A new hope ... (build journal and component reviews)

[Geared4adventure]

I was wondering what was going on! I am 5 weeks away from taking my AluCab and starting down the path of the tweaks and modifications inspired by you.
Nic

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Yeah, we were in Europe (Germany and Portugal) for six weeks. Visiting family, taking care of some stuff over there.

We also brought back the composting toilet we have used in our camper there, a Biotoi (photos on their website). We weren't really happy with the Trelino for our intended use (extended periods of use by two people without having to use plastic bags and discarding these nearly every day). The Biotoi isn't available in the US, so we packed up the one we used in the Land Cruiser and checked it as an additional luggage piece. More on that in an upcoming post.

Currently, I'm still slightly jetlagged, but slowly getting back into the build. Did some rough calculation today what materials I need to order and how we are going to install all the various bits and pieces. I'll be interesting ... I'm really looking forward to having this operational, I think it'll be a great off-road camper.

Oh, and if you have questions regarding anything you've seen me doing or documenting here, feel free to ask. I'm not always the most concise in describing these things ... ;-)

 

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We definitely had a good time. This was in Portugal around Christmas:

 

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First toilet test fitting:

Will have to build an "exhaust connection" on the right side, so that air can be pulled away from the toilet to the outside of the camper. We'll probably route the hose through the furniture and exit behind the rear molle panel. Until that is done, we can use it without the fan, just have to "air out" a bit when we stop somewhere. Not a problem, we can set it up inside the shower tent when we set up camp somewhere.

It's stainless steel and plastic, so not problematic regarding the elements.

On the inside, we need to find a pragmatic way of holding it in place while driving, probably a foam "bumper" and some Rokstraps will do the trick for now.

 

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Okay, temporary fixing for the "Tesla Cyber Toilet" is good enough.

And we've done test fitting of our new roof rack:

Missed some small parts in the shipment, so waiting for these for final installation. Once that is done, I need to build some Maxtrax mounts that actually fit the rack without costing another fortune.

Thinking of just getting two simple aluminum plates cut and powder-coated at OSH cuts and install the Maxtrax this way. It turned out well on the rear door table mounting plate (which we unfortunately still need to mount ... weather sucks right now, so not much work being done in the driveway).

 

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Spoiler: Scroll past this posting if solving one of the human problems when camping is TMI for you.

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Trelino Toilet Review

A few months ago we bought a Trelino toilet for our camper build-out.

Description

The Trelino is marketed as a composting toilet, although in reality it is only a separating toilet, meaning liquids are going into one container, solids into another. There is no directly composting aspect to the Trelino, it uses liner bags (or trash bags) in the solids bucket and some kind litter material to bind moisture and therefore reduce smell.

From the outside, the Trelino is basically a square shaped plastic bucket, with the aforementioned two containers inside and a toilet seat on top. On top of that goes a wooden lid in case of the Trelino Origin series and a plastic lid in case of the Evo. We bought and tested the Trelino Origin in size M. The internal containers are reasonably sized, although on the smaller side – which is okay given the usage limitations outlined below.

The toilet comfortable to sit on, the wooden lid is nice quality baltic birch plywood and the overall quality feel is good. It is relatively light with 5.8kg (12.8 lbs) thanks to the liberal use of plastic, but not unduly so. It stands solidly and does not feel flimsy, although we are both lightweight persons, so this wasn’t a concern.

In Use

To use the Trelino, one is supposed to sit in a way that separates liquids from solids, something easy for men to do, not as easy for women. Women basically have to hold in #2 until #1 is done, then change position. But first, the rear solids container should be lined with a bag and prepared with the moisture absorbing litter, and once the business is done more litter is added on top. The liquids container has a flap closing system, which means it can be left alone for a while, other than maybe a quick flush of the bowl with a water/vinegar solution. There are no bottles or other containers included to carry this solution and the tip is from a different toilet (BioToi), but has worked well to reduce smell further.

The theory is that smells mainly develop when there is still moisture in the solid waste (which is correct), mixing with water and urine in a normal toilet is what mostly contributes to long lasting smell if not flushed. Although, not quite. My **** still stinks unfortunately and I’m very likely not the only person with that problem. Can the smell be reduced with litter? Yes, to a degree. The main problem is that the moisture has nowhere to go other than into litter material, which means it’s somewhat trapped in the container and takes a while to dissipate. Liberal use of litter material makes this process better/faster. This isn’t ideal if a toilet is used by two people, possibly daily, while wild camping with no good way of disposing the waste bags. Changing the bags is required very regularly, at least for us.

The liquids container of our toilet wasn’t optimally shaped which made it a bit harder to completely empty and clean, but not a major issue either. It will dry when left open in a dry environment after cleaning, It just takes longer. As mentioned above, it’s a good idea to have some light vinegar solution around to clean the front area after each use, because calcified liquids can also smell. Don’t use plain water since this will not really help.

