- Messages
- 1,129
- Reaction score
- 3,754
- Points
- 333
- Location
- Somerset
- First Name
- Kevin
- Elgrand
- E51
- Region
- South West
The opps message is really starting to get my goat now, must have been going on for the best part of 2 years now.
Took me best part of an hour to get this message to post and had to keep on taking bits out adding them backing in and editing so that what I wanted was in the message with the worry that it was going to get lost completly at any minute, checked the spelling 3 times and it still came back with spelling mistakes.
Seems like anything with more than a few sentences or a couple of pictures it does not want to know and even with all the long winded ways around it is getting worse.
Is it just me, should I just post loads of shorter massages to say the same things.
Anyway
A bit of a update.
I have had my Hernia operation on Wednesday and all good.
Spent a total of 12 hours in hospital with the op taking nearly 2 hours.
Due to having a stroke and a heart attack in the last few years they had decided that they would do the operation under general antiseptic.
Still very sore and tired and have spent virtually all the last 4 days mainly in bed taking pain killers so not done anything to my Elgrand.
One thing I have decided though is that I am going to build a wifi zone in my Elgrand while I am at it partly due to having a brand new sealed Linkdys EA8300 that I bought for £25 a few months ago to extend my home wifi into the back garden in conjuction with a used Linksys EA9500 that I bought at the same time which I paid £36 for but my wife has decided that she does not want it on show and would live with having the weaker signal from the EA9500 in the garden which even though it is the more powerful of the 2 is further away and has to transmit the signal throgh some fairly thch walls so thought I might as well get some use from it
Both of these are only Wifi 5 not the newer Wifi 6 or 7 but this makes no difference as all my kit is only Wifi5 and I have no intention of replacing it for quite a few years at least so would get no benefit from the newer tech
They are both triband with 8 and 4 external antennas respectivly and are very highly rated for there signal strength both being expensive routers a few years ago
I have been researching how I can use it in my Elgrand and it seems to be fairly straight forward with a combination of the Linksys EA8300 and new external magnetic removable antenas on the roof of my van wired directly to a used Huawei B525s-23a router which I wlll then use a ethernet cable to wire to the Linkys for use as an extender.
Was thinking of running the cable from the l antennas through the same gland that i used to run the cable for the solar panels but think it would be more trouble than it would be worth as it is not just the cable that needs to be run in but also the 2 SMA connectors which would then make it really tight and the l antennas would also then need to be permently fixed to the roof and as we mainly have the tailgate up when we are away would be no great hardship to put the antenas on the roof with there magnets and connect to the Huawwei although I may look for an exstension cable so that i can leave the cable permently in the back of the Huawei and have it running to the the unit at the top and then being able to plug in direct rather than going through the cupboard door.
Might think of adding a small 20 inch tv in future if I can find a used one for a decent price as I have a bit of room on the camper units up high in the living zone that I could use to mount it and once the wifi was in should be fairly straight forward to connect it to the Linksys with a firetick which I have in my stash
Initatail thoughts are that although sound qaulity may drop a bit from the head unit is that as long as the tv had a audio out I could also use this through the Infinty amp which is pwering the living zone and the boshmans in the units and rear doors although not intending to do this at present should not cost to much or be too difficult to do in furture
I have gone for this one as although not quite so powerful as the ewer Huawei mode that I could have used when used in conjunction with the Linksys this will make no difference as it will be Linksys that is doing the work of sending the signal.
They are also cheaper and rather than being white are black and gold which matches my van and units better.
Just need to check that I can get this kit into the only remaing cupbord that i have a available alhough i think it would be possible to put the Linkskys in one cupbourd and Huawei in the space above although it might then need to lie flat so not ideal but if needed would be possible.
This should give me a very strong stream to my Samsung tablets anything up to 75 feet away from the open tailgate which will keep my wife happy as she can watch all her soaps on catchup sat in the sun on her tablet rather than her phone. and will also provide a far better signal inside the van as the signal will not be dropping as it would on a phone due the vans body and roof
Should only cost about £50 or so as I already have the Linksys so although this pushes my budget up slightly will still be well below the £1100 mark in total. as the used Huawe and new antennae or about £45 in total and if I then do add a tv in future I will not be looking to pay anymore tha around £100 for it and as I already kave a spare firesick will stil bel keeping my total bufget not much more than £1100.
