I appreciate your patience as I continue to try to catch up with posting updates here on my progress with the transformation of Lance from his start as a 2016 Kenworth T270 Medium Duty ambulance from a fire department in Wisconsin to an eXtreme RV or XRV for us to continue our explorations via our Land Yacht. I’ve got a few more updates to do but I just about have you up to date on all the various projects within Lance and this one will take you through the completion of the Head & Shower area inside Lance’s Hab/Habitat/Happytat ambo box.
Last month, May 2026, while I was still at our place down in the very southern tip of Nevada which we call “Road Runner Ranch”, I was able to finish building out the Head and Shower area in Lance.
* FYI, Christine and I are still sailors at heart so the Bathroom will always be the Head and the Kitchen will always be the Galley for us.
I drove Lance up to our place on Saturna Island mid May and am now working up here at finishing off the interior while we are up here through end of August.
Here is what I was able to get done before that drive;
To help with your orientation, this screen shot from my Fusion 360 3D model shows where the Head & Shower are located in the front DS Driver Side of Lance’s Hab/Habitat/Box which is on the far Right of this view. The Settee & table are at the opposite back end on the far Left with the Galley counters spanning both sides in the middle.
Note: You can click on any photo to enlarge it.
Here is what it looked like IRL (In Real Life) from the inside when I got started. That’s the SS Fridge/Freezer on the far Right, Blue DS Galley countertop peeking through on the Left and that’s the DS Front corner of the Hab in the far middle of this photo. The toilet will sit on top of the raised floor section and I’m getting ready to put in the the shower pan on the lower section of the floor that the blue cargo spreaders are resting on.
The framed in area above the Head will be a storage cupboard on the larger Right side portion and then the smaller space created on the Left will be a service area for plumbing and electrical which I’ll cover later on in this post. I started prepping the interior by gluing 1/2” Baltic Birch plywood on the XAL eXtruded Aluminium framing of the two walls you see here on the Left and Rear. I use these adjustable Blue Cargo Spreaders (from Harbor Freight) all the time and here they are helping apply pressure to the freshly glued in BB plywood panels to keep them flat and straight.
The small box protruding into the Head area on the bottom Left is the front end of the large middle exterior compartment you saw me filling up with all the plumbing and heating systems in the previous post. For maximum adhesion of the rigid foam Shower Pan I removed all the LVT vinyl floor planking that covers all the floor area inside Lance’s Happytat. To help with tiling the shower pan and getting the slope to the center shower drain just right, I bought a Vevor shower pan kit that is specifically made for this purpose and adds even more insulation to the shower floor. It is covered with a thin gray felt that grabs the thinsulate/mortar bedding compound I’ll be using to bed in the electric grid for the heated floor and the ceramic tiles. Very nicely designed bit of kit and the floor foam is cut in half with the felt glued on top to act like a hinge and made it much easier to press fit the floor into place after cutting it to size. You can see here how the area for the flange of the PVC drain is already pre-cast into the foam and you’ll also note the large circular recess surrounding it for bedding the drain flange into the floor. After checking that it all fit just right, I removed the foam pan, applied a silicone based adhesive with my cordless caulking gun (that I’m enjoying more ever time I use!), spread it out evenly with a notched trowel and pressed the floor pan back into place using my trusty cargo spreaders and some aluminium and plywood cauls to press it even and flat. It was difficult to see in the photos above but I also used 1/2” BB plywood to cover the wall between the Shower and the Fridge/Freezer compartment. I caulked all seams and corners with construction adhesive for additional sealing of those.
Next I put in this small bit of XAL framing to extend that exterior cabinet “bump” all the way to the inner edge of the Head raised floor. This will also create a handy storage area.
The black lines you see on the White ACM Aluminium Composite Material of the Head Floor is from me laying out the spacing for the heated floor electric grid you’ll see a bit later below. Now it was time to completely waterproof every surface inside the Head & Shower to ensure that there are no leaks in the future. I used the ever popular RedGuard and brushed it on all the surfaces.
After the first thin coat of RedGuard was on I went around and used more RedGuard to bed in some reinforcing felt that I cut into strips and pressed into all the corners and seams with more RedGuard. The drain area received several more coats of RedGuard as this will get the most traffic and potential for seepage. The pink colour is from the still wet RedGuard which quickly changes to Red as it dries fully. Et Voila!!
A very Red and very waterproof Head & Shower area. A bit messy but my 11cm/ 4 1/4” hole saw did a nice job of cutting this hole through all the layers of insulation and aluminium in the floor for the PVC drain to set into and exit out the bottom where it will connect to PVC pipe and on to the Gray Water tank. You can also see the 2 inches of insulation that are below the shower floor. I had some of this Blue Solid Surface acrylic material left over from doing the Galley countertops so I used this to create a nicely contrasting and durable shelf top on that bump out in the Head. This solid acrylic material is heavy but is very nice to work with; cuts easily and cleanly with regular carbide saw blades and router bits and then sands/files nicely to create a polished surface. I wanted to get this shelf installed before I started putting in the PVC planking that I’m going to use to cover the walls.
TOASTIE TOOTSIES!
As I mentioned in the previous post about our diesel powered Oasis Zephyr boiler, the rest of the floors inside of Lance are heated via the hot glycol (anti-freeze) pumped out of that boiler and flowing through the loops of 1/2” PEX-A tubing embedded into the insulated foam below the LVT vinyl plank flooring. But I wanted to be able to control the heated floors in the Shower & Head separately as it is always nice to have warm shower floors even in warm weather.
So I opted for another Vevor product, this heated mesh flooring kit that runs on 220VAC and has its own thermostat. The kit comes with this Orange plastic mesh which the Black heating cable gets attached to.
Also came with this every nice digital thermostat for controlling and reporting on the heated floors. This is the transition piece where the cable changes from the 220VAC power cable to the heated wire. As it is a larger diameter I routed a groove into the ACM flooring so this thicker diameter would sit flush with the floor surface and be better protected. The heated cable is one continuous length and you can not cut this so it took me a bit of planning to get the spacing right but all fit in very nicely and will keep our tootsies warm both when showering and sitting on the Throne!
There is also a temperature sensor that gets embedded in the floor and provides this data to the thermostat so it can maintain whatever floor temp you set. I put this inside a length of protective tubing and that’s the L shaped length you see here which then exits out the side wall and goes up to the thermostat. I put this sensor in this larger diameter tubing so I could remove and replace the temp sensor if it should ever fail. With all the heated cable and mesh in place I mixed up the epoxy thinsulate/mortar and spread out about a 13mm / 1/2” thick layer with a steel trowel and smoothed it all out. Didn’t get a photo when it was done so this is part way through the process. Finally ready to start tiling!
TILE TIME:
We found this Blue & White Spiral pattern ceramic tile online and both really liked it so that’s what is going on the floors. Comes in these larger approximately one square foot sheets with individual tiles glued to a mesh on the back which makes handling and setting them much easier. Laying out this type of spiral pattern is a bit tricky and takes some planning to make sure all the corners and joints line up and maintain the pattern. If you look closely you’ll see that you can only get a straight line for butting up against corners or lining up sheets in one place along the larger square formed by each spiral.
I created a quick 3D model (of course!!) to help plan the layout to get all the corners and seams to match up. Where I needed to cut some of the tiles such as around the drain, my trusty Dremel tool with a diamond cutting wheel worked like a charm to get nice straight cuts and smooth edges and you can maybe see along the bottom edge for this sheet I’m trimming square here. It had been a Looooooooong time, think decades, since I last did any tiling so I started with the floor in the Head as it will largely be covered by our Joolca “Gotta Go” separating toilet to cover any learning errors, but it all turned out quite well I thought. Then I moved onto the Shower floor and started the dry layup there. You can see how I needed to trim the tiles a bit along the edges of the square SS drain which I did so that the outer edges of the regular square spiral patterns would match up with the outer edges. And it all slopes down from the edges to the drain. I thought it would look better to create a single upper edge surrounding the whole space so I put in some aluminium edging and tiled up to that along all the sides of the Shower and the Head floors and set them in place.
WALLS:
For the walls I wanted to find the best combination of waterproof, easy to clean and good looking so I ended up going with these White tongue and groove PVC planks that are about 18cm / 7” wide with grooves molded in to look like narrower planks, and started cutting them to size.
But I thought that all White walls and ceiling would be too bland so I decided to create a horizontal band to break up the walls that would wrap all the way round and fill this with some of the Blue & White spiral tiles I had left over from doing the floor. I picked up some aluminium edging meant to be used under tiles which you see propped up in the corner on the Right here and used that to make the transitions from tile to PVC planking. I taped off the top and bottom edges of the area for this band………….. ………. and installed the AL transitions edging all round. I had enough left over tile to cut these bands off the sheets and used that size to determine the width of the band. Worked out quite well and now time to put up all the PVC wall planks.
It was quite quick and easy to cut the 8ft long PVC planks to a nice fit between the top and bottom edges of the aluminium edging there the tiles start and stop. And now time to use my trusty Milwaukee cordless caulking gun you see on the Left of the floor to put a nice thin line of White silicone adhesive/sealant along each tongue and groove and back of each plank. The cargo spreaders and some square aluminium tube cauls helped to hold the PVC planks flat while the silicone adhesive cured overnight.
With the wall planks all done I could now grout all the tiles in this band and on the floors to finish the tiling. I did the ceiling with the same vinyl planking with a different pattern on it that I used for the ceilings in the rest of Lance. As with those other ceilings, I put in a strip of dimmable LED’s between each plank but more on that a bit later.
Et Voila! Lance finally has a not too bad looking Head and Shower.
LET THERE be LIGHT AND AIR!
We always like to have individual items do more than one thing and so we decided to install this 12V vent fan in the ceiling above the shower to provide both daylight and fresh air venting into the Shower & Head space. I’m not a big fan of the popular variations of the MaxFans that much of the RV and Van world seem to use and wanted to keep our overall vehicle height to a minimum and we’re at 2.9m / 9’ 5” right now with the solar panels and roof vent. So this Kohree vent unit seemed to check all our boxes.
This model also had a nice combination of both a manual override for raising and lowering the vent cover and a set of electric controls on the other corner of the fan as well as a hand held wireless remote.
It also has a temperature sensor to turn the fan on/off and a very quiet fan with 10 different speeds.
Other nice features are a built in rain sensor that automatically closes the vent though not much of a need when this is all inside that nice waterproof Shower. I had purposely left this space up on the roof in front of the four 450Watt solar panels and their Super Strut rails so now time to cut the only hole in our otherwise seamless one piece roof.
Yikes!!!! There are three thick aluminium plates in the roof of Lance, one for the top skin, the layer you can see here that forms the internal ceiling of the ambo box and then …… ……… the final layer of 5mm thick ACM that I installed for the ceiling surface below the additional layer of 20mm IPS foam insulation. The vent dropped in just right. I used this 2×2” square AL ceiling beam for a conduit for the wires to power and control the fan. I’m a BIG fan of these WAGO wire connectors and have used them throughout the build. They worked well to connect these 12VDC power wires to the fan and then tuck nicely into that square AL tube.
Checked everything for a good fit including this trim frame and then …. ………. bedded the vent into the roof with 3M 5200 sealant and some makeshift weights to let it cure overnight.
and MORE LIGHT!
As I mentioned earlier, I matched the ceiling in the Head & Shower to what I installed in the rest of Lance which are these planks of White solid vinyl with a nice grained texture and then put in strips of Black aluminium LED channel. I will then adhere dimmable COB LED strips inside these AL channels and snap on the diffuser cover.
