This coach is without question one of the best examples of what can be done with a thousand or so feet of wire and a lot of imagination. The project started off with the addition of several high tech components and some very fanciful ideas. What we ended up with is truly a remarkable coach that pushed the limits of our team and set the bar that much higher for the next one.
Given the extensive list of components and custom work going into this coach we actually spent a couple of weeks doing research and throwing ideas around to figure out how we were going to pull this off.
Along with several other modifications the owner of this coach wanted a system designed that would allow four exterior video cameras to be available seamlessly on four interior monitors in any combination. We began by removing the original sofa and custom building a desk unit to house controls, a Mac book air, an additional TV and stereo.
Once we had the interior under control and knew where all of our components were going to be located we started the task of figuring out where we were going to hide the massive amount of wire we needed to run. We had wire everywhere, front to back top to bottom. Once most of the wire was in place we began designing custom aluminum mounts for the front and rear cameras. The front one is a very cool FLIR infrared camera, with that in mind we knew the easy way to mount them but decided to go ahead and use custom made mounts that share as well as showcase the level of quality products being used. The rear camera was also installed on a custom made mount with the addition of a high intensity LED light bar.
Now that most of our components are in place we needed control of all this gadgetry. The list of components is: Four exterior cameras, DirecTV receiver, DVD player and an Apple TV all needing to be available in any combination on four interior TV’s. Now it gets complicated, having seamless control of all these devices from an easy to use remote is no easy task. We decided to use a high end video matrix switcher, a quad picture processor and a Control 4 system. With some programming help from the local Control 4 dealer; Boone Electric we managed to get everything integrated into one very intelligent remote. Once that was achieved we discussed why not go ahead and forget the remote and control this system with an ipad. After a little more discussion we knew the choice was obvious, who wouldn’t want to control their A/V system with an ipad.
As you will see in the photo gallery we also retrofitted the entire interior of the coach with LED lighting, added high intensity LED light bars front and rear and both sides. We installed a cradle point for WiFi and local network to allow system control and internet to numerous Apple devices. Towards the end of the project the owner decided to add a large Magnum inverter and additional batteries to avoid running the generator at night.
About Truline RV
