1984 Model 345 - maiden roadtrip

[bkahler]

Originally Posted by Magnet18

Waynes work was fantastic, I referenced his site regularly during my efi install, and I have a copy of the whole site downloaded just in case it ever goes offline.

Thanks for doing that. I had started that task and then got side tracked and forgot about it.

Wayne was a fountain of info.....

[marcvl]

Dropped her off at my mechanic yesterday. Probably gone for 2 weeks to fix any remaining cooling/braking/suspension/mechanical issues. I may also have an electrical issue (maybe grounding?). Several fuses keep blowing for no apparent reason (windshield wipers, radio, leveling jacks). Sorry to all the gear heads here. I'm having someone do this work instead of doing it myself. It's sadly beyond my skill level .

So, I'm turning my attention to the interior remodel. Key things on my to-do are (i) redoing the electrical and installing solar+internet; (ii) replacing the Dometic boilers with a new Alde system; (iii) upgrading kitchen; (iv) replacing shower; (v) turning bed 90 degrees and installing a queen; (vi) removing carpet; (vii) re-upholstering; (viii) better cabinet organization + restaining.

The key question I'm struggling with is what to do with the subfloor. As is to be expected, the floor is soft in areas where there's water (kitchen, shower, bathroom). Should I take her down to the studs and put in a new subfloor, or do I just fix the soft spots with some Epoxy and call it done? Honestly, it scares me to try and disassemble everything. I can have an Airstream specialist do it, but he can only start in late September, which means that all my projects would be on hold until then, AND I would miss Peter's rally

Decisions, decisions .... Would love some advice from folks. Have you replaced the entire subfloor, or rather made point fixes? Thoughts on structural stability of making point fixes?

[PeterH-350LE]

Originally Posted by marcvl

............ I can have an Airstream specialist do it, but he can only start in late September, which means that all my projects would be on hold until then, AND I would miss Peter's rally

Decisions, decisions .... Would love some advice from folks. Have you replaced the entire subfloor, or rather made point fixes? Thoughts on structural stability of making point fixes?

Now we can't have that, I am on the way to help you
I have replaced small and big section and have poured some hardening liquid on small areas after I located the leaks. I also left some smaller areas as I found them. The obvious problem is the kind of wood Airstream used in the late 80's and 90's. It just falls apart when it gets wet.
Just use a nice solid top floor after you fix the major problem areas.

If no one ever touched the subfloor, you will find the passenger floor completely rotted as well as right behind the passenger seat.

[marcvl]

Thanks Peter. I love the flooring used in new Airstreams (https://infinitylwv.com/pages/flooring-collection), so that’s what I’m thinking about for the new top floor.

[PeterH-350LE]

Originally Posted by marcvl

Thanks Peter. I love the flooring used in new Airstreams (https://infinitylwv.com/pages/flooring-collection), so that’s what I’m thinking about for the new top floor.

I can see that type of flooring to be desired, just not sure how it would hold up to our busy camping/dog lifestyle. I am big fan of the 100% waterproof vinyl plank flooring and the use of area rugs. If you ever had to deal with a refrigerator spilling cottage cheese all over the place, you will know exactly what type of flooring you want.

Some people say to never put it under the furniture. I have done it on several trailers and Motorhomes and have very little issues with it. Trailer floors tend to flex a lot more than Motorhome floors, so after towing my trailer appr 10k miles I do have a little separation on a couple of planks. no big deal.
https://www.homedepot.com/b/Lifeproo...toreSelection=

[marcvl]

Yes, feedback on this type of flooring has decidedly been mixed. It is vinyl and hence cleans fairly easily. Some people love it; others hate it. But it is beautiful. Interesting comments on whether to install under cabinets or not. My thinking was not to install it under the cabinets.

[marcvl]

I finished prototyping my "smart" overhead light fixture. It's pretty cool. I swapped the regular light bulbs with LED bulbs, and added an RGB LED strip and controller. I can still control the lights from a regular light switch, but I can also use an app to dim the lights, switch to color LED only, or select any color I want.

I made a small video. Check it out here.

The biggest challenge I ran into was to tap into the red and black wires that go from the fixture to the switch. These wires are pretty inflexible (AWG 14) and they run on either side of the fixture (on the outside). The only way to access them is through the holes in the fixture. That's pretty tough. I need to find a better way to make these connections.

Right now, everything is controllable through the 'Shelly' controller web interface (Shelly is the name of the controller I'm using). This requires local WiFi (but not Internet). My plan is to enable MQTT (open source messaging protocol for IOT devices), run an MQTT broker as well as Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi. This will become the backbone for all automation in the Airstream and allow me to control everything from a single interface.

[PeterH-350LE]

thats real cool!

[marcvl]

Originally Posted by PeterH-350LE

thats real cool!

And this is just the beginning. Once I get MQTT set up I can program all kinds of interesting automations. For instance, "turn the front left overhead lights flashing red when the pressure in the front left tire drops below xxx".

