Batteries, Bathrooms & Birthdays: XRV Lance Update 23 Feb 2025
I always liked the John Lennon line from his Beautiful Boy song in 1980 that “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans” and that’s a good summary since my last update here. It has been a very busy and fun six weeks with no shortage of projects, trips and milestones but not so much time for updates so thanks for your patience. 
Two birthdays in January, one for me on the 23rd and daughter Lia on the 14th. So we decided to make the relatively quick drive, less than 4 hours, over to the LA area to surprise Lia on her milestone Four Oh!birthday by delivering some some B’day flowers, champagne and hugs in person. As a bonus we went back for a week to see Brynn’s Talent Show at her school and then got to be full time Gramma and Grampa for the weekend while Brian & Lia had a fully unsupervised weekend away for Valentine’s Day. 
We continue to work away at getting things setup here on “Road Runner Ranch” and this arial shot from Christine’s drone video that you might have seen in the previous post, shows how we are setup so far. 
The 40’ shipping container above on the left is what I’m setting up for my workshop with Lance parked right beside. 
The matching container on the Right is what we’re using for storage and is close to our 25’ travel trailer that continues to provide a very comfy home for us and the two pups for now.
We recently got a good deal what they refer to as a “garage fridge” so we’ve now got that set up inside this container to expand the fridge and freezer space that is built into the trailer and keeps us well stocked in food supplies. 
This panorama shot (click to enlarge any photo) will help you get a sense of the setting we’ve got for our little sanctuary here and might help some of you make a bit more sense of why this is such a Goldilocks location for us.
Best news for me and many of you who I know have been waiting, is that I’m back to working on converting “Lance” our 2017 Kenworth ex medium duty ambulance into our eXploration RV. I’ve picked up where I left off building all the cabinetry framing using lengths of eXtruded ALuminium which I’ll abbreviate as XAL. 
Looking forward from about mid way inside Lance’s “Happitat” the blank wall on the left is the front wall with the cab on the other side and the main entry door that is on the passenger side PS in the right corner. I’ve put in a scrap of 3/4”/20mm plywood to create a desk for myself on what will eventually become one of the two galley countertops with a larger one yet to be framed on the opposite left or driver side DS.
The XAL you see on the ceiling is where the forward side of the lifting Queen bed will go with a large L shaped settee below. 
Here is a sample of a length of the XAL with several different corner brackets that bolt into the T track grooves in the XAL which turn this into a giant adult version of the Erector sets I used to love playing with as a young boy, long before many of you were born! 
I’m working my way somewhat counter clockwise around the Happitat walls so my next focus was the XAL framing you see now in the front right PS corner. The Blue poles you see ratcheting cargo support bars that have proved indispensable to me for holding things in place as I build. 
This full height cabinet will have our fridge/freezer mounted inside the large opening you see here with lots of storage in the spaces above and below.
Shower will be in the middle on the left here and the head/toile over in the far left DS corner that I’ll move onto next. 
This front DS front corner is a bit more complex as the large vertical exterior access cabinet is also in this corner and it is where I’ll be installing Lance’s whole electrical system with three large lithium batteries on the very bottom and then all the other components such as 12VDC to 120/240VAC inverters, battery chargers, and much more mounted this exterior locker.
Here on the inside is where I now need to finish the XAL framework above the battery frames I’ve built to support the three big batteries. 
This will give you a sense of the size and shape of the server rack style lithium LiFePO4 batteries that will provide all the 12VDC and 120/240VAC electrical power in Lance. 
For those interested in the details, this shot the label on one of the three batteries will give you all the numbers.
While 45Kg/90 lbs might sound like a lot when you consider that each one of these provides 5120 WattHours (400Ah @ 12.8VDC) the power density is pretty amazing. Having three of these connected in parallel will provide a total of 15.36Kwh (1200Ah @ 12.8VDC) which will will be more than enough to give us all the power we need for our all electric cooking appliances such as induction cooktop, coffee makers, toaster oven, microwave as well as powering our mini split Air Conditioner. 
As with all of this build, I had created very accurate 3D models using Fusion 360 of all the XAL framing and each of the components such as this Joolca separating toilet and the EG4 batteries and these have served me very well throughout the build.
I knew that the batteries were going to be a very close fit and I had built the framing for them back when we were in Klamath falls but now was the moment of truth to see if they actually fit?!! 
The “ears” of the server rack batteries were a few millimeters wider than the opening of the door frame so it took a bit of wiggling them in at an angle and some gentle persuasion, ……..
……. but they fit in snug as a bug in a rug as you can see here and put a big grin on my face.
These server rack style of battery are very safe and easy to work with as they have both an On/Off switch (silver circle upper right) that turns the BMS (Battery Management System) on/off as well as the high amp double pole high amp circuit breaker (White/Blue on bottom left) so I could keep bot of those turned Off and ensure that there was never any danger of a short to the terminals while I was wrestling them in place. 
Locating the batteries in this front DS location was ideal as it kept the weight down low, centered and on the opposite side from the fuel tank and also enables me to keep all the electrical system components in this one externally accessible locker.
However it did require me to raise the floor and design around them on the inside as you can see here. 
After playing around with the 3D model for some time, I ended up making this raised area inside be just the right height for the floor under the Joolca Gotta Go separating toilet. 
With the shower area in the center area the whole bathroom space becomes feels very large and open both when using it as a shower and when seated on the throne. I had my Beautiful Bride check it all out in person this morning and got the two thumbs up so the framing progress can now continue. 
I also checked in with these two scallywags, Razz on the left, Zoe on the right, and got their approval as well so I’m all systems GO now.
So I will continue to work my way around the DS corner as I move onto framing out the Galley/Kitchen area that runs down the rest of the Drivers Side and you’ll see that in the next update. 
We continue to get sunsets like this almost every evening and sunrises are pretty spectacular as well so we continue to enjoy our new location a bit more each day.
That’s a wrap for this update and I’ll do my best to post the next one much sooner and try to get back to doing one every Sunday as long as “life” doesn’t interfere!
Hope you enjoyed the update and thanks to all who persevered to this point. Be sure to add all your questions and comments in the “Join the discussion” box below and hope you’ll be back for more in the next update.
Recent Comments