Yet Another White Rubicon - JLUR Build

[ArtC2]

Lance: I am just starting the planning on my white 4xe build and I will be using many of your ideas. Thank you for sharing all of the details.

Two questions:
1) You mentioned that you found a better way to run wires to the rear cargo area, when you have a chance can you please expand on your plan?
2) What iPhone app are you using with the Ardurino compressor control? I have been using Blynk but it requires internet access or a local server which is overkill for this application.

Please keep up with the posts, you have many great ideas that are inspiring many of us.

Art

 

[LanceMagnum]

Hi Art, thanks for those kind words, I'll do my best to explain.

I run wires from both the left and right side of the cargo area of the Jeep from where the roll bar attaches down to the cargo tub. On the left side it's mostly stuff related to the Manager 30 and on the right side it's for the inverter and also a power feed to the SPod. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures with the trim, fenders, or carpet out of the way.

There's a spot at the top of each wheel well where you can drill a hole (I used a step bit) where you only go through 1 layer of sheet metal and don't have to interfere with any weld points or anything (it's actually a slightly different spot on each side). I then painted the raw metal and used a rubber grommet and some butyl rubber tape to seal it up.



Here's a shot of the right side with the carpet pulled back where you can see the grommet:


There's a decent amount of space behind the carpet and under the plastic trim, I was pleased with how nicely things went back into place. You can see in the above picture I relieved the plastic trim piece to clear the large inverter wires but that was not needed on the left side where I running more reasonably sized conductors.

To run from the top of the wheel well you go behind the inner fender liner. The best way to do that is to remove the rear fender and liner in one piece. Look for 'removing JL fenders the easy way'. I've removed my fenders several times over the last year and a half and it seems the plastic clips are getting brittle enough that I break some when I do it now. When it was brand new I don't think I broke any. Anyway, here's the Mopar part number:

68526185AA


The wire bundle goes along the inner fender (there's some factory wires running the same path) and then turns underneath near the rear shock mount. Sorry I don't have a good pic but there's one obvious place that keeps the wire out of the way of any suspension bits and up as high as possible.

Here's a couple of bad attempts to show the wiring by the cargo tub:

Here's where it's going up into the fender well (left side):


And here's where I use cable glands to enter the cargo tub:


Please excuse the frayed wire loom As you can see cable protection is important, I'm using both a flexible loom and also the hard split conduit, especially important where it goes around the frame and up into the wheel well.

Here's where the wires above make their way into the cargo tub:


Running wires this way on the passenger side has a difficulty factor, this is where the evap stuff is on the JL, this thing is sitting at the top rear of the passenger wheel well:


I was able to remove the bolts holding it in place and lower it enough to run the cables on top of it.

Happy to follow up with more details, just let me know, and I'll reply to the Arduino question a bit later.

 

[ArtC2]

Lance:

Thank you for detailed explanation and pictures. This will save me a ton of time. Have you had any issue with the batteries getting too hot?

Art


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[LanceMagnum]

I have not had issues with temp - the Manager 30 does have a temp sensor that is on the main positive lead and from what I've read it will shut things down at 140F for lithium chemistry. The cargo box seems to not be terribly affected by the greenhouse of the Jeep cargo area above, maybe I've seen it 10F above ambient. Perhaps some heat can escape through the thin plastic of the tub.

I don't have any BTU-generating equipment in there, and the battery, etc. run cool even if I'm using the inverter or charging at the max 30 amps (that's less than a .2C rate). The manager 30 does get warm so it'd be a different story if that lived in there (aside from the fact it would take up all the space!)

In the winter I definitely hit the cold limit and it won't charge, but since the muffler is below the cargo box after like 20 or so minutes driving it can warm things up enough to allow charging (along with the interior warming up too, I suppose)

 

[LanceMagnum]

2) What iPhone app are you using with the Ardurino compressor control? I have been using Blynk but it requires internet access or a local server which is overkill for this application.

