#video #toread on #vanlife by #Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate doing #tourism in #Bolivia
on 02024-09-18#vanlife #argentina #video #Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate #clickbait pretending to give up again, but it turns out they just had to go back to their hometown to renew a driver’s license and the verificación técnica of the van. They say the Axion stations are better than the YPF stations for spending the night, and often have picnic areas; in the south, near El Bolsón, there are more places where you can’t spend the night because they’re overloaded with motor homes. Lots of footage of driving down the highway
on 02024-05-03#Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate apparently bought these 380-watt-peak #photovoltaic #solar #energy panels for his #vanlife, 20.83% efficient PERC, “Oushang Solar” brand OS-HM60-380. Currently US$160.
on 02024-05-02#Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate #video #vanlife about the electrical setup in their van. They use a US$350 “Daza” brand “pure-sine-wave” 1500-watt inverter which consumes 33 watts when idle, mostly to charge their laptops, and had to replace one of its MOSFETs at one point (though he misleadingly displays a 2N2222 at this point in the video), which was a huge problem because the particular US$5 transistor model was unavailable in #Argentina. (A commenter says he overpaid for the big inverter.) So he replaced it temporarily with a small 300W modified-square-wave inverter which “only” consumes 3 watts idle. The electrics boxes (built under one of their bench seats) are wooden, which I don’t think much of. Their #photovoltaic #solar panels are 380 watts peak, which is all they had space for on top of the Sprinter. The solar panels connect to an “Epever” brand 30-amp MPPT charge controller, and then they have a ridiculous 6-breaker 240VAC panel through which they’re running their 12-volt power (because 240-VAC breakers are much cheaper than 12-VDC breakers, like US$35 each?), plus some car fuses. He’s still confused about the difference between amps and amp-hours, again incorrectly describing his 2500-amp 275-amp-hour (each) gel batteries (GreensunSolar JFM275-12 if the photo he showed in a previous video isn’t fake news) as “275 amperes”. Again he shows the “Aleba” BC-1240 40-amp battery charger they use to charge from “shore power”. They chose lead-acid batteries instead of lithium so they could afford them without selling the van, although I think probably they could have gone with a much-lower-capacity battery, which he seems to agree with. One time he forgot he was charging the house batteries from the van’s starter battery (he has a switch) and drained it halfway.
on 02024-05-01#Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate #Argentina #vanlife #video #toread
on 02024-05-01#Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate #Argentina #vanlife #video #toread
on 02024-05-01#Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate #Argentina #vanlife #video #toread
on 02024-05-01#Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate #Argentina #vanlife #video in Posadas. Giant Andrés Guacurarí statue. International Bridge to Encarnación, Paraguay. Beach. 30° hellish heat (posted 02023-09-07, but probably several days earlier). There’s a place reserved exclusively for parking motor homes. They spent a day on their laptops in the van, in separate spaces, during a rainy day. A bit dull.
on 02024-05-01#Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate #Argentina #vanlife #video of being “EXPELLED” from Salto Encantado park in Misiones. Mostly they went camping and swimming in the 5° waterfall and played with a dog, made some food, worked on their laptops, etc. Micaela took an afternoon nap on a blanket on the greensward. But apparently the reason they got EXPELLED was that they asked a park ranger if they could spend the night parked in the park parking lot, and he had to ask his boss, and finally they were told to park across the street. They just drove to a YPF station to park for the night so they would have internet access, then returned the next day.
on 02024-05-01#video on problems/regrets #Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate had with their #vanlife build: shower drainage when they’re not parked on level ground, the vinyl flooring on the bathroom walls (because there are places where it isn’t really stuck down), the bathroom accordion door tearing up the vinyl floor, not having space heating, putting the stove in the middle of the door (because the wind can blow out the fire), not having a place to sit next to each other and watch a movie, and not having a desk in the cockpit (which he evidently later added). However, having the air conditioner panel straight over the bed is a big win.
