A Sure-Fire Way to Improve Your Roof Top Tent
- Details
- by Mark Stephens on Thu Dec 2, 2010 - (5) Comments
Hannibal and Maggiolina Roof Top Tents on the Beach in Baja, Mexico showing off their custom LED light installations
If You Have A Roof Top Tent, You Need To Do This
Okay, so you've read this far. You're a roof top tent owner? Or potential one? You know the the major problem with owning a roof top tent - and I don't care if it's an Eezi-Awn, a Camping Lab, a Hannibal, or a Technitop, the problem is the same: they're super comfortable, super easy to set up and take down, but dammit they're super irritating because you're still stuck with a headlamp attached to your head if you have any care at all to read a book or put on some jammies.
Seriously, it's like going to an awesome world-famous pizzeria with incredible pie, but you have to bring your own cheese. Or worse, it's like going to Mom's house and having to cook your own meals.
Roof top tents have comfy mattresses, superior tent walls and all that jazz but they don't have lights inside. Which is a deficiency of epic proportions. A giant-sized "WTF?"
Here's the solution: get yourself some LED strips (like these at Ikea www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50119407). This set in particular is actually designed for installation under your home cabinetry or bookcases; they run on 110 volts. But this is an easy fix: cut the little transformer box out of the power cord and re-splice the wires together. That's it.
The Install Takes Fewer Than 10 Minutes & Makes You Happy Forever*
The package of LED strips I've linked to come in a set of four, each strip 10" long and about 1/4" wide. Get ready:
- You just use some zip straps to tie one strip to each support bar in the roof of your roof tent
- Run the power wire out of the tent at the hinge
- Connect the wire to your battery
- You're done. Go on a trip.
Here the lights are installed on the support bars. Nice, huh?
They're bright enough, yet not overkill either. And they draw less than 1 amp.
As long as you keep that power wire on the side of the hinge that's nearest the fixed half of your tent, you won't risk an accidental cut.
See the black electrical tape? There used to be a little square box there; That was the transformer that converts the 110 volts to 12 volts. Cut it out of the cable, re-splice, you're all set.
Handy switch comes with the lights - install the lights inside your tent, connect to the battery, and you're ready.
And the super big benefit? It's getting dark, your kiddo needs a place to play, you need some time to decompress by the campfire.
ADD A COMMENT
If you wish to display a slick avatar with your comment, this connects to Gravatar as long as you use your email address (email addresses used here remain private).
Comments
bob
RSS feed for comments to this post