Adding USB to the Tent

Our tent is old. That's a good thing, I think. We've had it since we started this whole adventure thing, now almost exactly a decade ago. It's performed well during that time, and though I've often lusted after something GFC-ish, I can't say that the tent has ever let us down in any way that a much more expensive camper would have solved.

In fact, there are really only three features I've found myself "missing" - if one can miss something they've never had - in well over 1,000 nights sleeping above the bed of the truck.

1. A hardshell wedge shape to point into the wind. This would be nice to reduce wind noise in unsheltered camp sites.
2. An enclosed bed area that is connected to the tent. This would allow a heat-able, dry space in cold and/or wet conditions.
3. Better power availability in the tent. It'd be nice to have some easily accessible USB charging for laptops and other devices.

While plentiful USB and lighting options are standard in RTTs today, the lack-of-power in the tent was completely normal 10 years ago. I addressed the biggest shortcoming - lighting - by adding my own LED light strip, and when I need to charge my laptop, its hasn't been difficult to run a power cable out the back window of the cab and into the tent via a window.

I thought I would always run power from the cab, but as USB power delivery has improved, and as laptops have evolved to use USB power rather than proprietary chargers, I realized that a nice variety of USB ports in the tent would be very convenient. So, I set about finding a form factor I thought would work well; the biggest consideration - it turned out - would be the wiring.

The thing about a soft-shell roof top tent is that the floor is a solid slab. Or at least, it's an aluminum frame clad in aluminum sheeting, with no good way to secret away wiring. And of course, one does not want to drill holes in this structure, as doing so would compromise it both thermally and structurally.

This meant that any wiring I'd install would run into the tent through the fold - just like the earlier lighting modification - but would then run along the tent floor to the head area. Since I didn't want the wires to run completely unprotected - only to get caught up in the folding of hinges, stuffing of tent material, etc. - I also needed a way to protect them.

Luckily, I'd recently purchased a 3D printer for another exciting yet-to-be-announced project, and it seems that other people have come up with all sorts of designs to run wiring through all manner of little channels. Perfect!

Updating the 12v Electrical Box in the Bed

Before I could install the new USB ports, I wanted to update the 12v junction box that supplied power to the bed of the Tacoma. While two switched 12v power receptacles were functional, I've long wanted to swap to Anderson Powerpole connectors for all the space saving they would allow, and I've wanted to have USB power available without going into the cab, as well. This seemed like the perfect opportunity. I started by figuring out exactly what I wanted as far as inputs and outputs were concerned:

• Inputs - like before, I'd only need a single input, but I'd make it pluggable rather than hardwiring like I had the first time:
  • 12v in via 30A Anderson Power Pole
  • A Blue Sea 15A circuit breaker / switch that would control the entire box
• Outputs - this is where I'd give myself a lot more options, by moving from two (2) outputs to seven (7).
  • 4x 12v out via 30A Anderson Power Pole (like the input)
  • 1x 12v out via Blue Sea 1015 "cigarette" receptacle
  • 2x 65w USB ports via the best ever USB charger

And then, I set about stumbling through one of the more popular CAD design programs to try and model the box for 3D printing. The young whippersnappers on the YouTubes all seem to say how easy my chosen software was to use, so I figured I'd be done in a matter of minutes.

This is the part where I tell you that the young whippersnappers are liars, or that my brain has the CAD aptitude of a garden slug. Both. The answer is both.

Ultimately, after several "I'd better start over" attempts at modeling exactly what I wanted, I had a mostly parameterized - so I could resize and align various components that were used in the construction process - mock-up that seemed to be printable. And then, 10 hours later, it was a thing in the real world!

With all the internals crimped, wired up, and secured, installing the box onto the bed rack was reasonably straightforward. I'd modeled in several channels for zip ties, and a flange that would support the box on the frame of the bed rack, so it was a simple matter of shoving it in place and pulling on a few plastic straps to get it all snugged up. And of course, the Anderson Powerpole connectors meant that I could just plug everything right in!

Installing the In-Tent USB

Now with plenty of Powerpole outputs near the tent, it was time to figure out the in-tent USB situation. I'm sure more modern tents just build the wiring into the tent structure, but no such forethought was given to tents that rolled out of the factories in 2016. And, since I didn't want to have wires just floating around on the floor of the tent, I availed myself of the various maker communities to find a cable channel that I could modify for my needs.

With the choice of channel made, I just needed to figure out how to secure the USB charger itself. I considered using another barrel-style charger like I'd used in the 12v power box, but ultimately I'd settled on another 65W model that was designed to be surface mounted, since it would make accessing the USB ports a little easier.

Generally, this charger is screwed into the surface it is mounted on, but I couldn't do that in the tent. The floor is a very-thin-aluminum-skin-over-a-honeycomb-mesh in order to save weight, so I needed a different solution. Once again, I brought my so-you-think-you-can-model skills to bear, and eventually I ended up with a base for the charger that would mate up to the low-profile channel I'd downloaded to protect the wiring!

All that was left was the installation, and that couldn't have been easier. Some 3M rubberized double-sided tape adhered to the bottom of each section of channel, and a bit of pressure to hold them in place.

 

 

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