Day 51 - Needles Marina Resort

Our month here is coming to an end. We check out tomorrow morning. This is the first time we’ve stayed in the RV in a single location for a month. This place is sort of a between the typical pavement RV parking lot and a campground. The sites are large with some bushes providing a little bit of separation between sites. The parking pads are gravel and the rest of the site a mix of sand and some vegetation. The only grassy areas are the pet areas. To keep them green, they require regular irrigation. There are a couple of RV areas where it is a parking lot but they are set aside for overnight or short term stays. The sites along the water are reserved for those staying five months or longer. And there are quite a number of people here who do stay that long.

BTW, 78°F Today!

What’s Been Good - It’s been great to be able to receive packages as many RV parks don’t accept mail or packages. The Thousand Trails parks almost always accept medication but some charge for the service. While we were here, we have received numerous Amazon boxes, the solar panel, and a box from home with all our mail (including a lot of junk mail). That has been really convenient. Having decent Internet has been very convenient and it was $25 for the month. My MacBook Pro and the iPad Pro are both on the Apple public beta program so the updates are usually pretty large. Being able to watch Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube has been nice. The data rate is still less than Verizon but it’s more than good enough. Except during the evening when everyone is probably watching Netflix. As you may have noticed from my posts, I really enjoy the pool and the jacuzzi. Bridget said that I don’t want to boondock since there is no pool/jacuzzi out there.

Meeting people has been good. And if you go to the jacuzzi in the evening, you almost always meet others. After a while, you get used to seeing the same people while walking around. What has surprised me are the number of RVers from Canada. When talking to others here at the park, one of the main reasons for returning every year has been the people. Plus, the monthly rate here is a bargain. $335 plus electricity. We’ll see what the electricity is when we check out tomorrow. I suspect that it’ll be higher than we originally thought since we’ve been running the electric heater at night. This is in addition to the propane furnace. This RV doesn’t have very good insulation.

Not so Good - Obviously the weather could have been better but that doesn’t have anything to do with the RV park. The cost of things in California has been hard on the town of Needles. There are very few businesses as they just can’t compete with similar businesses across the river in Arizona. I’ve mentioned the cost of fuel several times but that sort of extends to just about anything else. The only minor annoyance with this location is some of the “Weekend Warriors”. During the week, it’s pretty quiet but on weekends, the place fills up. The weekenders actually use the outdoor speakers and TVs on their RVs or play the stereos in their vehicle with all the doors open. This RV park does attempt to have the long-term sites further in from the entrance and the overnight spaces next to the entrance. But that’s not always the case.

Bridget used her kayak again today and not being windy makes a huge difference. I guess the inflatable kayak does present a lot of area to a cross wind. If we let some air out of the bottom, it’ll sit lower in the water. Next time.

Day 50 -

By 11:00 it is already 70°F, clear and sunny, and the batteries are already at 100%. I went ahead and dug the inflatable kayak out for Bridget then proceeded to empty the tanks to start getting ready for dry camping at the end of the week. The black tank has gone over three weeks so I’ve been emptying it prematurely over the last year and a half.

While I was flushing the tank, I was thinking that an easy way to fill the fresh water tank while connected to city water was to use the new shower that I had installed last month. I simply removed the hand shower (hand tight) and put the hose into the fresh water gravity fill right below it. Then I could just fill and once it started to overflow from the fill hose, stop. It worked pretty good. Now there is another reason for the outside shower.

Bridget did venture out in her inflatable kayak again launching from the beach at the campground. I went downriver to Jack Smith Park to wait for her arrival.

About 40 minutes later… Apparently, it was windy on the river

Day 49 - Buyer Beware

It actually went above 70°F today for the first time since we’ve been here. It’s been another uneventful day which included a trip into Fort Mojave for groceries, and sitting in the pool for a while. A couple of other RVers had asked about the solar and DC setup as they saw me up on the roof installing the new panel. I gave them the tour but mostly emphasized what I thought was important. Heavy wire (low resistance), include a battery monitor, full sine wave inverter with a transfer switch, and have the charge controller as close to the batteries as you can. And if you use flooded batteries, make sure the box vented to the outside.

