Here's a suggestion for Rob , go solar/hydro. Place a water tank on the roof of the van. Use a solar powered pump to take water from the vans water tank to the roof tank , then , return the water from the roof tank to the van tank using gravity , through an impeller powered alternator . This should keep him in the shed for months , off the road , and out of contact with normal people .
I own a caravan pls dont hold that against me. However having run caravan parks for the past 15 years i feel i am as qualified as the next internet user to answer your question. Yes most caravaners are stupid they say silly stuff like i dont read on holiday so i do not have to adhere to park rules having not read them, its to hard to remember the 4 digit access code so i drove *through* the boom-gate can you park the van for us its to hard for my husband { yes we share the road with these qualified geniuses) and the list goes on and on i could write a book ........ now there is something i can do while the world goes nuts and the government shuts me indoors write a book on stupid stuff vanners do and say
HaHa, yes stayed at one caravan park for a bush job and the guy who owned it was borderline psychic, he'd take one look at someone walking up to him and know exactly what they were about to ask or request. He'd just point to the sign they were standing next to with the answer on the board there for all to see, or when they walked up to him before they even had a chance to ask just put his hand out for the keys and go park their van. He was a legend, some days he went around with a permanent look on his face I'd imagine looked just like an inmate guard of a lunatic asylum, shocked bewilderment, he'd see it all before but still couldn't believe it was happening.
My experience has been that the incompetency of a caravanner is directly proportional to the size of their caravan and the "wow" factor of their vehicle!
I suggest swapping the caravan axle for something like a 9" ford diff, bolt a pulley where the tail-shaft normally goes. Then cut a hole in the floor and roof of the caravan so you can run a serpentine belt up to the alternator you have tek screwed to the roof, Serpentine belt not actually necessary but would look cool going around at least three idlers somewhere inside the caravan.....or solar if you are some kind of fun stopper.
I hope becoming a caravanner or more correctly a campervanner hasn't lowered my IQ... amazing how supposedly sane individuals can do and say such insane things...
One of the most entertaining episodes, ever, thank you. Your correspondent who advocated connecting an alternator to the caravan wheel for "free" power made me think of my cycling days when I had a dynamo mounted on the front forks which was turned by a knurled wheel being pushed against the tyre. It provided good lighting whilst moving but I could certainly feel the additional load whilst pedalling. I'm surprised no-one suggested this, one one each caravan tyre would work a treat.
One who's ridden a bicycle with a generator should be well aware of the load "night" puts on the rider. It's been close to fifty years since I rode a bike with a generator and I can still feel the load. It's only been a year since I rode a very nice bike both into the wind and before the wind, quite as much difference I would say. Love that "free power"!
2:40 - " a toilet paper hoarder.. ". I assume you're referring to the morons who are buying toilet paper by the truckload due to the coronavirus pandemic. I've put the following question across various social media platforms " what does 100 rolls of toilet paper have I common with a virus that attacks a persons lungs? " Am still waiting for a reasonable answer.. But I've now discovered that people (non asthmatics) are buying bronchodilators (Ventolin or Albuterol) & corticosteroids (Pulmicort & Prednisolone). Having a sister who has chronic asthma, that really pisses me off !
As a former Transport Operator, my first law I would insist be passed by parliament concerning Caravan setup, would be that all caravans be fitted, apon their rear end, a large reinforced steel frame mounting two spare tyres, horizontally. This is so, when climbing some hill, a following truckie could place his bullbar against said spare tyres and push said Mobile chicane Caravan up said incline at highway speeds. I would also make it legal to simply push converted former Toyota Coaster School busses completely from our glorious National Highway Network.
@@AutoExpertJC they would extend the great barrier reef nicely :) Attenborough approves Also can we send all SUVs after them? They should be in a different licence category really and ppl can't drive them responsibly. Due to lacking drivers' education in anglosaxon countries most people are ill equipped to drive a friggin yaris, let alone a landcruiser with a 2ton aluminium shittoire in tow...
Dude...you truely are a righteous man. I had abandoned all hope for humanity ages ago but you prove that there still are people around willing to denounce the legions of Meat Puppets. Bless you, man of science.
@@AutoExpertJC Thanks John, but fortunately, I am smart enough to know (without trying mind you) I don't want to eat toilet paper. So I have a modest stock of that and I have fresh fruit, vegetables and meat in the fridge and freezer. You know, stuff you can actually eat.
@@AutoExpertJC thank God they arnt going for the milk sandwiches I swear people live off during cyclones, likely the same tools with bog roll hoarded. Actually make that morons tools are useful
@@AutoExpertJC I bought 2 pallets of toilet sanitiser and hand paper. I should be right for the next 24 hours. Can't say the same for the family though.
I have to agree John. I have just set up a dual battery setup in my 4x4 vehicle, consisting primarily of an AGM Battery and a DC - DC Charger, and Solar Panels to come for those extended camps when the Alternator isn't doing the charging. It is a relatively neat and simple solution enabling the use of lots of electrical items, most importantly the Fridge and the lights. Cheers mate.
Hello John. I have a pretty young YT channel but have gained the interest of a couple of fairly persistent trolls. A loyal subscriber directed me here. God, it has cheered me up! All the best. Richard from the U.K.
JC: FYI in my motor home it has a 40A charger, which as you said in the last video either lets the "house" battery charge off the mains or from the alternator, and it's charged at over ~14 volts as a fully charged battery ~12.6v and a 50% charged one is at about 12.3v. But wait there's more the charger is clever it charges the van battery (the one that starts the van) and then the house battery. How do we survive without running the engine or plugging in to the mains? Solar panels - Oh just like everybody else. And 300W is more than enough to run the fridge and TV and lights (which we only use at night, no needs to waste the electrons) although inflating friends may need a bit more! But then I don't own a caravan :-)
I have never understood how those without a university degree seem to think that a bit of pub-level reasoning needs somehow to be given the time of day. Because they have never spent the years in uni classes, they have no conception of the wealth of knowledge inside an engineer’s head. When an engineer says the idea is impractical, it probably is. Even with the university of life, some of these people seem to escaped the classes on practical reality. I have lived quite a lot on the road. Ethnically I am Rromani, so you might say caravans are in the blood. It teaches you some things. For a start, these people are just trying to fit house-style living into mobile living. It is the wrong approach. It is like paying bills and buying food with your income. You fit the expenses to the income because it just doesn’t work to try to fit the income to the expenses. I have lived in American RV’s in the snow. The gas furnace is amazingly efficient. A regular gas cylinder gives a week of warmth, plus cooking and heating water for showers. It is cheap and efficient and gives excellent quality of life in weather 10 to 20 degrees below zero C. Yet these guys here want to reinvent the wheel with ideas that involve greater risk, greater costs, to use appliances that are best suited to life in a house. My people have lived in caravans and tents for hundreds of years. Modern caravans have been around for a century. People have already worked out the best way to live in caravans and it does not involve wind turbines and alternators that somehow magically get energy from a spinning caravan wheel. The best way is to use low power appliances suitable for the road, smaller, because that uses less energy, a twin gas bottle set up, a deep cycle battery to power phones and laptops when the car is not moving. I have a three solar panel set up for when camping for a week or more. Buy a well insulated van. Use trees for shade, use a small petrol generator for those rare high energy requirement situations, and learn that living inside an energy budget is liberating. 1200W Electric heaters? Electric rice cookers? Roast dinner in the oven while on the move? Give me a break.
Hi, I have one of those American 5th wheels and they are superb with the heating and cooling system as you say. John will be pleased to know you can hold onto your shit for a long time as the tank is bloody huge. No wheeling shit down to a dump point for us every 2nd day lol. And I am here in Aus.