The wooden lid can create another small challenge. It’s not lightweight, which is good, but it is held on with strong magnets as well as a form fit. The magnets have more than once caused us to lift the lid including the complete seat off the toilet. It’s suboptimal from a usage perspective, but with the correct grip can be avoided. When taking the lid off, it needs to be put somewhere since it isn’t connected to the toilet by a hinge. The Evo series is probably better in this regards, since the plastic lid is lighter and hinged. Both seem to have a similarly shaped seat under the lid. Again, not a major problem, just an inconvenience.

Problems - For Us

As mentioned above, there are some smaller problems in use, but the main problem for us is that it isn’t a composting toilet and uses liner bags that need to be disposed of often.

Even with very generous use of litter, if used by two people, the liner bag probably has to be replaced every day, depending on your comfort level with each other. The next problem is then disposing of the used bags when out and about.

Since we are planning longer trips, it’s not practical to keep enough of the bulky litter around for a full trip, so we need to buy more along the way. Possible since you can buy wood shavings or similar litter for example in home improvement stores, but again, an inconvenience. Bags aren’t as much of a problem since they are more compact to store, although we’d go through a lot of them. Suboptimal for our use.

Value

It depends on the value one puts on having a form fitting toilet seat on top of a container with a plastic bag liner and possibly having an easier time separating the two businesses. Personally I can get rid of liquids independently and therefore the toilet turns into very comfortable but expensive bucket. Even if one appreciates the comfort and separating function, it’s still expensive for what it is.

Conclusion

Long story short, the main thing for us is that it is not a composting toilet. It does smell depending on use, even if used normally by a single person. The marketing claims it to be a composting toilet, and it just isn’t. Maybe we should have given it more of a chance, but for us, it didn’t work the way we wanted it to. We wanted less plastic use, even if it might be biodegradable, less continuous usage of litter material, and easier disposal.

Overall Rating

2.5/5 – Neither recommended nor not recommended. It depends on personal use.


Conclusion and next steps for us

We brougth a BioToi back from Europe, it isn't available in the US although similar concepts are, unfortunately they aren't as compact or well thought out. The BioToi works based on a similar concept, although it puts much more emphasis on the composting aspect and does not use liner bags. There will be more information on that in the coming weeks – at least as long as people don't tell me to stop talking s**t here ...

Pictures of the Trelino

And the kit (without litter):

 

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More stainless steel goodness. The kitchen pieces are coming together as well:

 

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Galley

Biggest problem we have now is playing Tetris with all the cooking gear and other stuff that needs to fit into the "galley":

• Kickass Travel Oven
• A small sink
• 1.75G Rotopax water container (for grey water)
• Induction plate
• Pot and pan
• Plates and bowls
• Water heater
• Utensils
• Mugs
• Water filter
• A drawer for small pieces
• Some other stuff I forgot

The galley will be (W) 790mm x (H) 950mm x (D) 420mm – it'll be a tight fit with all the stuff above and having things still readily accessible. Game to begin tomorrow ...

But, so far so good, we think we have most of the pieces we need to get going on this part of the build, so more to come soon.

Maxtrax Mount

To carry some Maxtrax recovery boards, we got the Trailrax roof rack (shown above), but we didn't go with their relatively heavy universal traction board mount. While it's nice, it's more than we were a) willing to pay and b) more weight than we wanted.

Went a different route and designed some simple stainless steel mounting plates that also don't require either a third extrusion or moving one of the extrusions "inward". The plates mounting plates are ordered and I'm looking forward to getting them in about 10 days or so. Will update here with how they turn out.

This is the design:

Small slots for M6 hardware to mount to the extrusions (four slots, one in each corner) possibly add other stuff (slots in the center area) and traction boards (the larger, rounder slots). Two of these are much less weight and should do the trick just fine. Let's hope for the best.

 

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Frame for galley is 80% done:

We have most of the other frame parts cut, but ran out of time for another assembly and test fit.

That hopefully leaves enough room for a creative diesel heater install that will not cut into the truck bed, will get (stinky) fuel from outside, but not from the main tank, and hopefully will still look decent and be easy to use.

Now, for those folks still reading here:

Do you know a good source for a Webasto Air Top 2000 STC with Multicontrol and proper harness as well as maybe even a decent price?

 

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More Tetris:

 

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Some 80/20 thoughts again ...

TLDR:

I'm again at a point where I love the flexibility of 80/20 and how much it lets me hide my non-existent woodworking skills, but I hate it for the incredible cost and insane amount of work and special tools needed to make it just so.

Really, don't do it unless you know what you're getting into and still willing to do it!

Longer Version

We were back working on the galley yesterday (Sunday) and as always, I'm amazed, how much work it is to do 8020 framing properly at home.

We did the initial prototype frame with threeway corners, like the one you can see in the upper right corner of the photo above, and angle brackets. At least in the obviously visible places, like all four upper corners and the two visible lower corners. The rest was all done with 90 degree corner brackets.

