Roadtripper's Caravelle tinkering

[roadtripper]

Also a quick report of our roadtrip to Loch Tay.



Basically 5 members of the group were disappointed that we didn't find extensive snow, 1 member (me) was rather glad as I'd want to have the van in a snowy carpark first. So we didn't explore quite as far as I would have done in the XC70 (with CC2 and AWD and a decade of knowing what it can and can't do)

We did get up to the snowy area around the Lawers Dam though and found a kindred spirit (or at least the van - anyone on here?)



We also got out to Rannoch Moor, one of my favourite places in the country. Wasn't quite as peaceful as normal as the railway was tipping great truckloads of fridge sized boulders into the yard at the station to transport down the line for engineering works. The weather cleared for our hike though and I did get to see a vehicle I'd love to use - I'm a long term fan of the proper Defender and as may now be apparent I'm quite keen on railways...



We also visited Aviemore and, unexpectedly, the Strathspey Railway was running so we took a trip. There seemed to be quite a lot of the T5/T6 crew stocking up at the Aviemore Lidl too!



All in all a great roadtrip. The Caravelle did what we got it for and prepped it for very well, a camper we don't happen to sleep in.

The new red low level cabin lighting running off the Beaudens power pack worked very well.

The bungee cord additions to our tailgate rain shields really helped.

We didn't get a chance to try out our attempt at a stub side awning, though once MrsRT had finished sewing and assembling it it didn't have quite the magnet holding strength we had hoped for.

 

[doodahoops]

A day of tinkering with the van today.

First job was fitting a switch to disable the power tailgate so it doesn't close on the kitchen:

Disabling Electric Tailgate Auto\Pressure Sensitive close

This has been a concern of mine for some time and rather than continue to accidentally hijack this thread I thought I'd start a new one. The problem The short summary is that I have an electric powered tailgate on my T6.1 and, as can be seen in my avatar, I also have a rear kitchen and rig...

www.t6forum.com

I also trialled a bungee from the base of the tailgate ram to the locating peg on the tailgate, this allows me to wrap the rear of the rain guards around it and secure with a couple of small clamps. It might help in wind.

View attachment 228393

Also trialling some designs of rain guards for having the side door open in on off drizzle. Last time we tried the door card got far wetter than I expected so MrsRT is making a panel with magnets to go between the open door and roof.

I'm toying with battens and magnets to see if we can make a stub awning over the doorway

View attachment 228394

Are the rain guards completely homemade? Brilliant idea. If so what fabric is it? Am looking at doing something similar.

 

[roadtripper]

Are the rain guards completely homemade? Brilliant idea. If so what fabric is it? Am looking at doing something similar.

Advantage of having a Wardrobe Mistress in the house

It's just normal ripstop nylon and 25mm magnets. Make a template up with some newspaper. They have about an inch seam and the magnets are in that, half the trick is not letting them stick to the sewing machine apparently.

Just be aware if the wind really gets up the magnets slide and they could mark the paint, so I only ever put them on the inside surfaces. I may add some helicopter tape at some point.

 

[doodahoops]

Thats excellent - will try something similar. And now I know about helicopter tape - well...

 

[roadtripper]

Thats excellent - will try something similar. And now I know about helicopter tape - well...

I also intend to put some on the curve of the roof the side of the awning rail if we start using the sun awning more as the fabric and straps may rub there.

 

[roadtripper]

The new red low level cabin lighting running off the Beaudens power pack worked very well.

I realise I never added this to my tinkering thread so...

A kind of Mark II from my previous attempt. Still powered off the small Beaudens power pack tucked into the kitchen pod rather than hard wired.

Cheapish "fibre optic" car lighting kit with the fibre optic runs down the outside edge of the outer rails.

Then as I'd only used 2 out of the three lighting heads I fashioned a housing for 2 of them out of some scrap conduit and a small L bracket to tuck under the front of the bench between the storage bay flaps. The third sits down by the kitchen pod pointing out the tailgate - I pretty much just left it there but it turns out to be really useful to check if the pack is on or off as well as a bit of light around the rear when the normal lights time out.

It's not quite as bright as the photo makes it seem, though usefully this draws enough power the power pack never shuts down, which it did with the first attempt solution. Or at least it didn't in 3 days away!