Two Dogs Exactly. You see it with flat Earthers, Sovereign Citizens, young Earth creationists, anti-vaxxers, alternative medicine proponents, etc. those who are not expert in a field tend to find it easy to just ignore hundreds of years of rigorous scientific experimentation by the best minds on the planet just because the armchair thinker takes a fact in isolation, inflates into something they feel good about, then denounce the Einstein’s of the world without offering alternative math, modeling, or acceptable experimental data, and get offended when they get ignored or mocked. Physicists all over the world have their mail boxes filled with arrant nonsense from those who think they know better than Einstein. Other, equally education-challenged people seem to think the scientists should stop their work to address these ludicrous claims. No, the claims normally do not pass the plausibility test (which is what John addressed in his video - no need to go to the experimentation stage where there is no viable plausibility). If scientists had to investigate every half-baked idea, they wouldn’t have time to do their real work. Not all ideas have equal value. It is indeed possible for untrained amateurs to come up with brilliant ideas, but it is generally only after a great deal of education, and years of working at something that we reach that point where we understand fully just how little we know and why that is so. It is the arrogance of the uneducated to think that they know so much that they can reinvent the wheel. Humility and wisdom can lead even the least uneducated to be practical with their ideas and to learn from the experienced, but sadly, wisdom and humility are in as short supply as toilet paper during a pandemic. Funny story - I reinvented the wheel once. In my 20’s I had what seemed to me a brilliant idea... instant concrete. Put the sand, cement, and aggregate together in a bag, just add water. Instant, just like instant coffee. People would love the convenience. I instantly started to think about how I might patent this stroke of genius. It was at my next visit to the hardware store that I discovered that it had already been done for years. True they didn’t call it instant concrete, but it was the same thing, with different names, by lots of companies. I learned that most things have already been thought of, and if they are not done, there is probably a good reason for that. Had I known more about the concrete industry I would have not only known that my idea had already been done, but possibly even knew who did it first, but as an armchair thinker I knew none of that.
Back in the dim days of youth I spent a lot of time mucking around with aeroplanes. Among the aircraft stored in our hanger was a war surplus Auster which had the exact wind driven set up everyone's talking about, except that it turned a generator instead of an alternator. Light aircraft are required to have dual ignition completely independent from any other electrics which often meant that other electrics were at the very basic end of the technology spectrum. (even radios were optional). That cute old Auster is still airworthy, having been "restored" to standards greatly exceeding those to which it was built. The wind driven generator languishes, forgotten in a box of trinkets which serves no other purpose than to remind us how things used to be. It was replaced by a belt driven alternator, because the alternator is more reliable and doesn't throw a hissy fit every time the humidity gets a bit uncomfortable. Like the steam train the technology has been tried and it does work but is now anachronistic because much better ways have been developed to achieve the same outcome.
And yet modern airliners still rely on a stowaway RAT for dire emergencies. A Ram Air Turbine enabled 'Sully' to slide his Airbus to safety on the Hudson. ruclips.net/video/c9yz6Gd216o/видео.html
Some people studied just as hard as you John but either didn’t want a degree or couldn’t afford it. I will continue to enjoy your knowledge and commentary with learning in mind.
Hi John, thaks for yet another hilarious video. I have an offroad caravan(used for remote overland travel)which I have recently equipped with a DC to DC charging system and an 85W solar panel. The charger acts as a battery management system, it will charge the batteries(2×100ah AGM deep cycle) from the solar panel or 16mm2 supply cable connected to the car's battery. The reason I went for the DC to DC system is because of the length of the cable from the car battery to the caravan's battery. The distance is roughly 9 meters so I would only get 3 - 4 amps and 11.8V into the batteries, which would take an age to recharge on the move which I need to do as mains power is rarely available in the remote areas I travel in.
On a serious note, stay healthy and stay safe John. You are an Ozzie treasure and us Canuckistanis appreciate your work. Also, good on you for supporting Murrcan sportsball teams in this time of crisis. The poor millionaires are having a rough go of it and they appreciate your promotion.
Never fails to put a smile on my face when people with bad grammar post comments on your clips.Don't they know by now that you're just waiting to pounce? Keep it up mate,highly entertaining!
Yep, I worked as an electrical engineer before I retired, and own a caravan. Never thought I would until we landed with one 2.5 years ago, and are now on our second one. Life is always a compromise as you know. Anyway, my experience with those I have interacted with directly and indirectly through various van forums is that yes, most caravaners are like most of the general population - say no more. However just a couple of points on your technical evaluation of the original wind tunnel, turbo-charged, fairy powered van thought bubble. Although a van has any number of useful and some plainly stupid electrical loads, the only loads during transit are the DC supply to the 3-way fridge and the auxiliary supply to the house battery. During transit the house battery is not doing much in a standard van (a bit different if it is one of the few vans with a compressor fridge, but we won't muddy the waters). Now a lot of us do not spend much time in caravan parks, so travelling from one power point to another is not an option and we have to be self sufficient for sometimes weeks. We do have solar panels, both on the roof and portable. But when leaving a location first thing in the morning the house battery will not be recharged and the solar may take a long time to recharge it depending on the day and the angles of the sun while travelling and such. But, the big thing I wanted to point out is that our standard 3 way fridge draws 12 amps when on DC. The fridge is only run from the vehicle while travelling and they are never connected to the house battery. The auxiliary charging circuit from the vehicle to top up the house battery is managed by a typical intelligent battery management system. This requires the DC supply from the vehicle to be 0.5V above the house battery voltage before it will connect to the house battery. Considering the house battery sits charged at around 13.5V and I believe the smart alternators output is limited to 13.5V the house battery will never fully charge. We don't use this system as we manage fully on the solar, but there is a technical issue if you were to rely on this system. That is why people use devices such as DC-DC converters to up the voltage from the vehicle. Anyway, just thought I would put my two pennies worth in.
Dead right! Just watch how many commentators here completely miss your point though in search of a piss-take. It’s kinda like going to the pub to see who can tell the biggest lies (with apologies to Jimmy Barnes).
Quite enjoying your caravanning series, my dad packed us up many times and took us on holiday caravan in tow. Now as an adult I don’t even put tow bars on my vehicles let alone a caravan. For not much money an air fare and a nice hotel at any destination in the county is pretty easy.
This rant was absolutely fabulous!! It reminds me of the electric car / anti petrol crowd that think you just recharge a car in the same manner as an electric toothbrush. They have no idea the power needed either at the car or the grid. Apparently they were sleeping in science class. Keep up the good journalism - down there. YESSSSSS!
Gold John, gold. Darren I feel was the best and worthy of applause if not a prize. At least you know if you run out of material caravan owners are good for it. Solar panels and a battery is the way to go but check to see if the panels are mechanically secured to the roof and not just sillyconed. Didn’t happen to come across two solar panels on the Pacific Hwy between Sydney and Brisbane did yah? This one was extra entertaining, thanks John. Peter
Rob is a true ideas man! Sure it is not a problem that needs fixing, but it is the drag issue that is the funniest part. Like Wile E Coyote pointing a fan into his own parachute. Best video yet.
Many years ago, I owned a Caravan, and had no problems keeping the caravan battery charged whilst traveling because I fitted a kit to the car that provide power to the 'van only when the car battery was fully charged, When the charge fell in the car battery, the from the alternator was transferred back to the car battery, and vice versa. The power was supplied to the caravan via the tow bar plug for the lights, and caravan power connection. These kits are available off the shelf at our friendly local caravan accessory shop for about £10 to £15 here in the UK and took about 30 minutes to fit.
The 'easiest' solution is to get a portable generator and put it under the bench seat in the caravan. Due to weight I'd recommend removing the muffler and getting rid of the fuel tank - a simple funnel will do fine to fill the engine. You'd be stupid to run the engine with the doors closed so open up the windows. Use hanging gas lamps for lights to give a bit of ambience and get yourself a 4 hob induction cooker...
Another great video John. I re-played your comment about the caravan making the place look like a Third World Slum several times. Proper gold that mate!
As a caravanning grey nomad fisherman, I hope most of the loony comments are people taking the piss just to see what sort of reaction they get from you. If they are serious, god help us.
as an rv'er( caravanner) for many years in Canada, you are right on the money. mechanical generation of energy(wind or tire driven) is absurd except using the tow vehicle alternator. in the standard 7 pin trailer connector there is one conductor meant exactly for this. it directly connects the tow vehicle battery to the trailer battery with fused large guage wire. in our ram 1500 this wire is 10ga(iirc) with a 20amp fuse. the trailer also has the same gauge wire directly to the 12V busbar near the battery. the battery is connected to the buss bar and trailer frame(ground) with 8ga wire. the 7 pin trailer connector has an equally large ground wire. as you said, a problem that doesnt exist
When asked the question about who cooks a roast in the caravan while driving followed by the who eats rice with a roast has cost me a keyboard as I spat my coffee all over it.
