Roof Ventilation Early on I knew I was going to be putting in a roof mounted fan for ventilation. The gold standard for vans and RVs is the MaxxAir fan. They offer several models, though I went with the Deluxe, which includes a powered vent lift and remote. The Deluxe is also rain-proof when open…
Category: Electrical
Lightbar
Way back when I was working in the surplus yard in Pembroke Pines inspecting and prepping the rig for it’s maiden voyage north I had found that the cab mounted emergency light bar had been removed as part of the decommissioning process. I noticed it in a pile of various lightbars, controllers, police car cages…
Scene Lights
The ambulance came equipped with pairs of fixed, halogen lights on the left, right and rear of the module. These were used to light the area surrounding the vehicle when “on scene”. Each individual light head had a 60 watt halogen bulb, a chrome reflector and diffusing lens in addition to the rubber weather strip…
Water, Part 2
My previous water post primarily covered how I’m going to store water. This post is an overview of the entire plumbing system; How water comes in, gets moved around, heated, used and ultimately departs. The schematic above illustrates the overall design of my water system, which I’ll further describe in the sections below. Water Pressure…
Electric Boogaloo
I’ve previously covered my power audit and the overall electrical design of the truck. That described how much power I think I’ll need and the various ways I’ll collect and store that power. The next step is power distribution. In the photo above, the various breakers for the solar panels and other DC sources are…
Updates and Whatnot
I realized today that it has been months since my last post. I assume no one is reading this dreck, but I still like to try and maintain some kind of consistency. Here’s a few things that don’t really justify their own post. Inline Vent Fan I was spelunking in the far reaches of the…
EMERGENCY!
The question has been asked more than once regarding the legalities of driving a former emergency vehicle. In short, it’s perfectly legal as long as you don’t try to run through traffic with lights and sirens going with some restrictions on the quantity and types of flashing lights that can be installed on the truck….
Just Chillin’
Selecting a refrigerator, or some means to preserve food in a mobile application, involves a lot of considerations. Options include everything from a simple cooler full of ice to 12V coolers, to upright units with combined or separate fridge and freezer sections that can run off DC or AC power. You have to consider how…
Build Quality
I’ve yet to find anything to suggest corners were cut or something done cheaply in the manufacture of my ambulance. In fact, the exact opposite seems to be true. The module is a masterwork of aluminum fabrication and the thousands of feet of wiring are absolutely first rate. Every single wire is numbered at both…
Electric Avenue
One of the (many) advantages when converting an ambulance into an RV is they often come with an inverter, shore power hookup and are pre-wired for 12V DC and 110V AC loads. They may also have an existing house battery system in addition to the truck’s service batteries. The task then becomes how to best…