This could also possibly give me the option to play the FLAC files that I have stored on my laptop through Foobar2000 direct through zone 2 and may be also zone3 if i also wired it in through the headphone out but not certain whether this would be any real benefit over using the JVC head units outputs with the usb stick I have with them on so will not bother initially but perhaps something to try in furture.
Probably the better option sound wise may be to try to put foobar onto the JVC head unit direct but as this will be only accessible direct from the tailgate zone will not be so convient. Either way more thoughts for the furture,
Looks like the best option for me for a data only sim as we don't use the van that much would be 1p mobile which is powered by the EE network as i could buy a 10gb package which is valid for 7 days and only costs £3 as we only use the van for camping twice a year or so so total cost would only be about £6 for the sim
This at medium quality would give my wife approx 14 hours of catch up TV over the 7 days although what you don't use is lost.
Picture of the Linksys EA8300 that I have
Have also decided that while the door cards are off I am going to recover the cream panel in the middle of the doors in the black baby ostrich material that I have used for part of the rear bench seats as I have quite a lot of this left and think that it would go in a lot better with black seats I now have fitted that replaced my original cream Rider seats and the DAD Garson VIP table that will also be using it on which is very nearly finished now.
Will also think what I can do to the upper and lower parts of the seats and may think about looking for some yellow seude to do these in
and might even buy enough to also do the upper parts of the dash up to the black dash mat that I have bought as I would like to do something to the dash but am not a fan of of wraps.
Also a few more bits from Aliexpress have turned up
In with these bits are a pair of 6.5 universal spacers for the front doors which look to be a perfect fit for the mounting holes on the Elgrand and at about £3 for the pair are considerably less than the specific spacer covers sold for the Elgrand in the UK which seem to about £20 up
Also bought from the same seller a pair of speaker extensions for about £2 as I am thinking I may cut out the Elgrand speaker grill and mount the speakers on top of the existing grill with it's own covers that they came with if I can make it work as I like that this would then allow the orange cone on the bassface to show through and would match the SPLX subwoofer in the tailgate zone.
Included in with this delivery are a couple of Ryoba pull cut saws as a few of the cuts to the units will need to be done in situ rather then dismantle the whole conversion and I remember from when we installed the units in the first place even with a router we had to go really careful or the veneer would crack and splinter
Will most likely undercut very slightly and finish of with a hand sandpaper as even though it will take a bit longer is preferable to having to recut a whole panel and even though I have over half a sheet left plus some decent size offcuts would prefer this rather than chancing running out as if I had to buy more it was £160 per sheet plus delivery when I bought it 7 years ago so likely more now
Also included in with these are a new pair of foam ear pads for my Grado500 pros
Hoping that my bruising will have gone down enough in the next few days so that I can start getting it all fitted.
I have decided that the best way to do this will be to get the JVC head unit, all the amps, speakers, tweeters and crossovers and enclosures for speakers and subs etc fitted in place first as they pretty much need to go where I have planned for them and do the wiring afterwards even if it means taking some of them out again to run the cables.
I have also relised that I do not have any binding posts to run the speaker cables into the enclosures that I am making for them so that I will need to spend a few pounds more and get these from Aliexpress, will get proper binding posts so that I can use bayonets with them not the cheap and horrible spring loaded jobs which typically will only take 16 gauge wire.
Bit more work as the enclosures have to cut to fit them but in my opinion well worth doing as they will then accept my speaker cable gauge without trying to trim it to make it fit.
I do have quite a few bayonet plugs in my stash but they are mainly mismatched although I will look first before buying any to check what I have.
The forged Tanei-sha wheels that I bought for my grandson for him have now arrived from Japan and are stunning and weigh next to nothing which means that the centre consul for between the front seats should also be here soon as this was shipped about 4 weeks after the wheels.