One of the guys mentioned that he had a “solar expert” look at his motorhome. They recommended 300 watt panels designed for a grid-tied system (that’s probably what they had in stock), mounting the MPPT charge controller above the refrigerator and simply tying the output of the charge controller into the 12 VDC panel below the refrigerator. The batteries were around 20 feet away with probably only a 6 AWG run from the DC panel. All this for the bargain price of $2k plus batteries. I suggested that he run away as fast as possible from that “solar expert”. The RVer was a retired electrician and thought that some of the information sounded off to him but he never dealt with DC so he didn’t feel comfortable doing it himself. He liked the look of my installation and took notes. The “solar expert” also recommended mounting the solar panels next to the refrigerator roof vent to simplify running the cables ignoring the fact that it would be shaded by the TV antenna and the air conditioner. So do your research and don’t believe someone just because they claim to be the “experts”.

Day 48 - Warm(er) Weather!

There was an article in the local paper that mentioned the upgrades being done at Needles Marina where we are staying. Due to lower water levels of the Colorado River, the marina needed to be deeper. The amount I heard was over 10’. Plus, they wanted to accommodate larger boats. The boat launch ramp also needed to be extended as it ended just below water level. That would be a shock to anyone launching a boat. (There was a warning sign about the drop off.

We are finally going to get some warmer weather with highs in the 70s (°F) for the rest of the week. Bridget may finally get some nice enough weather to play with her kayak again. I think the “plan” is for Wednesday. We check out of here on Friday. Our month-long stay ending.

Just another solar comment, before 10:00 AM, the system was already into absorption mode. Granted, it was only down by 12%. This can be seen when the array voltage (red) goes above the battery voltage (green). The horizontal axis is AKST not local time. It seemed to be an easier way to get consistent data while we are traveling. Where we are in Needles, CA, only a few hundred yards to the east is MST. I turned off auto time zone on my phone since the time depended on which cell tower you connected to. I had wondered why the charge controller never went into “float”. As long as you are drawing power from the battery, it will stay in absorption. The refrigerator and fans are always drawing power during the day.

Day 47 - More Solar Blah, Blah, Blah

Another mostly clear day though the morning was a lot of high clouds. We went through another 30# of propane but I had forgotten to close one of the roof vents twice. Heating the outdoors takes a lot of propane. But by about 1:00, it was above 60°F and not too windy so I headed for the pool. It was nice as long as you were in the water.

Yesterday evening, I was reading through one of my favorite solar power blogs by someone calling himself HandyBob. One of the most recent posts was titled “2018 WARNING… TURN THE VOLTAGE DOWN” (the all caps were his). His posts are very straightforward and to the point and blasted many of the solar energy experts, manufactures, and vendors. His recommendations are what I had used to set up the solar on the RV. So when I saw the title, it caught my attention.

The gist of this post was that if you were following his original recommendation of setting absorption voltage to 14.8 volts for flooded batteries, you should turn it down to 14.6 volts. His original recommendation was based on information from Trojan and Crown. Crown had revised their recommendation. I suspect that he must have mentioned this in one of his other posts as the DIP switches on my Tristar controller were already set to absorption voltage =14.6 volts. But I didn’t remember what I had set. So this post is a reminder.

Back in 2016. I had originally ordered an MPPT charge controller (not the Renogy one that I mentioned in my blog post) before I ran into his site but I quickly canceled the order and picked up a Morningstar Tristar PWM controller per the recommendations on his site. I couldn’t be happier with the choice. That’s how convincing the information is on his site. His background is electronics and isn’t selling anything on his web site. A lot of people look for him to fix their broken solar installations. IMHO, it’s an entertaining read. BTW, the vendor I had ordered the MPPT controller from was on his “evil” list i.e. do not do business with them as their only motivation is revenue. The manufacture of that particular MPPT controller is no longer in business. Originally, I had thought that the DIP switches on the Tristar would limit the flexibility of the controller but there is a “Custom” DIP switch setting allowing you to change just about all of the parameters using a software program. What surprised me is that there is sufficient flexibility to set the controller up to even charge the new fangled LiFePO₄ batteries using the custom settings. 

