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To misquote Tom Hanks, I Made Power! I’ve done a connection test to see if I understood it all. John Reed can feel free to critique my setup as I picked his brain for this. I cut the outlet end of a cheap extension cord to stand in for the 30 amp power cord that will ultimately be there. Two 20 amp circuit breakers feed the two outlets on the left, one each. An LED bulb lamp is plugged in to the outlet. The power source was plugged into a power strip with surge protection just in case but it all worked as planned. One minor detail is the bus is expecting a larger wire and I couldn’t get it to close on the extension cord so I had to screw that in one of the other screws on the bus. But it’s all one piece of metal so I figured the worst that could happen is the entire city would go dark. In the camper on breaker will supply the charger/converter and the other will supply two GFCI outlets in the cabin. Room for two more should I need it.

Not knowing if I was throwing away a hard earned 8 dollars and change, I ordered 6 LED 12 volt daytime running lights from Ebay for the camper. They looked pretty bright in the ad. They arrived a couple days ago. Today after painting, I found a converter to give me a few amps of 12 volt DC. Using some alligator clip testing connectors I hooked two of them up. They seem pretty bright. I plan to use them as overhead lights in the cabin. Given how bright they are I might put each pair on a separate circuit with its own switch.

They are kind of flimsy but I’m sure I can adhere them to a backing to sturdy them up.

Well I started painting the camper. First I put tarps down. Then I taped off everything that didn’t need to be painted. Now I put one coat of primer on all of the exposed wood on the outside. After 90 minutes or so I painted most of the inside. I realized that if painted both access points I might have to spend the night so I stopped before that happened. I’ll work on what’s left tomorrow. I will possibly do another coat before I’m ready to start adding the canvas skin.

I’ve also gotten a breaker box, and breakers, that will eventually receive AC from a campground power pedestal. Also some 12V LED car running lights (6 total for $8) that I hope will turn into the overhead lights for the cabin.