[tngw1500se]

Might be of interest:

 

[tngw1500se]

I'm finding that the hardest thing with these arduino projects (once somebody else does most of the legwork and posts a video for you) is just figuring out how to package it and get it installed permanently. So the cables, the cases, etc are what are really the challenge (so far)

I used a pistol case. They're plastic with latches and make a little "cabinet" when mounted on the wall. Since they're plastic, you don't have to worry about a wire shorting to the box either. It would be easy to get a fuse box, relay board and a esp board in the case. I just cut a thin piece of plywood to fit inside to mount everything to. Sometimes you can find a buddy who has one for free. I also mounted a LED in mine on a switch so it lights up inside.

 

[tngw1500se]

Nice idea. What do you do for cables? I bought a kit with crimpers to make my own cables with dupont connectors but it's pretty difficult to get good results with that. I think I may end up with something like this (not sure if this is the right one for my ESP32 board but something similar)

That would work. It would be easy to hook up the cables. I'd use a Cat 5 cable that went to the switches from there. I think I'd stick with no more than 7 switches and use the eighth wire as a ground return to the ESP from the switches. Since the code I wrote uses normally open momentary switches, you could use more than one switch panel and just double up (or triple up) the wires for the inputs.

It would be nice to add Bluetooth (since the ESP32 has it) to the code so it could be controlled from a smartphone. I thought about using WiFi and Alexa but that would require you to disconnect from any network you were currently on and then connect to the ESP with your phone. With Bluetooth, you could have both connected. Personally I see no need to connect it to the internet. Seems like most places I'm at, there's no internet anyway even with a hotspot on my phone. I don't see the need to remotely control the van.

Years ago, on my motorhome, I used a ESP8266, a relay and a momentary switch to turn on a 12 volt water valve for 15 minutes, then shut it off again. Had three switches mounted on the walls near all three places it had water (bath, shower, kitchen). That way when we were not using the campground water supply, it was off so I didn't worry about a flood while we were out riding motorcycles for the day.

 

[tngw1500se]

.........Now I'm even considering the pretty-package of this unit from Garmin. Or this unit from Trigger.
............

The more I see you guys looking at these 500 buck units, the more I want to go down in the shop and tinker with building one. LOL! An esp32 is about 10 bucks. The relay board is 10 and a fusebox would be about the same. I could deck a system out for less than 100.

 

[tngw1500se]

Right? I feel the urge to just build my own after staring at all the options for a couple days. But for $110 with everything, I feel pretty good about giving it a go. Then I can decide whether to build my own - with a better interface - some other time. 🤷‍♀️

You could get real simple and go 433 wireless:
https://smile.amazon.com/Wireless-T...keywords=wireless+relay&qid=1634182984&sr=8-3

There's better looking switches that mount on the wall that you could pair to it. NO WIRING AT ALL. These are battery powered. I used them in my RV.
433Mhz Wireless Light Switch RF Remote Control 86 Wall Panel Transmitter E6D2 | eBay