Day 46 - Solar Panel Installation Followup

I had mentioned in yesterday's post about possibly lowering the new solar panel. The backside of the panel is about ¼" from the junction box so the whole panel can't be lowered but I did lower the side facing the edge and the panel still clears the box by about ⅛". I'm thinking that even though it clears, I may not want to have such little clearance with vibration or snow load, the panel will probably hit the box. So I raised it back up.

This morning at about 8:00, I turned off the shore power. At this point, the batteries were at 88% according to the Trimetric battery monitor. Three cups of coffee with the Keurig machine, a few minutes running the microwave, running the refrigerator off of the inverter, Bridget's curling iron, and TV and Internet watching YouTube videos this morning. Plus all of the laptop and device charging and FantasticFan running during the day. By 11:00, the charge controller had switched to absorption and by noon, the batteries were already at 102%. This is with all five panels flat on the roof and peak current was over 25 amps. The real test will be in about a week when we will be dry camping again for a bit. I terminated the “test” and switched us back to shore power at about 3:30. The Trimetric monitor said 104% and only an amp going into the battery bank. The refrigerator was still running off of the inverter.

The Dicor was drying nicely with the horizontal applications looking nice and smooth. I used some Dicor where the solar wires entered the junction box since I didn't feel like digging through my supplies to find the silicone caulk. By today. the Dicor was starting to flow down the side of the junction box. I guess that's why they make a different version of Dicor for vertical application. But it was still flexible enough to kind of mold into place. It looks pretty sloppy in this picture. I'll check on it again in a couple of days. The holes in the junction box are slightly smaller than the insulation so I’m not too concerned about water getting into the box.

If I do end up adding another panel, I think I may just add a second junction box right next to this one and simply running some 6 AWG between the two boxes. At that time, the new panel wires would be run through "proper" water-tight bulkhead fittings. I don't have the required hole saw nor the abs cement with me on this trip to install a bulkhead fitting.

Yesterday’s dinner was a two Instant Pot meal. Together, they draw about 1200 watts max and easily run off of the batteries through the inverter. And draw much less total power than the slow cooker.

Day 45 - More Solar

This morning at around 7:30, I started the installation of the new solar panel. It was about 45°F but there was no wind. I didn't want to be messing around with a huge sail up on the roof of the RV. I marked the area on the roof where the mounting brackets would go and covered the area with a piece of Eternabond tape. This is a very sticky sturdy tape that is designed to repair rubber roofs. Once it's on, it's on for good. This helps seal the screw holes in the roof. The rear brackets landed on a roof truss which is always nice. The vendor had 3M tape on the "L" brackets which was nice to hold the bracket in place while the pilot holes were drilled and the stainless steel screws driven in place.

In this picture, you can see the size difference between the 100-watt Renogy panels and the new 180-watt panel. Almost double the size. At this point, the panel is screwed down to the roof and I'm headed down to get some coffee and let things warm up some. The next step is going to be to seal things up.

I'm using Dicor self-leveling sealant which is designed for membrane roofs. I applied the Dicor over the screw heads, around the base of the bracket, and around the edges of the Eternabond tape. Around the tape edges probably isn't necessary but I needed to use up the tube once it has been opened. I also went ahead and applied some over the screw heads of the other solar panel brackets and anywhere else that looked like it needed it.

I used the tilting brackets to get access to the junction box where the 10 AWG wires from the panels are screwed into bus bars along with the 4 AWG cables that head down into the basement storage area. The 4 AWG cables are 12' long and are sized to handle the 45 amps that the controller is rated at. I was originally going to rearrange the cabling of the other panels but decided to just drill into the box, run the new cables and seal up around the cables with Dicor. I figured that the box is now in a pretty protected location being under the solar panel.

Can you tell when I plugged in the new panel? The charge current jumped from about 16 amps to 25 amps. This was with the panel tilted towards the sun. After I got done with the cabling, I moved the panel back to the flat position. These brackets don't seem to be as sturdy as the non-tilting Renogy brackets. Adding the tilting ability does seem to make the brackets a little more flexible. The brackets are now in the upper of two positions which would put slightly more stress on the "L" brackets and the roof screws. Tomorrow, after the Dicor sets up, I'll see if I can move them to the lower position and still have a little space between the junction box and the panel.

Anyway, this was a good upgrade and the installation took a couple of hours. If this panel continues to work out, I may pick up one more. Right now, I have 580 watts of panels on the roof. 

