Part 1 of 3
So my Windsport 34j, being an ex-El Monte rental RV did not come with an automatic generator start.
After thinking about it and looking at locations to install it for a long time, I finally decided to put it right above the main control panel. This would make it easy for me to wire it, as the gen start/stop and hour meters wires, were right there for easy tapping.
The first step was wiring. I wanted to use spade connectors and just make jumpers, however the wiring in the RV uses some sort of spade that is not like the automotive stuff. So in the end I used quick splices. To power the unit I used the water pump wire. I need to revisit this as I may have tapped into the wrong side (water pump has to be on for the AGS to power on) but for now I'm good with it. To make wiring easy I bought 25' of stranded hookup wire (18 awg) in 6 colors.
After the wiring was done I tested the panel to make sure it worked, and (after 10 minutes of head scratching and looking at my diagram) I realized I had managed to hook everything up backwards. Reverse it all and presto, starto.
So the next step was making the panel mount. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do, saw many great ideas on companies that will let you draw any panel you want and the cut it out of aluminum or whatever. If you go this route, you might want to try
Front Panel Express: Front Panel Design Software and CAD Conversion Service: Home, they have pretty cool software. I didn't feel like spending the time and the money to do it via that method so I decided to make my add on panel of out 3/16 ABS plastic, often used in the custom car stereo market.
I got it on ebay, 2 12"x24" sheets (lots of room for mistakes) for 28.55 shipped
The next step was cutting it. I borrowed my step dads router and made a router table out of a scrap chunk of wood, and mounted it with clamps to a couple of work tables in my garage. Using a piece of straight stock left over from another project and two clamps I made a workable tool. The router did not have adjustable speed, that would have made it easier as I got a lot of melting, but running the chunk back and forth several times ended up with a pretty clean cut. The router wasn't needed for the ouside edge cuts, you can just score abs and break it, however I used it anyway.
Top view.
Side view.
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