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Thursday, April 19, 2018

Up on the roof.....

Today was an exciting day for our new RV.  When we arrived just before 6am, the RV was already moved to station 4 and workers were just getting organized.  The first big action was to put the roof on.  Amazingly enough, they actually build the entire roof on the ground.

Remember to click on a picture to enlarge it.


Here Carl is installing one of the air conditioners.  All the antennas, fans, lights etc for both the roof and the ceiling are installed while the roof is on the ground.


There are two movable catwalks, one on each side of the RV, at this station for the workers to install the roof.


This is the special jig crane used to lift the roof.  There are a bunch of suction cups hanging down on the jig.  When the jig goes to pick up the roof, the vacuum pump is turned on and the roof can be lifted.



Before the roof is lifted up, all the wires coming out must be properly placed.  The day before this build began, the wires were cut and made into large harnesses to be installed.  Each wire is identified by function and name and this information is stamped every 4 or 5 inches for the full length of the wire.  So there is no reason not to know what wire does what.


Here you can see the fans and light fixtures in the ceiling.



The above short video shows the roof being moved by the jig into position.


Now the roof is installed and secured.  It makes the inside real dark and while all this is going on, there were two workers doing stuff inside.  They had on headlamps and you could occasionally see the light beams.  Fortunately, it was dark inside for only about 5 or 10 minutes.


Because they quickly connected those wires we saw earlier and presto, we have lights!


The lights and for that matter, most other 12 volt functions (fans, heat/AC setting, etc) is done through a Spyder control system.  All these functions are controlled by panels like the one shown above and all the panels and actuating switches are on a Ethernet network in the RV.  Later, I will be able to control all these items from my cell phone!


At station 5, they made major progress on the interior.  Shown above is Carol's backsplash.  It took a custom order to get it because we didn't like the one that came with our fabric suite.  So we had to special order it and Carol went to Diane, the materials lady, to make sure we got the right one.  At first, Diane could not find the special order, but a few minutes later she had it.


Also at this station, the residential refrigerator was installed.


While all the inside work was going on, outside things were happening too.  First the front wheel well covers were installed.


Then the front end cap was put into position.  This cap comes prebuilt with all wires, lights, windshield, etc pre-installed.  So it takes about 10 minutes total to place it, secure it, and connect it.  Then we have all the normal front end vehicle lights.  The only thing missing are the windshield wipers which are put on after painting.  But the wiper motors are already there and connected.


Our outside door is installed as a unit.  There are adjusting screws inside the track to square it up.  The door install took about 5 minutes!


Also driver and passenger front windows are quickly installed.


Meanwhile work inside continues as the electric fireplace is installed.


The last major item for station 5 is to put on the rear cap.  It already has all the lights and cameras installed and they just need to be connected which takes about 1 minute.


After moving to station 6, one of the workers gets into the 110vac electrical system with a testing unit.  She checks all these circuits to make sure there are no shorts.


Carol enjoys our new sofa while workers install trim pieces at various points in the RV,


The bedroom gets the first of 4 TVs to be installed.  All TV share any of the input devices and the same remote can work any of the TVs.  The second TV to be installed was the one over the fireplace, but the bracket was bent and Diane needed to get us a new one.  Will probably have it tomorrow, so that TV is not installed yet.


Here the front TV is installed.  These TVs are huge!


Lastly, the cabinet doors and front seats are installed.  The seats are covered with protection cloths, though I wonder if I can get the driver's chair with the patterned fabric shown above?

We have two more production stations tomorrow.  The first, station 7, is where they install the outside storage cabinet doors.  And I believe the last station is mostly for catchup items.

We have found a few small items that needed to be fixed.  About 10 of our cabinet doors have front cross pieces that are not exact stain matches.  Not sure how this happened, but they may be restained tomorrow if it can be done that quick.  Otherwise, after it goes to be painted all next week, they will fix it during final inspection.

I suspect this problem would not have been caught unless you looked closely for it.  So I am really glad we came to Red Bay.



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