G’day John. The wind turbine idea is definitely a nut job!! But.....the voltage drop over the distance from the alternator to the caravan battery via a Anderson plug is sometimes enough to have less than 12v across the terminals in the caravan. Depending on the brand and type generally a gel batttery needs 14V to reach full charge capacity. The car alternator cannot provide this even with a large direct cable to the caravan. The best option for him is a DC-DC charger that is designated to maintain the full charge voltage as close to the caravan battery as possible. This will boost the voltage to the correct level and is adjustable for the type of battery installed in the caravan. Some better quality DC-DC chargers also have solar input and 240v input for when power is available. I have a young family. We have a 15 year old 7x4 simple camp trailer with a battery for lights, fridge and water pump for the shower. We haven’t set up in a caravan park with power for over 5 years so plugging in when we arrive is not an option. Our first battery lasted less than 18 months. I then installed the DC-DC charger when I got a new battery and it has extended the life of our 120aH Gel battery - 4 years old and still going strong. Properly charging batteries and designing the 12v system may cost a bit initially but will save you in the long run. Thanks for your great commentary and content and trying to MALS. Mark.
I'm not an RVer, but I agree with you John. Add more batteries if you don"t think you will have enough power stored up for when you get to where you are going. I would go with the solar panels as well for when your driving to top up those batteries if needed. If you still feel that that isn't enough power generation, bring a couple extra panels that you can set up next to your camp site when you get there. If all that is still not enough power for you, then get yourself a friggen gas/diesel generator or give up camping and stay in a hotel or just stay home.
You have nailed it, yes there are many out there like that. Having been in the caravan park game, we often wondered how the hell they even found there way to anywhere. We called it dumb ass day when they came into reception asking the most dumbest of questions, like which way the sun sets. We liked when they tried to run keeps of appliances and trip the 15 amp circuit breaker and say there was something wrong with our installation.
Hi John, After watching so many of your videos, I can’t believe that THIS is the first one I’m going to comment on... Your comments about the impracticalities of running an alternator from a caravan axle had me thinking about the old school bicycle dynamo generators that used to run off the sidewall of the bike tyre. That’d be much easier to engineer than an axle driven belt. Or there’s the elegant solution of roof mounted solar panels that produce power on the road and while camped....
To fit an alternator to a caravan. Pop down to your local motor bike wrecker and get the rear wheel frame and engine from a scooter. Pull the head and pistons out of the motor tap into the scooters power system and weld the frame to the back bumper of the van so it drags the wheel on the road spinning the motor. There are of course several other steps left out of this plan as it is entirely sarcasm.
Haha, a little light relief. I'm a caravanner but I get your point John, don't waste your time trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist with a prototype DIY solution you knock up in your shed and that could all end in tears. Next time I see 'Betty and Jim, Channel 40' slowing down the highway on a Chooseday I'll remember this video and old mate beavering away in his shed knocking up a caravan axle driven alternator attached to a caravan axle that doesn't actually rotate (only the wheel hub assembly does that) to charge his caravan battery while the Christmas turkey is roasting in the battery powered oven. An interesting concept. Can I recommend rooftop solar like I'm knocking up in 'me shed' or free membership at a Men's Shed where someone can let him down gently? Regards, Big Al, Palmerston ACT
I was the one who made the comment about the wind turbine increasing fuel consumption. I guess we made the comment because old mate who suggested the idea of mounting a turbine was probably under the impression they were getting free energy or something, when in reality it would be a worse outcome than making alternator work a fraction harder
Since I became aware of your fascinating channel, my awareness has increased in the domain, as you would say, of towed effluent containers. I see them everywhere now, I notice them. These massive caravans! Christ! They are not about in small numbers. Gigantic bloody things. Twice the size of the tow vehicle, or greater. Just a visual assessment would indicate that there are serious mass incompatibilities at work. Festooned with gear, tyres and panels. God only knows what delights are to be found within. Suffice it to say that this must represent a serious issue in the wider domain, as you would say, of road safety. There is talk of introducing mandatory licencing requirements for those who would attach large effluent containers to their small rear mounted balls. Its high time this happened.
We had a perfectly viable solution mentioned in the previous video: a small nuclear reactor. I bet it would even give him the power her needs to cook his chicken and rice and run that 1200watt heater so it all stays nice and toasty while he barrels down the highway at 100.
Yup, Volts X Amps is proportional to Torque X Speed if losses due to friction, and surge losses (when certain email are received, entropy gets a jump). You mentioned something about someone else building an axle mounted warp drive. But if the thing is warped, then motion won't be circular exactly so more losses unless it also generates power from vibration. P.S. Um... I have three caravans.
That is why I only stay in Motels. But anyway I propose the installation of a large funnel mounted to the rear of the van just below the roof line so as not to create any additional drag. The outlet would lead down to a small water wheel device that would drive a bicycle dynamo. As the dynamo produces AC we would need to add a bridge rectifier and maybe some smoothing capacitors. The output could then be used to power an illuminated LED sign in the front window of the van that would display a message visible in the rear view mirror of the tow vehicle. This message would magically only appear when it rained a suitable message would be GAB TUN.
Good catch on the location of alternator. Toyota 76,79,200. V8 series suffer from this as they are located down low and fail due to water ingress etc. It’s an expensive mod to rectify
Guy came into work with his Bedford Bus Camper conversion. Towed a Suzuki Jeep around on an A frame so they could go shopping etc when they parked up. He called in on his way back from a 850k driving holiday. Said that he could feel something dragging or pulling back on the bus, thought it may have had a brake grabbing. After investigation we found that the motor in the Suzuki was smoking. When they hooked up the Suzuki they had left it in 3rd gear. Towed it over 200k's with speeds up to 110kph. The dragging they could feel was the motor locking up and dragging the rear wheels.
Correct on the solar panels although many people are putting as many as they can on the roof for boondocking. After all in Australia the panels are cheap so if you’re going to the trouble of installing 2, why not 6? However forget deep cycle batteries - 2 x 12V 1.2 kWh LiFePO4 drop ins can easily do the hypothetical 1200W load (only 0.5C) though you could run for a lot longer with 4. I’m not suggesting anyone should use a heater in a caravan - most would use reverse cycle air con as it’s more efficient and as you pointed out it’s a small space to cool or heat. High draw items are usually powered by an inverter @ 230V AC which gets around the whole heavy guage wire issue. LiFePO4s (which are a different chemistry to Tesla’s current batteries) are just as safe as the deep cycle lead acids. Plenty of caravans these days switching to lithium - higher cycle count, greater depth of discharge, no Peukert effect and actually much cheaper than lead acid over the lifespan of the battery. Plus you only need about 60% of the capacity of deep cycle batteries that die prematurely when discharged beyond 50%. There is only two major flaws with LiFePO4, 1 is low temperature charging. You cannot charge below 0 deg C without damaging the battery - but not much of a problem in Straya. Maybe in Tassie. You do need to build low and high temp protection into the design. And 2 they cost more up front - but that is coming down all the time.
When l was a kid l had dynamo on my push bike, this worked really well. l suggest that the chap wanting to build axle driven alternators just needs to convert 4 alternators to dynamos and then can just run against the tyres thus delivering all the free power he wants.
Yes John as a Motorcycle rider our group will not ride anywhere on mountain passes on holiday weekends as a large number of caravan jockeys think they have the right to both lanes on corners. They tow there monsters on roads unsuitable for the length quite often a speeds to fast for there reactions as they only tow 2 or 3 times a year. So many times in my earlier years I have traveled on mountain roads and at a large bend found a Toorak Tractor and it's 30 + ft extension 3 quarters across in my lane. Gotta Love them Caravaners. Our Motto stay away Stay alive
One more big problem with attaching an alternator to a caravan's wheel - one wheel will be constantly braked by the load, which will make the caravan directionally unstable and pull to the side constantly. Unless of course you feel like installing a differential as well.
