Minivan Camper Chapter 3: 35,000 mile update

hey thanks for checking back in this is the third and final build video on this o4 Honda Odyssey that I'm making if you haven't seen the first two I'll leave links to those two at the end of the video and in the written description the reason I say It's the final one is because I love this fan just the way it is there's really nothing I would have done dramatically differently if I had the whole thing to do over again there are only two aspects of the van that I wish were different but they will never change and that is that I can't stand up and that I can't take it down a four-wheel drive Road in this video I want to describe just a few final modifications that I've made and a few things to make it a little more convenient when I travel so I showed in my first two build videos how the inside of the van is laid out for really easy cooking right from the couch I can reach everything in the cooler the dry goods the garbage the sink the table everything so that works very well however cooking and cleaning up sitting down it's a little cramped and it's nice to be able to stand up so when the weather's nice and the bugs aren't too bad I like to cook outside and I added something so that I can make that possible I took a piece of scrap board and some aluminum bar that I had sitting around my garage and I made an extension counter for the sink cabinet so that I could have more workspace at a standing height and then I also added a insert for this sink to make this usable workspace as well so that all works great and right now I have probably have at least five square feet of usable counter space and that's super convenient now while I'm over here I got to get in just another plug for my faucet and sink system because I love this thing and here are a few reasons why the first thing I like about this faucet design is that it's tall so that means I can get tall things under it I fill my water pitcher probably a couple of times a day and it's so easy to just slide it under and fill it up the other thing about the sink that I really appreciate is that the faucet slides out of the way so now when I'm cooking and I'm using this as functional space I don't constantly bump this thing when I'm moving around and then finally the last thing I really appreciate is that the pump and the faucet design allow a variable water flow the pump at full bore goes at about one and a half liters per minute I think but I don't need that much flow all the time so it's really useful to be able to turn the water flow down when I just need a tiny amount of water when I'm brushing my teeth or washing my hands I don't want it at full bore because that just wastes water so I really like the fact that I can attenuate the water flow to minimize my water use so therefore I don't have to fill it as often while I have the door open I want to show you what I have on top and talk a little bit about power this is a 100 watt Renegy panel and I have it mounted to the Thule rack with simple Z brackets and this is wired into the van through the back door one nice thing about this back door is that it does not crush the cable when the door is shut I've made a small probably half centimeter slit in the insulation to run the wire inside and I verified that even in powerful rainstorms there's absolutely no leakage through this gasket and then this cable comes in through this hole here and it connects to uh 60 amp hour Eco flow power station I can also charge the battery through 12 volts alternator Outlet right there so between these two I can either charge while driving or charge through the solar panel so one question you might have is whether or not a 60 amp hour battery plus 100 watt panel plus optionally alternator charging is that enough power and the answer of course is it depends depends on how much driving I'll do depends on how sunny things are and depends how much I have plugged into the battery so in my case the only thing I have regularly plugged into the battery is the refrigerator and that runs at about 25 watts on a Time average basis I don't use it at night because I don't like mechanical sounds when I'm sleeping and that only raises the temperature in the fridge about 10 or 15 degrees by morning so that that works well and it saves a lot of power so using my system in that configuration I can get about two or three days even if I'm not doing any driving and even if it's cloudy or rainy so I haven't come too close to running out of power yet but it might happen and My Philosophy is pretty flexible if the situation arises where I'm running out of power I change my plan and just roll with it so for now I don't have any plans to upgrade it I think what I have is enough when you're out camping it might seem that showering and hair washing is a little less critical than when you're at home but after a couple days you start thinking about it so the first part of my shower setup consists of a submersible water pump which is powered by USB it has a several foot long hose and a spray handle my trusty five gallon bucket another one and a half gallon waste basket and one and a half gallons of water so I actually like to separate hair washing and showering into two stages the reason is because hair washing requires no privacy it doesn't require hot water and for many people including me it doesn't really have to be done as often the other reason I like to separate it into two stages is because for me shampooing takes more soap than body washing and I like to collect that water in a bucket and dump it into my gray water tank or I can dispose of it safely I don't want to just dump that kind of water on the ground I don't think that's really responsible and in many places it's not permitted so I'm going to take this one and a half gallons dump it in the little bucket drop in the pump so when I when I turn this switch on I get a nice I get a nice soft flow all right let's go for it [Applause] ah so that was incredibly easy I just did a perfectly comfortable and satisfactory hair wash with about two or three quarts of water now if you have