More Class C Mods

Friday - It looks like we dodged another one. The storm is moving northeast. Harlingen got hammered with over a foot of rain in this one storm. 

Saturday - The receiver on the class C is a couple of inches higher than the class A so I picked up a 2” drop receiver extension from Amazon. The tow bar is almost perfectly level and the additional distance from the rear bumper should help on sharp turns. The extension is solid steel (not a tube) and rated at 10k pounds which is more than the hitch or the tow bar. Plus, we could add a bike rack and still tow the Jeep.

I tried the setup down Hwy 90 and you can definitely feel the additional weight when accelerating or braking. On the class A, you can’t tell anything is back there. I ended up disassembling the Ready Brake mechanism as it was pretty filthy from the 25k miles of use behind the oil spewing RV. 

I turned on the Multiplus to see how much power it uses with nothing running as this would be the norm. I initially noticed that it was drawing 15amps. This was the converter charging the AGM battery. I turned off the breaker for the converter.

It was a hot, humid day today and we ended up having dinner at Cowboys in D’Hanis. I was too tired to cook tonight.

Generator Charging Test

Thursday - After watching a YouTube video last night where some friends upgraded the electrical system in their RV and while on their shakedown trip,they discovered that their house batteries weren’t being charged from their generator, I figured that I should test try this out.

I started the generator on the class C and turned on the Multiplus (inverter/charger). From the screen shot, you can see the generator was putting out 868watts and 54.3amps were charging the house battery (SOK LiFePO4). The AC out was the converter which was charging the original AGM house battery. 

There was 5.02amps going into the AGM battery which is around 68 watts. A few minutes later, it jumped up to around 15amps. I turned off the generator after around 5 minutes of run time. 

One surprise to me was that the Multiplus needs to be running to allow any AC power into the RV. Not really an issue as it will probably be running all the time while the RV is being used. 

This is the SmartShunt showing the battery voltage and current. The AGM battery voltage is shown at the bottom labeled as “Starter battery”. As I mentioned before, the AGM battery is used to start and run the generator only. 

Spring Storms

Monday - Around 9pm yesterday, there was a severe storm advisory and the radar showed a storm to the north. High winds, hail to 1.25” possible, and moving southeast at ~25mph. I moved things into our shed and watch the Texas Storm Chasers YouTube channel for the next hour and a half. The northern sky was lit up by the lightning. Around 10:30, the radar showed that we would be spared. 

The news this morning showed the damage in Kerrville, a larger town about an hour north and a little east of here. Damaged roofs, vehicles, glass. Other parts of Texas were hit by the storms. They also got up to an inch and a half of rain resulting in flash flooding. 

My only activity today was my annual visit to the clinic to get my prescriptions renewed. 

Tuesday - I didn’t get much done today. I tried using the stud finder on the roof of the class C and it was very inconsistent. Maybe the battery needs to be replaced. The new mattress from Brooklyn Bedding finally arrived today. We had ordered it from the store in Casa Grande to be delivered here. It took almost 3½ weeks to get here. 

The 2/0 cable for chassis ground arrived today. I may install it this afternoon. This will finish up the wiring on the inverter/charger. One other task is moving the positive cable on the stock converter to the original house battery. This will allow the converter to charge the original battery whenever we are plugged into shore power or running the generator. 

Wednesday - Today, I rerouted the positive wire from the stock converter to the original AGM house battery. I also connected the alternate battery wire from the Victron SmartShunt to this battery. The only function this battery performs is starting and running the 4.5KW generator. It can also be used to jump start the engine using the dash mounted switch.

Removing the Solar Panels

Saturday - It’s another warm day today. This morning, I removed three of the four solar panels from the class A to be installed on the class C. The plastic glue-on solar panel mounts are really junk. All of them are discolored and brittle from UV and the Sikaflex doesn’t stick to them very well. The Sikaflex is well bonded to the fiberglass roof material but the fiberglass isn’t very thick. I would not recommend just gluing down the solar panels. 

I will wait for cooler weather before removing the plastic solar panel mounts and sealing up the screw holes with Eternabond and Dicor. The roof also needs a good cleaning. 

But burgers with grilled onions and tater tots sounds good today!

Sunday - I finished up the DC-DC installation today. I installed an MRBF fuse on the positive battery terminal and ran a 6 AWG cable from there to the input of the DC-DC charger. I picked up the common ground model as it was a little cheaper. Plus, I didn’t need to run a separate ground wire from the start battery. After setting it up via Bluetooth, I tried it out. It works as advertised. Up to 30amps to the SOK battery when the engine is running. 

The stock AGM battery was only 80ah and you could only use about half of that without damaging the battery internally. The SOK battery has about five times the usable capacity but the addition of the inverter adds new capability but potentially.