Day 44 - Rainy Day in Bullhead City

It has been raining here since last night. Not continuously or heavy. We went into Bullhead City to take the dogs into a Petsmart to be cleaned up. Since both of these dogs don't shed, they need to get regular haircuts. We were surprised by the amount of snow on the mountains surrounding the area. Not quite sure of the elevation snow but it's pretty low. Maybe a couple of thousand feet. Given the snow all over AZ and Nevada as the map from the AccuWeather site shows, I guess we shouldn't be surprised. I should have taken a picture of the snowy mountains but any time I saw a nice view, we were driving.

What did surprise me is the amount of solar that we received. I guess it must've cleared up right around noon as the graph indicates that the current from the panels peaked around 22 amps. It looked pretty overcast in Bullhead City. The battery bank only made it up to 94% from this mornings reading of 88%. But the furnace was coming on frequently as it barely made it into the 50's (°F). A little too cold for the pool.

We had lunch at Colianno's Italian Restaurant in Bullhead City. The lasagna wasn't quite as good as Gambredella's in Fairbanks but it was better than decent. The dog grooming took around three hours so lunch and grocery shopping were on today's agenda. 

Day 43 - Isn’t it Supposed to be Sunny?

Not the most pleasant of forecasts. Last night was supposed to get into the mid-30s (°F) but it actually got below freezing. I’m glad that I remembered to turn off the city water and disconnect the hose. I don’t really want to lose yet another water pressure regulator. And the lower than average temperatures meant that the furnace is running more.

I took one 30# propane tank to be filled first to the Shell station in Needles. It was $4.24/gallon. Compare this to $2.59/gallon in AZ. The attendant at the Shell station just said “It’s California”. Needless to say, I went into AZ for the propane. There is supposed to be a storm coming in this evening and continuing into tomorrow. But that means warmer temperatures. I had considered mounting the panel this morning since it was nice and sunny but by late morning, it was getting overcast and the wind was picking up.

Given the weather these days, I’ve been watching YouTube videos. There has been a lot of talk about the ENTV company, the producer of the RV documentary, RVNomads. A link to the movie is at the end of the post. It’s a decent documentary and focuses on several couples, singles, and families that have chosen to live in their RV full time. Most of them also have successful YouTube channels so they have a lot of experience on both sides of the camera. By successful, I mean they not only have quite a few subscribers but produce entertaining video content. I also believe that most of them highlighted in the video are not retired and many of them have invested a lot of time if not cash into the movie production.

Anyway, the company folded recently but the video is available on YouTube.

Day 42 - Mobile RV Wash

These guys were washing and hand waxing the RV next to us so I asked them about washing ours. It was $65 for a wash and $250 for wash and wax. This hasn’t been cleaned since the in-campground wash I did in Edmonton, AB, last June to get some of the Alaska Highway mud off. I had washed off the roof back in May before we left town on that trip. To me, the $65 seemed like a good deal. The campground doesn’t allow you to wash your RV. You have to have a professional service come in to do it. And this was the only company that was allowed into the park since since they are bonded and insured.

They did a pretty good job and I noticed that the current from the solar panels jumped up by over an amp after they had washed them off. I guess we need to clean them a bit more often. It still looks like a seventeen year old trailer but it’s shiny again. I think that I may pick up some automotive spray wax for at least the front cap to help it shed some of the bugs. For future reference, they are River Sun RV Washing from Bullhead City, AZ. (928)219-0574.

The new solar panel arrived this afternoon. The panel is about 20” longer and 6” wider than the original Renogy panels. This actually comes out to almost twice the area which shouldn’t have surprised me as they are almost twice the output current. It’s kind of late to start the installation process as it was a bit breezy. I need to seal the screw holes for the brackets and Eternabond tape with Dicor self-leveling sealant. I would prefer there to be at least 24 hours of no rain which is in the forecast for next Thursday. So my current plan is for installation on Friday.

The mounting brackets for these panels are composed of a metal “J” that wraps around the end of the panel. They have a threaded boss which fastens into the angle bracket that attaches to the roof. It came with knobs instead of screws for the angle bracket to the “J” bracket on the panel. This allows you to tilt the panels with no tools. 