Not sure if I will keep the extension heads, wanted to get it done for the next roadtrip.

I'd put more fibre runs up the mid rails but we have mats across the back so it would be wasted. I may end up hardware hacking the two lighting heads direct to power as I'm not using the control box for other colours or doing any dimming.

 

[roadtripper]

So bit of an update on the van.

End of last month was the end of the factory warranty and, luckily, the (in)famous T6.1 blend flap servo motor issue came to light in those last few weeks. Took a couple of visits to the Van Centre but all logged before the warranty expired and fixed last week when the parts arrived.

I encourage anyone with a similar age 6.1 to investigate any flap or vibration noises coming from behind the dash - if you can see the servo arm repositioning very frequently (like every second) and never settling you may well have the early stages of the issue that leads to the linkage breaking.

T6.1 Heater blowing Hot-Air only

Did you get this sorted? My t6 has just done the same. I’ll need to get access to manually put it to cold as it’s 20degrees outside, probably 40 inside ‘Easy enough’ to get to then?

www.t6forum.com

 

[roadtripper]

Paradoxically, given I'm often advising on leisure electrics, I've not gone any further down that route on my own van. As it's not a full camper the only thing we really would use a second battery for is lights when we're parked up for fish and chips or to power the small portable fridge.

To date we have the battery lights that charge from the van's USB and sit well on the roof hand holds or stick magnetically to the open tailgate. Not as slick as leisure lighting but 2 of them with charge cables for perfectly in the cupboard holders with the USB-C sockets by the bench seat so it's not bad.

I have the small Beaudens power pack tucked behind the water carrier in the kitchen pod and semi installed wiring under the bench seat so we can charge it from the mid 12v socket (the kitchen pod stops us using the rear socket that's a few inches away annoyingly!) and it runs foot level night lights and has a flying USB lead to power some USB festoon lamps if we need.

When we got the Alpicool 18 I thought the battery pack was a bit fadish but I've grown to really like it, even if the extra £100 for it stung a bit. Actually it would be the biggest load on a leisure system but with it's own battery it's good for at least a day on its own. Mostly though knowing it will look after itself for a few hours when parked up and not having to rush to unpack it when we get to apartment/motel is brilliant.

I've also got a medium Bluetti which I recently tested in anger in a working-from-van week (must write that up) which is a bit more serious mobile 240v - the Beaudens can do it but only 150w and not for very long - fine for emergency camera charge but not much more.

So I've kind of got what I would use for a leisure setup but just in bits - one small pack for lighting, one battery fridge, one medium pack for 240v

And I got to thinking... they all have an MPPT input for a 100w ish panel (though I'm not sure I quite believe the fridge is MPPT it may just be PWM) - the fridge doesn't come with a solar input cable but by a stroke of luck it uses the same connections as the Beaudens which does.

And last week browsing around I found an offer on a Renogy 100w solid folding panel that should work with all three for £65



The position was quite optimal but when the sun came out the Bluetti was showing 101w input which I'm very happy with (if not sure is 100% accurate)

 

[roadtripper]

So that charged the power pack to nearly full so I wanted to carry on experimenting. It's a bit of a faff to disconnect the Beaudens so instead I dug it's cable out and the Alpicool



Green light on the battery is showing that the fridge is off but battery charging, confirmed by the front panel


(No I don't take display film off until I absolutely have to - I'm not some kind of monster)

Unfortunately there is no kind of display of current on the display or the app, so not sure how well it's charging, but I've turned it on for a bit to put a load on and see what happens...

So far it's been semi overcast and the fridge is both holding temperature (in the semi sun) and holding 100% charge for the last hour including cooling down initially.

 

[roadtripper]

So left the fridge running overnight and rotated the panel to better catch the morning sun and battery was full again by midday.





So quite confident the fridge could be mostly self sufficient in the summer. I do then wonder how best to make use of any "excess" power but the fridge does have a USB-A charger socket that I'd previously discounted but now might make some sense to charge the camping lights.

Anyway as the fridge was out went for a little roadtrip with the younguns and left the Bluetti to charge off the panel...



This free power thing is tempting. I at least need to get some leads to extend the MC4 connection in to the van, but tempted to get a small Victron and try charging the spare lead acids in the shed. It's such a nice panel I sort of don't want to risk it in the weather and find out the legs or something rust.