All fully water immersion IP68 rated so no problems in this wet area. Worked out well to provide Goldilocks just right lighting both night and day. One last detail for those few times (so far) either of us needs to get up and use the Head in the middle of the night, I wanted also have some indirect low level lighting inside the Head & Shower area. So I installed some of these 45 degree angled aluminium extrusions in hidden areas such as under the door sill into the Shower you can make out below my hand and another under that little Blue shelf in the Head. To help keep our night vision and add a bit of “ambiance” I used these Blue LED strips which are also dimmable to whatever level of Blue light you’d like.
Testing out the LED strip tucked in below the door sill into the Shower.
DOORS!!!
After using Lance for over a year now with NO doors on the inside one member of the crew is eXtremely eXcited about having a DOOR on the Head!!! After some debate and research we decided to go with this retractable shower door that rolls up when OPEN like this ….. and then rolls out to seal and CLOSE like this. The flexible material rolls up on a spring loaded shaft hidden neatly inside this cassette that mounts to the left side of the door. The “door” slides on tracks concealed inside the AL extrusions top and bottom and I left a small gap at the top to help with air circulation.
FINISHING TOUCHES:
To keep things dry inside this storage cupboard above the head, I glued in some sliding door AL tracks and cut some clear 6mm / 1/4” acrylic for the sliding doors. And then mounted this mirrored Medicine Cabinet on the rear wall to finish things off.
SHOWER FAUCET:
You can’t have much of a shower with no water so along the way I installed this very nice adjustable hand held shower head that has a full shut off valve on the handle and …. …… connected it to a thermostatic controlled mixing valve faucet. These are great for maintaining a whatever water temperature you set it to coming out of the shower head. The button allows you to turn the water on and off as you wish to conserve water and have it off when you want to wash your hair, shave, etc. The SS cylindrical knob on the top end rotates to set the temperature and the one on the bottom controls the water flow volume.
To mount this I cut a sheet of 6mm / 1/4” thick aluminium diamond plate which fits just right into the slots of the 1” 1010 Series XAL framing. I drilled and threaded this plate to mount these two brass fittings for the thermostatic valve to attach to on the outside and push-connect fittings on the other side ………… …… for the Hot & Cold water 1/2” PEX-A lines to attach to. The Yellow handles are shut off ball valves on each PEX water line for servicing or winterizing.
The whole assembly then fits securely into the slots in the XAL framing.
CONTROL PANEL:
Finally, to enclose this service bay area I built this temporary panel and with many of our controls for the systems in Lance mounted on it. This is just a prototype I am trying out made out of scrap plywood with some of the switches, controllers and thermostats mounted in it. I cut this rabbet or tongue on the bottom edge that is a snug fit into the groove on the bottom length of XAL framing. The way it works is that you first put the bottom tongue into the groove and then …….. …………… tip the panel up into place. To hold this and likely all the panels in Lance securely in place, I’m trying out using these very strong round “donut” Neodymium magnets. This one is a 40 pounder, meaning it takes about 40 pounds of pull to remove. These magnets are available from less than one pound up to over one hundred. All the metal in Lance is aluminium which of course isn’t magnetic so cut a short 5cm/2” length of steel flat bar and drilled a 6mm hole in one end so I can bolt it to a T nut captured in the XAL slot on the back here. Worked out even better than I hoped and the panel snaps into place with a good “thud” and locks the whole panel tightly in place. But I only need to reach behind it and push hard with my fingers to pop the panel forward and out. Here is what the panel looks like so far. White thermostat for the heated floors in the Head & Shower in the bottom right (currently turned off) and the Victron Cerbo GX touch display above it and switches for things like water pump, Starlink power and the thermostatic controllers for the heated main cabin floors over to the Left.
I will likely change the layout a bit and add a few more switches and meters, but it all works for now and we’ll try it out on our travels in the next month and see what other changes we might want to make.
And th th th thaaaaats all for this update folks.
Hope it was entertaining and of interest to you and that you’ll be back for the next update in a few weeks.
We are going to be out in Lance eXploring more of Beautiful BC for the next few months till we head off to Europe at the end of August so I’ll do my best to get the last few updates posted for you. Next big project that I’m not starting on is to build all the Cherry veneered drawer fronts, doors and interior panels that will should pretty much finish Lance’s build.
Don’t forget to add your comments and questions in the “Join the discussion” box below and enjoy your summer wherever you are.
As we all head to the exit of 2025 I will continue to summarize the progress in various key systems and areas on Lance over the past few months.
This week I’ll bring you up to date on where the Galley is at so far.
Easily one of the most used and most important areas for our day to day live in Lance and our 10,000 + mile “maiden voyage” this past summer proved that our design worked well as we used it during that two month test drive. We prioritized large areas of open countertop, dual deep sink, induction cooktop and large fridge and freezer and you can see the basic layout from the 3D model screengrab here.
GALLEY COUNTERTOPS:
Here is what it looked like as of the beginning of June, just before we hit the road to the East Coast of the US. This is looking forward so Drivers Side DS on the Left and Passenger Side PS on the Right. Entry door into the Hab (Habitat/box) is on the upper Right with the large vertical door 10 cubic foot Fridge/Freezer on your Right as you enter.
Deep double sink being undermounted to the 25mm/1” solid surface acrylic countertop.
Lots of options for water at the sink; hot/cold adjustment at the base of the faucet with both a large flexible rinsing hose with its own nozzle & lever and then an independently controlled rotating spigot. To the Right of the main faucet is an ultra purified drinking water nozzle that has water that has been put through a full Acuva UV treatment to remove any possible remaining particles after ……….
……… it comes out of the main filtration which is handled by this triple set of progressive main filtration that all our potable water goes through.
We have eXcellent water pressure running about 65PSI thanks to this Kohree 7GPM pump. All the water system equipment is located in the externally accessed compartment that is midway along the DS.
On the PS of the Galley there is more countertop and our 2 burner induction cooktop that is eXtremely efficient and a joy to cook on. This cooktop fits snugly in the countertop cutout so it can be easily lifted out and plugged in outside when we want to cook out there.
The vertical extruded aluminium XAL on the Right here is the linear actuator for the PS Front corner of the Queen Bed lift system. Underneath both countertops it is all drawers as we find these much more efficient to use than cupboards and overall we have more than 20 drawers inside of Lance.
GALLEY DRAWERS:
I have always preferred dovetail joints for all drawers given their superior strength that stands up for decades of use and I think they look great too and so that’s what we went with for Lance. I was going to do this all myself but with almost a hundred dovetailed corners to do and SO many other jobs demanding my time and attention I decided to job this out. I found a fabulous company to work with called Barker Doors who offer a service using CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machines to custom cut all your drawers. I had all the drawers fully modeled in Fusion 360 so it was easy for me to send them these files with all the exact measurements I needed and they cut all the 5/8” Baltic Birch plywood to size for all the sides and the bottoms and then CNC cut all the dovetails. In the end this all worked out to cost less than I would have paid for just the Baltic Birch plywood and drawer slides so I was super happy with how this all worked out and I can recommend Barker Doors to anyone VERY strongly. They shipped all the pre-cut drawers to me as flatpacks like this so the whole shipment of all the drawers was not too large and they were all very well shrink wrapped and carefully boxed up so they arrived with no damage at all. They also offered a great prices on the the top quality Blum undermount ball bearing drawer slides I wanted so it all came as a single order which made my life easier.
Mounting more than 40 drawer slides to the XAL framework was very straightforward but time consuming to get them all exactly parallel and lined up. and some required a bit of Houdini moves to hold in place and tighten up. Next, I set up a little workbench on top of the PS Galley counter to assemble each drawer. Each set of dovetails only required a few drops of wood glue and they went together very well with two bar clamps and some taps with my little hammer to get the joints to fit together all the way. The dovetails were so precise that every drawer went together perfectly square and were solid as a rock. The Blum drawer slides required two slots in the bottom of each rear drawer side so I cut those out next and then I mounted to the Orange locking hardware to the bottom of the front corners. These are where the drawer slides clip into the drawer and make it very easy to lift out a drawer at any time. It’s a great system! Installing each drawer was now a simple process of pulling out each drawer slide………. ………… setting the pins in the rear of each drawer slide into the corresponding holes I had previously drilled and pushing them closed till they clicked in place. Et Voila! We’ve got drawers! Sad to say that I wasn’t able to get this done before we left on our big summer adventure so we REALLY appreciate having these now! I wanted all surfaces of these drawers to have a tough durable finish and decided to go with this two part Rubi Monocoat finish that you put on by hand with cloths rather than brush or spray. Hand rubbed finishes have always been my favorite and while this was a new one for me I was eXtremely pleased with the end result and the whole process of applying it. It was a bit laborious and a good workout but a very satisfying process for me. Difficult to see in photos but the Baltic Birch plywood came out with a glowing warm colour and a very tough finish that is also very easy to reapply in the future. To reduce the loss of usable space under the sinks I used these low profile P-traps which have turned out to work very well. and only required a small cut out on the rear of the two under sink drawers to clear nicely.
GALLEY CEILING & COB LED LIGHTING
Onwards and upwards I turned my attention to the ceiling of the Galley. It took a LOT of research to find the Goldilocks material for the ceiling but I finally found this White wood textured PVC trim molding material that checked all the boxes of light, easy to clean and attractive. It comes in 6” wide 8ft long planks and was very easy to work with. For lighting, I decided to use COB (Circuit on Board) LED strip lights which I set inside lengths of 20mm wide black aluminium U channel which I ran in between each of the White PVC ceiling planks. I like these newer COB strips for two reasons; they provide an uninterrupted line of light rather than individual points of light in the regular LED strips and they can be adjusted from about 2200K (very warm amber) up to 6500K (daylight white). In the past, SMD LED strips you have to chose a specific colour temp and they often have 60–120 LEDs per meter (≈1.5–3 LEDs per inch) whereas these COB lights have hundreds of micro‑LEDs tightly together, giving continuous light with no visible dots of light. Once I had the layout done and the strips of PVC and AL channel cut to length, the process went quite quickly. I could apply the construction adhesive to each plank and AL channel and press them up into place and then use my super handy cargo jacks and some scrap lengths of XAL to press these all up against the ceiling so they ended up flat and aligned. You can buy the COB LED lights in 20 meter rolls which you then cut to the lengths you want and solder three wires to the copper strips underlying the Yellow COB light strips. Takes a bit of practice to get these tight solder joints without any cross connections but all went pretty well after a few practice solders. Then I twist the wires to help reduce any electrical interference and slide a clear tube of heat shrink tubing over the joints and shrink them in place for a nice clean and protected connection.
Each of the LED strips have self adhesive on the back so you just peel off the protective wax layer and press these into the AL channel. I purchased the Black AL channel with frosted clip in covers so once I had the COB LED light strips glued in place and wired up ………… ……………. I could now press these clear covers in place. Here’s the result at about 6000k. These LED light strips are also fully dimmable so you can adjust both the colour temp from warm to cold white and from off to full almost daylight brightness.
We are very pleased with the end result.
Yet to come is the making of all the fronts to these drawers where I will get to use the fabulous 125 year old Cherry that my dear friends Colin, Rick and Sherry gifted us with but that probably won’t be until we get back here next year from our trip down to Baja so due stay tuned for all of THAT!
My sincere thanks for taking your valuable time to read these updates and join us on our adventures. Please leave your questions and comments in the Join the Discussion box below and hope to see you here again next week.
Hope all my American friends and family are wrapping up a great US Thanksgiving weekend. Christine has been back in Ft. Lauderdale for the past ten days enjoying some much needed Gramma time with our TEN year old Grandson Liam, seen here with his Dad Tim working on a new puzzle. As well as visiting dear friends of many years like Kathleen. Lucky me, while I can’t be there this time I often get to spend time with BOTH of these Gorgeous Galls. The pups and I have been holding down the fort here on Road Runner Ranch in Southern Nevada where the temps have started to drop and so Razz has taken to sunning himself on the solar panels for some extra warmth and seems like a good segue into today’s Lance progress update post on ……………………….. you guessed it; Solar Panels.
