Arizona to Utah, 2019!

ClydesdaleKevin · May 05, 2019, 11:01 PM

So far the 2 battery setup seems to be working perfectly! By the time the sun goes down and the voltage stabilizes, the batteries are reading fully charged at 12.7 volts. After using the batteries at night watching TV and whatnot, even with leaving the inverter on all night, we are still reading 12.3 volts in the morning, well within the safe zone.

Who knows! Maybe 2 Trojan batteries will be enough!

Kev

Rickf1985 · May 06, 2019, 08:23 AM

You won't know for sure until you get a couple days of rain and heavy cloud cover where you are also drawing on the batteries during the day and pulling them down a ways and then see how well they catch up once the sun comes out. Might take a couple days for the batteries to fully recharge.

ClydesdaleKevin · May 06, 2019, 09:28 AM

Quote from: Rickf1985 on May 06, 2019, 08:23 AM
You won't know for sure until you get a couple days of rain and heavy cloud cover where you are also drawing on the batteries during the day and pulling them down a ways and then see how well they catch up once the sun comes out. Might take a couple days for the batteries to fully recharge.

Yeah, that is what we are expecting Thursday and Friday...mostly cloudy and rain. So we'll see how they hold up. With the 400 watts on the roof and only 2 batteries, it SHOULD charge a lot better on cloudy days than our old setup, with 730 watts but SIX batteries. We parked ideally, with the starboard side of the rig facing due south...and with the curve of our roof, the solar panels are already tilted at a good angle toward the sun (without using the tilt setup I installed).

We are trying not to use the AC power during the day that much aside from just keeping the laptops charged...and the morning news for Patti.

Kev

ClydesdaleKevin · May 10, 2019, 10:05 AM

Everything is set up for this little Faire, which opens tomorrow! And the weather is supposed to be perfect. So hopefully we'll make some money...lol!

So I have determined that the way we use our power, the two Trojan T-105 batteries are more than enough for boondocking. As long as they fully charge during the day, they last all night and have plenty of power left the next morning until the solar starts charging them up again (I've been turning off the inverter at Midnight every night, and turning it back in the morning). Even with partly cloudy days, the 400 watts of solar is adequate to charge them up...but with dark cloudy days, it isn't quite enough. So when we can afford it, I will indeed be adding 300 more watts to the roof...which should be more than enough even with a few dark cloudy days in a row.

I think that having the two Trojan batteries is actually better for us than our old system with six batteries. This way the battery bank ends up being FULLY charged during the day, whereas the old system, with 705 watts, would only fully charge after a few very sunny days in a row.

Kev

ClydesdaleKevin · May 11, 2019, 09:40 PM

We did pretty well on opening day at the Utah Renaissance and Fantasy Faire...especially for being such a small venue. Excellent!

After this faire is over, we decided that on our way north to I-90, we are going to stop by Yellowstone and see Old Faithful...and stay there for about a week before heading east. I can't wait!

Kev

ClydesdaleKevin · May 19, 2019, 11:04 PM

We just had an awesome second weekend at the Utah Renaissance and Fantasy Faire...better numbers so far than we got from Muskogee, Oklahoma. Excellent!!!

Utah folks are awesome people! And this state is so beautiful!

This coming week I'll be troubleshooting and fixing and bleeding the brakes on the RV.

One more weekend to go!

Kev

ClydesdaleKevin · May 20, 2019, 11:01 AM

Well...our German Shepherd Paladin is sick. Poor little guy. He's coughing a bit, has eye and nose boogies, and a fever of 103 (101-102.5 is normal for dogs). He has all the classic symptoms of Bordatella (kennel cough), so we will be bringing him to the vet at 2pm this afternoon to get looked at and to get some antibiotics. We want to make sure we catch this early so it doesn't develop into pneumonia and cost us a fortune like it did a year and a half ago in Arizona.

Please keep my little buddy in your thoughts and prayers.

Kev

ClydesdaleKevin · May 20, 2019, 06:29 PM

Paladin is going to be fine! The vet said it did indeed seem to be Bordatella or one of the other causes of "kennel cough"...and he probably contracted it playing every day at the dog park at the Beaver KOA a couple of weeks ago.

His heart and lungs sound great though, and all the swimming put him closer to his ideal weight of 95 lbs (he weighed in at 100 lbs today).

So they put him on 2 weeks of Doxycycline and he should be right as rain in no time.

And the vet bill was VERY reasonable! 115.00 bucks, and that included the 2 weeks of antibiotics. SWEET!!!

Kev

joanfenn · May 20, 2019, 06:35 PM

Great to hear

ClydesdaleKevin · May 27, 2019, 11:04 AM

Today is the last day of this little Utah fair, and it has been fun and we made some money! I don't expect today to be very busy, as it looks like it is going to rain most of the day, but you have to just roll with the weather with a business like this.

Kev

ClydesdaleKevin · June 01, 2019, 11:52 PM

Today I borrowed (with a 95.00 deposit) a hand pump brake bleeder from Napa, and then loaded up on Dot 3 brake fluid from Walmart. 4.5 quarts later, I got ALL the air out of the lines on the Itasca, and the pedal feels perfect again. Then I returned the bleeder to Napa and got my money back.

Dang my forearms got a workout...lol! That was a lot of pumping to move four and a half quarts through the lines.

Tomorrow I'll be checking the rest of the my safety checks on the RV and Jeep, and then Monday morning we hit the road north.

First stop along the way to upstate New York? Yellowstone! Gotta see Old Faithful and the Park since we'll be driving right by it.

Kev

Rickf1985 · June 02, 2019, 08:45 AM

I hint for those types of bleeders, keep the vacuum pressure very light or you will pull air around the seals in the calipers and master cylinder. Those seals are only designed to keep pressure at bay and not designed to hold vacuum at all. 5 inches or less of vacuum or you risk pulling air into the system and you will be bleeding for hours and wondering where all that air is coming from. It is not fast that way but it is efficient.

ClydesdaleKevin · June 02, 2019, 10:37 AM

Quote from: Rickf1985 on June 02, 2019, 08:45 AM
I hint for those types of bleeders, keep the vacuum pressure very light or you will pull air around the seals in the calipers and master cylinder. Those seals are only designed to keep pressure at bay and not designed to hold vacuum at all. 5 inches or less of vacuum or you risk pulling air into the system and you will be bleeding for hours and wondering where all that air is coming from. It is not fast that way but it is efficient.

That might be why it took me 4.5 quarts before I was satisfied I got all the air bubbles out of the line. Although that crappy little pump I borrow only pulled at about 5 inches.
I went with the vacuum route because of Patti's severe RA. I didn't want her to have to keep pumping the pedal inside the rig.

Kev

ClydesdaleKevin · June 03, 2019, 11:34 AM

Thus ends our Utah adventure for this year!

I am about to load up the Jeep, get the RV out to the main parking area, hook up the Jeep, and head south on I-15 2 exits to top off the diesel and propane at the Flying J, dump the tanks and fill the freshwater, and check and top off the tires.

Then we'll be on the road toward Yellowstone National Park on our way to our next show in Sterling, NY.

We are going to be taking I-15 to Butte, MT, and then cut across on I-90 to Gardiner, MT, which is right near the north entrance to Yellowstone. We are hoping to stay a week at Mammoth camping area, since a lot of the campgrounds at Yellowstone aren't open yet, and the ones where you can make reservations for are full! Mammoth looks like we can get into it no problem at this time of year, as long as it isn't a weekend. I can't imagine how busy the park must get when school gets out!

So thus endeth this chapter!

Look for my new chapter, "Utah to New York, 2019"...coming soon!

Kev