Still Getting Tasks Done

Monday - I helped out in the kitchen today for a Memorial Day lunch. The lunch was good, as usual, as was the conversation. 

This morning, before it got too warm, I changed the oil on the 4K Onan generator on the class C. After finishing, I ran it for around 10 minutes just to ensure some fresh gas made it into the carburetor. There wasn’t much of an electrical load as the batteries were fully charged and the A/C was only drawing about 300 watts. Right now, it 86°F outside, the A/C, refrigerator, and converter have been running all day and the Multiplus is set to no more than 12amps from shore power as it’s just plugged into a convenience outlet on the class A. 

Yesterday, I made one of my furthest contacts on the radio using FT8, a digital mode with computer to computer communication through the radio. Over 8000 miles to Saudi Arabia. I was just running this sort of on the side during a long test session. 

This afternoon, I spent a little time cleaning up the wiring on the class C dash for all of the accessories. GPS, dash cam, TPMS, rear camera display, and the Magmount phone charger. I just used some plastic clips stuck to the dash. Mostly because I move the dash cam back and forth to the Jeep. I wanted the cable to be easily removed. 

Class C Electrical Changes

Saturday - I made a few changes to the electrical system on the class C. I changed the absorption voltage from 14.6V to 14.4V on all three lithium chargers, the Multiplus, the Orion, and the solar. The battery manufacturers, SOK, really doesn’t provide much information to configure these devices so it’s left to the installer to come up with something based on their published battery specifications. Originally, I used the high voltage cut off by the BMS of 14.6V. This was a change that I had made on the class A a few weeks ago.

The other change was reconnecting all of the 12V loads in the RV back to the original AGM battery. This battery will be charged by the stock converter which is powered by 110VAC. Wherever that voltage happens to be coming from. Shore power, generator, or the Multiplus (from the lithium batteries). The change was accomplished by moving two cable. The one feeding the fuse panel and the two one from the converter.

My reason for the change is to eliminate the led lights flickering whenever the lithium batteries are fully charged. The BMS will disconnect the cells for a few milliseconds then reconnect. I just found the flickering kind of annoying. There is some inefficiency added due to the conversion from 12VDC to 110VAC then back to 12VDC. A benefit is that the AGM battery will be always charged. The AGM battery is used to start and run the generator. Having it charged is a good thing. 

I also filled the built-in propane tank as well as the gas tank. Over $100 for half a tank of gas!

Misc. Projects

Wednesday - I still seem to prefer playing with the digital modes on the ham radio. Mostly FT8, FT4, and now Winlink. Possibly, since I can have it running on the MS Surface while participating in tests on the Mac. 

Thursday - We ran a few errands in San Antonio today, including a stop at Costco. I picked up a new Apple Watch to replace my last one, where the face fell off. The new one is the series 11 with GPS but no cellular. The last one was a Series 3 with a 38mm face. The new one has a 46mm face, and it feels huge. There wasn’t a whole lot of choice at Costco. But I'm happy with the purchase. 

Friday - I moved the class C in front of our lot to continue some projects. It'll probably be here until we leave for the summer. The first minor project is a better location for the Garmin RV GPS. I have been using a cup holder mount with a flexible arm. It was designed for a phone, and the arm was too flexible. Plus, the location wasn't optimal.

I removed the little cubbie and coin holder, as it just snaps in place, and drilled a couple of holes to mount a plastic phone mount piece to the bottom of the cubbie. It seems pretty solid, and it's a much better location for the GPS. I also installed a mag-mount phone charger since the aux audio input now works on the in-dash radio. The console was a real mess last summer with all of the cords lying around.

Here is some data from my A/C on battery power "test" today. It seems that we should be able to run the A/C for at least 4½ hours on just battery power with some solar. I'm not going to complain, as we couldn't run the old Coleman A/C on battery power at all.

10:30am A/C on, 75° outside, A/C set at 74°, at 100%, no shore power, SoC 100%

1:04pm 84°F outside, SoC 75%, 100Ah used

3:00pm 88°F outside, SoC 36%, 249Ah used

3:02pm low battery alert, plugged in to shore power. Max current in 13.5A

A bit less time than the Victron claimed. I haven't replaced the cables from the battery to the inverter, and the draw from the battery was around 125A. I had added around 10' of 2/0 cable when I relocated the batteries to the passenger side of the RV. I was planning to upgrade the cables to 4/0, but never got around to it. I also need to extend the battery voltage monitor cable to the new battery location.

A Few Busy-ish Day

Saturday - An earlier start this morning. I helped cook breakfast here at the park. Just pancakes, sausage, and bacon. I haven’t had pancakes in quite a while. They were good.

The rear A/C stopped cooling in the middle of the night. This morning, I changed the compressor overload switch, and it seems to have fixed it. 

I had added some bleach to the fresh water tank on the class C yesterday to sanitize the tank. Each faucet was run to clear out the pink RV antifreeze and run the bleach/water into the lines. After 24 hours, the tank was emptied. Two fills, flush lines, and emptying the tank were done. That should eliminate the bleach/water from the water system. The tank was filled with fresh water. N.B. The specs for the RV say 40 gallons of fresh water, but the tank only holds 30 gallons. 

I switched the water heater bypass off and used the pump to fill the 6-gallon tank, and ran all the faucets to clear the air out of the lines. 

I pulled the dash out a little to see if I could find out why the aux input to the in-dash stereo wasn’t working. It turns out that a cable was unplugged. Easy fix! While working on this, I was running the roof A/C. It was nice and cool. Even when working on the dashboard. 

I turned on the propane at the tank and lit the stove, water heater, and refrigerator (on propane). All three are running, but the refrigerator will take a while to cool down. Once the water heater shuts off, I’ll check for hot, running water. 

Later - Hot water works. No propane leaks! I cleaned the refrigerator using hot water. I will let the refrigerator run tonight and see if it’s cold tomorrow morning. 

Tuesday - Soldered another PL259 connector onto the length of RG8X coax that I had cut 50' off of. It turns out that I want to have the antenna further from our shed than 50'. I just need to wait for the barrel connectors to arrive today. I'm also going to try the JPC-12 antenna to see if it performs any better on 40m. For both of my antennae, 40m is the limit.

I know that most people could care less about this but I finally got Winlink running over HF. Specifically, 40m. I switched to the JPC-12 antenna instead of the ATAS-120 as it performs better on 40m. But is more hassle. I used two different station one 207 miles away and one 376 miles. Just to make sure that it wasn’t a fluke. This is a method of sending/receiving email via radio.