more hair it's going to take longer take more water and but the idea is the same it's so easy and you can do it anywhere just sitting at the edge of the van all right so the next step takes a slightly greater leap of faith and one extra piece of equipment and voila instant privacy tent here's a quick tour of the privacy tent it's just big enough for one person although two could fit in here it's got a strap to hold your towel and a little net bag to hold your glasses and stuff so I confess I added one little step onto this I boiled up a pot of hot water and threw it in the bucket so this is actually not a cold shower it's like a lukewarm shower all right that was an awesome three gallon shower I even have a little water left over that was actually the first time I've done that I've set that system up at home just to make sure everything worked but that was the first time for Full Monty and you know it was uh it was strangely exhilarating not in some weird way but there's a lot going on in those two minutes yeah you're on the clock for the water you got about two minutes to get the whole job done for those two minutes you're distinctly vulnerable you start not to worry about that as the pressure of the water emptying builds but uh it's it's something to think about it's a new experience kind of fun so tonight I'm making a vegetable boosted pasta sauce it's something I like to make at home and here are a few highlights that was a great dinner it's one of my easy Road favorites but the sunset quite a while ago so it's time to transform this space into a bedroom so I wanted to give you a live demonstration of how long it takes how difficult it is and exactly what I do to get ready for bed uh but before that I want to spin back just a few hours to some videoing I did to describe the change that I made to the bed frame and give a couple of details about the floor I've gone ahead and removed the cushions from the couch so I can illustrate this point a little more clearly and the modification that I made if you remember from my last video there were four legs underneath this front panel two in the front and two in the back to support the front panel when it's extended into bed mode but it was a little hard for me to get to the one in the corner so now there are only three so now when I pull the front panel out there are only three legs and the reason I took out that fourth leg in the far corner is because it was a little hard to get to especially when I was converting from the bed mode back to the couch mode I had to reach around and push the little release button to release the leg so what I did was I replaced that leg with a bracket this bracket is attached to the leg and the front part of the frame and it provides support for the front panel back here when this panel is pulled forward into bed mode and therefore I've been able to eliminate the leg in this rear corner one of the questions that I got asked quite a lot in the comments after my second build video is how I made the floor and how it's attached to the van and to the other parts so the floor is essentially a piece of three quarter inch plywood cut to The Peculiar shape of this this van on top of that our interlocking vinyl plank flooring sections and you can get this at Home Depot or Lowe's and it's completely waterproof really easy to keep clean and then these are bound together by aluminum corner pieces which are typically used for vinyl floor installation and Carpeting and that's simply nailed through the top to secure these two pieces together now when I nailed it through the top I did use round cap nails so that I wouldn't catch the edge of the nail in my socks or my bare feet or anything like this this has worked extremely well and if I had it to do over I would do it exactly the same way the other question I got was how's the floor attached to everything else the floor is not directly bolted into the van floor it's bolted to the bed frame in two places and then the bed frame is bolted to a 2x4 which connects the rear seat anchors in the back of the van and I I showed that in the first build video and then the floors also bolted to all the other parts the floor is bolted to the bed frame it's bolted to the sink cabinet and it's bolted to the shelf unit and then the shelf unit and the sink cabinet are bolted to each other everything acts as a single piece so nothing can wiggle with respect to each other and I'll tell you after two and a half years and 35 000 miles nothing moves nothing all right back to the task at hand convert this couch into a bed make it up and turn the lights out so the way I use this is after I pull it out I put a fitted twin size bottom sheet on top of the mattress and then I use a sleeping bag as a quilt unzipped on top and the kind of sleeping bag I use is a mummy style sleeping bag and the reason I use that is a mommy style sleeping bag has a foot pocket at the bottom that always stays in place because the zipper is only three-quarter and the nice thing about that is even when you unzip the thing and spread the whole sleeping bag over you the foot pocket remains in place and I like that because I like to put my feet in the foot pocket all night long because I don't like it when my feet unexpectedly poke out from underneath the blanket they get called and then I wake up so that works really well for me and also the other benefit of using a mummy style sleeping bag is that they're really thermally efficient if it does get cold I can get inside the bag zip it up completely pull the drawstring hood and I'm still toasty warm at about 20 degrees now I haven't actually had to camp in the van in that cold condition but I've been down to about 30 degrees and I'm still completely warm and I could easily go another 10 degrees so it works out really well all right let's see how long this takes to make up the bed [Music] good night see you tomorrow that's it for today so until next time maybe I'll see you down the road foreign

Channel: Travels with Rob

Views: 29,410

Keywords:

Id: pid83AxMG4A

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 18 2023