For £65 it's outstanding so far.

 

[Anakin]

I bought the same panel after reading about the £65 deal. I think the legs are aluminium, so should be okay with some damp conditions, but the catches and handle could be steel.

 

[roadtripper]

I added a ton of pictures about my rainguard tinkering to this thread today if you're interested

Sliding door shade / cover

From time to time I want to pull up somewhere in the great outdoors for an hour or so and would like some sort of simple cover/porch which meant I could leave the side door open for air etc but not worry about rain coming straight in I have a reimo shade with poles and guy ropes when on a...

www.t6forum.com

I also decided to experiment with free power and try and use my Bluetti to charge the devices in the house and keep topping it up with the new solar panel.

I'll probably tire of the faff but for now the novelty is good, this panel certainly does the business.



And yes that is the edge of a garden railway, I had promised someone to do a thread on it but last season Box Caterpillar infested the carefully planted hedge backdrop and completely killed nearly 10m of box hedge I'd been establishing for 5 years and I've not really had the motivation to go and tidy up after winter and get going again this year.

 

[roadtripper]

A not well known aspect of USB fast chargers (generally now presented on USB-C sockets) is that to increase the power transferred they can run at more than 5v if both devices agree. Potentially this can go quite high, like 20v for laptops, but at smaller scales 9v and 12v are quite common.

Given that a number of devices use 9v and 12v power supplies a handy device you can get is a "USB C PD Trigger/Decoy" which is simply a small circuit that just goes "give me 12v if you can". You can get the bare modules but also you can get them made into cables barely bigger than normal cables.

Now I have a need to run a desktop 4G travel router in the van and I have USB-C sockets. Given a van is 12v native there is a reasonable chance they might do the 9v and 12v options, so I got this



Sadly testing with my router found that the rear USB-C sockets by the C pillar didn't supply anything but 5V - which I expected - but more surprisingly the front pair on the dash that are much more advanced did not either.

However all is not lost as I remembered my plug in charger charges phones a lot faster than the dash sockets and lo and behold, even though it's not marked as such, it quite happily supplies 12v



Also of note it quite happily works on my Bluetti power pack USB-C. For 12v it's not really needed as I have a 12v barrel jack DC cable for the 12v sockets, but it could be very handy if you needed 9v

 

[n10n]

Now I have a need to run a desktop 4G travel router in the van and I have USB-C sockets. Given a van is 12v native there is a reasonable chance they might do the 9v and 12v options, so I got this

View attachment 247139

Sadly testing with my router found that the rear USB-C sockets by the C pillar didn't supply anything but 5V - which I expected - but more surprisingly the front pair on the dash that are much more advanced did not either.

However all is not lost as I remembered my plug in charger charges phones a lot faster than the dash sockets and lo and behold, even though it's not marked as such, it quite happily supplies 12v

View attachment 247140

Have you used these adapters before and found them to be reliable getting the voltage negotiation up to 12V?

Just curious as I earlier tried to power my Pinecil soldering iron through a cigarette plug USB-C socket. It worked but I found out I had to tease the socket a bit by switching Pinecil on and off couple of times for the voltage negotiation to succeed… not sure which end was at fault.

Which power-tool brand?

Did you have to pay UK VAT on top when importing the JMM soldering station? Nope, it just got delivered. No customs charges, VAT or anything extra.

www.t6forum.com

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B09D3NXCBL

 

[roadtripper]

Have you used these adapters before and found them to be reliable getting the voltage negotiation up to 12V?

First time trying them seriously. To be honest the front sockets are so picky already with the lengths I have to go to make Android Auto work I wasn't surprised, there is so much standards negotiation going on on connection.

I did plug in and out a few times but once I realised my easy to replace plug in charger that's always there worked fine I decided I didn't need the £100s to replace sockets risking anymore

 

[Wossy]

Hey folks, been lurking for a while gathering useful advice as we considered if a van was right for us and now we have one on the drive the time was right to join fully and do the VIP thing to (potentially) do some electrical tinkering. Thanks everyone who posts advice here, it's a massive help even before you take the plunge and join in!

