Woodworking | Mr. G's Mind

The deep cycle battery that I ordered for my Solar on the Go Kart finally arrived!

First thing to do was to mount the battery on the kart. The battery turned out to be bigger than I anticipated, so I had to make a bracket and remount the voltage regulator. Once that was done, I connected the regulator to the battery terminals, and the other leads to the solar panels.

I checked the yellow LED on the voltage regulator. It was illuminated, indicating that the battery was now being charged.

It took about 5 hours to fully charge the battery, with all 3 solar panels connected. Once the battery was charged, of course I had to recharge every battery-operated device that I own. That included, cell phone, tablet, electric razor, electric drill and electric lawn edger. However, the best was my bike – eBike Build.

I also decided to illuminate the wooden shed. I had a 35 year old battery-powered lantern in storage. The lantern’s two huge 6V batteries were long gone. I soldered up the wire extensions from the lantern to the battery, and connected directly across the solar battery terminals. I now have light in the shed.

I am now generating power for devices, dwellings, and transportation. I say, “Move over Elon, there’s room at the top for both of us.”

The small NV200 van I purchased is basically an empty box. I plan to get it converted to a camper van, but that will be months from now.

An empty van is not very comfortable to sleep in, so I decided to build a platform to support a comfy mattress. That would also give me space underneath the platform to store camping and travel gear.

As I wanted the platform to be hinged, I had to figure out where to make the cuts in the plywood. I used a single 4′ x 8′ x 3/4″ piece of plywood.

I cut the plywood so that approximately 1/3 of it could be hinged and folded back. This would give me easy access to place larger objects inside the van, when the bed is not in use.

I added 2″ x 3″ frames around the two pieces of plywood to attach the legs.

I decided that when the hinged piece of plywood is folded back, the 11″ legs should fold down. I rounded off the top of the legs, and added a bolt, washer and nut. I glued and screwed the other four legs to the larger piece of plywood.