Horsepower.

Don’t laugh, we could all end up coming full circle and doing what our ancestors used to do.

http://www.irishhorsedrawncaravans.com/Driving.htm

After bedding down last night I was woken at 9:55pm by my alarm going off. I heard foot steps as some one ran off. I switched off the alarm, checked the area by peeking out of the windows, saw nothing so went to sleep. Then 20 minutes later some moron did it again. This time I made a point of leaving the lights on for a while. This made it very plain that I was in the van.

Then in the morning I heard the alarm chirp as some one waked by the van. Then it went off again, I looked out of my van to see some idiot placing a note under the windscreen of my van after giving the van a deliberate shove. I looked at this idiot and grabbed my hefty wheel brace. They then noticed me and with a look of shock they ran off.

The note read “Fix your alarm. People don’t like being woken up at dawn.”

I mean what an idiot. They set the alarm off delibratly then had the audacity to add that note. I decided some morning exercise was in order so I ran off up the street after them with mobile phone in one hand and my wheel brace in the other. Oh I had no intention of hurting them, but I did make them run a fair way.

Needless to say I relocated from that street. Pesky morons

First real day of winter today. It was cold, daylight savings has ended, and it rained.

 I’ve been working on the van. Climbed up on the roof and unscrewed the air con. Looked in side and was going to install a 12 volt vent fan there. Only, I discovered that the thing does not vent air through the roof. It goes up, circles through a cooling grid and gets blown back down again. No wonder it’s so effective. It takes air, cools it and blows it back into the bus. But get this, it then gets that cool air, cools it more and keeps on blowing it back in, cooling it more with each cycle. Great stuff, but it only works on 240 volt. I hardly ever plug in these days.

I did at least install one of my new wifi antennas and a GPS antenna. And today I have powered up the satellite tracking system on the van, but I have to replace the SIM card in it.

But that’s not what this post is about. It’s about depression. Because I have depression, quite badly.

I am the first one to admit I have depression. I don’t know what to do about it. It used to come and go, but now I’ve had very bad depression for at least 4 months, closer to five. Before that I had mild depression, with occasional bits of happiness, but now there is just depression, no happiness.

If I could just snap out of it I would. I mean don’t think that I can’t sit here and rationally think that yeah, I’m depressed, and I should snap out of it and do something about it. I’ve tried. Believe me I have. I used to think that things will get better, so I should hang out for those times. Only, they have not gotten any better. They have consistently gotten worse.

When you go through your whole life without anyone ever loving you, then life becomes hell. We were not made to live lie this. We need some one to love, to love us back. Without love there is no life, and barely an existence.

So, what can I do about this? I have to find some one to love. Yeah, simple equation there. So I’ve tried, for years. But I guess I am broken, so I can’t love myself, so how do I expect anyone to love me?

So, there is only one option left. Time to remove myself from the equation. Time to end it all.

Now this may seem like a stupid option but it is not. I mean I have faced bullying, hate and loneliness all of my life. I mean one of the reasons I live in a van is to escape people who have been staling and hating me since 1996, 12 bloody years! I still get harassed by them online and blamed for shit I have nothing to do with. Ending my life will end that pain at last. Also I’m pretty much kidding myself that anyone will ever love me. I’m ugly, and a freak. I have no self worth anyway.

Oh, and don’t get me wrong. I’m not writing this shit for sympathy. I don’t want sympathy. I just expect that after I am gone that people will wonder why, so I guess if they find this, they will know. Not that I expect many to come looking.

I mean no one knows me. My family don’t. My mother certainly does not. More than 700 Kms away. She keeps saying she loves me, but that’s just bullshit. She loves my money. I mean she made it very clear she didn’t want me visiting last Christmas.

I think maybe some people at work care, like Ros and maybe John. But not my co-worker Katrina. She made it clear how much she hates transgendered people, or “people who can’t make up their mind if they want to be a boy or a girl.” Being a hermaphrodite I don’t feel the need to be either male or female. I am clearly something in between.

Some times I wish I could just be me at work. If only things were different. If I was not so ugly, them maybe people would like me. Or if circumstances were different. I mean there’s a beautiful woman at work, who is not only really nice, but she has a heart of gold. She would not hurt a fly. Her idea of revenge is emptying some one’s Coke can. Her name is Hua. She is ever so cute. I’ve told her I like her, but she diplomatically said she was not interested in me. I can accept that. She has the right to choose who she has relationships with or not. Bit if things were different. If she only knew what I felt for her. Or if pressures on us did not exist so we could have a relationship. However, I’ve seen her smile with other people. I don’t think a relationship with me would be ideal. I would be like a cloud when she is the sun. My depression would prevent her from shining and being all she can be.

 So, I have decided, time to die. I have put some plans in action. In fact, I don’t even now why I am working on the bus any more. Perhaps as a way out. One day, just get in it and drive. Just drive. Walk away from it all, from my life, from hate, from everything, from everyone. Start a new life some where else. But I don’t see the point. I see so many problems with that. Better just to end my own life. Make everyone happy. My mum will get all the money she wants. The stalkers will rejoice. If I do it right, my body parts will help others live.

For now, something to contemplate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE5yINOn4N4

I am sitting in the van today, feeling sick. It is raining. It has been raining hard all day which is good for the enviornment seeing as how we are still in drought, but not so good for being ill in a van. I am not feeling well or happy. I have the big antenna out, giving me Wifi from a McDonalds 500 metres away. It’s paid for, but at least it is convenient.