on 02024-05-01#Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate gave up on #vanlife according to the title of this #video, buying a house in El Calafate, but it’s a #clickbait lie; they’re just hanging out at a friend’s house. There was reserved motorhome parking made a good impression on them, but it costs $9000 per 2 kg for milanesa de pollo, and they had to spend the night at the YPF station. Every single motor home in the YPF parking lot has solar panels. This video also shows the storage accessible through the back doors where they have their 30-liter liquid fuel bottle. Apparently flying drones in national parks is forbidden. Mostly just a travel tourism video, bleh.
on 02024-05-01#vanlife #video of carpenter Daniel Metrailler (IG @callejer0s_viajer0s) from Caseros, Entre Ríos, who built a 1400kg wood-siding-covered trailer out of phenolic to live in with his three dogs, pulling it behind his 01974 Peugeot 404, license plate UQX 538. The trailer’s brakes are activated by compression into the car, and it has a 6ℓ hot-water heater on the front of it. On top it has two 110-watt #photovoltaic #solar panels for electrical #energy and a “100 ampere” (probably erroneous) battery. The sides of the trailer have architectural-salvage windows with screens, so it’s about as far from a stealth-camping trailer as can be. The interior furnishings (drawers, cabinets, kitchen countertop) appear to be wood. He’s removed the stove he used to have in favor of a small gas burner next to the sink, powered by a gas cylinder under the sink; vinyl fake-ceramic wall tiles line the kitchen wall. He still has a 220-volt fridge, but his inverter is insufficient to run it. The bed is a loft level about head height which can be moved aside to allow you to stand up, ceiling height 192cm. The air conditioner runs off 12 volts. Mateo of #Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate reveals his height as 176cm. There’s a bathroom with a sink and super-luxury shower, with cuerina (naugahyde) to keep the water vapor in. The toilet is a baño seco, a separating toilet with sawdust to dehydrate the poop; he made the urine separator out of PVC pipe.
on 02024-05-01#vanlife #Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate #pricing of the stuff for their motorhome conversion. Demonstrates some of the techniques they used: pop-riveting wooden stringers to the van’s steel rafters, varnishing knotty softwood while kneeling on cardboard, etc. They said they planned the whole thing for five years. Or maybe three. This #video is a waste of time, a guy talking to the camera interspersed with shitty stock footage. Fortunately the costs he provides are converted to dollars, and using the blue dollar rather than the official one. The van itself runs about US$31k–US$42k, I think (though he doesn’t say), but the conversion involved electrical installation (US$2900), water and gas plumbing (US$3164 including, for some reason, the fridge and air conditioner and maybe the stove?), and the building stuff (US$500, including wood, insulation, etc.), and they also had to buy tools (US$340), plus paint and screws. The electrical installation involved two humongous 275-amp-hour batteries, an MPPT solar charge controller (“Epever” brand?), a 40-amp battery charger, and a 1500-watt inverter. They did actually put a tiny bit of fiberglass and polyethylene foam insulation in, contrary to my previous speculations, but we’re mostly talking about millimeters of insulation, not centimeters. As I speculated, almost all the interior is wood, but it’s not pine as I’d thought, but the super-lightweight kiri (Paulownia tomentosa), technically a hardwood but extremely fast-growing and abundantly produced in Misiones. The two of them spent three months working on it.
on 02024-05-01#video #Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate the #vanlife shower floor (plato de ducha) ended up not being level and therefore not having proper #drainage, so instead of fixing it, they decided to put a wood floor above it so they wouldn’t have to step in the cold puddle. But they were trying to do this in a corn field in Misiones with power tools (run off the van battery?) and ran out of sandpaper. Then he kind of screwed up the bottom of the vinyl accordion door with a reciprocating saw to make space for a threshold to stop it from scraping holes in the vinyl flooring.