If you fit an alternator in the van you would need some way to drive the field coil when the van was moving and turn it off when it was stationary unless you have huge reserves of battery power to run the field coil all of the time. You'd also need a regulator in there. Maybe a solar charge controller could be used as a regulator and give the battery the best charge. Simplest and cheapest solution DC to DC charger running off the car. Then if you need off grid capabilities add solar.
Brother, if it aint broken dont fix it. Listen to the man.He seems to have a point or two rite. Especially about the solar panels face it they will look better and perform even better . No possiblity of catastrophic failure there. Bonus yes....
I would think that Rob Benge’s issue with charging his caravan battery via the car alternator would be more to do with voltage drop (i.e. the voltage level at the caravan battery terminals is too low). The low voltage is generally due to power loss in the circuit from the alternator to the caravan battery. In the cheaper caravan setups the caravan battery is charged by the car via a blocking diode (0.7V drop) and this circuit is generally shared with the 3 way fridge which when in 12 dc mode can draw between 10 to 15A. Without adequately sized cables the voltage drop can be quite large. Instead of installing larger cable one could fit a dc to dc charger. The dc to dc charger will boost the voltage to a more suitable level to charge the caravan battery to 100%.
I worked until fairly recently for a company that made large props for film and TV. For example we made loads of stuff for the London Olympics in 2012, and a full size train for Paddington 2 (do Strayans know Paddington? Dunno). I thought your comments regarding prototypes being prone to failure were just perfect. Everything we made was a prototype. Did they fail? Yes, frequently, and only the fact that we (engineers!) were right there on site to fix the failures made it any kind of viable proposition in any way. We tried to explain this issue to our clients of course, but it's a little counter productive. Eventually we just said everything would be just fine... knowing full well it wouldn't!
Rooftop solar + charge controller + fuses & breakers * heavy DC cables into House Storage batteries // use grommets where wires go through sharp metal, use silicon bath caulk to water tight the connectors & grommet areas / use cable retainers to keep wire bending to a minimum. Use security screws on your solar panels. Put a small fairing on the front edge of the panel & bracket to help wind skip over it without much turbulence. Use 200w solar for 100ah 12v battery capacity or more solar if you want rapid recharge or more capacity. Up where I live near Seattle you need 300-400w solar per 100AH of SLA 12v // I like C/FR sealed AGM batteries if they are going to be used in the vehicle where people are breathing //
Caravaners seem like very interesting people. At least some of them. I didn't think so after just trying to overtake them on the road. So I am prepared to exchange 3 sheets of toilet paper (not used, mint condition) for a caravan at least 10 meters long, must have at least a wind turbine and a Jeep attached to it. Limited offer.
So my following comment is not a suggestion but an observation. I have seen a guy swap out his axle on his campervan for a diff from a Hilux or similar and mounted a pulley to the input shaft (where the driveshaft attaches usually). He then mounted an alternator next to that and ran a v belt between them. Mind you this was long before solar panels were actually a viable option.
having towed and lived in a van I am smart enough to agree with you john. I would prefer to watch someone who knows what their doing do all the fixing!!. you are funny as lol
Solar on the roof of the van is the best idea for sure. Still if someone really wanted a wheel driven generator then a simple hub electric motor will do the same thing when using it as a generator. Still not worth the hassles plus will still cause the tow vehicle to use more fuel.
How much electricity do people need in a caravan? When it's hooked up to the car, the only electrical equipment turned on is the fridge, and that runs at a level designed to maintain the temperature, so you need to get it cold before you set off, that's what mains is for. On site, run the fridge on gas or mains if available. The only other electrical items we use are lights, water pump and recharging phones. The solar panel keeps the battery topped up nicely, even in the full glorious sun of a British summer.
I can just imagine his alternator breaking free and smacking someone to the head as it comes bouncing out from under his caravan and thru the windscreen of their car
In the USA we have all kinds of RVers. Mostly they are a practical and resouceful lot with generally realistic expectations. Really, the only limiting factor for installing solar is the area of the roof. With flexible, stick-on panels becoming more popular and available it is possible to stick them litterally everywhere you have space. Why you would need this much solar input is beyond me. I believe in diversfying my electical sources: from shore power (mains), to solar, to portable gas generator, to vehicle charging system. On those cold raniny days boondocking you can always run the gas generator and charge up those fine lithium batteries.
Forget about caravans. I want an RV like on "Anchor Man II" so I can deep-fry on the move and put the whole rig on autopilot because it's got cruise control.
Interestingly, large commercial aircraft have something called a ram air turbine (RAT), which is a little auxiliary propeller wind turbine that is deployed into the airstream in emergency situations when the primary and auxiliary power fails.
An appropriately sized DC-DC charger wired with an adequate spec'd cable powered by the tow vehicle would be my solution. If you also added a solar panel on the caravan you'd have recharging power for days (and nights with the tow vehicle running/driving).
Maybe investigate a roof mounted ram jet system directing exhaust into a vortex driven high output alternator which feeds generated output into molten salt batteries. That system can't be too difficult to engineer in the back shed....👍👍🇭🇲
Here is a better idea. Install the solar panels. Then add electric motors driving the caravan wheels. That would reduce fuel consumption and the resultant savings would easily pay for a roast dinner in a restaurant on arrival. If you could stop that is.
Here's a suggestion for Rob , go solar/hydro.
Place a water tank on the roof of the van. Use a solar powered pump to take water from the vans water tank to the roof tank , then , return the water from the roof tank to the van tank using gravity , through an impeller powered alternator . This should keep him in the shed for months , off the road , and out of contact with normal people .
I own a caravan pls dont hold that against me.
However having run caravan parks for the past 15 years i feel i am as qualified as the next internet user to answer your question.
Yes most caravaners are stupid they say silly stuff like i dont read on holiday so i do not have to adhere to park rules having not read them,
its to hard to remember the 4 digit access code so i drove *through* the boom-gate
can you park the van for us its to hard for my husband { yes we share the road with these qualified geniuses) and the list goes on and on i could write a book ........ now there is something i can do while the world goes nuts and the government shuts me indoors write a book on stupid stuff vanners do and say
HaHa, yes stayed at one caravan park for a bush job and the guy who owned it was borderline psychic, he'd take one look at someone walking up to him and know exactly what they were about to ask or request. He'd just point to the sign they were standing next to with the answer on the board there for all to see, or when they walked up to him before they even had a chance to ask just put his hand out for the keys and go park their van. He was a legend, some days he went around with a permanent look on his face I'd imagine looked just like an inmate guard of a lunatic asylum, shocked bewilderment, he'd see it all before but still couldn't believe it was happening.
@@UncleJoeMedia thanks i missed that corrected now
Too---Hard to remember....
Danny, I hold it against you and hope it crushes you in a nice way.=)
Danny jay post a link to that. Book when you get that published.
My experience has been that the incompetency of a caravanner is directly proportional to the size of their caravan and the "wow" factor of their vehicle!
An extremely true observation.
I suggest swapping the caravan axle for something like a 9" ford diff, bolt a pulley where the tail-shaft normally goes. Then cut a hole in the floor and roof of the caravan so you can run a serpentine belt up to the alternator you have tek screwed to the roof, Serpentine belt not actually necessary but would look cool going around at least three idlers somewhere inside the caravan.....or solar if you are some kind of fun stopper.
Just had a thought. If your caravan is parked next to your house (probably most of the time) it is a great place to store extra toilet paper.
I hope becoming a caravanner or more correctly a campervanner hasn't lowered my IQ... amazing how supposedly sane individuals can do and say such insane things...
One of the most entertaining episodes, ever, thank you.
Your correspondent who advocated connecting an alternator to the caravan wheel for "free" power made me think of my cycling days when I had a dynamo mounted on the front forks which was turned by a knurled wheel being pushed against the tyre. It provided good lighting whilst moving but I could certainly feel the additional load whilst pedalling. I'm surprised no-one suggested this, one one each caravan tyre would work a treat.
One who's ridden a bicycle with a generator should be well aware of the load "night" puts on the rider. It's been close to fifty years since I rode a bike with a generator and I can still feel the load. It's only been a year since I rode a very nice bike both into the wind and before the wind, quite as much difference I would say. Love that "free power"!
So touchy no body is seeing the funny side of the nut segment any more and it is piss funny most of the time makes my day.
Thank you Peter.
Yup. I get a kick out of it. Makes my day thanks John.
