Category Archives: Fiat Ducato

International Campervan and Overland Show, Stratford

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We travelled from the Glasgow area arriving at Stratford race course on the Thursday evening. The area we had booked was already full so we parked up in the overflow area and had a walk around to investigate. This is a huge show with a great variety of campervans and overland vehicles to see.

We raised our usual flags to help us find our van on the way back. although they were dwarfed by some others. The flags also celebrated the Queen’s platinum jubilee on this occasion.

This image doesn’t do the show justice. There were so may vans. The video at the end of this post captures the scale of the show much better. We finished the day with a relaxing campfire.

I do like a timelapse and we watched the sunset. For some reason the video is not embedding, so it can be viewed at this link https://youtu.be/9seOwSDCFcI

It was really nice to meet and chat with more people we watch on YouTube – Greg and Lou Virgoe, Rick and Debs Beechwood, John and Mandy. We met Alex Frood and Liam the Terrible at Quirky a couple of weeks back. It’s good to meet in person having watched these peoples’ van lives for quite some time.

We also started our campervan sticker collection so we just need to decide where to place these on the campervan – and get our own stickers printed of course.

The video captures an overview of the scale of the show – it’s huge. There were some brilliant vans with really fancy paint jobs and some interesting overland vehicles.

On a different topic, we are getting close to finishing the Caddy Maxi conversion in preparation for a family convoy to France. Wendy keeps us right advising we only have two days left over weekends before we depart. You can view the microcamper conversion here.

Wee Kitchen Upgrade

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We bought our campervan from someone who had converted it and we have been upgrading and modifying quite a few things as we go. There is one large open cupboard below the cooker which does not work well for us so we changed this building a cutlery drawer and a cupboard divider.

The internal cupboard required some modification as it was double skinned at some points and not at others so it needed filled in to create fixing points. Some electrical cables and the sink waste also needed rerouting.

I am happy with the results and this new layout should work much better for us now.

I’ve still to add the finishing strips to the edge of the board to make it look nice.

West Runton CCC site

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It is an interesting off road drive down to the CCC site. Wendy didn’t like this drive very much especially after the narrowness of the A149. Fortunately we did not meet anything coming the other way.

We also made short visit to the beach at West Runton.

It is not easy to find parking for campervans at West Runton as most of the car parks have height barriers. The car park at the beach is limited to 2.1 metres so we parked opposite the shops on the main road.

We also made a visit to the beach at Cromer.

Yorkshire Overnight Britstop enroute to Norfolk

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We have set off on a wee break and enjoyed an overnight Britstop at the Old Oak Tree in Thirsk. This was very convenient, the food was lovely and the people were friendly.

Max settled in quickly as her normally does. We settled in too.

Sadly we had to get Pepsi put to sleep recently and Max is missing her so we installed a Neos smartcam to keep an eye on him when we were at the Old Oak Tree pub for dinner. The Smartcam worked a treat, even with the van lights off.

If you’d like to monitor your van over WiFi the NEOS Smartcam is worth looking at.

New power

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I posted a photo of the two new 110Ah batteries located in the new battery area below the fridge previously, so the next job was to wire these up and remove the original leisure battery for fitting to Duncan’s Caddy conversion.

I opted for new sealed wet flooded lead acid batteries as the charger in the Sergeant controller is not configurable for other battery types. A future job is to replace this mains battery charger and install a Victron B2B charger at the same so I will then have the option of using other battery types. I tried to plan ahead for this as the Victron Smart Solar charger I fitted previously is also configurable for different battery types.

I’ve wired up the new lead acid batteries and fitted a 50A DC circuit breaker, and fused each lower rated supply individually running from this. I mounted the batteries on a board, strapped them to this for security, and added two small handles so I can pull the batteries out should I need to work on something. The board is also screwed in place for security.

I took the opportunity to shorten the wiring from the solar panel to the controller and tidy up some wiring that was messy. Completing this coincided with the sunniest day this year so far, so the performance from the solar panels was the best if I have experienced so far.

Second solar panel

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Planning ahead for longer trips and hopefully more off-grid trips, I have added a second solar cell panel to complement the original. I’ve add a 100W panel from Sunsolar as the space on the roof was limited. This was a narrow long panel which I could install across the width of the van roof.

I now have 150W and 100W panels connected in series and controlled by a Victron Smart Solar 30A MPPT controller. After watching a video from Victron on YouTube I decided the best set up was two panels in series. I do love the Bluetooth connectivity of this controller.

The 250W solar capacity should help charge the twin 110Ah batteries I added recently. The next job is to wire these up. Then remove the original single leisure battery – and fit this to the Caddy conversion we are working on for Duncan.

I ran out of white Sikaflex during the installation so with limited time to complete the task I reverted to using black Sikaflex. It doesn’t look so nice on a white roof though.

Switching between 230V Hook-Up and Inverter

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So, this doesn’t look much. I’ve rewired the electrics to switch between 230V hook-up and the inverter 230V, with all mains outlets being connected common. The wiring will be made neat when I pull out the batteries and the ugly temporary wiring to the Victron solar controller will be replaced too.

Next, I am going to add a second solar panel on the roof and then I will finally start rewiring the battery electrics to the new battery bank and remove the original single leisure battery.

I am working in parallel on some upgrades on our Ducato and starting to convert a Caddy Maxi for our son. You can view the Caddy conversion here if you are interested.

New Batteries Upgrade

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I haven’t posted for a while so thought I’d add a photo of the new batteries mounted and secured with straps in the new battery box, under the fridge. I’ve also mounted the new Victron SmartSolar 30A MPPT controller. This is temporarily connected to the original leisure battery for now.

Next step is to add the new wiring to the two new batteries and remove the original leisure battery from under the bed.

Some other news, the original leisure battery and solar panel controller will be installed in our new project – a Volkswagen Caddy Maxi. We will be converting this with our son for touring France together in July 2022. You can follow this here if you are interested. Wish us luck!