Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Wall Mounted Shoe Storage Rack for Roadtrek Agile

Finding a place to keep our shoes inside the Agile has always been a problem, it's either we keep them on the door mat by the sliding door entrance or in the rear storage compartment. Our shoes are always on the way and taking valuable storage space plus it looks untidy and unorganized.

The shower wall facing the cab is the perfect and convenient place to store our shoes. If shoes are placed vertically against the wall it would only take very little space and should not be on your way getting in and out the RV. The shoe storage rack is fabricated from 1/4 inch thick acrylic plastic sheet and tarp bungee cords to hold the shoes in place. The posts that holds the bungee cords are made from 1/2 inch thick acrylic plastic. The shoe rack was painted black to match the appliances trim colors. I use 3M VHB tape to attach the shoe rack on the wall. Make sure the shoe rack is resting against the floor when using double sided tape as fastener to prevent unnecessary vertical shear tension on the wall plastic veneer finish.

The shoe rack size dimensions are specifically made for our shoe sizes.  If you have wider shoes, you might not be able to fit 2 pairs side by side as the shower wall width is limited. To save you the trouble, carefully measure everything before you start. Have fun building!

If DIY is not for you, Amazon has variety of "Wall Mounted Shoe Racks" products that might interest you.

Simple Showerhead Mod

Problem #1: During shower, Agile's showerhead spray pattern automatically reverts back to normal center aerated spray when the water is turned off. Most people including myself will turn the water off and on when showering to save water. An easy fix to prevent it from reverting to normal spray is to remove the spring  from the spray selector button inside the showerhead as pictured below.

 

Monday, June 8, 2015

DIY Soda Can Organizer/ Dispenser

To save space in our tiny refrigerator, I made an acrylic soda can organizer/ dispenser. It holds 7 soda cans and is gravity feed. The dispenser base has a small channel that securely rest on the fridge divider railing to prevent it from sliding out during travel. Here's how it looks like.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Adding a Wireless Remote Control to the Macerator

Dumping the holding tanks with Roadtrek macerator system is pretty easy and quick, although the switch location which activates the macerator pump is not very ideal. The switch is located on the frame of the driver seat facing the driver side door. To operate the macerator you have to open the driver side door and reach for the red switch, and since it is momentary switch you have to hold the switch the entire dumping process. It is a minor inconvenience, but leaving the driver side door open while dumping the holding tanks is an open invitation for flies/ bugs to get in the RV not to mention when it is raining...I thought, there could be a better solution.

At first I thought of replacing the momentary switch with an on/off rocker switch, but someone could accidentally flip the switch on and run the macerator dry causing early macerator failure. RT used a momentary switch there for a reason.

My solution is a wireless on/off momentary switch. Again I decided to go with a momentary switch on the wireless controller as for the above reason.  The wireless controller and remote transmit/receives analog signals which is prone to radio wave interferences that could inadvertently activate the controller. Although I am using a separate switch to power the wireless controller, there is always a chance of forgetting to turn it off.

Monday, February 2, 2015

Adding a Bathroom Medicine/Storage Cabinet

Our Agile did not come with a medicine cabinet in the bathroom; rather it has a small odd shaped mirror installed above the pull out sink. The stock bathroom mirror looks terrible with rough/ chipped edges and several small cracks around it. Roadtrek did a terrible job cutting the acrylic mirror. To make it look decent, I temporarily installed a decorative trim around the mirror using a chrome automotive door edge molding (pictured below). The original plan was to replace the mirror with a surface mount medicine cabinet with mirrored door for extra storage, but because of its odd shape it needs to be a custom built.

I had few days off from work last week and had the chance to start the project. The medicine cabinet was fabricated using acrylic plastic. I thought plastic would be a better choice as it will be installed inside the shower area. The first step was to remove the old mirror and to make a paper template by tracing the shape of the stock mirror.

Here's what it looks like when done.