The solution’s obvious. All you need is a sealed for life, 2MW (thermal) micro nuclear reactor and the rest writes itself...
In before the 'molten salt thorium reactors are actually safe for the environment'
@@dgs3002 11/10 recommend RBMK1000
I think you're being fairly kind, given some of the knob jockey suggestions being offered.
I did hold back.
2:40 - " a toilet paper hoarder.. ". I assume you're referring to the morons who are buying toilet paper by the truckload due to the coronavirus pandemic. I've put the following question across various social media platforms " what does 100 rolls of toilet paper have I common with a virus that attacks a persons lungs? " Am still waiting for a reasonable answer.. But I've now discovered that people (non asthmatics) are buying bronchodilators (Ventolin or Albuterol) & corticosteroids (Pulmicort & Prednisolone). Having a sister who has chronic asthma, that really pisses me off !
As a former Transport Operator, my first law I would insist be passed by parliament concerning Caravan setup, would be that all caravans be fitted, apon their rear end, a large reinforced steel frame mounting two spare tyres, horizontally. This is so, when climbing some hill, a following truckie could place his bullbar against said spare tyres and push said Mobile chicane Caravan up said incline at highway speeds. I would also make it legal to simply push converted former Toyota Coaster School busses completely from our glorious National Highway Network.
I'd put all caravans in the ocean, beyond the continental shelf.
And those fucking Juicy vans. Occupants included.
@@AutoExpertJC Nah, just on the edge of the shelf. Make a home for little fishies to play in. And sharks.
@@AutoExpertJC they would extend the great barrier reef nicely :) Attenborough approves
Also can we send all SUVs after them? They should be in a different licence category really and ppl can't drive them responsibly. Due to lacking drivers' education in anglosaxon countries most people are ill equipped to drive a friggin yaris, let alone a landcruiser with a 2ton aluminium shittoire in tow...
@@AutoExpertJC Nah, in close, got to replace the reefs dying from climate change somehow...
Dude...you truely are a righteous man. I had abandoned all hope for humanity ages ago but you prove that there still are people around willing to denounce the legions of Meat Puppets. Bless you, man of science.
I watch with bemusement, these follow up videos are gold!
Thank you Andrew.
Warning! If you have the current fear virus and you experience shortness of breath, do not watch this video! You will pass out from laughing so hard!
If you survive you can have hoarded toilet paper marinated in stockpiled hand sanitiser for dinner...
@@AutoExpertJC Thanks John, but fortunately, I am smart enough to know (without trying mind you) I don't want to eat toilet paper. So I have a modest stock of that and I have fresh fruit, vegetables and meat in the fridge and freezer. You know, stuff you can actually eat.
@@AutoExpertJC thank God they arnt going for the milk sandwiches I swear people live off during cyclones, likely the same tools with bog roll hoarded. Actually make that morons tools are useful
@@AutoExpertJC Now there's a time saving idea! By eating toilet paper you can shit & wipe at the same time;)
@@AutoExpertJC I bought 2 pallets of toilet sanitiser and hand paper. I should be right for the next 24 hours. Can't say the same for the family though.
I have to agree John. I have just set up a dual battery setup in my 4x4 vehicle, consisting primarily of an AGM Battery and a DC - DC Charger, and Solar Panels to come for those extended camps when the Alternator isn't doing the charging. It is a relatively neat and simple solution enabling the use of lots of electrical items, most importantly the Fridge and the lights. Cheers mate.
Hello John. I have a pretty young YT channel but have gained the interest of a couple of fairly persistent trolls. A loyal subscriber directed me here. God, it has cheered me up! All the best. Richard from the U.K.
JC: FYI in my motor home it has a 40A charger, which as you said in the last video either lets the "house" battery charge off the mains or from the alternator, and it's charged at over ~14 volts as a fully charged battery ~12.6v and a 50% charged one is at about 12.3v. But wait there's more the charger is clever it charges the van battery (the one that starts the van) and then the house battery. How do we survive without running the engine or plugging in to the mains? Solar panels - Oh just like everybody else. And 300W is more than enough to run the fridge and TV and lights (which we only use at night, no needs to waste the electrons) although inflating friends may need a bit more! But then I don't own a caravan :-)
Thank god, we have you John... No wonder I do not watch TV. Thank you for some commonsense in my life.
I have never understood how those without a university degree seem to think that a bit of pub-level reasoning needs somehow to be given the time of day. Because they have never spent the years in uni classes, they have no conception of the wealth of knowledge inside an engineer’s head. When an engineer says the idea is impractical, it probably is. Even with the university of life, some of these people seem to escaped the classes on practical reality.
I have lived quite a lot on the road. Ethnically I am Rromani, so you might say caravans are in the blood. It teaches you some things. For a start, these people are just trying to fit house-style living into mobile living. It is the wrong approach. It is like paying bills and buying food with your income. You fit the expenses to the income because it just doesn’t work to try to fit the income to the expenses.
I have lived in American RV’s in the snow. The gas furnace is amazingly efficient. A regular gas cylinder gives a week of warmth, plus cooking and heating water for showers. It is cheap and efficient and gives excellent quality of life in weather 10 to 20 degrees below zero C. Yet these guys here want to reinvent the wheel with ideas that involve greater risk, greater costs, to use appliances that are best suited to life in a house.
My people have lived in caravans and tents for hundreds of years. Modern caravans have been around for a century. People have already worked out the best way to live in caravans and it does not involve wind turbines and alternators that somehow magically get energy from a spinning caravan wheel. The best way is to use low power appliances suitable for the road, smaller, because that uses less energy, a twin gas bottle set up, a deep cycle battery to power phones and laptops when the car is not moving. I have a three solar panel set up for when camping for a week or more. Buy a well insulated van. Use trees for shade, use a small petrol generator for those rare high energy requirement situations, and learn that living inside an energy budget is liberating. 1200W Electric heaters? Electric rice cookers? Roast dinner in the oven while on the move? Give me a break.
Hi, I have one of those American 5th wheels and they are superb with the heating and cooling system as you say.
John will be pleased to know you can hold onto your shit for a long time as the tank is bloody huge. No wheeling shit down to a dump point for us every 2nd day lol. And I am here in Aus.
One person's impractical is another person's challenge.
BEVs?
Satellite communication?
Dams?
Google 'Dunning Kruger effect'
Their are those among us that don't know they don't know.
Two Dogs Exactly. You see it with flat Earthers, Sovereign Citizens, young Earth creationists, anti-vaxxers, alternative medicine proponents, etc. those who are not expert in a field tend to find it easy to just ignore hundreds of years of rigorous scientific experimentation by the best minds on the planet just because the armchair thinker takes a fact in isolation, inflates into something they feel good about, then denounce the Einstein’s of the world without offering alternative math, modeling, or acceptable experimental data, and get offended when they get ignored or mocked.
Physicists all over the world have their mail boxes filled with arrant nonsense from those who think they know better than Einstein. Other, equally education-challenged people seem to think the scientists should stop their work to address these ludicrous claims. No, the claims normally do not pass the plausibility test (which is what John addressed in his video - no need to go to the experimentation stage where there is no viable plausibility). If scientists had to investigate every half-baked idea, they wouldn’t have time to do their real work.
Not all ideas have equal value. It is indeed possible for untrained amateurs to come up with brilliant ideas, but it is generally only after a great deal of education, and years of working at something that we reach that point where we understand fully just how little we know and why that is so. It is the arrogance of the uneducated to think that they know so much that they can reinvent the wheel. Humility and wisdom can lead even the least uneducated to be practical with their ideas and to learn from the experienced, but sadly, wisdom and humility are in as short supply as toilet paper during a pandemic.
Funny story - I reinvented the wheel once. In my 20’s I had what seemed to me a brilliant idea... instant concrete. Put the sand, cement, and aggregate together in a bag, just add water. Instant, just like instant coffee. People would love the convenience. I instantly started to think about how I might patent this stroke of genius. It was at my next visit to the hardware store that I discovered that it had already been done for years. True they didn’t call it instant concrete, but it was the same thing, with different names, by lots of companies. I learned that most things have already been thought of, and if they are not done, there is probably a good reason for that. Had I known more about the concrete industry I would have not only known that my idea had already been done, but possibly even knew who did it first, but as an armchair thinker I knew none of that.