[PeterH-350LE]

Originally Posted by marcvl

And this is just the beginning. Once I get MQTT set up I can program all kinds of interesting automations. For instance, "turn the front left overhead lights flashing red when the pressure in the front left tire drops below xxx".

Dave, I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Hal

[marcvl]

Just a moment. Just a moment. I've just picked up a fault in the AE-35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure in 72 hours.

[rmkrum]

Under the heading of “first indication of SERIOUS trouble:

“I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that”—HAL

[Magnet18]

Very cool!

Wasn't aware they made IOT tpms systems

[marcvl]

Originally Posted by Magnet18

Very cool!

Wasn't aware they made IOT tpms systems

They don't. You have to build it

In short, take some standard external TPMS sensors, get a cheap USB-powered radio scanner (like this), connect it to a Raspberri Pi board, install an RTL-SDR decoder software(rtl_433), tinker A LOT, and boom.... you have an IOT tpms system.

You can use that same software to read data from other wireless sensors (like weather/temperature sensors) and send them to Mosquitto (MQTT broker).

[Magnet18]

Originally Posted by marcvl

They don't. You have to build it

In short, take some standard external TPMS sensors, get a cheap USB-powered radio scanner (like this), connect it to a Raspberri Pi board, install an RTL-SDR decoder software(rtl_433), tinker A LOT, and boom.... you have an IOT tpms system.

You can use that same software to read data from other wireless sensors (like weather/temperature sensors) and send them to Mosquitto (MQTT broker).

Clever! Interested to see if it works well for you, consistent radio comms are likely the bottleneck inside a tin-can motorhome


While you're at it, hook that SDR to a small right hand circularly polarized quadrifilar helical antenna mounted to the roof and you can pull in live weather data from the overhead satellites

The old NOAA N series are easy as they send raw raster video data, but you have to track them, I did it standing in the yard a couple times, it was fun

I think there's also a solution to get the GOES R series too but I think you need a much higher gain antenna, given that they sit 1/3rd of the way to the moon, i would like to do that sometime, just for kicks

[marcvl]

Originally Posted by Magnet18

Clever! Interested to see if it works well for you, consistent radio comms are likely the bottleneck inside a tin-can motorhome

Yes, these radio scanners come with antennas. I think I will need to install the antenna outside the cabin (roof?).

Originally Posted by Magnet18

While you're at it, hook that SDR to a small right hand circularly polarized quadrifilar helical antenna mounted to the roof and you can pull in live weather data from the overhead satellites

Geeking out! I love it.

[marcvl]

With my MH at the shop (for at least another 3 weeks :-() I spent the last few days setting up network connectivity. I have 3 goals:

1/ Create reliable internet connectivity (or as reliable as possible)
2/ Set up WIFI network inside the MH for smart devices to communicate (and the family to enjoy Netflix)
3/ Provide access to the MH's network and main computer (Raspberry Pi) from anywhere (so I can keep tinkering and monitoring when the MH is in storage and I'm at home)

This was way more challenging than I anticipated, especially 3/.

Here's how I did it (high level - I plan on documenting the details in case someone wants to replicate):

1/ Reliable Internet
- The heart of the system is a Peplink Transit CAT18 modem/router. It's currently connected to my home network (over ethernet) and to Google Fi/Tmobile (failover). The speed on Tmobile is incredible (over 100Mbs). Because this is a 4x4 MIMO router, it can aggregate 4 different channels, which is pretty cool. It also supports Tmobile's 600 MHz channel. Finally, it can also support WiFi as WAN, which allows you to connect to campground WiFi.

- The antenna is a MobileMark LTMG942 7-in-1. It also supports the 600 MHz channel.

2/ MH WiFi
- I picked up a Unifi AP and connected it to the Peplink. This will create a strong WiFi network inside the MH. You don't technically need this because the Peplink can create its own AP, but given that the antennas are on the roof, the network quality inside the MH might not be great, hence a dedicated Unifi AP.

3/ Remote Access
This was the toughest nut to crack. My original idea was simply to set up a DDNS account, and have the router ping the DDNS server every time the IP changes. However that didn't work because wireless carriers don't give you a public IP, so you cannot do port forwarding on the router.
Then, I thought about using something like ZeroTier, which allows you to create virtual networks between any devices. Very cool idea. But I discovered that their service is quite buggy and I could never get it to work reliably.
Finally, after discussion with some Peplink folks (their community website is awesome!), I set up a FusionHub hosted by Vultr on a static public IP ($5/mo), and created a VPN (PepVPN) between my router and the FusionHub. Now, my MH network is accessible from that static IP, which means I can ssh into my Raspberry Pi, connect to the MH's Home Assistant Dashboard, and pretty much do whatever I want to do from anywhere.

Have a great weekend everyone!

[Keyair]

Well Done!
I have no idea what it all means but it sound good to me!

[bobmiller1]

LMAO ! Ditto......Regards, Bob

[Magnet18]

Sounds like a good setup, I've been very happy with my pepwave max transit duo. What kind of speeds are you seeing out of that cat 18 modem? I have the 2x cat 12s