on 02024-05-01#vanlife #video #Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate they ran out of butane to heat their van with in El Chaltén, because most gas stations don’t sell butane or propane there. (I’d suggest that their total lack of insulation may also be a factor.) The front of the van isn’t actually quite as #stealth-camping as the previous video led me to believe; there are two solid vertical gray partitions behind the seats, which doesn’t look much like a normal minivan. They had filled up an extra container of liquid fuel at a gas station, which they store in wooden storage compartments under the bed, which does indeed have rear-door-accessible storage as I had speculated, which also seems to contain foldable camping chairs, a telescoping ladder, a fire extinguisher, the gas cylinder that powers the hot water heater, etc. There seems to be a plywood floor. Also they’ve plastered their van with YouTube promotions, making it much less stealth. Mostly the video is driving around southern #Argentina, going to RV parks, hiking around near waterfalls, a hamburger recipe with homebaked bread, that kind of thing. They report using the app Overlander to find out about free Wi-Fi, and they demonstrate emptying the graywater tank in some kind of parking lot specifically designed for this (“Estación de Descarga”/“Dump Station”). They normally empty out their cassette toilet tank into other toilets, rather than blackwater hookups, but here they demonstrate emptying it into the dump station. Mateo demonstrates how he sets up a desk in the van’s front seats, partly hidden by a sunshield in the windshield, to work on his laptop.
on 02024-05-01#video on #vanlife #stealth-camping in #Argentina (channel "Al Mundo con el Mate") in an 02019 Mercedes Sprinter 415 “mixed” van (i.e., with windows, which are tinted), license plate AE 043 BE, about US$31k–US$42k. It’s a little shorter than the 515, which is harder to find parking for, but tall enough to stand up inside, with 5m² inside space. The solar panels on top are quite low, so you don’t see them from ground level; on the outside of the van you can see a ventilation louver on the bathroom, the drinking-water inlet, a power connection, and an extra sliding window which is over the bed. They have a two-burner stove with electric ignition and oven fed from a butane cylinder inside the van, plus a third burner they can place outside, and a second butane cylinder for the hot-water heater. Because the stove isn’t designed for motor homes they have to take the wire top off to drive, and it doesn’t seem to have a countertop option to use it as a counter when not in use as a stove. They have an electronic gas alarm (“Intelligent Gas” brand) next to each butane cylinder. They installed a 100ℓ “Belli” brand dorm fridge, but I don’t know if it’s a compressor type, ammonia absorption, or what. It’s partly blocking the van’s stock sliding door, so it can’t be vented outside. There are latches on the fridge and (25ℓ) freezer doors, suggesting that it’s a motor-home-specific design. The internal furniture is almost entirely wood painted and screwed together with wood screws, probably making it rather heavy. There’s a kitchen sink with two faucets, one straight from their 200ℓ water tank and one filtered. The sink, like the stove, seems to lack a countertop option. They have a 100ℓ greywater tank underneath the van. The indoor paneling looks like white-painted beadboard, with wallpaper around the sink, perhaps to protect from splashes. The dining table is a 600-mm-long slideaway thing between two (600-mm-wide) bench seats. The slideaway table seems like a missed opportunity to put drawers underneath the tabletop. They have two GreensunSolar JFM275-12 gel batteries under the seats (in the video he says “275 ampere” but they’re actually 2500 ampere deep-cycle gel batteries, 275 ampere hours, and also they cost US$600 each) which power an inverter and a large breaker box with six 240VAC circuit breakers. Their charge controller is a 40-amp Aleba BC-1240. There’s a narrow round aluminum flexible duct (100mm?) running, for no obvious reason, from the hot-water heater in the bathroom through a cabinet to a non-obvious chimney on the roof. The ceiling seems to be stained and varnished pine with some wooden crown moldings, and maybe 2cm up to the roof-vent fan, not enough for any insulation. It doesn’t look like there’s any insulation behind the beadboard walls either. There’s a 12-volt air conditioner above the bed, which also isn’t visible from the ground outside. The 130cm×190cm bed, in the back of the van, is normally collapsed to half its length, extending out for sleeping over the dining table and seats and the refrigerator and the sink, a process which takes one person about 45 seconds because the sheet is already on. The bed is about waist height, so underneath the bed is presumably storage space accessible through the Sprinter’s back doors, though that isn’t shown. The 110cm×75cm bathroom has a folding accordion door, a cassette toilet (“portapoti”), vinyl flooring on the walls screwed down under some wooden moldings, the 6ℓ gas hot-water heater, and a shower with a plato de ducha floor like you might install in a house. There’s a curtain hung behind the van seats separating them from the living area, so the cab looks like a perfectly normal van.
on 02024-05-01