Haha this is like any internet comments but one half is live. Very funny.
Was made to stay a caravan park once with my family. Needless to say I will never stay in another caravan park for the rest of my life
Back in the dim days of youth I spent a lot of time mucking around with aeroplanes. Among the aircraft stored in our hanger was a war surplus Auster which had the exact wind driven set up everyone's talking about, except that it turned a generator instead of an alternator. Light aircraft are required to have dual ignition completely independent from any other electrics which often meant that other electrics were at the very basic end of the technology spectrum. (even radios were optional). That cute old Auster is still airworthy, having been "restored" to standards greatly exceeding those to which it was built. The wind driven generator languishes, forgotten in a box of trinkets which serves no other purpose than to remind us how things used to be. It was replaced by a belt driven alternator, because the alternator is more reliable and doesn't throw a hissy fit every time the humidity gets a bit uncomfortable. Like the steam train the technology has been tried and it does work but is now anachronistic because much better ways have been developed to achieve the same outcome.
And yet modern airliners still rely on a stowaway RAT for dire emergencies. A Ram Air Turbine enabled 'Sully' to slide his Airbus to safety on the Hudson. ruclips.net/video/c9yz6Gd216o/видео.html
Hi John thanks for making my two week isolation bearable, and no not all caravaners are so bored they have to invent problems to solve.
Some people studied just as hard as you John but either didn’t want a degree or couldn’t afford it. I will continue to enjoy your knowledge and commentary with learning in mind.
Hi John, thaks for yet another hilarious video. I have an offroad caravan(used for remote overland travel)which I have recently equipped with a DC to DC charging system and an 85W solar panel. The charger acts as a battery management system, it will charge the batteries(2×100ah AGM deep cycle) from the solar panel or 16mm2 supply cable connected to the car's battery. The reason I went for the DC to DC system is because of the length of the cable from the car battery to the caravan's battery. The distance is roughly 9 meters so I would only get 3 - 4 amps and 11.8V into the batteries, which would take an age to recharge on the move which I need to do as mains power is rarely available in the remote areas I travel in.
On a serious note, stay healthy and stay safe John. You are an Ozzie treasure and us Canuckistanis appreciate your work.
Also, good on you for supporting Murrcan sportsball teams in this time of crisis. The poor millionaires are having a rough go of it and they appreciate your promotion.
Thank you very much Aphrodite - will do. You too.
Never fails to put a smile on my face when people with bad grammar post comments on your clips.Don't they know by now that you're just waiting to pounce? Keep it up mate,highly entertaining!
Yep, I worked as an electrical engineer before I retired, and own a caravan. Never thought I would until we landed with one 2.5 years ago, and are now on our second one. Life is always a compromise as you know. Anyway, my experience with those I have interacted with directly and indirectly through various van forums is that yes, most caravaners are like most of the general population - say no more. However just a couple of points on your technical evaluation of the original wind tunnel, turbo-charged, fairy powered van thought bubble. Although a van has any number of useful and some plainly stupid electrical loads, the only loads during transit are the DC supply to the 3-way fridge and the auxiliary supply to the house battery. During transit the house battery is not doing much in a standard van (a bit different if it is one of the few vans with a compressor fridge, but we won't muddy the waters). Now a lot of us do not spend much time in caravan parks, so travelling from one power point to another is not an option and we have to be self sufficient for sometimes weeks. We do have solar panels, both on the roof and portable. But when leaving a location first thing in the morning the house battery will not be recharged and the solar may take a long time to recharge it depending on the day and the angles of the sun while travelling and such. But, the big thing I wanted to point out is that our standard 3 way fridge draws 12 amps when on DC. The fridge is only run from the vehicle while travelling and they are never connected to the house battery. The auxiliary charging circuit from the vehicle to top up the house battery is managed by a typical intelligent battery management system. This requires the DC supply from the vehicle to be 0.5V above the house battery voltage before it will connect to the house battery. Considering the house battery sits charged at around 13.5V and I believe the smart alternators output is limited to 13.5V the house battery will never fully charge. We don't use this system as we manage fully on the solar, but there is a technical issue if you were to rely on this system. That is why people use devices such as DC-DC converters to up the voltage from the vehicle. Anyway, just thought I would put my two pennies worth in.
Dead right! Just watch how many commentators here completely miss your point though in search of a piss-take. It’s kinda like going to the pub to see who can tell the biggest lies (with apologies to Jimmy Barnes).
Just thought I'd have 20 mins on YT whilst digesting my lunch and am so glad I did, best laugh I've had in weeks, thanks John.
Quite enjoying your caravanning series, my dad packed us up many times and took us on holiday caravan in tow. Now as an adult I don’t even put tow bars on my vehicles let alone a caravan. For not much money an air fare and a nice hotel at any destination in the county is pretty easy.
This rant was absolutely fabulous!! It reminds me of the electric car / anti petrol crowd that think you just recharge a car in the same manner as an electric toothbrush. They have no idea the power needed either at the car or the grid.
Apparently they were sleeping in science class.
Keep up the good journalism - down there. YESSSSSS!
Current tech can't be use to charge EVs, but maybe in far future we can get a wireless charging with this power
Gold John, gold. Darren I feel was the best and worthy of applause if not a prize. At least you know if you run out of material caravan owners are good for it.
Solar panels and a battery is the way to go but check to see if the panels are mechanically secured to the roof and not just sillyconed. Didn’t happen to come across two solar panels on the Pacific Hwy between Sydney and Brisbane did yah?
This one was extra entertaining, thanks John.
Peter
Rob is a true ideas man! Sure it is not a problem that needs fixing, but it is the drag issue that is the funniest part. Like Wile E Coyote pointing a fan into his own parachute. Best video yet.
I saw a guy today that was driving a motor home that was towing a Jeep..
Liam Cockcroft: Mate, it's the only way you'll see a Jeep moving on a road! 😁
To be fair have you seen the transmissions that Jeep uses? It may be the best way to use one reliably
Got a video?
Think of the Jeep like an ornament.
Well prepared to cope with the Jeep then.
Ya got to love how engaging JC is with his viewers, YESS
Many years ago, I owned a Caravan, and had no problems keeping the caravan battery charged whilst traveling because I fitted a kit to the car that provide power to the 'van only when the car battery was fully charged, When the charge fell in the car battery, the from the alternator was transferred back to the car battery, and vice versa. The power was supplied to the caravan via the tow bar plug for the lights, and caravan power connection. These kits are available off the shelf at our friendly local caravan accessory shop for about £10 to £15 here in the UK and took about 30 minutes to fit.
The 'easiest' solution is to get a portable generator and put it under the bench seat in the caravan. Due to weight I'd recommend removing the muffler and getting rid of the fuel tank - a simple funnel will do fine to fill the engine. You'd be stupid to run the engine with the doors closed so open up the windows. Use hanging gas lamps for lights to give a bit of ambience and get yourself a 4 hob induction cooker...
Agreed - and good at home in a blackout as well.
Another great video John. I re-played your comment about the caravan making the place look like a Third World Slum several times. Proper gold that mate!
As a caravanning grey nomad fisherman, I hope most of the loony comments are people taking the piss just to see what sort of reaction they get from you. If they are serious, god help us.
Well it's easier for the wise man to play the fool than the other way round! The latter is practically impossible I should've thought. Go figure.
@@garymills6702 You only have to watch parliament or global warming advocates to see the latter.
@@pyrobob208 Parliament is full of Climate Change deniers, you really have trouble keeping up, don't you?
as an rv'er( caravanner) for many years in Canada, you are right on the money. mechanical generation of energy(wind or tire driven) is absurd except using the tow vehicle alternator. in the standard 7 pin trailer connector there is one conductor meant exactly for this. it directly connects the tow vehicle battery to the trailer battery with fused large guage wire. in our ram 1500 this wire is 10ga(iirc) with a 20amp fuse. the trailer also has the same gauge wire directly to the 12V busbar near the battery. the battery is connected to the buss bar and trailer frame(ground) with 8ga wire. the 7 pin trailer connector has an equally large ground wire. as you said, a problem that doesnt exist
When asked the question about who cooks a roast in the caravan while driving followed by the who eats rice with a roast has cost me a keyboard as I spat my coffee all over it.