They have very minor curbing right on the outside edges to a couple of them but this is only to the paintwork and has not damaged the alloy underneath so may look to have them refinished with a black pinstripe around the outside rim as I think this will suit the carbon centre caps perfectly.
Should also be arriving soon are the Recaro Seat rails for the Recaro seats I have bought as they are in with the centre consul.
Also coming at about the same sort of time should be the DAD Garson front grill and the Sugra Speed lower control arm as these were shipped together and just after the seat rails and centre consul,
Will leave fitting these and the custom headlights which are virtually finished for now and concentrate on the interior as hoping to get a bit of ramp time at the garage where my grandson works
Got to say it but delivery of the Tanei-sha wheels from Parcelforce from UK Customs to me was absolutely awful with them taking a total of 12 days to get the wheels to me with a couple of times being sent emails with the date they were supposed to be arriving and then not turning up after I paid the Import duty vat and there £25 fee for both parcels and then they left them on my neighbours drive.
Also after the last date that they were supposed to be dilivered I have not been able to get into the online tracking on either parcel
In contrast from the date I paid the proxys shipping in Japan for shipping by Japan Post they were loaded on the boat in 2 days.
All part of the reason why I will only use Royal Mail or or any of there sub companies as a least resort as I have found there service in general to be very poor and will go out of my way to find sellers who use other delivery companies although I do find Yodel not much better but are at least cheaper,
Having said all that I had the V55 form back from the DVLA for the Audi Q3 that I bought for my wife as I got the amount wrong for the tax as they have decided that they are rating it at a higher rate than a UK car even though it is exactly the same CO2. Only £20 a year more than a UK car so no big deal.
It took 8 days to get to me from Swansea 2nd class but when I returned it with a new cheque my wife dropped it in my local post office at 4.00 o/clock on Friday afternoon and the tracking shows it was received by the DVLA just after 6.00 on Saturday morning
This was sent special delivery so seems like there premium services are still good as this was a similar time frame to when it was sent the first time
Good news is that everything else is ticked being ok so should now be on the road soon.
Will hopefully update in a few days time as I start fitting the amps etc as long as my groin is up to lifting them in place
Took me best part of an hour to get this message to post and had to keep on taking bits out adding them backing in and editing so that what I wanted was in the message with the worry that it was going to get lost completly at any minute, checked the spelling 3 times and it still came back with spelling mistakes.
Seems like anything with more than a few sentences or a couple of pictures it does not want to know and even with all the long winded ways around it is getting worse.
Is it just me, should I just post loads of shorter massages to say the same things.
Anyway
A bit of a update.
I have had my Hernia operation on Wednesday and all good.
Spent a total of 12 hours in hospital with the op taking nearly 2 hours.
Due to having a stroke and a heart attack in the last few years they had decided that they would do the operation under general antiseptic.
Still very sore and tired and have spent virtually all the last 4 days mainly in bed taking pain killers so not done anything to my Elgrand.
One thing I have decided though is that I am going to build a wifi zone in my Elgrand while I am at it partly due to having a brand new sealed Linkdys EA8300 that I bought for £25 a few months ago to extend my home wifi into the back garden in conjuction with a used Linksys EA9500 that I bought at the same time which I paid £36 for but my wife has decided that she does not want it on show and would live with having the weaker signal from the EA9500 in the garden which even though it is the more powerful of the 2 is further away and has to transmit the signal throgh some fairly thch walls so thought I might as well get some use from it
Both of these are only Wifi 5 not the newer Wifi 6 or 7 but this makes no difference as all my kit is only Wifi5 and I have no intention of replacing it for quite a few years at least so would get no benefit from the newer tech
They are both triband with 8 and 4 external antennas respectivly and are very highly rated for there signal strength both being expensive routers a few years ago
I have been researching how I can use it in my Elgrand and it seems to be fairly straight forward with a combination of the Linksys EA8300 and new external magnetic removable antenas on the roof of my van wired directly to a used Huawei B525s-23a router which I wlll then use a ethernet cable to wire to the Linkys for use as an extender.
