Last July 11 (2014), my wife and I acquired a 1991 VW Westfalia Multivan. This is the (T3) van, with the pop-top, fold down seats, and 2.1L water cooled engine. No kitchen, but seats 6, good for camping without getting soaked. (Some of you likely sneer at my use of the term “camping”)

We had some challenges: new headers needed (big engine job, done by an expert), the accelerator cable came off (fixed it, then replaced it and the accelerator/transmission lever), and in June the driver-side radius rod broke… The radius rod got replaced, but I’m waiting for another one for the passenger side, and a replacement set of bushings. It will need an alignment afterwards.

But, geek that I am, I really want electronics in my recreational vehicle.

I got a “Car Wifi Router” that my brother found on AliExpress. Nice software, it runs upstream OpenWRT. It came with OpenWRT Attitude Adjustment, but is supposed to run upstream without a problem. I thought I upgraded it, but it turns out I didn’t.

I was trying to install it today: I wanted it above the window, where I could get power from the light that is there. I cut some wires and spliced in some connectors, and hooked it up before I screwed it in.

Smoke (well, smell) came out of the device. A little RAMips device, says it takes 12V at 1.5Amp, but clearly it isn’t tolerant of automotive voltages which may vary by at least 20% (11V through 13.6V is common. Above 13.6, I think, the car batteries gets upset, so a regular keeps it below that amount) Device is dead. Very sad.

It was a [[../../blog/jed/IMG_20150809_174731.jpg][ZBT-WE826]]