G’day John. The wind turbine idea is definitely a nut job!! But.....the voltage drop over the distance from the alternator to the caravan battery via a Anderson plug is sometimes enough to have less than 12v across the terminals in the caravan. Depending on the brand and type generally a gel batttery needs 14V to reach full charge capacity. The car alternator cannot provide this even with a large direct cable to the caravan. The best option for him is a DC-DC charger that is designated to maintain the full charge voltage as close to the caravan battery as possible. This will boost the voltage to the correct level and is adjustable for the type of battery installed in the caravan. Some better quality DC-DC chargers also have solar input and 240v input for when power is available. I have a young family. We have a 15 year old 7x4 simple camp trailer with a battery for lights, fridge and water pump for the shower. We haven’t set up in a caravan park with power for over 5 years so plugging in when we arrive is not an option. Our first battery lasted less than 18 months. I then installed the DC-DC charger when I got a new battery and it has extended the life of our 120aH Gel battery - 4 years old and still going strong. Properly charging batteries and designing the 12v system may cost a bit initially but will save you in the long run. Thanks for your great commentary and content and trying to MALS. Mark.
To help with the M.A.L.S. campaign john ... we may need another much larger Christmas Island...
keep up the good work you are so uplifting in this time when we need a good laugh i enjoy every one of your videos all the way from the USA
I've found I can run the perpetual motion contraption in my caravan off my stockpile of toilet paper.
I'm not an RVer, but I agree with you John. Add more batteries if you don"t think you will have enough power stored up for when you get to where you are going. I would go with the solar panels as well for when your driving to top up those batteries if needed. If you still feel that that isn't enough power generation, bring a couple extra panels that you can set up next to your camp site when you get there. If all that is still not enough power for you, then get yourself a friggen gas/diesel generator or give up camping and stay in a hotel or just stay home.
Can I save thousands off a new caravan John. Love your work mate.
Yeah, just hit him up at the caravan park... for that
"Paying more attention at school" ... Ouch but agree. Wish I had known, what I know now..?
You have nailed it, yes there are many out there like that. Having been in the caravan park game, we often wondered how the hell they even found there way to anywhere. We called it dumb ass day when they came into reception asking the most dumbest of questions, like which way the sun sets. We liked when they tried to run keeps of appliances and trip the 15 amp circuit breaker and say there was something wrong with our installation.
And then theres those like the NSW police minister for whom any amount of education would still result in failure to grasp the spanner of cognition.
Hi John,
After watching so many of your videos, I can’t believe that THIS is the first one I’m going to comment on...
Your comments about the impracticalities of running an alternator from a caravan axle had me thinking about the old school bicycle dynamo generators that used to run off the sidewall of the bike tyre. That’d be much easier to engineer than an axle driven belt.
Or there’s the elegant solution of roof mounted solar panels that produce power on the road and while camped....
The dynamo: We're talking about somewhat more electrical power in this case...
I run my caravan toaster on 3 phase John. Works a treat
"Literally nuts and unworkable" I'm saving that one for a project status update at work.
Nick McWilliams underrated comment!
To fit an alternator to a caravan.
Pop down to your local motor bike wrecker and get the rear wheel frame and engine from a scooter.
Pull the head and pistons out of the motor tap into the scooters power system and weld the frame to the back bumper of the van so it drags the wheel on the road spinning the motor.
There are of course several other steps left out of this plan as it is entirely sarcasm.
You'd also have another set of tail lights for extra safety if you mounted it at the rear!
I've been building, servicing and repairing RV's for 22 years. The ridiculous things that I've see and heard would blow your mind.
Thanks John i cracked up at this - who has Rice with a Roast!! haha.
I know - that's just fucked up. Roast lamb and rice. Roast beef and rice. Roast shit and rice...
Eurasian?
They might be boiling the rice down to make toilet paper.
@@tecnaman9097 Not 'my' asian. Possibly Uranus.
I always thought the grey nomad motto was "Adventure before Dementia", may be a legal issue with those wheel covers now I think about it.
I don't own a caravan...Yet ! but if I ever get one I am going to fit a water wheel to recharge it and stock the pool with fish
Mr Cogdogan. I'm 60 and when I grows up I when to be just like you. Cheers
Your videos are the best thing to come out of Australia since Elle Macpherson.
You are a patient man John... no wonder people get conned into add on bits for their motoring statments
Haha, a little light relief. I'm a caravanner but I get your point John, don't waste your time trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist with a prototype DIY solution you knock up in your shed and that could all end in tears.
Next time I see 'Betty and Jim, Channel 40' slowing down the highway on a Chooseday I'll remember this video and old mate beavering away in his shed knocking up a caravan axle driven alternator attached to a caravan axle that doesn't actually rotate (only the wheel hub assembly does that) to charge his caravan battery while the Christmas turkey is roasting in the battery powered oven. An interesting concept. Can I recommend rooftop solar like I'm knocking up in 'me shed' or free membership at a Men's Shed where someone can let him down gently? Regards, Big Al, Palmerston ACT
I was the one who made the comment about the wind turbine increasing fuel consumption.
I guess we made the comment because old mate who suggested the idea of mounting a turbine was probably under the impression they were getting free energy or something, when in reality it would be a worse outcome than making alternator work a fraction harder
Since I became aware of your fascinating channel, my awareness has increased in the domain, as you would say, of towed effluent containers. I see them everywhere now, I notice them. These massive caravans! Christ! They are not about in small numbers. Gigantic bloody things. Twice the size of the tow vehicle, or greater. Just a visual assessment would indicate that there are serious mass incompatibilities at work. Festooned with gear, tyres and panels. God only knows what delights are to be found within. Suffice it to say that this must represent a serious issue in the wider domain, as you would say, of road safety. There is talk of introducing mandatory licencing requirements for those who would attach large effluent containers to their small rear mounted balls. Its high time this happened.
We had a perfectly viable solution mentioned in the previous video: a small nuclear reactor. I bet it would even give him the power her needs to cook his chicken and rice and run that 1200watt heater so it all stays nice and toasty while he barrels down the highway at 100.
A Mr Fusion would rock. Or even the reactor from a Ford Nucleon.
Thanks for the laughs.
A bloke from Canada
Yup, Volts X Amps is proportional to Torque X Speed if losses due to friction, and surge losses (when certain email are received, entropy gets a jump). You mentioned something about someone else building an axle mounted warp drive. But if the thing is warped, then motion won't be circular exactly so more losses unless it also generates power from vibration. P.S. Um... I have three caravans.
That is why I only stay in Motels. But anyway I propose the installation of a large funnel mounted to the rear of the van just below the roof line so as not to create any additional drag. The outlet would lead down to a small water wheel device that would drive a bicycle dynamo. As the dynamo produces AC we would need to add a bridge rectifier and maybe some smoothing capacitors. The output could then be used to power an illuminated LED sign in the front window of the van that would display a message visible in the rear view mirror of the tow vehicle. This message would magically only appear when it rained a suitable message would be GAB TUN.
Good catch on the location of alternator. Toyota 76,79,200. V8
series suffer from this as they are located down low and fail due to water ingress etc. It’s an expensive mod to rectify
Just remove the alternator and put a couple of solar panels on the roof :-)
Guy came into work with his Bedford Bus Camper conversion. Towed a Suzuki Jeep around on an A frame so they could go shopping etc when they parked up. He called in on his way back from a 850k driving holiday. Said that he could feel something dragging or pulling back on the bus, thought it may have had a brake grabbing. After investigation we found that the motor in the Suzuki was smoking. When they hooked up the Suzuki they had left it in 3rd gear. Towed it over 200k's with speeds up to 110kph. The dragging they could feel was the motor locking up and dragging the rear wheels.