Living the nomadic and remote life that we always have, we are big fans having solar power be the primary source for all our daily electrical needs, which are quite extensive. On our boat Mobius we had factored solar panels into the design from the beginning and were able to have 16 large panels on three different roof surfaces on that boat such as these eight panels on the upper Pilot House roof. And here on Road Runner Ranch we have 18 solar panels in two banks, this one just set against one of our 40 foot shipping containers and the others you can see Razz laying on above. These keep our big EG4 Wall Mount 15kW battery charged up every day and running this through our EG4 6000XP Inverter/Charger provides all our electrical power for day to day life here. This is where the time I spent meticulously building Lance in a 3D model using Fusion 360 pays off. I could create a model for each of the different solar panels that I was considering and see how they would fit onto Lance’s roof and on the framing.
With much less surface area available for mounting solar panels on Lance’s rooftop I wanted to fit the maximum amount of solar output as possible and played around with lots of different solar panel models to get the Goldilocks combination that would fit. Over the years I have found it works best to design the overall electrical installation as a complete system because there are a lot of different pieces to this puzzle and they are all very interconnected not just electrically but also features and dependencies. I created 3D models for all of these components as well and you can see most of the components here in the Electrical Cabinet on the front Driver Side corner of Lance’s Hab/Box. There is a LOT to unpack here so I’ll cover the electrical system in a future post and get into all the details then for those interested.
After much deliberation and testing in the model, I decided to go with four SilFab 420 Watt QD panels which I purchased from Current Connected almost a year ago now. I was able to get these all installed this past May in time to help power us on our marathon maiden voyage with Lance driving out to Portland Maine and back this summer. For those interested you can see all the specs of these panels here and of course with the march of time since there would now be even higher output panels but we’ve still ended up with 1680 Watts of solar power and it has been more then enough to keep us fully powered all the time.
We do have additional sources of electrical power such as this 320 Amp 12V 3.8kW alternator on Lances Paccar/Cummins engine that can provide up to 4k of power anytime that engine is running. However on our summer test run I had not completed the installation of the Arco Zeus smart regulator so the alternator wasn’t working that whole trip and the solar kept our batteries filled the entire time so that was a pretty good testament as to how well the solar was working. I decided to use 10 foot lengths of galvanized Super Strut to mount the solar panels on Lance’s roof. I would have preferred to use aluminium Super Strut but the delivery times would not have been in time for me to get the solar panels mounted before our trip so I went with galvanized steel and they have worked out vey well. I laid them out as you see here, two lengths on each side and two down the middle. I added additional 4 foot lengths of Super Strut so that I would have a mounting system for the whole 14 foot length of Lance’s roof for mounting any additional items in the future. I kept the mounting very simple as well by cutting pieces off a length of 2” aluminium L bar, drilling two holes in each one for the mounting bolts, and using the very handy Super Strut M8 threaded inserts to bolt them solidly to the lengths of Super Strut. Quick, strong, simple; what’s not to like?!! I then made up the cables using extra UV rated cables, Red for the positive and Black for negative and crimping the MC4 twist lock connectors that are the most commonly used for solar panel wiring and which I’ve used a lot in previous projects so I have all the specialty tools, crimpers, etc. some of which you see here in the photo. To fasten the brackets to the solar panel frames themselves I inserted aluminium M6 threaded Riv-Nuts into holes I drilled into the vertical AL frame on the solar panel and then used this tool which compresses the threaded inserts and locks them to the frame. End result looks like this. One bolt vertically to fasten to the Super Strut and one horizontal to bolt into the solar panel frame.
For those wondering, I fastened the lengths of Super Strut to the roof using Loctite 8X PL Premium Fast Grab which is supposed to be 8 times stronger than traditional construction adhesives which I’ve used before. Probably overkill but you certainly don’t want solar panels flying off the roof when running down the highway at 70 miles an hour! To prevent any pooling of rainwater between the surfaces of the roof and the Super Strut I caulked all the edges with 3M marine sealant which I have LOTS of experience with on our previous boats. So everything fully sealed and eXtremely well fastened to the roof. Solar panel output drops off significantly with the rise in temperature of the panels, the irony of which isn’t lost on me, so I left this 4” gap where the two panels down each side meet up. This along with the 2+ inch space between the panels and the roof keeps them as well ventilated as possible and the efficiency of their output was very good even in the 40C/105F days we had several times on the trip AND while I was installing these panels! Talk about a cat on a hot tin roof! Ouch! To make it a bit easier to run the cables AND give me a wee bit of shade, I was able to remove the inner brackets and use the outer ones like a hinge and prop up one lengthwise pair of panels while I ran the cables. I ran the eight cables for all four solar panels to converge at this point on the front DS corner as this puts it directly overtop of the Electrical Cabinet below where they need to go and thus provides the shortest cable run for least voltage drop. I drilled the only hole in the roof for this but it was a BIG one as you can see and then I used more 3M 5200 to seal a short length of 2” PVC pipe as a safe conduit through the roof for these and all other cables in the future. The red square you see on the bottom is 3M VHB Very High Bond two sided tape which is a fabulous product for gluing almost anything to anything and it never comes off. PVC box now glued down to the roof over that PVC pipe and the cables run non stop down into the Electrical Compartment below.
Each solar panel needs to have a shut off so I used these DIN rail mini circuit breakers to do that and provide over current protection.
I use threaded glands, the black things you see here and above, to give each cable a watertight entry into all junction boxes. This is what it looked like inside the Electrical Compartment where the cables pass through. The output of solar panels is a much higher voltage than the batteries and needs to be regulated to different charging stages to properly charge the big LiFePO4 Lithium EG4 batteries in Lance so the output of the solar panels goes through a MPPT controller which looks after all of this. Although it isn’t common, the most efficient setup is to have a dedicated MPPT controller for each panel and so that’s how I’ve always built our solar systems. Those are the four Victron Blue boxes you see on the upper Right here. It’s a bit of electrical spaghetti and took a bit of time to route and connect all these cables but keeps all the wiring very well contained in the wire ducts like the one running vertically up the far Right side and will have a cap that snaps onto those fingers you see here. Final cabling is to take the output from each MPPT controller and connect them to the main 12VDC electrical bus bars which are the silver coloured bars you see running up on the far Right here. If you look closely you can see two Red and two Black cables connected together at the top and then the other four below so now all the power from the solar panels is connected into the 12VDC electrical circuit.
And here’s what Lance’s 1680 Watts of solar roof looks like.
The extra length of Super Strut has already come in handy for my temporary for now mounting of our Starlink dish and the 4” PVC tube running down the middle for storing long lengths of material I like to have for ongoing projects while we’re on the road. Go ahead and tell me you’re surprised?!?!
Did I mention that we LIKE solar panels???
And that wraps it up for this weeks progress update, hope it was informative and enjoyable and let me know what you think in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
As this recent holiday has reminded me I am indeed one eXtremely fortunate fellow with SO much to be thankful for, not the least of which is YOU, for the time you choose to take out of your busy schedule to read and comment here and join us on this latest adventure of the Ambo Nomads.
I’ll be back again next week with the next installment and hope you’ll join me again for that.
Ciao for now,
Wayne and “Sunny Boy” as he tells me he now likes to be called.
As I mentioned at the end of the previous post, both Christine and I have been traveling the past few weeks. Christine flew out to Florida for two weeks for some much needed Gramma time with our now 9 year old Grandson Liam and some time with her best friends and family in the Fort Lauderdale area. And I flew over to Tucson to pick up the new to us travel trailer and pickup truck combo we recently purchased to provide living accommodations on our new 10 acre property near Searchlight Nevada.
So this will just be a quick update on what little work I have been able to get done on Lance and a brief summary of what’s been happening as we start making the transition from our rental here in Klamath Falls down to our new Southern Home Base just north of Searchlight.
This sat view (click any photo to enlarge) of the southern arrowhead tip of the state of Nevada (NV state border is dotted red/white line) might help show you where we’re headed. Up in the top middle you can see the sprawling Las Vegas/Henderson area and Hwy 95 running parallel to the Colorado river heading South to the Laughlin/Bullhead City area at the bottom. Our new place is where you see the Green circle with the white flag about half way down Hwy 95. Zooming in a bit you can see the turn off of Hwy 95 onto the dirt road running East in the middle of this sat view over to our place with the Green Flag. That distance is about 1.5 miles/2.4km
Zooming in on that Green Flag, here’s the birds eye view of our 10 acres where you can see the two white shipping containers that came with the property. (the boat was just being stored there)
For the curious amongst you, all the black dots you see in these sat photos are Joshua Trees so we are literally living in a Joshua Tree forest!
(photo thanks to By Bernard Gagnon)
Meanwhile, IRL In Real Life, here is where I put our Lance home on wheels #2 (too funny right?!) after the drive from Tucson. The truck is a 2006 Toyota Tundra SR5 and the trailer is a 2012 Lance model 2385. For more details on Lance #2 the travel tailer, see the previous post for photos and layout. And yes, other than several hundred Joshua Trees that is ALL there is so far on our 10 acres. Many of you have sent a LOT of questions as to just what we are going to do for little things like power and water so here’s the deal on that. Having lived in boats as we’ve been traveling the world for the past few decades, we are accustomed to being eXtremely self sufficient and this newest adventure will be no different.
Part of the attraction and what made this property such a Goldilocks find for us was those two new containers AND what was inside of them. Here is a shot of the container on the Left where you can see these 16 new solar panels. These are 305 Watt PV panels which I will soon be setting up outside to give us a total of almost 5 kilowatts of potential solar power. OK, so those solar panels capture the sun’s energy, but then what Wayne??
Well, the other parts of this puzzle which I need to build our completely off grid power station.are inside this trio of boxes that arrived here in Klamath Falls a few days ago. Inside the wood box on the bottom is 128kg/282 lbs. of big beautiful battery power! 14.3 kWh (kilo Watt hours) to be exact, which comes in the form of our new EG4 wall mount 48V 280Ah lithium Iron battery. Being in very sunny southern Nevada those solar panels should provide more than enough power to keep this battery fully charged every day. The two cardboard boxes above that contain this equally beautiful and important EG4 600XP split phase off-grid inverter/charger which handles two critical tasks. First it takes all the 48 volt DC power from the battery and inverts it into 120 and 240 Volts AC and then there are two MPPT controllers inside which regulates all the DC power from the solar panels to charge the batteries. Together this will provide us with all our electrical power we need in the trailer and the workshop to power everything from air conditioner to induction cooktop to welder.
OK, so that looks after electrical needs, but what about water you ask? The solution to that also lies in the containers in the form of these IBC Totes (Intermediate Bulk Container) You may have noticed this one beside the 16 solar panels shown earlier. Then there are four more ICB totes stacked up at the end of the other container. There is a LOT of other equipment in these containers and I did a quick inventory of them after I took the trailer there and I marked this photo with the # of liters of fresh water in each one. These ICB totes each hold about 330 USG/ 1250 Liters and so when all four are full that gives us about 1320 USG/5000L which should give us about a year’s worth of water.
What about that fifth empty one in the other container you ask? Well, they are pretty light when empty and so we load that into the truck bed and head into town and fill it up with the “city water” from Searchlight which is just 2 miles south on Hwy 95. Bring that back and use an electric water pump to fill the IBC totes in the other container. Rinse and repeat once a year or so and we’ve got all the fresh water we need. Our longer term solution is that we will use rain water catchment when I create a big workshop by moving the two shipping containers to be about 40 feet apart and build a large gable roof to span them a bit like this illustration. I’ll do the roof a bit different to have clerestory windows on the peak but I’ll leave that for another post in the future.