We have 2 California's in the extended family and at the annual meet up always rather liked them, but we've run Volvo XC70s for nearly 15 years as we enjoy our of season road tripping around the more distant parts of the UK. Always thought about putting some sort of kitchen camping pod in it but never got around to it and then kids arrived...

Last year we started actively looking to either go for it or rule it out and quickly realised that the camper we wanted... wasn't a camper turned out a Caravelle fitted our roadtripper habits much more closely, especially with retired parents who like a trip with the grandkids but don't enjoy the driving much anymore.

So we hired one for the weekend as an extended test and crammed in as many ways of using it as we could and frankly fell in love with it. The T6.1 driving experience with the digital dash and toys was a much more car like experience than I expected, which made me more confident of using it as the daily family wagon. So much so we tried to buy it but turns out it had already been sold the week before...

Then followed several weeks of visiting VW van centres to see what was about. We managed to talk ourselves up to a nearly new budget as it was the modern driving experience that really clicked for me. With the dawning realisation that it was the sunset of the Caravelle line and the huge delays on anything new (we did consider a Beach Tour with twin extra seats) we pulled the trigger on a 21 plate Caravelle SE just leaving a demo fleet. The spend still makes me wake up shouting "how much?!?" in a cold sweat every now and then but as a family we love it.

So this our van, nicknamed Big Truckie (long story...)

View attachment 204075

Hey @roadtripper congratulations on the project, Big Truckie looks great! I myself have spent months planning a similar project for an adventure van, and T6.1 Caravelle is what I've settled on too. The final phase of my planning is a full out charm offensive on my wife, to make sure I get financial sign off!

I was hoping to take one for a week on a camping trip. Out of interest, where were you able to hire a Caravelle from? I've been searching high and low, and so far not been able to locate one. It doesn't help that T6.1 Caravelle is no longer in production, and hire car companies only keep vehicles in stock for a short time before moving them on...

Many thanks in advance, Nick

 

[roadtripper]

I was hoping to take one for a week on a camping trip. Out of interest, where were you able to hire a Caravelle from? I've been searching high and low, and so far not been able to locate one. It doesn't help that T6.1 Caravelle is no longer in production, and hire car companies only keep vehicles in stock for a short time before moving them on...

I hired one from a VW Van Centre - but as I think I've said they were literally selling it that week. And I got our own one from another VW Van Centre a few months later as they no longer needed a demonstrator for a van you couldn't order. So I think you will find it much more difficult hiring a Caravelle specifically these days, but if you want to find out how the vans drive you should still be able to hire a Kombi or similar.

 

[Wossy]

Thanks @roadtripper. I have considered hiring a Kombi or Shuttle to at least give an idea of the seating position etc. I will see if I can talk my local van centre into hiring me one from their used stock...

 

[TallPaul_S]

I was hoping to take one for a week on a camping trip.

Were you looking to sleep in the Caravelle or just use it as a support vehicle for a tent etc? As , I'm sure you're aware, you can't really sleep in a Caravelle without a few additions like window covers, an extension to the bench seat for the bed etc.

Getting a test drive at minimum in a kombi is good but a bare, uninsulated van with no carpets, basic seats, and no weight in the back is a far cry from a Caravelle! so just bear in mind they will likely drive quite differently.

 

[Wossy]

Were you looking to sleep in the Caravelle or just use it as a support vehicle for a tent etc? As , I'm sure you're aware, you can't really sleep in a Caravelle without a few additions like window covers, an extension to the bench seat for the bed etc.

Getting a test drive at minimum in a kombi is good but a bare, uninsulated van with no carpets, basic seats, and no weight in the back is a far cry from a Caravelle! so just bear in mind they will likely drive quite differently.

Thanks @TallPaul_S . It initially will be a vehicle to cart all our camping gear around in - like many others, we bought a massive tent and loads of gear during lockdown! We have 2 lanky kids and if we are going camping for a whole week, I like the idea of taking the middle row captains seats out and pushing the bench forward to increase the boot space.

Longer term (as the kids get older) I do like the option of adding curtains and having the option to go away for weekends with just the missus. I've seen Van-X recommended on here - any feedback / other suggestions?

It's likely I'd also buy a small drive away awning, as this will be quicker to put up and take down on shorter weekend trips. This will also hold all our gear whilst we take the van out on day trips from campsites.