Day 41 -

I think the forecast says that this is going to be a cold-ish week. Last night, it rained and was in the mid-40s. It just felt cold…

With the sun out, it felt warm while at the pool this afternoon. The temperature said 58°F but it felt warmer than that as long as you were in the sun. I didn’t do much at all today. Walked around the RV park to see if the water level of the river had changed (it’s a little bit higher) and met a few more of the neighbors.

I’m not sure what these black birds are but there are a lot of them around the campground. Especially in the evening.

Update - I just got a text that identified the birds as possibly a coot. Thank you Sandra!

Day 40 - Hole-in-the-Wall

This morning, we ventured west to the Mojave National Preserve north of I-40. The destination was Hole-in-the-Wall. There was a visitors center there but it was closed for renovation. The elevation climbed as we headed there both on the Interstate as well as the two-lane road into the Preserve. It was 39°F when we arrived. Kind of cold.

There is a trail called the Ring Trail and the name is from the steel rings fastened into the rock. The trail is rated "strenuous" which is one reason why we didn't head down there. The other is that there were about 30 teen/pre-teen kids headed for the trail sounding very excited about tackling the trail. So we moved on.

There was another trail that circled the hill but it was 8 miles long. A lot more than I wanted to go especially with the temperature, the wind and lack of hiking boots. We did go a short ways to get some pictures. This one was looking back towards the trail parking area. Just out of frame to the left is the campground.

According to the news, the California desert received as much as three inches of rainfall in less than 24 hours. There was a lot of evidence of flooding with sand and rocks washed across the road and through roadside ditches. I don't think I would have liked to have been in that campground at the time. But the rain also meant that there was a lot of green such as this bright green lichen on the rock.

These rocks are the origin of the name Hole-in-the-Wall. The Ring Trail heads down into the rocks and you climb out by climbing the rings. The rocks are pretty rough so it made for easy scrambling. Kind of similar to the rocks in Joshua Tree where I had taken a rock climbing short course. Actually, it was a mountaineering course and rock climbing was one part. Other parts were snow and ice climbing and survival. Great course but that’s another story.

There was a trail to an overlook with a nice concrete walkway at the end and this nice steel railing. But to get to the concrete walkway, you needed to scramble over boulders and through cracks. Not really as accessible as the nice railing and walkway make it appear.

There was a nice view from the walkway. We could hear the large group but couldn't see any of them or any portion of the trail. At least it wasn't obvious. The water at the bottom was frozen as it saw very little direct sunlight. When we were getting ready to leave, there were a lot of comments from the kids that it was really cold down there. Partly because their group took a long time to traverse the trail so they spent a lot of time standing around and waiting for the people in front of them. BTW, please don’t take my comments on the large group of kids the wrong way. Not annoyed or anything like that. They all seemed to be enjoying the experience.

There were three or four different cacti (is that plural for cactus?) and everything was looking pretty green. There was even some muddy areas on the trail and standing water in some of the rocks. 

Day 39 - Getting Prepped for More Solar

Went up on the roof today to measure the spot I am planning to put the new solar panel. You can see the location of the existing junction box. I’m pretty sure that the brackets will allow the new panel to fit over it. In case it doesn’t, I have several backup options. The tape measure is set to the length of the new panel. It is about 6” wider than the other panels so there is plenty of space.

As a refresher, I pulled out the MC4 crimp tools and installed a connector on each end of the leftover cable from the original solar panel installation. Since I needed to make cables for the new panel anyway, this just helps the process get started. The cable itself is 10 AWG with UV-resistant insulation and is designed for use in solar installations. By “designed”, I mean the insulation is the proper size for the MC4 connectors. These are most of the tools needed for crimping and I have the two MC4 connectors shown below the crimp tool.

First, the pieces for mechanically securing the cable to the connector are put in place before crimping the cable. The insulation is stripped off enough so that just the tip of the bare copper wire goes into the body of the pin. This is just so that stray strands don't get caught in the connector.

The pin is crimped using the ratcheting crimp tool specifically made for these connectors. What I did not show was a little bit of the Ox-Gard anti-oxidation compound was put into the area of the crimp before going into the tool. I didn't include a picture of the crimping process as it takes at least two hands to make sure things stay in position during the crimping process. The crimped pin is inserted into the back of the plastic connector until you feel and hear it "click" into place.