When we had the basics sorted out, the measurements done, adjusted and tested, we took the whole thing apart again and started replacing the 90 degree brackets with butt-end connectors. It took about four hours to do this ... just imagine paying someone at the typical hourly shoprate for something like this. Sure, they might use tooling that cuts down the time by half, but that's probably the most you can realistically achieve by cutting M6 threads into the ends and drilling holes to access the allen heads.

At home, we do this with a little vice, a Makita drill, and tapping the threads by hand (because using the drill it's just too easy to break the drill tap, although we might try again with the smaller Bosch drill). It takes me between 3 and 4 minutes per end tap, about the same amount to drill an access hole. We do all this with meticulous precision, which makes it slow, but it turns out VERY well.

The result is that we replaced about 26 of the corner brackets with 12 butt-end connectors and a threeway. That's a saving of roughly $125! Plus the weight saving of roughly three cans of beer ... ;-)

Also, measuring and cutting the extrusion to precise length takes a good while. Generally, one of us measures the length we want with a machinists square, a precision ruler, and mark with a fine mechanical pencil. Then have the other one check the measurement. During the hundreds of cuts, we had a small number of cases where for example 345mm turned into 354mm or so and these were always caught by double checking ... you get tired and bored when doing these tasks.

Cutting the extrusion, we have the precision down to about 1/3 of one millimeter, which I think is where you really need to get to if you're using end connectors like the ones we use, since you can't provide any play like with the corner brackets and if you're not precise, the whole thing isn't square which makes it a nightmare for drawer slides and just generally trying to fit things together. It's a bit easier when using external connectors, since you can add play as needed.

Then there is the "false economy" of thinking "Why would I buy one of these fancy and expensive threeway corners if I can just use three 90 degree brackets?". The fancy corner is significantly cheaper than the angle brackets, as well as lighter, as well as much less in the way when adding sidewalls, doors, etc.

 

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More stainless steel goodness today ...

It's a rainy day, so we've been doing just a little bit of work in the garage. The self designed stainless Maxtrax mounts arrived yesterday and we mounted them to the Trailrax roofrack.

As soon as it stays dry for a few hours we can now mount the rack on the Jeep. We won't keep the boards on normally, so will drive around with the Maxtrax pin "antenna array".

Wifey adjusting the position:

And finally, we have a good place for our recovery boards:

And yes, we are anal enough to replace the black flange bolts that hold the brackets to the rack with plain stainless as soon as I get the proper hardware here ... waiting for a larger order to come together to not have shipping more expensive than the parts.

 

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Progress

Not much to write about right now ... just throwing out some ideas. We are in the middle of one of these "atmospheric rivers" here in California. So, rain, rain, and more rain.

Fortunately, today we caught a break in the rain and were able to cut some pieces for one of the goodies in our galley.

Backstory:

One thing we really miss in our Land Cruiser is a small table inside the cabin. Often enough the weather outside is nasty, or there are too many bugs bugging us, or we just like to have some privacy inside. In these times we like to play board games, cards, ... or plain watch a movie or TV show. That's when we really miss a practical surface to use for this.

That got us thinking how to solve this in the AluCab. We do have more usable surface area anyways, but some of it not super practical for these cases, so we decided, we want a small table. That got us thinking, designing, and dismissing one idea after the other. In the end we settled on a "pull out table" from the galley furniture. Reasonable height, about 390mm x 300mm (~16" x 12"), pulled out on locking drawer slides. To not waste all the space for the mechanism we finally succumbed to actually building a very shallow drawer with a lid – the lid being the table. This is our first time building something like this in wood, so took a while to get a plan and measurements together.

Then we had to up our precision when cutting wood ... the tracksaw track guide rubber had gotten some wavy pattern over time due to misuse from my side, so wasn't optimally suited for precision cutting. Started the day replacing that guide strip, hmpf, I hate peeling off old double sided tape residue. Got that done and all the pieces cut that we need for the drawer. Made it within five minutes of the next rain shower. Yeah! The next break will be used to cut some groves and rabbets with the router and then to glue everything together. Hopefully it'll fit. If all goes well, we might even build a second one next to it.

No photos for this, will get these when the next steps are in flight and, of course, when it's done.

Heating

Since one of the trips we are planning is going to Alaska late in the season, we have now decided that we also want a diesel heater in the cabin. Still thinking about how to integrate it nicely, one idea is the small area in the rear passenger side corner, with a small diesel tank outside. The Gladiator diesel system is finicky enough as is so that I don't want to tap into the main tank. Still working out details ...

Water

Decided on a small oval RV sink for which we'll build a "cutting board cover" to close it when it's not in use. As a faucet we'll use a shower head which we already know from our other truck, just need to get this shipped from Germany since I really couldn't find anything here that would work. That also means we don't have to add a second outlet since this part comes with a 2m flexible stainless water hose.

Okay, that's it for today

 

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Prepping the drawer:

And since not everything goes to plan, you could have learned some interesting new German phrases today:

Underestimating the power of an 18V Makita router is a bad idea ...

 

[Geared4adventure]

I continue to appreciate the updates and the ideas you generate. I don't speak German... but expect I could have understood the intent!

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