My first bus. A tiny house on wheels...

audioscience10 · 09-30-2015, 07:10 AM

Hi all.
My name is Nic and I'm from Grand Blanc, MI. I have recently acquired my first bus. It is a 1988 Ford/Carpenter with 133k on the clock. She is equipped with a 370, 5 speed trans, and 2 speed rear. I picked it up on Thursday of last week and couldn't help myself I had to start tinkering.

First thing was to yank all the seats.

I also removed all of the lower wall skin but didn't take a picture.
Currently I am waiting on the an order of steel for the roof raise. The plan is to have the roof raise and the side reskinned before the snow starts flying so that I can still work on it over winter.

**Janet H** · 09-30-2015, 01:09 PM

Cool beans! Welcome to the forum

bansil · 09-30-2015, 01:20 PM

Welcome and it looks like a ton of room...until you start figuring out how to fit everything in it

...then you want a bigger one

The Nebuchadnezzar · 09-30-2015, 01:41 PM

Welcome and enjoy the ride

charles_m · 09-30-2015, 06:54 PM

Awesome stuff! Are you a sound engineer?

audioscience10 · 10-01-2015, 06:18 AM

Thank you all for making me feel welcome.

Quote:

Originally Posted by charles_m

Awesome stuff! Are you a sound engineer?

No Charles. Actually the story behind the name is, Audio is my dogs name. It started as a joke because some celebrity named her son Audio Science, and it just stuck.

EastCoastCB · 10-01-2015, 07:01 AM

Nice to have you here.
So what are your plans, what's your course of action here?

audioscience10 · 10-01-2015, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

Nice to have you here.
So what are your plans, what's your course of action here?

Well first thing is first I am going to tackle raising the roof 2.5 feet. Beyond that I will be using the old seat rails as my platform base. That will give me an 11" cavity below the floor where all the stuff that goes into making the bus function and need climate control, such as the water tanks. I have also decided that I want to use 12v as much as possible because when I collect solar that's how it will be stored and invertors are only 70% efficient. I also am leaning toward an incinerating toilet for the ease of maintenance for being offgrid for extended periods of time.
I don't have all of the details worked out yet, I'm more of a tackle thing as I get to them rather than planning too far ahead. But I will keep this updated as I go. This is all a bit new to me but I have done my share of building houses and more than my share of building cars. So I feel I have lots of skills that will assist me in this endeavor.

And just because I like to share here is a pic of my car that I am wrapping up right now.

It is one of those it has way too much work that no one will ever see...

EastCoastCB · 10-01-2015, 08:05 AM

I agree. I don't plan things out too far ahead either.
You gonna leave the interior paneling or is it coming out?

Sweet Bimmer, too.

dond · 10-01-2015, 08:20 AM

Lookin' good!

The Xantrex Prowatt series invertors are 90% efficient.

audioscience10 · 10-01-2015, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

I agree. I don't plan things out too far ahead either.
You gonna leave the interior paneling or is it coming out?

Sweet Bimmer, too.

Thanks. The lower paneling has been removed and will be replaced with something different when I get the that point. I'm thinking about keeping the ceiling panels, but it will all come out at some point to replace all the insulation with spray foam.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dond

Lookin' good!

The Xantrex Prowatt series invertors are 90% efficient.

Thanks. I will for sure look into those. I will still run as much as I can off 12v in effort to be as efficient as possible overall.

charles_m · 10-01-2015, 01:06 PM

Bimmer lovers and skoolie lovers are alright by me. I like your design goals. I tried my best to keep things simple, too. The 11" basement you describe is an interesting idea. That sure will be a LOT of room to fill! do you think it will all be filled with tanks, etc, or will some be storage? I think a composting toilet is much simpler than an incinerating one, though Ive only used a composting unit. I can **** in it for 3-4 weeks easily before i need to empty it, which is really not a terrible process at all. Good luck!

audioscience10 · 10-01-2015, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by charles_m

Bimmer lovers and skoolie lovers are alright by me. I like your design goals. I tried my best to keep things simple, too. The 11" basement you describe is an interesting idea. That sure will be a LOT of room to fill! do you think it will all be filled with tanks, etc, or will some be storage? I think a composting toilet is much simpler than an incinerating one, though Ive only used a composting unit. I can **** in it for 3-4 weeks easily before i need to empty it, which is really not a terrible process at all. Good luck!

