Teardrop: Wiring and Painting
It was slow to start this year… it stayed cold for a long time and the work that I had to do was wiring as well as painting the exposed interior wood… not exactly a sweat breaker.
My assistant started with a base coat of white, followed by a light yellow. It was a small space and by using a lighter colour, it helps to keep the space looking bright and helps to give the impression that it’s bigger than it really is.
While she worked on the painting, I worked on connecting all the lights to the fuse panel and the ground block. Originally I’d decided to built a tongue box to hold the battery and other associated electrical, which is why the main circuit breaker was mounted close to the front of the trailer. I’d decided that it was time to pick up a battery so went to my local battery shop… Total Battery.
The size and type of battery was going to be a weight concern. I had to make sure that the total weight was not greater than 1500 lbs, the towing capacity of my vehicle. Whilst waiting for my turn at the counter, I discovered Lithium car sized batteries. These things, while the same size as a lead-acid battery, have more hours, capacity and weigh almost nothing.
When I picked it up in the store, I thought it was the empty shell of a demo model. Really, only 17 lbs? I bought a 12V 54Ah battery. It wasn’t cheap, at least not compared to a lead-acid battery, but the benefits were too many to outweigh not using it. No off-gassing when charging meant it was not only safer, but I could mount it in the sleeping compartment, right over the axle. I moved the breaker to inside the fuse compartment, which makes way more sense, and now the length of the battery cable is only a foot from the battery terminals to the fuse block. Superior to mounting it and eight-foot run away.
I did leave the battery cables, both positive and negative, in the storage compartment at the front just in case I ever needed to wire something a little more heavy duty back to or from the battery.