So it's just using a web browser - the chip I'm using, Arduino Nano IoT, has a wifi module and it actually runs a tiny web server as part of the program. I'd agree the setup is overkill, the Arduino connects to the vehicle wifi network and has a static ip, then if I want to view the autoflate app I just point the phone to that ip (with the phone also connected to the vehicle wifi). It serves up a small web page that shows the psi as of the last check, and any error messages. That's all optional, though, the inflate stuff all works without connecting to the vehicle network or using the app. I only use the app occasionally when I suspect something is not working quite right.

And what is that something? I'm still refining the noise filtering on the power supply so that it's 100% reliable - the Arduino needs stable and noise-free power otherwise it will reboot itself. Even more sensitive is the I2C wires connected to the pressure sensor - if they pick up noise it disrupts the serial communication. My first step was to up the filtering capacitors for both high and low frequency (large and small caps) and that helped a bit but the next issue was the solenoid valve creating a surge when it closes (classic case of flyback voltage buildup). I replaced the coil on the solenoid with one that has a provision for installing a flyback diode very close to the coil. That helped a lot and that's where is sits today. I'd say 19 out of 20 times it's working fine, but can suffer a reboot that 20th time. I believe it's due to the compressor itself generating noise - I'm going to try installing a filter capacitor on the compressor power supply connections (close to the motor) and see if that does it. Worst case I can completely isolate the Arduino by using AA cells for the power supply - the control circuits that drive the solenoid are already using an optical relay so at that point the thing will effectively be air gapped.

Update: went with the battery power, working perfectly (so far!) - here's an updated pic of the slightly larger enclosure that holds 4 AA batteries:

Also, a couple versions ago I upgraded the web page, it's now using a dial gauge widget and also gets updates via a websocket connection (so status updates are pushed from the Arduino controller, not polled by the web browser):

 

[ArtC2]

Lance:

I an intrigued with your automatic ARB single compressor installation with pressure control. How long does it take to air up your tires (which look to be close to stock) to ~37 psi once aired down? My original plan was to use an ARB twin compressor but mounting in a 4xe is pretty much limited to the cargo bay or the plastic tub which I would rather not do if possible.

Thanks,

Art

 

[LanceMagnum]

Yes, tires are the stock 33's (K02's are 'small' 33's). Any future tire upgrade plans would be to 35's, not beyond that.

Most of the time I'm using the system after beach driving and I'm airing up from about 15psi. It takes like 4 minutes per tire to get to 37.5. In total it's like 20 minutes for the complete air-up, and since I don't need to be very hands-on during the process I'm usually doing other stuff like throwing out the beach trash or changing out of my sandals. Oh, and if you're doing your air-up in the same area where others are using the compressor shack are there's a lot of answering the question 'do you have an ARB?'

Not sure how much longer 35's would take, my guess is an additional 5-10 minutes for the whole process. The ARB single is rated for 50% duty cycle - so keep that in mind for larger tires. The thermal protection has never kicked in for me.

 

[LanceMagnum]

Drawer design time...

I've lived with the Jeep long enough to know what size drawers will work for us and worked up an 80/20 design in Autocad. I've decided to try this without using slides, or at least those ball bearing slides that I'm sure give a nice user experience when using the drawers. Here's a couple of pictures that show the space that I'm trying to reclaim by not using slides:



I plan on using full inset drawer boxes with a minimum bottom recess to give all the space to storage. The drawers will sit on top of an 8020 profile with a smooth face and I will be using UHMW polyethylene strips to provide a low friction surface for the drawer to slide on. I'm also giving up on full extension and 'lock out' to achieve my design goal.

The width of the available opening is 18", and my inset on all sides of the drawer will be 1/16", so the outside dimension of the drawer will be 17 7/8".