This large roof surface area will catch a LOT of rainwater that will be diverted into storage tanks in the ground. So that’s the near and long term plan for water. Stay tuned here for more on all that as it gets built.
Back to Lance #1 and Klamath Falls, the other big beautiful shipment we recently receives is THIS! Can you guess what’s inside? ……… Gold start to those who guessed it is the fridge/freezer combo for the galley in Lance. Left side is a 1.8 cubic foot freezer and 5.2 cu ft of fridge on the right with plenty of shelves, drawers and door space so should serve us well. I’ve been busy getting Lance ready for the 800 mile drive down to Searchlight and needed to get all the lights on the back of him working. I needed some wire for this and as you may recall from previous posts, I removed all the many miles of original wiring from inside the ambulance box and so with the help of my two assistants I tackled the sorting and spooling of all this wire. This is Zoe with her “cone of shame” after her spay surgery. Together the three of us were able to convert this into ……………….. ……..… this and another tubful. Twas a wee bit chilly doing this work for as the seasonal song goes ………. “the weather outside what frightful!”. But I’ve got a little electric heater when I’m working inside Lance and with all his insulation it was doesn’t take much to keep it all nice and toasty in there.
The snow doesn’t last too long before melting away but the temps have been down below freezing at nights and some days for the past few weeks and so on that wintery note I will bid you all adieu and close out with what is likely to be the last blog this year. Hard to believe that it was just over one year ago (October 12th, 2023) that we found ourselves on the dock in Portsmouth VA standing beside our beloved Mobiüs for the last time and beginning the transition from a life eXploring the world by sea to now doing so by land. So quite fitting that as 2024 ticks over into 2025, we are now making the newest transition to Lance and our Southern Home Base.
Hoping all of you enjoy the upcoming holiday season and sending our sincere thanks for all the time you’ve spent following along with our adventures this past year or years. Look forward to sharing more with you as the adventures continue into the new year.
The newest update to Möbius is that our all new House Bank batteries are now fully installed and up and running!
As you may recall from THIS post almost a year ago, our original FireFly Carbon Foam batteries had sadly lost most o f their “fire” aka capacity and repeated efforts using the FireFly prescribed “Restoration Charge” was not able to bring the capacity back. Fortunately the combination of having a total capacity of 1800Ah @ 24V and our large solar capacity from 14 320W solar panels allowed us to go for almost a year of full time live aboard cruising running all systems other than extended AC use, without needing to ever plug into Shore Power. So we did pretty well I think!? But about a month ago while docked here in Norfolk, one of the four FF banks started to overheat and so their time was up.
With our new situation (details if interested here) I had hoped that the FF batteries would last until we find the new owners and they take over so they could chose the new replacement batteries that were just right for them But the “fire” had sadly gone out on the FireFly batteries and so I needed to make that call and have all new House batteries installed.
For those interested, this post will give you an overview of how that progressed.
CHOOSING the GOLDILOCKS NEW BATTERIES
The quick summary of my requirements and priorities to determine the just right Goldilocks batteries for Möbius’ and our use case is as follows: (in no particular order)
WEIGHT: Somewhat unique to us perhaps, weight is not a factor for choosing the batteries. In fact we actually want/need as much weight as possible as we had designed the boat around the batteries to some extent and treated the 1022Kg/2250 lbs of FF batteries as part of the lead ballast of the boat.
SIZE: Battery size is also not a factor as we had to some extent designed the hull around the battery compartments which ended up being three large watertight and positively vented compartments which spanned and were centered on the 1″ thick x 18″ keel bar that runs from the transom all the way up to the top of the bow. See the GA drawing below to see this layout.
WIDE TEMPERATURE RANGE: Working well and safely within in as wide a range of operating temperatures as as possible. Our intended use case for Möbius was to go everywhere from the Arctic/Antarctic and high latitude cccccccold climates to scorching hot locations. (which seems to be more and more locations in our world these days!)
FAULT TOLERANT: In addition to temperature it was also important that the new House batteries were as robust as possible in that they would be able to deal with the typical “accidents” that happen over the years with the battery systems on boats. Things like full discharges when the boat has been left for long periods of time and the charging system fails for some reason.
SAFETY: Always a top priority of course but in the end I had no concerns with safety of either Lithium or AGM as I’m of the opinion that battery safety is all a matter of good design and installation of the electrical system and battery management, as well as sticking to top quality manufacturers. So I did not consider any of the “off brand” batteries and companies.
VALUE: Cost is an ever present factor for most of us but I think in terms of overall value rather than price alone. I will gladly pay for quality and other features listed above to get the best match of batteries and our use case criteria. I think this is well evidenced by all the equipment we have installed on Möbius. So I did not consider any batteries or companies that were not IMO offering high quality batteries.
EXTENDED 100% SOC + FLOAT TIMES: This is a relatively new factor I have come to appreciate and which I believe may have contributed to the early demise of the Carbon Foam FF batteries. Most of us have experienced how leaving things like laptops and phones plugged into their chargers and kept at 100% fully charged for most of the time leads to them loosing more and more of their capacity and shortening their lifespan. I don’t have the expertise to prove this but my first hand experience over the years and my research into that of others has led me to suspect that there is a similar situation with LiFePO4 and Carbon Foam batteries.
Due to our large almost 5KW solar power the batteries on Möbius sit at 100% fully charged state almost all the time. With the large overall available capacity we typically only take the House batteries down to about 85% SoC or less between the end and start of each solar day and most days the solar charging brings them back to 100% fully charged by 10 to noon depending on solar conditions, time of year, geo location, etc. You would think that this would be ideal for battery health. However, I am finding increased evidence and examples that not only do LiiFePO4 and Carbon Foam type batteries deal very well with being in PSoC or Partial State of Charge for extended periods of time, they actually PREFER to be in a PSoC condition the majority of time. Being kept in Float mode at 100% SoC can lesson their capacity over time. It is possible to deal with this by carefully customizing the charging profiles of all the charging sources on the boat and our WS500 regulators for the alternators, MPPT controllers for the solar panels, and MultiPlus chargers all have this ability. However based on my experience to date I think that AGM type batteries actually prefer to be kept at 100% fully charged SoC which is the situation as I’ve outlined above on Möbius. I’m sure this factored to some degree in my final decision.
I should add that the rest of the equipment that forms the overall House Battery system would work well with any of the LiFePO4 or AGM batteries I considered. Things such as the twin 250A 24V Electrodyne alternators with external rectifiers, WakeSpeed 500 Smart Regulators and Victron BMV712 battery monitors, would all work for any of the batteries I was looking at be they Lithium or AGM so this was a non factor in my decision making. Lithium batteries would of course require equally high quality BMS either internal or external so I only considered LiFePO4 batteries with dedicated BMS from their manufacturer.
Click to enlarge and see the location of the three battery compartments on Möbius
BATTERY CHOICES:
I’ve written about this topic of batteries for Mobius multiple postings here on the blog and I spent a LOT of hours discussing this with experts and other boat owners and researching the latest offerings of high quality batteries. This lead me to narrow it down to a choice between Lithium (LiFePO4) and AGM batteries from the likes of Victron, Battleborn/DragonFly, Lithionics, etc. all of whom had some very high quality options. For example, this new form factor of “12V 270Ah GameChanger 3.0” LiFePO4 batteries from DragonFly had some very attractive features.
I also went back to the original batteries that I had considered for Möbius during the initial design phase which were these type of OPZv Gel type “traction batteries” and they were in the running again in this most recent search. I paid close attention to how “bullet proof” the batteries were in terms of being able to deal with such factors as the likelihood of a few times in their long lifespan where they would end up being completely discharged for some reason or another. Never planned of course but always possible and when we start talking about lifespans of 10+ years the probability of such “accidents” becomes quite high.
These intriguing 24V 275Ah LiFePO4 “modules” with external BMS from Lithionics ticked off a lot of boxes were also recommended by OPE though came with a deservedly high price as well. There were several other batteries and companies which I researched and made it onto my short list but the ones above cover the top contenders.
and the WINNER IS …………..
I’m well aware that many of you would make a different choice for YOUR boat, but I do my best with all equipment decisions to find the “Goldilocks” just right choice that best matches with Möbius’ use case.
In the end, this is what I chose; (drum roll please …………………….)
………….. After a LOT of deliberation I decided to go with Victron and chose their “Super Cycle” AGM batteries. We chose Victron equipment for the entire electrical system on Möbius including their Isolation Transformer, MultiPlus Inverter/Chargers, MPPT controllers, Octo and Cerbo GX monitoring, etc. so they are a company that we have come to know well and not doubt have a bias for and I’m sure this did influence my final choice and Victron offered multiple batteries in both LiFePO4 and AGM to chose from. These Victron SC AGM battery model are 12V @ 230Ah C20 and one of their more interesting qualities that caught my attention was their stated ability to withstand 300 complete 100% discharges without any damage to them although it certainly would shorten their lifespan if you were to do that. Having gone with Victron for almost all of the equipment that makes up the overall electrical system on Möbius, I have come to trust and respect them as a company but I still wanted to verify these claims and was fortunate to find that Bruce Schwab at Ocean Planet Energy OPE, was able to personally verify Victron’s claims of these Super Cycle batteries based on OPE’s direct testing and he wrote:
Being a Victron distributor, we have tested the Victron Super Cycle AGM 125Ah (G31 size) in our PSOC regime. Nearly all Pb batteries suffer permanent capacity loss when run through this 30-cycle PSOC test. We’re happy to say that the Super Cycle AGM passed with flying colors, with no discernable loss of capacity.
I was therefore delighted to be able to work directly with Bruce and his tech Kevin at Ocean Planet Energy and can not recommend them more highly. Bruce was incredibly responsive throughout the whole process, answering all my barrage of questions leading up to the choice of these Victron batteries and then getting the new batteries along with some additional Victron equipment ordered and delivered to the marina here in Norfolk VA.
Bruce and Kevin worked with me very closely during the entire installation and configuration of the whole new electrical system to get it dialed in “just right”. It is all too rare in my experience that you find such high degree of expertise along with truly exemplary service and so my hat off to Bruce and Kevin, can’t thank you both enough. If any of you have any electrical needs for your boat I’m sure you will thank me later for contacting Bruce and his staff at OPE and similarly benefiting from their expertise and incredible customer service.
* NOTE: Just to be clear and transparent, I am not sponsored by OPE or Victron or any other manufacturer, just a very satisfied customer wanting to share my first hand experiences with these high quality companies and people.
OUT WITH THE OLD;
Here is the schematic showing how the original House Bank of 24 FireFly L15+ Carbon Foam batteries was setup.
(click to enlarge this or any other photo)
This is one of the three sealed battery compartments that are built into the hull with the batteries stradling the 1″ thick center keel bar so that all their weight acts as nicely centered “lead ballast”. As per the schematic above, each of the four banks of FireFly batteries were wired directly to the positive and negative main bus bars inside the Grey DC Distribution box you see here. All cables are of equal gauge and length, hence the looped Red & Black cables, Positive cables from each bank have their own Off/On Battery Switch (Grey switches top left corner) and the negative cables each connect to the Neg bus bar through their own shunt for the Victron BMV712 battery monitors. Fortunately I was able to reuse all these cables and battery monitors for the new batteries. This is the forwardmost battery compartment with the lid removed to start disconnecting all the batteries. With all the interconnecting battery cables and copper bars removed these 8 batteries are ready to leave the building. Each FireFly battery weighs 43Kg/94lbs but fortunately they had very good handles on both sides so lifting them up and out went well. This is the first eight of 24 batteries out on the dock beside the boat.