Was thinking of running the cable from the l antennas through the same gland that i used to run the cable for the solar panels but think it would be more trouble than it would be worth as it is not just the cable that needs to be run in but also the 2 SMA connectors which would then make it really tight and the l antennas would also then need to be permently fixed to the roof and as we mainly have the tailgate up when we are away would be no great hardship to put the antenas on the roof with there magnets and connect to the Huawwei although I may look for an exstension cable so that i can leave the cable permently in the back of the Huawei and have it running to the the unit at the top and then being able to plug in direct rather than going through the cupboard door.
Might think of adding a small 20 inch tv in future if I can find a used one for a decent price as I have a bit of room on the camper units up high in the living zone that I could use to mount it and once the wifi was in should be fairly straight forward to connect it to the Linksys with a firetick which I have in my stash
Initatail thoughts are that although sound qaulity may drop a bit from the head unit is that as long as the tv had a audio out I could also use this through the Infinty amp which is pwering the living zone and the boshmans in the units and rear doors although not intending to do this at present should not cost to much or be too difficult to do in furture
I have gone for this one as although not quite so powerful as the ewer Huawei mode that I could have used when used in conjunction with the Linksys this will make no difference as it will be Linksys that is doing the work of sending the signal.
They are also cheaper and rather than being white are black and gold which matches my van and units better.
Just need to check that I can get this kit into the only remaing cupbord that i have a available alhough i think it would be possible to put the Linkskys in one cupbourd and Huawei in the space above although it might then need to lie flat so not ideal but if needed would be possible.
This should give me a very strong stream to my Samsung tablets anything up to 75 feet away from the open tailgate which will keep my wife happy as she can watch all her soaps on catchup sat in the sun on her tablet rather than her phone. and will also provide a far better signal inside the van as the signal will not be dropping as it would on a phone due the vans body and roof
Should only cost about £50 or so as I already have the Linksys so although this pushes my budget up slightly will still be well below the £1100 mark in total. as the used Huawe and new antennae or about £45 in total and if I then do add a tv in future I will not be looking to pay anymore tha around £100 for it and as I already kave a spare firesick will stil bel keeping my total bufget not much more than £1100.
This could also possibly give me the option to play the FLAC files that I have stored on my laptop through Foobar2000 direct through zone 2 and may be also zone3 if i also wired it in through the headphone out but not certain whether this would be any real benefit over using the JVC head units outputs with the usb stick I have with them on so will not bother initially but perhaps something to try in furture.
Probably the better option sound wise may be to try to put foobar onto the JVC head unit direct but as this will be only accessible direct from the tailgate zone will not be so convient. Either way more thoughts for the furture,
Looks like the best option for me for a data only sim as we don't use the van that much would be 1p mobile which is powered by the EE network as i could buy a 10gb package which is valid for 7 days and only costs £3 as we only use the van for camping twice a year or so so total cost would only be about £6 for the sim
This at medium quality would give my wife approx 14 hours of catch up TV over the 7 days although what you don't use is lost.
Picture of the Linksys EA8300 that I have
Have also decided that while the door cards are off I am going to recover the cream panel in the middle of the doors in the black baby ostrich material that I have used for part of the rear bench seats as I have quite a lot of this left and think that it would go in a lot better with black seats I now have fitted that replaced my original cream Rider seats and the DAD Garson VIP table that will also be using it on which is very nearly finished now.
Will also think what I can do to the upper and lower parts of the seats and may think about looking for some yellow seude to do these in
and might even buy enough to also do the upper parts of the dash up to the black dash mat that I have bought as I would like to do something to the dash but am not a fan of of wraps.
Also a few more bits from Aliexpress have turned up
In with these bits are a pair of 6.5 universal spacers for the front doors which look to be a perfect fit for the mounting holes on the Elgrand and at about £3 for the pair are considerably less than the specific spacer covers sold for the Elgrand in the UK which seem to about £20 up
Also bought from the same seller a pair of speaker extensions for about £2 as I am thinking I may cut out the Elgrand speaker grill and mount the speakers on top of the existing grill with it's own covers that they came with if I can make it work as I like that this would then allow the orange cone on the bassface to show through and would match the SPLX subwoofer in the tailgate zone.