I drafted out many different schemes for keeping the drawers aligned when opening and closing, and also preventing over-extension. This required closely spaced rails on the top and bottom of the drawer side, as well as a track of sorts for the drawer bottom to follow (with a notch at the back of the drawer), very roughly shown here:



But after final consideration I'm going with an undermount drawer guide using some 8020 linear motion parts - it will provide alignment and over-extension protection all in one system, and it just fits within the 1/4" bottom recess of the drawer boxes.


Here's a couple of shots of the design:



A shot with highlighted surfaces where the drawer will slide on UHMW strips:




I looked at a dozen compression latch spec drawings, and other latch types, trying to find an internal latch solution I was happy with. My final decision is totally practical and simple, I'll use an external door/drawer latch or a butterfly latch and a separate drawer pull.



I'll keep looking for a fancier latch solution, but so many have panel thickness and grip range specs that require a 'keeper' that will interfere with the drawer usability.

Lots of places to get drawer boxes made-to-order, I'm going with Drawer Depot, using 1/2" 9-ply Baltic birch.



Drawers will be 9" and 7" deep. Weight of all the additional 8020 parts and panels is about 15 lbs., and the drawers will probably weigh less than 10 lbs. each.

Now I just have to wait for everything to show up, once again it's going to be many weeks for the 8020 order.

 

[LanceMagnum]

A couple of lighting projects completed, the big one is a pair of aux lights for the front, BD LP4's.

They pull about 17amps max for the pair so I've got them wired to one of the big aux circuits, AUX1. I have them wired through a relay that is triggered by the high beams, so if both AUX1 is on and you turn on the high beams they illuminate. LP4's also have a backlight circuit and that is wired in before the relay so they will be on anytime the aux switch is on.

There's a place to tap into the high beam circuit on both the driver and passenger side, I used the passenger side near where the aux wiring bundle is located.


It's the white/grey wire, shows as mostly white in this picture:


I used a posi-tap connector, shown here after the bundle was wrapped back up:


Best place to route wires from the battery area to the front bumper is by going underneath the air filter housing and down the right side of the grill - I run my winch cables and the aux light wiring this way.

The LP4's mount to the winch guard using hardware from Axia Alloys, and here's the final result:

 

[LanceMagnum]

2nd lighting project is a winch drum light - with the way the winch is recessed in the bumper it's hard to see how the rope in laying in as you spool the winch. I'm using a very easy-to-install rock light from Lux Lighting:



They are magnetic - it's mounted to the underside of the bumper and does a fine job lighting up the winch drum. Pictures don't really do it justice but it's bright enough to easily see during daytime.




It's wired into the same aux circuit that powers the winch solenoid so it's on whenever the winch is enabled. I considered using one of the aux circuits on the back of the winch itself but that's an unneeded complexity (that would mean having to use the winch controller to turn on the light when needed).

 

[LanceMagnum]

Misty with surf sounds at Nauset Beach South today:

 

[LanceMagnum]

Final phase of storage system complete.

Here's the linear motion hardware used instead of slides:


They work about as well as I expected, feels like a dresser drawer, not like a nice kitchen drawer. Tradeoff was saving at least 10-15 lbs and I gained at 1" of usable drawer width, and 1/4" in height.

I assembled the drawer 'module' outside of the Jeep:


Final result. A bit of adjustment needed to get everything very square - I left little room for drawer inset but end result should be dust resistant.


Not full extension but works for me - they feel steady enough when extended as far as they go (and I can adjust if needed later):

 

[LanceMagnum]

Configure for Winter Mode:

Remove drawers from fridge and then unscrew and slide out fridge:


Storage unit w/o fridge:


Access to tie-down cap bolts:


Rotate unit and pull out:


Say hello to the house battery, I did not need to access it all season:


Cell balancer is doing a fine job (plus matched cells to start with):


Now just wait until April or so and it will be back in, whole process takes about 30-40 minutes.


In the meantime there will be some winter trips to Nauset Beach, perhaps an Acadia Park visit in the off-season.