OUT OUT OUT with the OLD!
A bit of a sad end to what should have been a much happier relationship with these FireFly batteries, but it is what it is. Enlisting the generously offered assistance of the marina staff and their golf cart to make the looooooooong trek along the maze of docks to get from the boat to the shore, we were able to transfer the batteries from boat to shore to pickup truck to take them to the battery salvage yard.
A forklift sure makes life easier once I got the batteries to the salvage yard! At least I was able to offset the cost of the new batteries with the money for the 2317 lbs of lead contained within the 24 FF batteries. (less weight of case, gel, etc.)
Bye bye FireFly; Hello Victron!
IN with the NEW
The new batteries were delivered a few days later and with some help from the marina staff and their golf cart, we were able to bring the new batteries out to the dock beside Möbius. .With the old FF batteries removed I could take out the fiberglass pans and modify them to fit the new batteries. Not actually required by ABYC for these sealed batteries but a smart “belt & suspender” safety feature I think. Each of the three pans needed to be extended in length so I just cut them in half with my circular saw ………. and then glassed in the space between with new cloth and resin.
Just visible on the far left end of this pan you can see the new SS tie down D rings I installed for the ratchet webbing used to secure the batteries in place.
Now all that was needed was to lift each of the 125lb new batteries from the dock down into the Basement and then lower them into their new home inside each battery compartment.
IN WITH THE NEW:
This schematic illustration will show you how the new House Bank is wired up. Over the many years of boat ownership I have come to appreciate how important it is to keep ALL batteries very well balanced as they are being charged and discharged.
NOTE: this is a schematic diagram only, cable sizes and lengths not shown to scale
This boils down to ensuring that each battery has the exact same resistance as their electrons flow in and out which is mostly determined by having the exact same size and length of cable connecting them to each other in the parallel and series arrangement required for such a multi battery bank setup. It is similarly important that each individual battery bank also has the exact same cable gauge and length for their connections to the main positive and negative bus bars.
Also worth noting that all battery cables are oversized to 120mm2 (two sizes larger than AWG 4/0) to have less than 1% voltage drop.
I have also come to appreciate how much it helps to go the “extra mile” with the interconnecting cables to make all the series and parallel connections between each of the four batteries that make up each bank. I first learned this method many years ago from Nigel Calder’s invaluable “Boatowners Mechanical & Electrical Manual” which you can see in Fig 1.21 page 22 if interested.
This is the wiring I used for each of the four batteries in each battery bank.
You can see this in the schematic above and here in the actual cables installed on the new Victron SC AGM batteries.
Small gauge wires you see here are for the various temperature and voltage sensors for monitoring these batteries with both Victron and Maretron. Christine’s son Tim flew up for a visit during all of this and being a very good certified electrician he generously worked with me for the whole installation process. Here seen crimping the lugs onto the new interconnecting cables that needed to be made up. Tim does very high quality work which I certainly value highly and is also great to see in this new generation of electricians and workforce. Good example here of affixing the SS ratchets and straps to this battery bank. Tim also took on the finicky mounting and then wiring of the three Victron Battery Balancers that we added to the installation.
Thanks Tim, couldn’t have done it without you!! For those interested, these battery balancers work as follows:
The Battery Balancer equalizes the state of charge of two series connected 12V batteries, or of several parallel strings of series connected batteries. When the charge voltage of a 24V battery system increases to more than 27V, the Battery Balancer will turn on and compare the voltage over the two series connected batteries. The Battery Balancer will draw a current of up to 1A from the battery (or parallel connected batteries) with the highest voltage. The resulting charge current differential will ensure that all batteries will converge to the same state of charge.
With the kind of $$ we boat owners invest in our battery banks, every bit that we can extend their lifespan helps and is well worth doing in my experience. Not quite finished, still need to tidy up the cables and small wire sensor cables with zip ties but here is what House Bank #1 looks like. And this is the aft most Bank #3 just about ready to have the lid bolted on to finish this installation.
It took a few days working with Bruce and Kevin at OPE to get all the settings setup just right in the MPPT controllers, WakeSpeed regulators, MultiPlus chargers and BMV sensors and they went the extra mile and then some to help configure and finish up the installation. We have been running the new Victron House Battery setup for about three weeks now and it is performing flawlessly. I’ve tested it both with and without shore power and the each battery and each battery bank has stayed perfectly balanced and performing just as hoped.
A very good feeling after nursing the original House Battery along for the past year but we now have a great setup that should continue to meet all the significant electrical demands aboard Möbius. This is very much a “battery based” boat with all DC and AC power coming from these batteries so this really adds to the SWAN or Sleep Well At Night factor on our beloved Möbius.
Congratulations if you’ve made it this far in this all too typical “brevity challenged” update. With any luck there won’t be any more big jobs like this to report on but I will post updates from time to time as things evolve aboard and soon hopefully off of the Good Ship Möbius.
Not as much to post about the past two weeks as I have been out of commission after hurting my back badly when I tripped and fell last week and aggravated the four cracked discs I have had from a nasty motorcycle accident over 25 years ago. But the spasms are lessening each day since and just a matter of time before I’m back to just the usual back ache which is my normal state. No complaints from me though as we continue to enjoy taking our time to weave our way generally north through some of the hundreds of postcard like Bahamian islands.
When I left off in the last post we were in Red Cut Cay and after a few days there we continued up and anchored at Black Point then on to Allen’s Cay and then a very neat fully enclosed very tiny little bay on Royal Island as seen here on our chart plotter. This will give you a better perspective on how small the entrance was and if you click on the photo I have circled in RED the two short pieces of white PVC pipe that marked each side. Captain Christine guided us through as she put the entrance in our wake and …… …… I soon had the anchor down into the sandy bottom 2.5m/8ft below and we were soon enjoying our very own little anchorage with wine up in the SkyBridge. THIS is why we worked on the design so hard with Dennis to have the least draft possible; 1.3m/4.4 ft After Royal Island we made our way over to Lynyard Cay where we anchored for four days and had a chance to meet up with some sailing friends Mark & Shawnae who were anchored nearby on their latest boat s/v Big Sky Blue Waters (they hail from Montana). Difficult to show on maps as most of these spots are too small to show up but you can get a rough idea of our route and anchorages along the way. We are now anchored up near the north end of Great Abaco Island just off of Coopers Town. There is a storm front coming through this weekend with winds out of the West and South rather than the usual Easterlies so we’ll wait out here for that to pass and then make our way West as we get ready to jump off and cross over to West Palm Beach area in Florida in the next week or so.
That catches you up on our most recent travels and anchorages and now I thought that something a bit different might be of interest to many of you. Read on to see what you think and let me know your thoughts with comments in the “join the discussion” box at the end please.
Year in Review: Top Features We Like Most and Least on Möbius
Hard to believe but we started writing this Mobius.World blog back in March 2018 so we’ve just passed the five year mark for that and the primary motivation for creating and writing the 262 posts since then has been the hope that sharing our experiences here provides a good way for us to “pay it forward” for all the other people who went before us and shared their experiences from which we learned SO much. In keeping with that hope, as the calendar turns over to May (how did THAT happen so fast??) we have been actively cruising Möbius for one year now. Also on the hard to believe list is that our log book shows that we have just ticked over 7300 nautical miles (8400 miles/13,520 Kilometers) and most of that in just the last six months since leaving Turkey at the end of October. Last year we were in and out of a number of marinas so we have been through our share of Med mooring, docking, fueling up and the like. This year we’ve been on anchor every night for the past four months in quite a variety of conditions, bottoms and weather. We’ve done everything from short day trips, lots of overnight passages and some longer ones such as our trans Atlantic crossing of 14 days. With these cumulative experiences I thought now would be a good time to reflect on what we have learned over the past year about what is working out best for us as well as what has not worked so well and we would change or do differently to make Möbius even better. I will write this up as two blog posts grouping what’s worked best into one and then a second with what changes we would make to follow. In my experience I have found that first hand experience from others has proven to be the best and most useful for making my decisions and so I hope these twin posts will do likewise for some of you.
A few caveats before I go any further:
All of the points I’ll be covering are simply what has worked so well or not for us and our use cases with no suggestion that these would be best for other owners, boats and use cases.
There is no implied order or ranking of these items, simply a list.
Any mention of specific products is done for clarity only, these are not endorsements and we have no sponsors or affiliations with any of the products mentioned.
In the years of posts here on this blog, I have provided lots of detailed coverage, too much perhaps, of each of these items during the build so in this posting I will just be listing the reasons why each item is on the list. If you are interested in more details you can refer to these previous posts and I’ll provide links to some of these.
OK, with that out of the way, let’s jump right into our top favorite features on Möbius.
Anchor system
Starting up at the Bow, our whole anchoring system has proven to be eXtremely strong, reliable and easy to use and has perhaps contributes more than any other system to our SWAN factor that enable us to Sleep Well At Night in every anchorage in all conditions. The “SideWinder” mounting of the anchor off the Port side of the Bow which Dennis and I designed, has proven to be a great setup eliminating the anchor and roller assembly from sticking out over 1m at docks and keeps it very securely pressed against the hull in pounding seas with nary a sound or any movement. The primary components of our Anchoring System are
110Kg/242lb Rocna anchor
100m/330ft of Galvanized DS40 13mm chain
Maxwell windlass VWC4000 w/Maxwell controls at both helms and wired remote in forepeak
Lewmar Deluxe Heavy Duty Chain Stopper 13mm chain
Lewmar EVO 55 Self-Tailing Winch for kedging The chain all stows inside of a round aluminium chain bin inside the forepeak which has worked out eXtremely well as there is no “castling” of the chain as it is stowed. and any anchor mud and muck that gets in there is easily flushed out through the drain in the bottom that exits out the side of the hull just above the waterline.
Once the anchor is set we attach a 25mm/1″ nylon snubber line using a loop of Dyneema with a slip knot that goes through one link on the chain. This takes seconds to attach or remove and the snubber from the chain and absorbs of any shock loads on the anchor chain and eliminates any chain noise into the boat. Letting the chain out until the snubber is taking all the tension the line comes up through the large round “nose cone” in the very front of the Bow and ties to the Samson post. Leading the snubber line through the center of the Bow reduces side to side swinging at anchor and the hyperbolic curve machined on the inside of the sold AL snubber cone prevents chaffing of the line which still shows no sign of chaffing after over 150 nights at anchor so far. The large degree of forward slope of the anchor deck also worked out great making it easy to hose down with all the debris draining out the nose cone back into the sea. All together this is a super dependable and easy to deploy/retrieve anchor system that sets first time every time and resets immediately on severe wind shifts. Depends on water depth of course but typically we have about 30m/100ft of 13mm anchor chain out which adds an additional 120kg/265lbs to the 110kg/242lbs of anchor on the bottom so we SWAN very well every night and is definitely one of our favorite systems!
Foul Release silicone bottom paint
Our last minute decision to go with silicone based “Foul Release” bottom paint instead of CopperCoat has turned out to be one of THE best decisions we made. This Foul Release type of bottom paint never ceases to amaze me with how it prevents almost anything from growing on it and what might be there after months of sitting still comes off completely with a simple wipe with a sponge or cloth to bring it back to like new. We used the International version called InterSleek 1100SR but several other manufacturers such as Hempel “Silic One” are also available. This paint has been in the water for over two years now and it still cleans up completely with just a sponge or cloth if we’ve been sitting at anchor for a long time and currently shows no sign of wear or age. It is supposed to be good for 5-7+ years and so far looks like it will achieve that easily which would be a HUGE benefit in terms of efficient hull speeds and no costly annual haul outs. I can’t say for sure but I think that having such clean and slippery silicone hull surface contributes to our overall hull efficiency, speed and great fuel burn rates. What’s not to like??!!