The silicone ring, plastic teeth that grip the cable jacket and the knurled nut are put onto the back of the connector. These are plastic wrenches that are specifically designed for MC4 connectors to tighten the knurled nut. The two prongs at the end of the plastic tools are used to disconnect the connectors as the clips are recessed and almost impossible to reach without these tools.

Success. I did still remember how to install the MC4 connectors. I still have two more pairs of connectors and depending on how I end up connecting the new panel into the system, I either need one pair or none. UPS says that the panel and brackets will arrive on Tuesday. Another fun project and I can drill more holes in the roof...

I just made an RV park reservation for the middle of March in Orange County. Definitely no boondocking around there. I needed to send a picture of the RV before they would finalize the reservation. I hadn’t run into that in a while. BTW, they said the RV looked fine.

Day 38 -

63°F, partially sunny, no rain... What more can you ask for? This morning, we went back to Fort Mohave in AZ for fuel and some groceries. We noticed that even though there are a lot of people living in Needles, there really aren’t very many stores or large grocery stores. I’m sure you can guess why. The same reason most people just go across the river to fill up their car. At the Walmart gas station, a class A motorhome pulled in and started to fill up his 75 gallon gas tank. He said that he was sure glad that he made it into AZ to fill up. His savings from California to Arizona was over $150. If you look up river, there is almost no development on the CA side of the river while the AZ side is full of housing, farms and ranches.

This has been a pretty slow week. The video below was a test of time-lapse on the iPhone while I was enjoying the pool. Nothing exciting.

Day 37 - Modest Solar Expansion

I guess Needles was the place to be. At least when this screen capture was done. Actually, it has been raining on and off since late last night. Enough for there to be puddles in the sand of the campsite. I think that Bridget may have here hands full dragging a couple of unwilling dogs around the campground. The National Weather Service has been putting out a flash flood warnings for the area.

I’ve made plans to return home for several days next month. This is to meet the State of Alaska retirement system requirement to not be out of state for more than either 89 or 90 days. I’m not sure which it is. Plus, I needed to get taxes done and a few other things. By late afternoon, the steady, light rain had ended but it was still kind of dreary.The cooler daytime temperatures meant the furnace ran more and not much solar. Though, surprisingly, we were still getting 5 amps around noon.

I’ve been looking at a solar web site called Continuous Resources, LLC, that was one of the exhibitors at the Quartzsite RV show. At the time, I was looking only at Renogy 100 watt panels to match the ones that we already have installed on the RV. But, it really doesn’t matter as long as the panel is 12 volts. This is their 180 watt, nominally 12-volt panels with an I_sc of 9.87 amps and a voltage of V_mpp of 18.95 volts. The price for these panels is about $20 more than the 100-watt Renogy panels which have an I_sc of 5.75 amps. That seems like a good deal to me. BTW, this is where they get their 180-watt rating. 9.87 x 18.95 = 187 watts. For our system, 14.8 x 9.87 = 146 watts. Still a good deal.

Their mounting brackets are a bit more expensive than the Renogy brackets but they do tilt. The tilting feature is important as I plan to install this panel on the passenger side of the roof and it will be over the combiner box. With the ability to tilt the panel, I will still have access to the box. At least, I'm pretty sure that the panel will fit in that spot. I'll go up on the roof and take some measurements when it's not raining. I've ordered one panel and associated installation pieces. With this addition, our maximum charge current will be around 33 amps. I'm thinking that this will allow us to run the refrigerator off of the inverter while traveling, especially on sunny days.  

Day 36 -

Not optimal weather for the pool but the temperature is fine. More sunshine would be nice. Not much going on today. I refilled another 30# propane tank and picked up some sweet bread at a Mexican bakery. Delicious. I had stopped to look for some locally made tamales but they didn’t carry them. I finished off the converter installation by replacing the sheet metal screws with machine screws and locknuts. And, since the unit is mounted on the metal chassis, a separate ground wire seemed to be redundant.

BTW, even with all the cloud cover, the solar was adequate to bring the batteries back up to 100% by the end of the day. This surprised me. I’m looking into picking up some panels from a vendor who was at Quartzsite.