Introduction
For those interested, the software and technical stuff on the Jan the Van project is published under the LGPL 2.1 Open Source license on the GitHub repository https://github.com/alicemirror/JanTheVan while the full tutorials to make the projects are available on the Patreon site https://www.patreon.com/janthevan
Adding the Inverter
The inverter is a device that can convert a 12 V DC flow to 220V AC.
In general, it is a good practice to not exceed the power of the inverter concerning the leisure battery power. If the inverter connected to the battery is oversized, the risk is to consume the battery charge too fast and eventually seriously damage it.
According to the equivalence formula V x A = W it is also valid the opposite
A = W / V
Using it fully loaded consumes 25A of the battery, a quarter of the total power. There are two reasons I added an inverter to the electric 12V system of the camper van: the first is to be able to power those small electronic appliances that use their own wall mount power supply adapter. The second is to power the Raspberry Pi positioned in different places of the van instead of using long USB cabling; this solution can dramatically reduce the consumed power because of a lower power decay when using 220V long cabling instead of low-power USB power wires.
| {gallery}Wiring Remote Devices |
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220V cable to power the rear Raspberry Pi |
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220V cable to power the rear Raspberry Pi |
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The wallmount power supply is connected to the 220V AC from the inverter. |
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The USB power cable is the shortest path. |
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Some extra plugs are connected to the inverter, available under the table for low-power supplies. |
The Internal Network Design
The easiest way to provide Internet access on the move is using the smartphone mobile hotspot. The disadvantage is that not all the devices can support multiple connections and the limited amount of data available according to your mobile data plan. Using the mobile hotspot there is also the problem that going away with the smartphone the Internet goes down – as well as the connected devices regardless if they are using the Internet or just the local connection made available by the mobile hotspot.
A solution available in many campsites is pay-per-use WiFi access. This solution makes it impossible to connect multiple devices together (you are connected to a remote hotspot out of your control); In this case, having more devices to connect to the Internet, we should pay for the access more than once.
These are only two examples of many; we should add the risks to connect to unsecured networks as well as the difficulty to connect easily multiple devices (for example a couple of laptops and a tablet). For these reasons the first project I set up has been the creation of a reliable and stable network environment. Also in the case of no Internet connection, the van internal network should be able to grant connectivity to the devices for data sharing and exchange.
With a couple of Raspberry Pi 4B and a 5 power 1Gb Ethernet switch, I have created an internal network to which any kind of device can connect through the WiFi or the Ethernet cable. In the next episode, I will show how the hardware has been installed and connected.
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