Open and Accessible system installation
All of the system components, wiring and plumbing were given dedicated locations with completely open access. This reduced the time for initial installation during the build but more importantly continues to put a smile on my face every time I need to do any work or maintenance on any of the systems as everything is easy to access and mounted at a just right height for working on. Here in the Basement for example you can see how all the components such as all the 14 MPPT controllers on the Left and the three 240V Victron Multiplus inverter/chargers on the Right, are all mounted such that when I’m kneeling or sitting in front of them they are at the just right height right in front of you to see and work on. Same story back in the Workshop area where all the major components on the Right such as the DC Distribution box, Kabola diesel boiler, watermaker and AirCon chiller system are mounted on top of the shelves to put them at just right height as well. At the far end, the front of the Day Tank has been used to mount all the fuel filters, Alfa Laval centrifuge and fuel transfer valve manifolds are out in the open and at perfect height when standing in front of them. Underneath that shelf the electrical wiring, external rectifiers and water distribution manifolds are also open and easy to access.
All of the plumbing is similarly open and easy to access such as this manifold with valves for all the cold water consumers in the Master Cabin.
One of our four primary principles for the design and build of Möbius was Low Maintenance and having all the components, wiring and plumbing open and so easily and comfortably accessed has been a big factor in achieving this goal throughout the whole boat.
Propulsion Perfection:
As we did for all the major components, we took a “systems” approach to the propulsion system from front of the engine to the prop. coupled to a Nogva Controllable Pitch Propeller (CPP) is also way up at the top of our list of favorite features on Möbius.
Our choice of a Gardner 6LXB engine aka Mr. Gee, coupled to a Nogva Controllable Pitch Propeller (CPP) via a Nogva HC-168 2.95:1 reduction gearbox is also way up at the top of our list of favorite features on Möbius.
The combination of the slow revving engine and lack of any transmission shifting created a seamless and smooth propulsion system. This was our first experience with CPP and it did take some time to learn how to run a boat where you first set the throttle at the RPM you want and then don’t touch it and just use the Pitch lever to increase pitch through an infinite range from zero/neutral to maximum pitch for the load and speed you want. With no shifting involved to go from forward to reverse it is eerily quiet and smooth when docking and when underway we essentially run the boat based on the EGT or Exhaust Gas Temperature meter to get the just right pitch for any speed we want.
We cruise between 8.5-9 knots and after 7300 nautical miles our overall propulsion efficiency has us averaging about 1.85 L/NM @ 8.5kts which we are eXtremely pleased with.
The dedicated “propulsion room” is another of my most favorite design decisions as it similarly provides open and easy access to Mr. Gee and all his components, ….. as well as the Nogva gearbox, coupling and Tides Marine dripless prop shaft seal. I am able to stand, sit or kneel on the grated composite flooring on all sides and with a full meter of width all around and each grate can be easily lifted out of the way to provide access underneath if needed. Having a dedicated engine room with nothing but the engine inside keeps everything inside easy to see and work on, easy to keep well ventilated and all the other components typically found in engine rooms such as fuel filters, batteries and system components are kept OUT of this environments heat and vibration. More examples of how well the open and accessible systems design is one of our favorite features.
Layout (cabin locations, balance living vs functional, up/down)
The overall interior layout also makes it way to the top of our favorite aspects of live aboard Möbius. For us it has the Goldilocks balance between amount of living space vs functional systems space and our decision to have a very large forepeak up front and then an even larger engine room/workshop space in the rear has resulted in a great layout as well as keeping these spaces completely separate with their own dedicated access so you never need to go through a living space area to get to something in the forepeak or engine room or workshop. The vertical layout has also worked out eXtremely well for us with each cabin a few steps below the SuperSalon and the SkyBridge up above. One of the most useful features of our layout is having an enormous “Basement” area below the floor of the SuperSalon. We designed this to be 1.2m/ 4ft high such that you can easily move around by bending over and not hit your head on anything and then sit or kneel to access any of the equipment mounted on intermediate floor to ceiling walls or access any of the many storage bins and shelves in the Basement. The stairs leading down into the SuperSalon from the Aft Deck on the Left and then around to the stairs down into the Ships Office and Guest cabin on the Right provide excellent access between all these areas. Very difficult to photograph but hopefully this pano shot of the SuperSalon will help convey why we like this layout with the 360 degrees of glass so much.
SkyBridge
We knew we wanted a Flybridge overtop of the main Salon or House so this was part of the design from the beginning but I don’t think either of us appreciated just how much we would enjoy this feature and how much time we would spend up here both when at anchor and underway. Part of what makes this space work so well is our decision to put the Upper Helm at the Aft end of the SkyBridge. As we’ve done in several areas of the boat we have created an initial prototype for the seating in this SkyBridge Lounge area by using patio furniture which we rearrange from time to time to figure out what will work best longer term. So far this L shaped layout has worked out best. There are great sight lines when sitting in the Helm chair just outside this photo on the far Left and yet still takes full advantage of the height for sight lines through the 360 degrees of windows that surround this entire space. The Bow and the side rub rails are all fully visible from the Helm chair. The roof overtop of the outdoor galley down on the Aft Deck does prevent a direct view of the transom but otherwise the sight lines Aft are great and we have a camera that displays a birds eye view of the transom on the Helm displays if needed when backing into a dock.
The Helm down in the SuperSalon duplicates the Upper SkyBridge Helm. But unless the weather is very cold or wet we much prefer to run the boat from the SkyBridge with its added height and even better visibility.
At anchor it also makes a great office space and a comfy bed for naps and off watch time as well. So the SkyBridge definitely makes it onto our top favorites list.
Hot Water & Heated Floors
Another example of the advantages of taking a Systems approach is our Domestic Hot Water system or DHW and probably fair to say that the heart of our DHW system that puts his solidly on our top favorites is our decision to install a Kabola diesel fired boiler. Located with all the other system components in the Workshop it is out of the way yet easily accessible. The 75L Kabola boiler is our primary source of DHW as it circulates through one of three heat exchanger circuits in our Calorifier that stores all our hot water as can be seen in this cutaway demo. The second heat exchanger circuit routes hot water from our Gardner engine and so whenever we are running the boat this provides all our hot water instead of the Kabola boiler. The third heat source is a 240V electrical heating element which we can use if the water based heat exchangers should ever fail.
However the one feature of our DHW that truly steals the show in cold weather is mostly invisible and that our Heated Floors. Underneath the vinyl flooring in all the living spaces there are circuits of plastic PEX tubing that circulates hot water and provides a creature comfort in colder climates that is difficult to adequately describe in words. A detailed description of the whole heated floor system can be found HERE in this previous blog post.
As you can read in that more detailed blog post, this is quite a simple system really but does take a bit to get your head around how it works as this is all part of the overall domestic hot water system so that all the water flowing through the floor PEX is coming from the Calorifier in the Basement circulating the same water as distributed to all the sinks and showers on the boat. No valves to adjust or turn on/off it all works by virtue of how this “Open Direct” plumbing design dictates.
Overtop of the PEX tubing and rigid foam, these industrial vinyl floor planks provide a fantastic floor in all weather conditions and are specifically made to work well with heated floors. Critical for our use on a boat, these vinyl floor planks have a simulated wood grain texture molded in which has proven to be completely skid proof even with wet feet and any spills clean up easily. After two years of rigorous use these floors show zero signs of wear or marks which helps keep them on our top favorites list.
There are three independent zones for the two cabins and the SuperSalon and each is controlled by one of these easy to set thermostats which maintain whatever temperature you want.
The manifolds and pumps are mounted down in the Basement up against the Aft bulkhead and yet another example of how easy this whole system is to access.
Battery & Solar Based Electrical System
Yet another systems approach on our top favorites list is our overall Electrical system. It is “battery based” in that all four voltages; 12V + 24V DC and 120V + 240V AC comes from our 1800Ah @ 24V House Battery bank. AC is created via the 5 Victron MultiPlus inverter/chargers and the DC is provided via three DC distribution boxes; Central Main in the Basement plus one in the Forepeak and one in the Workshop for the high amperage circuits there. Solar is our primary source for recharging the house batteries most of the time but when we are underway the two massive 250A x 24V Electrodyne alternators with WakeSpeed 500 regulators provide up to 9KW of power and we also have the option of connecting to shore power whenever we are in a marina. There are eight 320W solar panels that form the roof of our SkyBridge as seen in the photo above and then three more mounted on top of the cantilevered roof over the Outside Galley on the Aft Deck as seen here. And then three more mounted in a hinged frame in front of the SkyBridge. These 14 solar panels add up to just over 4kW of potential power and most days our battery monitors show an actual input of between 1kW during the winter months and up to over 2.5kWh of power during summer hours. Each solar panel has its own MPPT controller which are mounted in the Basement and feed into individual circuit breakers for further control as seen here. Having a dedicated MPPT for each panel reduces the impact of any shading on any panel and helps with the overall performance of our solar system. This screen shot from our Victron VRM display shows a summary for our solar output vs electrical consumption so far in 2023. And this summary of the past 2 days, April 28+29 2023 lets you see how it varies throughout a 24 hour day. We have not been in a marina or connected to shore power in the past four months and the combination of solar and alternator power is keeping our batteries 100% charged every day and so easily makes it onto our favorites list!
Handholds Everywhere for Everyone
Safety was another of the four design principles we had and one example that has proven to be a big favorite is the way we were able to ensure that there were super solid hand holds for EVERY person onboard from children to adults.
On the exterior the handholds are all 30mm diameter thick walled AL pipe such as these on the aft end of the house roof near the Aft Deck. These pipe handholds also make for eXcellent strong points for fastening things with Dyneme and other lines. Perhaps one of the most important spots for handholds is along the side decks when you are moving between the Fore and Aft Deck areas. On the left you can see the continuous length of AL pipe that runs along the entire edge of the house roof and then the three rows of Dyneema landlines that Christine rigged between each of the sturdy vertical AL stanchion pipes. The top lifeline is 1 meter above the deck so hits most adults about waist height which ensures that even if you were to be thrown against these you would be stopped and not flipped over top. Up at the Bow there is a very solid set of AL pipe railings that wrap all the way around and make this area extremely safe and fun spot to be for dolphin watching or just dangling your feet overboard and taking in the scenery at anchor or underway. At the far end of the Aft Deck there are solid AL pipe railings for the corner of the deck before the stairs going down to the Swim Step and then a solid AL pipe railing on the other side of the steps. In the Engine Room, Mr. Gee has a full set of AL pipe railings wrapped around him to ensure you can’t be tipped over onto him in rough seas and these have worked out very well to also provide good support as you are leaned over working on various parts. On the interior of the boat one of our favorite esthetic features of the gorgeous Rosewood cabinetry is the design we came up with to incorporate built in hand holds to the design that are located on all the cabinets in all the cabins and SuperSalon. This example is on the corner of the Galley cabinet across from where the fridges are located. These solid Rosewood edges wrap around the whole boat to form what we call our “Blue Horizon Line” and their key feature is that they have a deep groove that is at about waist height where your fingers naturally slip in to provide an eXtremely secure hand hold. We have had our grandchildren onboard several times now and these have worked out as designed to be at Goldilocks height and size for their fingers too.
Interior Materials:
Possibly saving the best for last, something that brings us joy every day is the choice of interior materials we made.
