Stryofoam mockup progress

I made stryrofoam mockups for the Murphy bed cabinet and the bench that is opposite. I learned some things that weren't obvious in the 3D computer model such as the fold down bed platform has to be curved at the top to avoid hitting the backdoors when it is folded up. It was well worth the effort and in general everything was fitting like I had hoped.

Rear view camera added

The van didn't come with rear windows so it also didn't come with a rear view mirror. Today I added a Wolfbox G900 rear view camera/dash cam mirror system. It adds a forward facing camera and a back camera. The back camera can stay on all the time and act like a rear view mirror.

It also comes with a third camera you can locate wherever. I am thinking about using it as a side view camera for tight spaces, but am still deciding. Maybe it will go on my front bumper to help with parking.

Van progress - installing seat swivels

I love youtube how-to videos, they make it so much easier to attempt new projects with a lot of confidence. Today I installed seat swivels on both the driver and passenger seats in the van. I took lots of photos, here are the most relevant ones. I also did the required lowering of the emergency brake handle to allow the seat to rotate past the handle.

Visit to Trinity in San Antonio

We went to visit Trinity in San Antonio. It was a great college, but we have no photos because we both were focused on enjoying the day and didn't take any photos. We did enjoy walking around the River Walk in San Antonio and enjoying the restaurants. We even found a great French restaurant. Originally we were going to fly home Sunday, but changed our tickets once Seattle made it into the Super Bowl. We ended up watching the Seahawks defensively dominate the Patriots from our hotel room. On Monday we visited Kurt and walked the trails of the nature preserve his home abuts. It was a great trip over all.

Van design Monday

I continue to try out different ideas. And new toys! I downloaded the Polycam app to my phone and took a LiDAR scan of the interior of the van. I wasn't sure it would work well so I didn't completely empty out the styrofoam boards of a cabinet mock up I was making so the result is a little "lumpy". But it was worth the low amount of effort and cost to get the result. I didn't sign up for the subscription for Polycam, so I could only export as a .gltf file, but there was a workaround using free 3D printer slicing software (Cura) to read that file and export it in a format the the design software I am using Fusion (also free for personal use with limited storage). My goal was to see how cramped things would be if we added two coach seats behind the existing driver and passenger seats.

Here are images of the concepts I was working on today. I added an L-shaped extrusion to the murphy bed platform so it can rest on the edge of the full depth counter on the opposite side. Older versions had the Murphy platform resting on the side rails of the bench seat, so the countertop over the bench seat couldn't be full depth. I also made front to back length of the bed 70", which overlaps with the sink/fridge unit. It allows for a bigger mattress, but the mattress will cover up part of the sink when in the bed arrangement. Bed stored, bench ready for use. The bikes would normally be out of the van on a trailer mounted hitch. This layout just checks that bikes can be put in van easily for city parking.

Bed stored, countertop over bench down for food preparation.

Bed ready for sleeping.

" re is a different version that increases the mattress length to 80" to be the length of a regular queen size. This allows two people to sleep with their bodies fore/aft in the van instead of side to side. The side to side dimension of the van's walls is on 71" and I am 69" tall. Many Sprinter owners buy bump out sections with windows, but then it is obvious it is a camper van and you can't do stealth camping (and it costs more money to buy the bump outs ;) ). The first image is with the 70" long bed and the second is the 80". The 80" bed results in even less room to go behind the added coach seat, so to get to the back you have to walk in front of the coach seat and then between the two back seats.

Here is teh 80 inch concept with the LiDAR scans. The first one shows (roughly) how close the murphy bed platform gets to the ceiling.

Here is a side view. One image shows how the scan picked up the backside of the existing drivers seat. The second image shows that I placed the drivers side in about the right position.

Van design Saturday evening

I made more progress in the design. Roughed out a concept with a Murphy bed that folds down onto the top rails of a bench opposite it. And the bench has a board above and behind it that can be flipped down to make a temporary countertop if the Murphy bed is up. I added in rough seats. I need to find room to put a fridge at least, and maybe a sink. It is getting very tight. The bikes are only there to show where we could temporarily stow two bikes inside the van if we want them to be more secure overnight or we want to remove the hitch so we can park more easily in a city.

Van design concept today

I have been drawing up concepts for the van interior using Autodesk Fusion. There have many, many iterations, this is just the most recent. To try and decide what to actually build, we starting thing in systems engineering principles and discussing use cases for the van. We have lots of uses, but they all need a different interior. Time to just start building variations cheaply and modifying as we learn.

Clifford the new big red van