Colinb17's kinda sorta build thread

Worked on a little project today. I think the 3'x6' solar panel will go on the roof of the trailer, but i want some back up charge power for the truck, when i don't have the trailer behind me. picked up 2 small panels and a regulator with a gift card i had for gotten about from christmas.



shortened the leads


charge regulator takes the 25 volt input from the panels and converts it into 12v for the battery. when the battery is low, it will peak charge, and when the battery is at a healthy level, it switches over to a trickle to maintain healthy operation/storage.


panel voltage into the regulator


output voltage from the regulator in peak mode.


I'll make some nice mounts from them, but this will due for the time being.

 

Does that basically trickle charge the batter the entire time? If the truck is on what will that do? What if you somehow kill the battery, would that have the juice to charge the battery back up?

Sorry for the rapid fire questions but that looks nifty as hell and now I want to do that

 

Can you fry bacon on it?

 

Genius!!!

 

now you can charge your phone without the truck running!

 

below 12 volts, it peak charges, meaning it just sends all off the power made, right to the battery. once it's above 12v, it switches over to a trickle charge.

if i were to kill the battery, it would take about a day to get it back up to starting ability. not bad if you're stuck alone in the middle of nowhere. once i get that big solar panel on the trailer though, we're talking about a matter of a couple hours and good to go.

 

yeah, we installed this stuff on boats all of the time back when worked in a marina. real popular little setup.

 

Mr. Sellars sent me another picture of his new Overland Off-Road bed rack loaded up.

I also just shipped him the light bar I made for my all pro. I rebuilt mine and fully welded it back in august, so he grabbed my old one to mount some 7'' HIDs on.

To anyone who hasn't seen his truck in person, it's a very clean, tasteful build. great looking truck

 

Due to some very kind nominations, i've been entered into the T.O.T.M. (Tacoma of the month) competition. I have actually taken inspiration from a couple of the other guys in the competition, so it is an honor to be in the mix with them. I would greatly appreciate your vote, but won't hold it against you if you chose any of the other great rigs int eh competition

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/273243-t-o-t-m-april-2013-voting-poll.html

 

Thanks man. I'm ready to be off work for the month of May and start hitting the road. Hopefully stay clear of the deer next time I'm home too.

 

I'm deciding on either yours or grimms. Both are some of my favorite build threads I follow

 

stay clear of whatever gave you those stitches too lol. though i do hear chicks dig the scars

 

he's got a shower built into his truck......that's pretty hard to top.

 

Gonna be hard to keep clear. Busted it on one of our deck winches on the barge haha. Four stitches was way better than losing my eye.

 

You got a vote from me. you have some major competition but i have always over your build haha, and the trailer makes it one of my favorites on the site. Good luck!

 

Thanks Evan!

do you know John (hard2kill)? he's up in New Milford. very cool truck, and good wheeler. he's got a couple of my racks on his truck as well

 

I have talked to him a few times on the site, looking foward to wheeling with him sometime, unfortunately im not going to make his rausch trip this year, hopefully next year. Those racks he has are awesome, someday i would like to have a bedrack like yours.

 

great guy, and he's very good at putting meets together. i wouldn't be surprised if there is another rausch meet sometime this summer.

 

Lol, you guys both have some unique mods that I haven't really seen on other trucks. I ended up voting for you mainly because I pestered you with more questions that you took the time to answer than him. Although, he has answered a few I shot his way too.

Was it you that had the treadwrights? What PSI did you air them up to and run? I've got mine at 37 front/ 39 rear and haven't had a chance to chalk test yet. 285/75/16 guard dogs.

 

questions are one of the main purposes of build threads. ask away.

i do have the treadwrights. 285/70/17 guard dogs. i usually run them 38-40 psi. i have so much extra weight over the rear axle that i just run all 4 at the same pressure. almost 10,000 miles on them thus far and they have worn evenly in all reguards.

*grabbing the calipers to go measure tread depth real quick*