The Rosewood we chose for all the cabinetry really steals the show and this shot of the Galley cabinets will give you some idea. We were very fortunate that Naval Yachts happened to have their very best cabinetmakers throughout the entire build and they were a joy to work together with to produce details such as how all the grain is bookmatched such that it literally flows from one piece to the next. This was made possible because after months of searching we were able to purchase an entire flitch of Brazilian Rosewood that had been flat cut from the same log. As each slice comes off they stack these in order and therefore the grain of each slice follows the next. The other key was finding a matching stack of solid Rosewood that would be used to build the frames and every edge of every panel. NO veneer edging allowed! Unlike more typical construction, all plywood edges had these T shaped pieces of solid Rosewood glued in place and then the veneer was applied AFTER so that it overlapped the solid wood edging. What this does is ensure that there are no glue joints exposed and they become invisible as they gradually transition from veneer to solid. When these panels would be used for a corner of a cabinet, a thick piece of solid Rosewood was glued glued on and then this solid edge was rounded over in a shaper to create a large radius corner The Rosewood was more than 11X the cost of any other hardwood so to help stretch the prized solid pieces it was sometimes possible to glue on a piece of cheaper hardwood like this and then round the Rosewood for the corner. For the very large radius corners, strips of solid Rosewood were edge glued up and then radiused like this. Or like this. When combined with the Turquoise Turkish marble and the inset Blue Horizon line strips, the end result was well worth the extra time and expense to build. We carried the same combination of materials throughout both cabins, Salon and Galley and I hope these few photos help you see why this puts a smile on our faces every day. There is a LOT more that we like about our dear Möbius and she has definitely lived up to being “Project Goldilocks” by being just right, just for us but the above items hit upon most of our top favorite features and I hope this review was worthwhile. Of course there is always the other end of the spectrum and so in the next blog post I will follow up by reviewing things that have not worked out as well or are things we want to change so do stay tuned for that.
To help with your orientation, this screen shot from my Fusion 360 3D model shows where the Head & Shower are located in the front DS Driver Side of Lance’s Hab/Habitat/Box which is on the far Right of this view. 
Here is what it looked like IRL (In Real Life) from the inside when I got started. That’s the SS Fridge/Freezer on the far Right, Blue DS Galley countertop peeking through on the Left and that’s the DS Front corner of the Hab in the far middle of this photo. The toilet will sit on top of the raised floor section and I’m getting ready to put in the the shower pan on the lower section of the floor that the blue cargo spreaders are resting on.
I started prepping the interior by gluing 1/2” Baltic Birch plywood on the XAL eXtruded Aluminium framing of the two walls you see here on the Left and Rear. I use these adjustable Blue Cargo Spreaders (from Harbor Freight) all the time and here they are helping apply pressure to the freshly glued in BB plywood panels to keep them flat and straight.
For maximum adhesion of the rigid foam Shower Pan I removed all the LVT vinyl floor planking that covers all the floor area inside Lance’s Happytat. 
To help with tiling the shower pan and getting the slope to the center shower drain just right, I bought a Vevor shower pan kit that is specifically made for this purpose and adds even more insulation to the shower floor. 
You can see here how the area for the flange of the PVC drain is already pre-cast into the foam and you’ll also note the large circular recess surrounding it for bedding the drain flange into the floor. 
After checking that it all fit just right, I removed the foam pan, applied a silicone based adhesive with my cordless caulking gun (that I’m enjoying more ever time I use!), spread it out evenly with a notched trowel and pressed the floor pan back into place using my trusty cargo spreaders and some aluminium and plywood cauls to press it even and flat. 
It was difficult to see in the photos above but I also used 1/2” BB plywood to cover the wall between the Shower and the Fridge/Freezer compartment. I caulked all seams and corners with construction adhesive for additional sealing of those.
Next I put in this small bit of XAL framing to extend that exterior cabinet “bump” all the way to the inner edge of the Head raised floor. This will also create a handy storage area. 
Now it was time to completely waterproof every surface inside the Head & Shower to ensure that there are no leaks in the future. I used the ever popular RedGuard and brushed it on all the surfaces.
After the first thin coat of RedGuard was on I went around and used more RedGuard to bed in some reinforcing felt that I cut into strips and pressed into all the corners and seams with more RedGuard. 
The drain area received several more coats of RedGuard as this will get the most traffic and potential for seepage. The pink colour is from the still wet RedGuard which quickly changes to Red as it dries fully. 
Et Voila!! 
A bit messy but my 11cm/ 4 1/4” hole saw did a nice job of cutting this hole through all the layers of insulation and aluminium in the floor for the PVC drain to set into and exit out the bottom where it will connect to PVC pipe and on to the Gray Water tank. You can also see the 2 inches of insulation that are below the shower floor. 
I had some of this Blue Solid Surface acrylic material left over from doing the Galley countertops so I used this to create a nicely contrasting and durable shelf top on that bump out in the Head. 
I wanted to get this shelf installed before I started putting in the PVC planking that I’m going to use to cover the walls. 
The kit comes with this Orange plastic mesh which the Black heating cable gets attached to.
This is the transition piece where the cable changes from the 220VAC power cable to the heated wire. As it is a larger diameter I routed a groove into the ACM flooring so this thicker diameter would sit flush with the floor surface and be better protected. 
The heated cable is one continuous length and you can not cut this so it took me a bit of planning to get the spacing right but all fit in very nicely and will keep our tootsies warm both when showering and sitting on the Throne! 
With all the heated cable and mesh in place I mixed up the epoxy thinsulate/mortar and spread out about a 13mm / 1/2” thick layer with a steel trowel and smoothed it all out. 
Laying out this type of spiral pattern is a bit tricky and takes some planning to make sure all the corners and joints line up and maintain the pattern. If you look closely you’ll see that you can only get a straight line for butting up against corners or lining up sheets in one place along the larger square formed by each spiral.
Where I needed to cut some of the tiles such as around the drain, my trusty Dremel tool with a diamond cutting wheel worked like a charm to get nice straight cuts and smooth edges and you can maybe see along the bottom edge for this sheet I’m trimming square here. 
It had been a Looooooooong time, think decades, since I last did any tiling so I started with the floor in the Head as it will largely be covered by our Joolca “Gotta Go” separating toilet to cover any learning errors, but it all turned out quite well I thought. 
Then I moved onto the Shower floor and started the dry layup there. 
You can see how I needed to trim the tiles a bit along the edges of the square SS drain which I did so that the outer edges of the regular square spiral patterns would match up with the outer edges. 
And it all slopes down from the edges to the drain. 
I thought it would look better to create a single upper edge surrounding the whole space so I put in some aluminium edging and tiled up to that along all the sides of the Shower and the Head floors and set them in place. 
For the walls I wanted to find the best combination of waterproof, easy to clean and good looking so I ended up going with these White tongue and groove PVC planks that are about 18cm / 7” wide with grooves molded in to look like narrower planks, and started cutting them to size.
I picked up some aluminium edging meant to be used under tiles which you see propped up in the corner on the Right here and used that to make the transitions from tile to PVC planking. I taped off the top and bottom edges of the area for this band………….. 
………. and installed the AL transitions edging all round. 
I had enough left over tile to cut these bands off the sheets and used that size to determine the width of the band. 
Worked out quite well and now time to put up all the PVC wall planks.
It was quite quick and easy to cut the 8ft long PVC planks to a nice fit between the top and bottom edges of the aluminium edging there the tiles start and stop. 
The cargo spreaders and some square aluminium tube cauls helped to hold the PVC planks flat while the silicone adhesive cured overnight.
With the wall planks all done I could now grout all the tiles in this band and on the floors to finish the tiling. 
I did the ceiling with the same vinyl planking with a different pattern on it that I used for the ceilings in the rest of Lance. As with those other ceilings, I put in a strip of dimmable LED’s between each plank but more on that a bit later.
I’m not a big fan of the popular variations of the MaxFans that much of the RV and Van world seem to use and wanted to keep our overall vehicle height to a minimum and we’re at 2.9m / 9’ 5” right now with the solar panels and roof vent. So this Kohree vent unit seemed to check all our boxes.
I had purposely left this space up on the roof in front of the four 450Watt solar panels and their Super Strut rails so now time to cut the only hole in our otherwise seamless one piece roof.
There are three thick aluminium plates in the roof of Lance, one for the top skin, the layer you can see here that forms the internal ceiling of the ambo box and then …… 
……… the final layer of 5mm thick ACM that I installed for the ceiling surface below the additional layer of 20mm IPS foam insulation. 
The vent dropped in just right. 
I used this 2×2” square AL ceiling beam for a conduit for the wires to power and control the fan. 
I’m a BIG fan of these WAGO wire connectors and have used them throughout the build. They worked well to connect these 12VDC power wires to the fan and then tuck nicely into that square AL tube. 
Checked everything for a good fit including this trim frame and then …. 
………. bedded the vent into the roof with 3M 5200 sealant and some makeshift weights to let it cure overnight.
Worked out well to provide Goldilocks just right lighting both night and day. 
One last detail for those few times (so far) either of us needs to get up and use the Head in the middle of the night, I wanted also have some indirect low level lighting inside the Head & Shower area. So I installed some of these 45 degree angled aluminium extrusions in hidden areas such as under the door sill into the Shower you can make out below my hand and another under that little Blue shelf in the Head. 
To help keep our night vision and add a bit of “ambiance” I used these Blue LED strips which are also dimmable to whatever level of Blue light you’d like.
Testing out the LED strip tucked in below the door sill into the Shower. 
After some debate and research we decided to go with this retractable shower door that rolls up when OPEN like this 
….. and then rolls out to seal and CLOSE like this. 
The flexible material rolls up on a spring loaded shaft hidden neatly inside this cassette that mounts to the left side of the door. 
The “door” slides on tracks concealed inside the AL extrusions top and bottom and I left a small gap at the top to help with air circulation. 
And then mounted this mirrored Medicine Cabinet on the rear wall to finish things off. 
an’t have much of a shower with no water so along the way I installed this very nice adjustable hand held shower head that has a full shut off valve on the handle and …. 
…… connected it to a thermostatic controlled mixing valve faucet. These are great for maintaining a whatever water temperature you set it to coming out of the shower head. The button allows you to turn the water on and off as you wish to conserve water and have it off when you want to wash your hair, shave, etc. 
The SS cylindrical knob on the top end rotates to set the temperature and the one on the bottom controls the water flow volume.
I drilled and threaded this plate to mount these two brass fittings for the thermostatic valve to attach to on the outside and push-connect fittings on the other side ………… 
…… for the Hot & Cold water 1/2” PEX-A lines to attach to. 
The Yellow handles are shut off ball valves on each PEX water line for servicing or winterizing.
The whole assembly then fits securely into the slots in the XAL framing. 
I cut this rabbet or tongue on the bottom edge that is a snug fit into the groove on the bottom length of XAL framing. 
The way it works is that you first put the bottom tongue into the groove and then …….. 
…………… tip the panel up into place. 
To hold this and likely all the panels in Lance securely in place, I’m trying out using these very strong round “donut” Neodymium magnets. This one is a 40 pounder, meaning it takes about 40 pounds of pull to remove. These magnets are available from less than one pound up to over one hundred. 
All the metal in Lance is aluminium which of course isn’t magnetic so cut a short 5cm/2” length of steel flat bar and drilled a 6mm hole in one end so I can bolt it to a T nut captured in the XAL slot on the back here. Worked out even better than I hoped and the panel snaps into place with a good “thud” and locks the whole panel tightly in place. 
Here is what the panel looks like so far. White thermostat for the heated floors in the Head & Shower in the bottom right (currently turned off) and the Victron Cerbo GX touch display above it and switches for things like water pump, Starlink power and the thermostatic controllers for the heated main cabin floors over to the Left. 
Easily one of the most used and most important areas for our day to day live in Lance and our 10,000 + mile “maiden voyage” this past summer proved that our design worked well as we used it during that two month test drive. We prioritized large areas of open countertop, dual deep sink, induction cooktop and large fridge and freezer and you can see the basic layout from the 3D model screengrab here. 
