The Bassett family site
Mostly IT – we are basically nerds after all – but also general travel tech and gadget bits’n’pieces
When our truck was built (see Truck build progress) one of the things they added was a “house” battery, primarily to run the fridge. It’s a 100Ah LiFePO4 unit with a Redarc DC-DC charger so that it’s charged from the truck battery while driving, but cannot drain the truck while stopped. The basic config of …
If you’ve read the original post on this matter, you might recall that I expressed interest in developments in the composting toilet space (and if you haven’t read it, do so here!). Not too long after that post, the “interest” bloomed into some reasonably serious online research and then to attendance at the annual Caravan …
One of the most discussed and most disliked, but also least understood aspects of van living is the dreaded dunny-duty; managing the van’s internal toilet. There are a bucket load of blog posts and YouTube videos out there on this matter; sadly most of them are skewed, usually by either a manufacturer affiliation or by …
This is Part 2 of the story about trying to get (near) real-time location tracking of the CARDIS up and working; see the start of the story here! To recap where we got to with Part 1: the Teltonika router can generate an HTTP POST with a JSON payload, the idea being to send that …
UPDATE: Sadly, as of August 2025, Ruhavik appear to have either broken or discontinued this service. I am still hopeful of getting something custom up and working at some point 😇 I was a little hopeful of the demo Traccar service as showing below, but that doesn’t seem to like being in an iframe! …
One of the most common questions I am asked about the CARDIS is what mileage I get from the Iveco. Before answering that one directly, let’s consider a couple of related matters. Driving practices When towing on highways/good roads, I habitually set the cruise control at about an indicated 94-95 km/hr, which translates to about …
This is part one of ?two? that describe how I’ve managed to cobble together tracking the location of our van, the CARDIS. This post describes the configuration of the Teltonika router in the CARDIS to output GPS coordinates in a format that is vaguely reasonable to use without investing in a full-blown AVL system. Router …
So, having been in communications and IT all our working lives, how did/do we deal with raising anchor and living permanently on the road? We have some answers to most aspects relating to this, that at the moment anyhow, seem to work for us. We’ll try to come back with updates as and if anything …
* in the second meaning (“silly or high-spirited behaviour; mischief”, with the emphasis on “silly”) according to Oxford. Intro As previously alluded to in “Truck and van”, trying to get hold of some documented clarification around the legal and regulatory definitions, specifications and status of a 5th wheeler and tow vehicle was a hopelessly frustrating …
Continue reading “Regulatory, legal and engineering shenanigans*”