Correct on the solar panels although many people are putting as many as they can on the roof for boondocking. After all in Australia the panels are cheap so if you’re going to the trouble of installing 2, why not 6? However forget deep cycle batteries - 2 x 12V 1.2 kWh LiFePO4 drop ins can easily do the hypothetical 1200W load (only 0.5C) though you could run for a lot longer with 4. I’m not suggesting anyone should use a heater in a caravan - most would use reverse cycle air con as it’s more efficient and as you pointed out it’s a small space to cool or heat. High draw items are usually powered by an inverter @ 230V AC which gets around the whole heavy guage wire issue. LiFePO4s (which are a different chemistry to Tesla’s current batteries) are just as safe as the deep cycle lead acids. Plenty of caravans these days switching to lithium - higher cycle count, greater depth of discharge, no Peukert effect and actually much cheaper than lead acid over the lifespan of the battery. Plus you only need about 60% of the capacity of deep cycle batteries that die prematurely when discharged beyond 50%. There is only two major flaws with LiFePO4, 1 is low temperature charging. You cannot charge below 0 deg C without damaging the battery - but not much of a problem in Straya. Maybe in Tassie. You do need to build low and high temp protection into the design. And 2 they cost more up front - but that is coming down all the time.
You could wind down the jockey wheel and run a alternator of that.
can't see your tongue in cheek from where i'm looking from - i surely hope you're joking
When l was a kid l had dynamo on my push bike, this worked really well. l suggest that the chap wanting to build axle driven alternators just needs to convert 4 alternators to dynamos and then can just run against the tyres thus delivering all the free power he wants.
Yes John as a Motorcycle rider our group will not ride anywhere on mountain passes on holiday weekends as a large number of caravan jockeys think they have the right to both lanes on corners.
They tow there monsters on roads unsuitable for the length quite often a speeds to fast for there reactions as they only tow 2 or 3 times a year. So many times in my earlier years I have traveled on mountain roads and at a large bend found a Toorak Tractor and it's 30 + ft extension 3 quarters across in my lane. Gotta Love them Caravaners. Our Motto stay away Stay alive
Have encountered the same situation myself whilst riding from Strachan to Queenstown in Tassie.
One more big problem with attaching an alternator to a caravan's wheel - one wheel will be constantly braked by the load, which will make the caravan directionally unstable and pull to the side constantly. Unless of course you feel like installing a differential as well.
If you fit an alternator in the van you would need some way to drive the field coil when the van was moving and turn it off when it was stationary unless you have huge reserves of battery power to run the field coil all of the time. You'd also need a regulator in there. Maybe a solar charge controller could be used as a regulator and give the battery the best charge. Simplest and cheapest solution DC to DC charger running off the car. Then if you need off grid capabilities add solar.
Brother, if it aint broken dont fix it. Listen to the man.He seems to have a point or two rite. Especially about the solar panels face it they will look better and perform even better . No possiblity of catastrophic failure there. Bonus yes....
I would think that Rob Benge’s issue with charging his caravan battery via the car alternator would be more to do with voltage drop (i.e. the voltage level at the caravan battery terminals is too low). The low voltage is generally due to power loss in the circuit from the alternator to the caravan battery. In the cheaper caravan setups the caravan battery is charged by the car via a blocking diode (0.7V drop) and this circuit is generally shared with the 3 way fridge which when in 12 dc mode can draw between 10 to 15A. Without adequately sized cables the voltage drop can be quite large. Instead of installing larger cable one could fit a dc to dc charger. The dc to dc charger will boost the voltage to a more suitable level to charge the caravan battery to 100%.
Happily and appropriately totally lovin your videos. Fantastic scientific , physics, applied intelligence. Luv it all.
Stan Zemanek has reincarnated as a geek with distracting hats. Yeheeeess
I worked until fairly recently for a company that made large props for film and TV. For example we made loads of stuff for the London Olympics in 2012, and a full size train for Paddington 2 (do Strayans know Paddington? Dunno). I thought your comments regarding prototypes being prone to failure were just perfect. Everything we made was a prototype. Did they fail? Yes, frequently, and only the fact that we (engineers!) were right there on site to fix the failures made it any kind of viable proposition in any way. We tried to explain this issue to our clients of course, but it's a little counter productive. Eventually we just said everything would be just fine... knowing full well it wouldn't!
Absolute GOLD
...for STRAYA!
Rooftop solar + charge controller + fuses & breakers * heavy DC cables into House Storage batteries // use grommets where wires go through sharp metal, use silicon bath caulk to water tight the connectors & grommet areas / use cable retainers to keep wire bending to a minimum. Use security screws on your solar panels. Put a small fairing on the front edge of the panel & bracket to help wind skip over it without much turbulence. Use 200w solar for 100ah 12v battery capacity or more solar if you want rapid recharge or more capacity. Up where I live near Seattle you need 300-400w solar per 100AH of SLA 12v // I like C/FR sealed AGM batteries if they are going to be used in the vehicle where people are breathing //
Having seen caravan owners on the road I believe that yes, it is all of them, not just the commenters
Caravaners seem like very interesting people. At least some of them. I didn't think so after just trying to overtake them on the road. So I am prepared to exchange 3 sheets of toilet paper (not used, mint condition) for a caravan at least 10 meters long, must have at least a wind turbine and a Jeep attached to it. Limited offer.
Who wants to run a heater off batteries just get a diesel heater it is much better an easier to run and cheap to run also
So my following comment is not a suggestion but an observation. I have seen a guy swap out his axle on his campervan for a diff from a Hilux or similar and mounted a pulley to the input shaft (where the driveshaft attaches usually). He then mounted an alternator next to that and ran a v belt between them. Mind you this was long before solar panels were actually a viable option.
having towed and lived in a van I am smart enough to agree with you john. I would prefer to watch someone who knows what their doing do all the fixing!!. you are funny as lol
Solar on the roof of the van is the best idea for sure. Still if someone really wanted a wheel driven generator then a simple hub electric motor will do the same thing when using it as a generator. Still not worth the hassles plus will still cause the tow vehicle to use more fuel.
How much electricity do people need in a caravan? When it's hooked up to the car, the only electrical equipment turned on is the fridge, and that runs at a level designed to maintain the temperature, so you need to get it cold before you set off, that's what mains is for. On site, run the fridge on gas or mains if available. The only other electrical items we use are lights, water pump and recharging phones. The solar panel keeps the battery topped up nicely, even in the full glorious sun of a British summer.
I can just imagine his alternator breaking free and smacking someone to the head as it comes bouncing out from under his caravan and thru the windscreen of their car
ROFLMFAO! I can picture it now! Good material for a cartoon actually ...
Followed by the windgenerator
Yep that about covers it.
Thanks for the enlightenment.
Regards Tony
In the USA we have all kinds of RVers. Mostly they are a practical and resouceful lot with generally realistic expectations. Really, the only limiting factor for installing solar is the area of the roof. With flexible, stick-on panels becoming more popular and available it is possible to stick them litterally everywhere you have space. Why you would need this much solar input is beyond me. I believe in diversfying my electical sources: from shore power (mains), to solar, to portable gas generator, to vehicle charging system. On those cold raniny days boondocking you can always run the gas generator and charge up those fine lithium batteries.
Forget about caravans. I want an RV like on "Anchor Man II" so I can deep-fry on the move and put the whole rig on autopilot because it's got cruise control.
I want a five-star hotel room jam-packed with high-class 'assistants'. (Cheaper, too.)
@@AutoExpertJC At 24L/100 km you might be right.
Interestingly, large commercial aircraft have something called a ram air turbine (RAT), which is a little auxiliary propeller wind turbine that is deployed into the airstream in emergency situations when the primary and auxiliary power fails.
“Do be using the thick wire”😂 fn spat me coke
Blew the coke out me nose...
ZedTee77
Better than doing it with coffee😬 that shit hurts😂
An appropriately sized DC-DC charger wired with an adequate spec'd cable powered by the tow vehicle would be my solution. If you also added a solar panel on the caravan you'd have recharging power for days (and nights with the tow vehicle running/driving).
Gold!! Keep up the great work John👍
Maybe investigate a roof mounted ram jet system directing exhaust into a vortex driven high output alternator which feeds generated output into molten salt batteries. That system can't be too difficult to engineer in the back shed....👍👍🇭🇲
Roof mounted Roger Ramjet could work...
Here is a better idea. Install the solar panels. Then add electric motors driving the caravan wheels. That would reduce fuel consumption and the resultant savings would easily pay for a roast dinner in a restaurant on arrival. If you could stop that is.
This is pure gold......