Underneath both countertops it is all drawers as we find these much more efficient to use than cupboards and overall we have more than 20 drawers inside of Lance. 
I have always preferred dovetail joints for all drawers given their superior strength that stands up for decades of use and I think they look great too and so that’s what we went with for Lance. I was going to do this all myself but with almost a hundred dovetailed corners to do and SO many other jobs demanding my time and attention I decided to job this out. I found a fabulous company to work with called 
They shipped all the pre-cut drawers to me as flatpacks like this so the whole shipment of all the drawers was not too large and they were all very well shrink wrapped and carefully boxed up so they arrived with no damage at all. 
They also offered a great prices on the the top quality Blum undermount ball bearing drawer slides I wanted so it all came as a single order which made my life easier.
Mounting more than 40 drawer slides to the XAL framework was very straightforward but time consuming to get them all exactly parallel and lined up. 
and some required a bit of Houdini moves to hold in place and tighten up. 
Next, I set up a little workbench on top of the PS Galley counter to assemble each drawer. 
Each set of dovetails only required a few drops of wood glue and they went together very well with two bar clamps and some taps with my little hammer to get the joints to fit together all the way. The dovetails were so precise that every drawer went together perfectly square and were solid as a rock. 
The Blum drawer slides required two slots in the bottom of each rear drawer side so I cut those out next and then I mounted to the Orange locking hardware to the bottom of the front corners. These are where the drawer slides clip into the drawer and make it very easy to lift out a drawer at any time. It’s a great system! 
Installing each drawer was now a simple process of pulling out each drawer slide………. 
………… setting the pins in the rear of each drawer slide into the corresponding holes I had previously drilled and pushing them closed till they clicked in place. 
Et Voila! We’ve got drawers! Sad to say that I wasn’t able to get this done before we left on our big summer adventure so we REALLY appreciate having these now! 
I wanted all surfaces of these drawers to have a tough durable finish and decided to go with this two part Rubi Monocoat finish that you put on by hand with cloths rather than brush or spray. Hand rubbed finishes have always been my favorite and while this was a new one for me I was eXtremely pleased with the end result and the whole process of applying it. 
It was a bit laborious and a good workout but a very satisfying process for me. 
Difficult to see in photos but the Baltic Birch plywood came out with a glowing warm colour and a very tough finish that is also very easy to reapply in the future. 
To reduce the loss of usable space under the sinks I used these low profile P-traps which have turned out to work very well. 
and only required a small cut out on the rear of the two under sink drawers to clear nicely. 
For lighting, I decided to use COB (Circuit on Board) LED strip lights which I set inside lengths of 20mm wide black aluminium U channel which I ran in between each of the White PVC ceiling planks. I like these newer COB strips for two reasons; they provide an uninterrupted line of light rather than individual points of light in the regular LED strips and they can be adjusted from about 2200K (very warm amber) up to 6500K (daylight white). 
Once I had the layout done and the strips of PVC and AL channel cut to length, the process went quite quickly. I could apply the construction adhesive to each plank and AL channel and press them up into place and then use my super handy cargo jacks and some scrap lengths of XAL to press these all up against the ceiling so they ended up flat and aligned. 
You can buy the COB LED lights in 20 meter rolls which you then cut to the lengths you want and solder three wires to the copper strips underlying the Yellow COB light strips. Takes a bit of practice to get these tight solder joints without any cross connections but all went pretty well after a few practice solders. 
Then I twist the wires to help reduce any electrical interference and slide a clear tube of heat shrink tubing over the joints and shrink them in place for a nice clean and protected connection.
……………. I could now press these clear covers in place. 
Here’s the result at about 6000k. These LED light strips are also fully dimmable so you can adjust both the colour temp from warm to cold white and from off to full almost daylight brightness.
Living the nomadic and remote life that we always have, we are big fans having solar power be the primary source for all our daily electrical needs, which are quite extensive. On our boat Mobius we had factored solar panels into the design from the beginning and were able to have 16 large panels on three different roof surfaces on that boat such as these eight panels on the upper Pilot House roof. 
And here on Road Runner Ranch we have 18 solar panels in two banks, this one just set against one of our 40 foot shipping containers and the others you can see Razz laying on above. These keep our big EG4 Wall Mount 15kW battery charged up every day and running this through our EG4 6000XP Inverter/Charger provides all our electrical power for day to day life here. 
This is where the time I spent meticulously building Lance in a 3D model using Fusion 360 pays off. I could create a model for each of the different solar panels that I was considering and see how they would fit onto Lance’s roof and on the framing. 
After much deliberation and testing in the model, I decided to go with four SilFab 420 Watt QD panels which I purchased from Current Connected almost a year ago now. I was able to get these all installed this past May in time to help power us on our marathon maiden voyage with Lance driving out to Portland Maine and back this summer. For those interested you can see all the specs of these panels here and of course with the march of time since there would now be even higher output panels but we’ve still ended up with 1680 Watts of solar power and it has been more then enough to keep us fully powered all the time. 
I
I added additional 4 foot lengths of Super Strut so that I would have a mounting system for the whole 14 foot length of Lance’s roof for mounting any additional items in the future. 
I kept the mounting very simple as well by cutting pieces off a length of 2” aluminium L bar, 
drilling two holes in each one for the mounting bolts, 
and using the very handy Super Strut M8 threaded inserts to bolt them solidly to the lengths of Super Strut. 
Quick, strong, simple; what’s not to like?!! 
I then made up the cables using extra UV rated cables, Red for the positive and Black for negative and crimping the MC4 twist lock connectors that are the most commonly used for solar panel wiring and which I’ve used a lot in previous projects so I have all the specialty tools, crimpers, etc. some of which you see here in the photo. 
To fasten the brackets to the solar panel frames themselves I inserted aluminium M6 threaded Riv-Nuts into holes I drilled into the vertical AL frame on the solar panel and then used this tool which compresses the threaded inserts and locks them to the frame. 
End result looks like this. 
For those wondering, I fastened the lengths of Super Strut to the roof using Loctite 8X PL Premium Fast Grab which is supposed to be 8 times stronger than traditional construction adhesives which I’ve used before. Probably overkill but you certainly don’t want solar panels flying off the roof when running down the highway at 70 miles an hour! To prevent any pooling of rainwater between the surfaces of the roof and the Super Strut I caulked all the edges with 3M marine sealant which I have LOTS of experience with on our previous boats. So everything fully sealed and eXtremely well fastened to the roof. 
Solar panel output drops off significantly with the rise in temperature of the panels, the irony of which isn’t lost on me, so I left this 4” gap where the two panels down each side meet up. This along with the 2+ inch space between the panels and the roof keeps them as well ventilated as possible and the efficiency of their output was very good even in the 40C/105F days we had several times on the trip AND while I was installing these panels! Talk about a cat on a hot tin roof! Ouch! 
To make it a bit easier to run the cables AND give me a wee bit of shade, I was able to remove the inner brackets and use the outer ones like a hinge and prop up one lengthwise pair of panels while I ran the cables. 
I ran the eight cables for all four solar panels to converge at this point on the front DS corner as this puts it directly overtop of the Electrical Cabinet below where they need to go and thus provides the shortest cable run for least voltage drop. I drilled the only hole in the roof for this but it was a BIG one as you can see and then I used more 3M 5200 to seal a short length of 2” PVC pipe as a safe conduit through the roof for these and all other cables in the future. The red square you see on the bottom is 3M VHB Very High Bond two sided tape which is a fabulous product for gluing almost anything to anything and it never comes off. 
PVC
Each
This is what it looked like inside the Electrical Compartment where the cables pass through. 
The output of solar panels is a much higher voltage than the batteries and needs to be regulated to different charging stages to properly charge the big LiFePO4 Lithium EG4 batteries in Lance so the output of the solar panels goes through a MPPT controller which looks after all of this. Although it isn’t common, the most efficient setup is to have a dedicated MPPT controller for each panel and so that’s how I’ve always built our solar systems. Those are the four Victron Blue boxes you see on the upper Right here. 
It’s a bit of electrical spaghetti and took a bit of time to route and connect all these cables but keeps all the wiring very well contained in the wire ducts like the one running vertically up the far Right side and will have a cap that snaps onto those fingers you see here. 
Final
The extra length of Super Strut has already come in handy for my temporary for now mounting of our Starlink dish and the 4” PVC tube running down the middle for storing long lengths of material I like to have for ongoing projects while we’re on the road. Go ahead and tell me you’re surprised?!?!
and “Sunny Boy” as he tells me he now likes to be called.
Zooming in a bit you can see the turn off of Hwy 95 onto the dirt road running East in the middle of this sat view over to our place with the Green Flag. That distance is about 1.5 miles/2.4km
Zooming in on that Green Flag, here’s the birds eye view of our 10 acres where you can see the two white shipping containers that came with the property. (the boat was just being stored there)
For the curious amongst you, all the black dots you see in these sat photos are 
Meanwhile, IRL In Real Life, here is where I put our Lance home on wheels #2 (too funny right?!) after the drive from Tucson. The truck is a 2006 Toyota Tundra SR5 and the trailer is a 2012 Lance model 2385. For more details on Lance #2 the travel tailer, see the previous post for photos and layout. 
Part of the attraction and what made this property such a Goldilocks find for us was those two new containers AND what was inside of them. Here is a shot of the container on the Left where you can see these 16 new solar panels. These are 305 Watt PV panels which I will soon be setting up outside to give us a total of almost 5 kilowatts of potential solar power. 
OK, so those solar panels capture the sun’s energy, but then what Wayne?? 
Inside the wood box on the bottom is 128kg/282 lbs. of big beautiful battery power! 14.3 kWh (kilo Watt hours) to be exact, which comes in the form of our new EG4 wall mount 48V 280Ah lithium Iron battery. Being in very sunny southern Nevada those solar panels should provide more than enough power to keep this battery fully charged every day. 
The two cardboard boxes above that contain this equally beautiful and important EG4 600XP split phase off-grid inverter/charger which handles two critical tasks. First it takes all the 48 volt DC power from the battery and inverts it into 120 and 240 Volts AC and then there are two MPPT controllers inside which regulates all the DC power from the solar panels to charge the batteries. Together this will provide us with all our electrical power we need in the trailer and the workshop to power everything from air conditioner to induction cooktop to welder.
The solution to that also lies in the containers in the form of these IBC Totes (Intermediate Bulk Container) You may have noticed this one beside the 16 solar panels shown earlier. 
Then there are four more ICB totes stacked up at the end of the other container. There is a LOT of other equipment in these containers and I did a quick inventory of them after I took the trailer there and I marked this photo with the # of liters of fresh water in each one. These ICB totes each hold about 330 USG/ 1250 Liters and so when all four are full that gives us about 1320 USG/5000L which should give us about a year’s worth of water.
………
Left side is a 1.8 cubic foot freezer and 5.2 cu ft of fridge on the right with plenty of shelves, drawers and door space so should serve us well. 
I’ve been busy getting Lance ready for the 800 mile drive down to Searchlight and needed to get all the lights on the back of him working. I needed some wire for this and as you may recall from previous posts, I removed all the many miles of original wiring from inside the ambulance box and so with the help of my two assistants I tackled the sorting and spooling of all this wire. This is Zoe with her “cone of shame” after her spay surgery. 
Together the three of us were able to convert this into ……………….. 
……..… this and another tubful. 
Twas a wee bit chilly doing this work for as the seasonal song goes ………. “the weather outside what frightful!”. But I’ve got a little electric heater when I’m working inside Lance and with all his insulation it was doesn’t take much to keep it all nice and toasty in there. 
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