Kepler's Status Page

Today I bought a block of wood from a random stranger. It’s stained acacia butcher block that was used as a computer desk. There are some blemishes and dents but most of it should be either cut out or fixed with a good sanding. I plan to restain and refinish it after so hopefully this wasn’t a complete waste. The aluminum framing is almost done, just some final touches to the kitchen countertop. Apparently the order in which to attach everything really matters, but unfortunately I’ll have to redo everything again later to add loctite to each of the screws.

Here’s a sneak peak of the overall layout. The overhead cabinets are complete and so is part of the kitchen galley. This took quite a bit of time to get everything squared and making sure I cut each aluminum piece to the right size without having too many leftover small pieces. So far Kep’s looking good.

The extruded aluminum is quite easy to work with, especially with the proper tools to cut the pieces and fasten the screws. I mostly used corner brackets with screws and slide in T-nuts. I’ve found it easier to connect the pieces together first and then slide them in to the slot.

These end fasteners are the bane of my existence. They require a drill press to drill a hole through one piece and the screw goes into the center of the other piece. You then use the hole that you drilled to tighten the screw, like so. It’s nice when you don’t want the brackets showing but can be difficult to get lined up or remove. It also requires a permanent hole so best to use in a location that will be covered up.

Lately I’ve been trying to figure out the framing, how to work with extruded aluminum, and taking measurements for the overall layout. Adding the furring strips should allow me to also build the wall space cabinets and decide where to install the AC/DC panels. Then I can finish wiring all the energy consuming components. Hopefully I’ll be done just in time to power on the fan for the summer. Also, the alternator charging does work, I just had the settings wrong.

Kep has power! All the parts (mostly) have been tested and the batteries are able to charge via the sun. It took two hours to charge 10% with full afternoon sun. It doesn’t seem like the alternator will charge the batteries when idle so I’ll need to take Kep for a ride some other day.

Kep is fully wired. Fire extinguisher has been acquired. A potential fire may occur tomorrow. This will eventually be property of Kep.

You may notice the end result looks very different from the plan and that is because I did not anticipate how difficult it is to bend wires. I had to make some adjustments but it all worked out. I also found a (hopefully) good spot to ground the whole system. Honestly, this was the hardest part.

I decided to try out this foam filler to cover up the gaps between the subfloors and the walls. It puffs up and you trim it afterwards and it looks like it helps.

Here’s an idea for the planned out wiring. I also decided to cut a [black] hole (bottom right) for feeding the wires to the designated locations. This way everything will be hidden on the garage side.

So Kep’s got a dual alternator, which comes with a second consumer connection point (CCP). These wires have been connected to the van’s 175A CCP and the negative terminal of the battery that is under the driver’s seat. The most time consuming part was figuring out how to put back the plastic trims…

Newly wired batteries! Originally all the positives and negatives were wired to their own terminal on the bus bar but I think this saves space and weight. To wire them in parallel, you can connect all of the positive terminals and all of the negative terminals to each other. I cut the existing 2/0 AWG cables to the same length and wired them in this pattern. This is apparently a method to balance the current draw through all of the batteries.

Waiting on some parts and doing some more pondering… Meanwhile, I’ve honed my straight line wood cutting skills with this deck that will go on top of Kep. I was able to make it larger than I expected, hence the half cut pieces on the side. I used cedar wood but it also seems to be a softer wood so maybe it won’t last very long, but that’s honstly okay.

So there are these annoying foam trims that have wires coming from them and hide the side airbag. Some people remove these completely and some people just cover it with cloth. So again, here’s me doing something in between. I ended up cutting the block so I have room to build the shower without the useless foam taking up space.

I also ended up removing the wires from the batteries (because I wanted to wire them differently) and planned out some of the electrical.

The solar panels were originally wired in parallel but from what I’ve read, series is more common as it performs better in low light conditions and provides higher voltage for charging. Makes sense but there are other tradeoffs I had to make. I chose to wire them in hybrid where two panels are connected in series and two of them are in parallel. This gives me a better balance between higher voltage and lower current for a less expensive MPPT controller. It was super cloudy when I did this but the reading when I finished was 3.5A and 46V. Low on the amperage but the voltage is expected. I’ll blame the clouds.

Here is what Kepler looked like when he arrived before the transformation. A lot of work was already done so the first step was to figure out what to keep and what to change. Ultimately, the subfloor, insulation, and sound proofing is complete and as you can see some electrical components already exist. The electrical work will be rewired mostly for my own knowledge and because I wasn’t satisfied with the decisions made.