Some memories from my childhood.One of the most ironic things I find about my mother is that for many years she worked as a youth worker. Yep, while neglecting and abusing her own children, she helped others.

I am beginning to wonder what the point is to all this blogging, to anything really. You see, I don’t make a difference. I don’t make a difference in anyone’s lives I don’t make a difference in mine. My life, well my existence has no purpose. I am essentialy just a burden on society. I use resources that would be better utilised for other people. I am particularly ashamed of the medical resources I use.

I think that when it comes to things like counseling and mental health services, I am particularly wasteful. I’ve been to councillors and psychs, and they have been of little to no help. They can not help me, I am beyond help I think. Perhaps their time would be better used helping people who can be helped. Some times when thing are too broken to fix, you give up, and buy a new one. Replace the broken with something new. That’s me, I am too broken to be fixed. I should be replaced with something new.

When it comes down to it, if I were to die, a lot of people would benefit. I am a registered organ donor, so a lot of people would be able to live better lives if I die. People would benefit from being able to use resources like petrol, food, water, medical services that I currently use. People would no longer have to be burdened by looking after me or wasting time trying to help me. Some people can’t be helped. Even if I could be helped, I don’t deserve to be helped.

I am a nasty person. I do bad things. While I try to be nice and kind and to do good things, I can’t all the time. I do things out of hate some times. I hate being so lonely that I chopped down a tree once, to spite the Earth for being so nasty to me. I take long showers even though we are in drought because I am selfish and I know that even if it gets bad, if worse comes to worse, I can drive away. I delibratly waste electricity and water some times. I say hurtful things to people some times. I loose my temper with people when I should not. While I try to be nice, I can’t always. I just can’t do it.

Worst of all is what I have been doing to my mother, making her worry as I stay out of contact from her. But I can’t handle her any more. The emotional black mail and pure soul destroying esteem destroying talk she makes about me is too much.

In reality if I go no one will care. No one will even know for days, weeks, moths even. I could walk out into the forest, hike for days from roads and then kill myself. No one would find me for years. No one would notice I was gone. It is like I am invisible anyway. Nothing I do affects anyone. No one cares about me. No one notices me. I some times talk to people only to have them ignore me like I was not even there. And this is people I know.

They’re all signs to say, you’ve been here too long. Time to go.

I had some nasty nightmares last night. Mostly about my child hood. I still can’t understand why mother did so many horrible things to me when I was young. Why would some one do those things? Why would some one betray the trust of a child so much? I just can’t understand it any more.

I have been in two minds about keeping in contact with my mother for a while. I have not contacted her since before Christmas. I more or less have decided now to remain out of contact with her. While I have discussed with her what she did to me, she has never apolagised. Saying that she was over it, and it does not worry her any more. So she is prepared to put that behind her and forget, but not prepared to apolagise. It is easy for her to forget though, for her to put the hurt she caused out of her mind. She was not the one being yelled at, being abused, the one who had a TV thrown at her, theone who tried so hard to sleep with one eye open and prepared to run away and hid for fear of being beaten up. How could she do all those things and then not be prepared to apolagise for them?

I originally posted this on he forums at Homeless.org, a web site about homelessness. I originally thought it was a good site, because it links people together, and has a lot of information on how to access but well, the domain owner sometimes ticks me off.

Okay, back on topic. I drove my home to Canberra the other week, well a couple of weeks ago now. I attended National Sorry day. This was when our Pri-Minister Kevin Rudd apologised for wrongs against Aboriginal people. Now, one of the things he talked about was the need for changing the gaps between Aboriginal employment levels, health, housing and life spans.

The reality of life is that people’s opinions need to be changed first. Employers who refuse to hire Aborigines need their opinions changed. People who say why give a job to an Indigenous person, when a non Indigenous person has better qualifications are not looking at the big picture. Anyone from a low socio-economic background may end up just struggling to go to school. Lack of money means lack of food, poor concentration, often a need to relocate, dropping out of school to earn money to take care of short term financial needs. So, no schooling means no education which means a low paid job and the next generation repeats the process.

I know all about this. I cam from such a family. Single parent, lack of food, constant re-locations, homeless at age 16 because my mother moved and left me behind. Despite that shit, I got a job, worked hard, realised I was never going to get paid well without a uni degree and went off and got one. And despite all that shit, I still live in a van. Why? Because people are still prejudiced about employing people.

Argh. This is so frustrating explaining it to people, But well that’s a starter.

Now, on the point of living in parks. Here’s something to consider. Who owns the park? The government eh? So, who did they buy it from? They didn’t most of the time. They just claimed the land in the name of the crown. Who’d they claim it from? In most cases, the Aborigines who lived there in the first place.

Now, consider this as well. The Government does not recognise traditional Aboriginal ownership of the land. Many Aboriginals do not recognise non traditional ownership of the land. For every argument here there is a counterpoint. Open your minds and think about it.

If a bunch of aliens dropped out of the sky and started to set up a colony, we’d probably say “hey no way, you can’t that’s our land.” Imagine how we would feel if the aliens said “Well sorry, but we don’t recognise your primitive land ownership, it is far to primitive to be taken into consideration, now get off of or land or we will have you charged.” Yeah, I can imagine we’d ignore them and stay on our land and never conceded defeat to their government. We sure as hell would not be paying money to them to live on land that was ours in the first place.