Included in with this delivery are a couple of Ryoba pull cut saws as a few of the cuts to the units will need to be done in situ rather then dismantle the whole conversion and I remember from when we installed the units in the first place even with a router we had to go really careful or the veneer would crack and splinter
Will most likely undercut very slightly and finish of with a hand sandpaper as even though it will take a bit longer is preferable to having to recut a whole panel and even though I have over half a sheet left plus some decent size offcuts would prefer this rather than chancing running out as if I had to buy more it was £160 per sheet plus delivery when I bought it 7 years ago so likely more now
Also included in with these are a new pair of foam ear pads for my Grado500 pros
Hoping that my bruising will have gone down enough in the next few days so that I can start getting it all fitted.
I have decided that the best way to do this will be to get the JVC head unit, all the amps, speakers, tweeters and crossovers and enclosures for speakers and subs etc fitted in place first as they pretty much need to go where I have planned for them and do the wiring afterwards even if it means taking some of them out again to run the cables.
I have also relised that I do not have any binding posts to run the speaker cables into the enclosures that I am making for them so that I will need to spend a few pounds more and get these from Aliexpress, will get proper binding posts so that I can use bayonets with them not the cheap and horrible spring loaded jobs which typically will only take 16 gauge wire.
Bit more work as the enclosures have to cut to fit them but in my opinion well worth doing as they will then accept my speaker cable gauge without trying to trim it to make it fit.
I do have quite a few bayonet plugs in my stash but they are mainly mismatched although I will look first before buying any to check what I have.
The forged Tanei-sha wheels that I bought for my grandson for him have now arrived from Japan and are stunning and weigh next to nothing which means that the centre consul for between the front seats should also be here soon as this was shipped about 4 weeks after the wheels.
They have very minor curbing right on the outside edges to a couple of them but this is only to the paintwork and has not damaged the alloy underneath so may look to have them refinished with a black pinstripe around the outside rim as I think this will suit the carbon centre caps perfectly.
Should also be arriving soon are the Recaro Seat rails for the Recaro seats I have bought as they are in with the centre consul.
Also coming at about the same sort of time should be the DAD Garson front grill and the Sugra Speed lower control arm as these were shipped together and just after the seat rails and centre consul,
Will leave fitting these and the custom headlights which are virtually finished for now and concentrate on the interior as hoping to get a bit of ramp time at the garage where my grandson works
Got to say it but delivery of the Tanei-sha wheels from Parcelforce from UK Customs to me was absolutely awful with them taking a total of 12 days to get the wheels to me with a couple of times being sent emails with the date they were supposed to be arriving and then not turning up after I paid the Import duty vat and there £25 fee for both parcels and then they left them on my neighbours drive.
Also after the last date that they were supposed to be dilivered I have not been able to get into the online tracking on either parcel
In contrast from the date I paid the proxys shipping in Japan for shipping by Japan Post they were loaded on the boat in 2 days.
All part of the reason why I will only use Royal Mail or or any of there sub companies as a least resort as I have found there service in general to be very poor and will go out of my way to find sellers who use other delivery companies although I do find Yodel not much better but are at least cheaper,
Having said all that I had the V55 form back from the DVLA for the Audi Q3 that I bought for my wife as I got the amount wrong for the tax as they have decided that they are rating it at a higher rate than a UK car even though it is exactly the same CO2. Only £20 a year more than a UK car so no big deal.
It took 8 days to get to me from Swansea 2nd class but when I returned it with a new cheque my wife dropped it in my local post office at 4.00 o/clock on Friday afternoon and the tracking shows it was received by the DVLA just after 6.00 on Saturday morning
This was sent special delivery so seems like there premium services are still good as this was a similar time frame to when it was sent the first time
Good news is that everything else is ticked being ok so should now be on the road soon.
Will hopefully update in a few days time as I start fitting the amps etc as long as my groin is up to lifting them in place
Last edited: