It's been a while since I updated what's going on with Moby. Anyway, the plan is coming together nicely. if you don't recall, basically I'm building my truck principally as a mobile workshop (for attending model airplane fun flies). These are generally weekend events though there are one or two, which last the better part of a week.
As such, my truck really won't be very much like a high-dollar motor home, e.g. with kitchen and all the accoutrements of home. While I do plan for a shower stall (a smallish 34" wide unit) and a toilet, which will be something like a loveableloo (pretty much a 5-gallon bucket with garbage bag liner, a toilet seat, and some cat litter), once I section off 3' from the 23' box, the remaining 20', give or take, will be devoted to workshop. E.g. pretty spartan accomodations because it'll have worktables, office chairs, etc. plus model airplanes and helicopters. As such, it will be where I and a a few friends can work on models, watch videos, drink beer, shoot the bull, etc. I think of it as a mobile man cave.
As far as sleeping accomodations go, either we'll inflate an air mattress and toss it on the floor in the evenings, or use the cab, which has a sleeper with double bunks. We're undecided which but are, instead, playing this by ear.
Anyway, a major issue for me has been cooling and of course, electric power because few, if any model events have hookups. Moreover, complaints will be few, if any, regarding noise due to running a generator all day and night because everyone else will be doing the same.
My initial plan (to save money) was to use my existing Honda 6500ES. This is a very quite, water-cooled 2-cylinder gerator capable of delivering 50A. E.g. make a mount for the frame upon which to install it, wire it up and presto, electricity for the duration. The issue with this, principally, being the amount of gasoline consumed. It takes a fair bit, on the order of 12-15 gallons per day . . . I know because Hurricane Charley knocked power out for 10 days back in 2004. That's a lot of gasoline to be carrying with us, or fetching to feed it. Anyway, I secured an 80-gallon aluminum tank, just like the pair for the truck figuring to top it off when I got where I was going and once I returned home, to drain what was left into vehicles since gas goes bad.
However, my next idea was a propane-conversion for the generator. This was a nice in principle because propane doesn't go bad with the passage of time and a conversion kit for the Honda is readily available. The downside is the stupidly expensive costs for a large propane tank.
Then I came across one of these and bought it:
http://www.rigmasterpower.com/downlo...ator-Model.pdf
This is a self-contained APU which consists of 20k btu of cooling, 13.5 btu of heating, plus a 6KW generator - all powered by a 2-cylinder Perkins diesel, which best of all, plumbs right into the 160 gallon diesel supply onboard the truck. This means I can remain in situ for quite an extended period of time before my fuel supply reaches critical level, e.g. 20 gallons, and I don't have to fetch fuel in the interim - yeehaw!
Anyway, before getting this APU unit, I was going to install a 12k btu mini-split heat pump for environmental needs. Now I think the APU's A/C and heater will be plenty good enough even though it's originally designed to heat and cool dog house. I'm going to try and install it next week so I'll have answers pretty soon but even if they're exagerating by a factor of 2X, I probably still get 10k btu of cooling from it and that should work well enough.
Add to it, I get 6KW of electricity and I don't anticipate needing anything like that because it will no longer be needing to power an electric heat pump unit. Especially since all I will have to run is a smallish dorm-room size refrigerator, DVD player, and what not. In fact, another nice feature is it's designed to charge batteries! Anyway, mine is the MTS-T4-6, which is rated at 278 cfm and the 12k btu mini-splits I've looked at are rated at 175 cfm so I suspect I'll be really getting the whole 20k btu of cooling plus 6KW of power. Meanwhile, they claim 0.3 gph and my Honda is more like 0.5-0.6 gph but it's a diesel so maybe that's prety close to reality as well - we'll see - but that's a fair bit less than 10 gallons per day so running it 24/7 amounts to half my supply, which means I can really be 50 miles out in the boonies and still have enough diesel onboart after a week to make it back to a station.
Finally, regarding potable water, I figure to tote 90-gallons. And I won't have any black water, just gray water from the shower. Since I'll now have a spare 80-gallon aluminum fuel tank I figure on using this for the gray-water holding tank and simply dump it in the yard once I return (no chemicals other than soap from showering and no toilet paper or feces requiring an elaborate valve and piping necessary).
What am i missing?