I think I will definitely have all my wiring and plumbing in the basement as well. There should be room for storage though too since I am skipping the waste tank. Also one I am contemplating not having a dedicated bedroom and putting the bed under the floor in the living room.

nat_ster · 10-01-2015, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dond

Lookin' good!

The Xantrex Prowatt series invertors are 90% efficient.

To my understanding, this is only true with higher voltage battery banks.

The higher the batter bank voltage, the more efficient the inverter becomes.

That's part of why people run 48 volts and higher. Almost no one living off grid uses 12 volt battery banks.

I intend to run as high a voltage as I can. I think the inverter I want will use 96 volts.

Nat

audioscience10 · 10-01-2015, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nat_ster

To my understanding, this is only true with higher voltage battery banks.

The higher the batter bank voltage, the more efficient the inverter becomes.

That's part of why people run 48 volts and higher. Almost no one living off grid uses 12 volt battery banks.

I intend to run as high a voltage as I can. I think the inverter I want will use 96 volts.

Nat

Off grid power is one area I need to do a lot more research on. I was thinking that running a lot of stuff like lights and what not off of straight DC rather than converting to AC because of wasted power in the conversion.

charles_m · 10-01-2015, 02:26 PM

Nat's right as there is a lot to gain from running higher battery voltages, but then you will need step-down converters to run your 12v stuff which will make things more complicated and they arent 100% efficient, either. Its a balance. I run a 24v bank, and dont give up any electrical comforts with my setup but if your needs were small enough, and didnt plan on putting in or taking out large amounts of energy quickly, you could make it work at 12v and keep the system small and cheap.

audioscience10 · 10-12-2015, 08:15 AM

Well, I've been working away at this thing prepping for the roof raise. I have a map in mind of just how I'm going to accomplish it. So since it's suppose to be nice here for the next couple weeks with no rain I figured it was a good time to get started on pulling out the stuff that makes it weather tight. So all the windows and the rear door have been removed. Preliminarily the cutting will happen tomorrow.

nat_ster · 10-12-2015, 09:11 AM

Looking forward to the raise.

Nat

2kool4skool · 10-12-2015, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nat_ster

To my understanding, this is only true with higher voltage battery banks.

The higher the batter bank voltage, the more efficient the inverter becomes.

That's part of why people run 48 volts and higher. Almost no one living off grid uses 12 volt battery banks.

I intend to run as high a voltage as I can. I think the inverter I want will use 96 volts.

Nat

http://www.xantrex.com/documents/Pow..._1000_2000.pdf

CaptainInsaneo · 10-12-2015, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by charles_m

Nat's right as there is a lot to gain from running higher battery voltages, but then you will need step-down converters to run your 12v stuff which will make things more complicated and they arent 100% efficient, either. Its a balance.

You could just run leads to just 12v of you system as long as you are running low draw things (LEDs and the circuit board of the fridge) I don't see how it would tax those cells too much. Or as long as yo stayed below 36v on your bank you could just get a 600w DC/DC step up/down and have a 600w 12v system they are about 92-95% efficient.

Think of changing current like changing money the closer they are to each other the easier it is Canadian$ to US$ but when they start to get much different Mongolian Tugrik to US$ it starts to get interesting. It is also easier to step down than step up everyone wants US$ not as many people want CA$ and fewer want Mongolian Tugriks.

If you already have gobs of 12v devices it wouldn't be a dumb idea to runs 12v bank if not higher voltage banks are easier to get 110v out of less hoop jumping to get the all desirable amps out of because that is what we are really after.

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