A little electrical work today.

Well, I came across a couple power inverters and figured that I'd install one in the Cub. No real need for one but, what the hay? I've got one and nothing else to do with it so, in it goes.

We have four 110 outlets and one 110 lamp. Three 12 volt lamps that light things up as well as the 110 does.  A couple storage compartment 12 volters plus, two 12 volt power port outlets, so you can see we are cover for all of our needs. The TV and DVD player are both 110 and battery powered so no need there either. Plus, we have a small generator that takes up the slack when we have no shore power. But again, I have it so in it goes!!!

Now, I am a professional auto electrician and this is an easy install for me.. Well, guess what? For some stupid reason I did not do what I have taught all of my students for so many years... That being, "Look at every connection before making the final connection."

Well, I got this thing all in and it was as clean an installation as I could do. BUT... when I started to connect it all I reversed the polarity and, well, shall we say, made a mess of the innards of the one inverter that I wanted in the trailer. Anyway, it was fortunate that the damage was minor. It had blown 2 fuses and no other damage had occurred. So, take it apart and unsolder the old fuses, apologize to them for shortening their lives and install two new ones. This thing also has and external fuse at the battery connection but did not blow before the ones inside. It is well protected!!!

After reinstalling the inverter we tried a 110 volt fan and the TV. It worked perfectly. If you have one, why not install it? If you have as extensive an electrical system as we do it is not needed but sure is nice knowing it is there if, and when, you might just have a use for it.
 
Once it was in everything worked well and I can power up to 400 watts continuous if needed. Nothing great but 400 watts should suffice.

 Below are some photos of it installed as well as a few other electrical items on interest.





Here you see the inverter just inside the closet that doubles as the electrical center. The inverter is to the right. That item on the left is the charger for the Optima batteries. They take a special type of charger and this one was reasonably priced and does a wonderful job. To the left of the charger is the 12 volt fuse panel. 

Here are the batteries in their boxes. Being fiber mat batteries they do not gas so are safe inside the trailer. If you have the regular liquid batteries this is NOT the place to be installing them. The previous owner had put their batteries here too and they were liquid batteries. Not a good idea but they were lucky and never had any troubles.

Here's a little something that I installed last year. It is a stereo, CD and MP3 player. It has been installed right inside the door and can be reached from outside if we want to change whatever it is we are listening to. I also installed it in an end panel that can be removed so as to restore the trailer to original if ever wanted. We will put on a CD with over 200 songs on it, recorded in MP3 format, and listen to one CD all week-end long. Another passion of ours is old time radio shows. We can listen to old radio shows like "The Shadow", "Fibber McGee and Molly", "Yours Truly Johnny Dollar" and "Gunsmoke" to name but a few. These shows generally last about half an hour and are so much more fun that watch TV. The CD's generally hold over 100 shows. We can even connect extension speakers if we want to take the sound outside.No power amps or boom boxes here. just some nice clean entertainment when wanted.