Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I've read bunches about solid vs sandwich.....

I'm wondering if there are pictures of some solid walled TDs; that show the wiring techniques used??

I'm leaning solid walls but, would appreciate any pics and thoughts .

12v for the cabin interior and exterior. A 120 outlet front and back of the cabin with 120 for the galley. All wiring would come from the tongue box to the various lights etc..

Thanx in advance.

The easiest way is to just run all your wiring through the roof spars rather than the walls...that's what I did even though I have sandwich walls.

I can go along with and see that... what about getting wires to a porch lite?

My plan is to use surface mount lights as much as possible.

Don't have porch lights on mine, but seems like this would work: If skinning with aluminum, it's relatively easy to rout a channel in the outside of the solid wall just deep enough to lay the wire in and bring it out through a small hole in the skin behind the surface mount light.

I ran my wires through the roof spars as well. As far as the porch lights, with 1.5" spars your porch lights can be within that distance from the roof at least where the wires go through. If you click on the link below you can see the wires coming through right below the trim which is 2 3/8 wide.

Dave

I'm building a solid wall made out of 3/4" oak plywood. I plan on running my wires through the spars also. My battery is gonna be on the tongue and I'll have my fuse box in the front cabin cabinet. The rest of my wires will then go through the spars. That's the plan anyways.

I've found 2 ways of running wires through a solid wall, all starting from the roof spars.

As some know I'm a big user of putting a foam backed rug on the inside walls.

I simply cut a small notch (1/16 to 1/8" deep) into the plywood, place the wire in the notch and cover everything with the rug.

If your not using a rug on the inside just do the same thing on the outside and cover it with the siding.

If your not using rug or siding...punt!

Happy Trails

Len

Billy K wrote:I've read bunches about solid vs sandwich.....

I'm wondering if there are pictures of some solid walled TDs; that show the wiring techniques used??

I'm leaning solid walls but, would appreciate any pics and thoughts .

12v for the cabin interior and exterior. A 120 outlet front and back of the cabin with 120 for the galley. All wiring would come from the tongue box to the various lights etc..

Thanx in advance.

What NO insulation

You won't be able to join us at the Shivaree.

len19070 wrote:If your not using rug or siding...punt!

Happy Trails

Len

Thats what I did (or didnt do)

Its been 8 months and I still haven't come up with a way to do it. My wires for my porch lights are run up along my door frame and covered with electrical tape to mask them most of the way. But towards the top, I'm still stuck with exposed wires since I didn't carpet my walls, and I didn't skin with aluminum. Oh, and I dont have a ceiling to speak of, so I couldnt even run them through the roof spars.



You can barely see the wires in this picture (exiting from behind the top left of the curtain). I used 14GA speaker wire since It kinda blended in with the wood, but I'm still trying to think something cleaner and more permanent.

Another option is to run your wiring front to back underneath your teardrop.





I used two runs - one for 120 VAC and one for 12 VDC.

Take care,
Tom

How about something like this.... Can be exposed inside and looks neat, and has various junction and boxes available for "connecting"...

http://www.newark.com/panduit/t45ciw8/e ... dp/02C6753

Another thing is "Wiremold" brand products available at most hardware and building supplies....

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&sour ... d&gs_rfai=

Dale

For wiring inside solid ply walls, I like 'wood trunking' - take a small strip, router out a groove in the back face and fit it over the cable. Resisting the temptation to fix it in place by putting brads through the trunk and the cable is good....

The biggest problem with this is holding it while you make it. If you have a decent table saw, it's best to router the groove first near the edge of some wide stock and then cut the trunking off at the saw.

I dadoed a slot in the short side of a 2x3 then cut it down to about 1/2" thick, sanded and stained to match the interior. I covered my wires with this. Dadoing is easier with the large piece. I thought I had a picture of it, but didn't find it in my album.

It was cut from the same wood that I made all my exposed spars out of, so it matches perfectly.

bbarry wrote:Don't have porch lights on mine, but seems like this would work: If skinning with aluminum, it's relatively easy to rout a channel in the outside of the solid wall just deep enough to lay the wire in and bring it out through a small hole in the skin behind the surface mount light.

that would result in a very tight bend in the wire, which could lead to breaking the wire strands. I doubt many people are using solid copper wire, but theres a reason its against electrical code to make sharp bends in the wire.

Dale M. wrote:How about something like this.... Can be exposed inside and looks neat, and has various junction and boxes available for "connecting"...

http://www.newark.com/panduit/t45ciw8/e ... dp/02C6753

Another thing is "Wiremold" brand products available at most hardware and building supplies....

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&sour ... d&gs_rfai=

Dale

I was going to suggest that as well, but that is very pricey! Try it here instead: http://order.waytekwire.com/products2/M ... Coverings/
Waytek Wire is also a good inexpensive source for lots of other electrical products, wire, switches, etc. as well. I get almost all of my elctrical supplies from them (which is a considerable amount)

Pricey, and would need painted over, but might fit your needs:

http://eupgrader.com/635/living/hide-yo ... flat-wire/