Day 25, 26, 27 - Tucson, AZ

Thursday (25) - For the next week, we are at a KOA park in Tucson, AZ. It is a family-oriented park with a couple of pools. Kind of on the expensive side and definitely one of the most resort-y parks we've been in. There are even covered sites. The overhead roof is covered with solar panels which, supposedly, provide most of the power used in the park.

Right now, I'm sitting outside waiting for a morning test session to begin. It a very pleasant 72°F. Not a bad way to spend the morning. By mid-afternoon, it was 88°F so too hot to sit outside for the afternoon test session.

Friday (26) - It was a very warm 88°F this afternoon. This weekend is forecast to be even warmer. We did get some errands run but have a few more things to do. 

A new project showed up on my radar. Victron supports an open-source project for their Venus operating system, You can purchase their color controller to manage and monitor their products or you can run it on a Raspberry Pi. The Pi 3 B+ is recommended as it has built-in WiFi and Bluetooth. If the Victron products have Bluetooth, you can connect right in. If not, you can use their VE.Direct USB cable. Both the charge controller and the battery monitor support Bluetooth so this may be a great way to monitor the solar output. Since the "spare" Raspberry Pi I have with me is a Pi 2, I went ahead and ordered another Pi 3 B+ and the 7" touch screen display from Amazon. It should arrive at the RV park sometime next week. For comparison, the Victron color controller is over $1000 while the Raspberry Pi with the display is a bit over $100. If it works, it’s a bargain. Plus there are commands to display data without using the GUI. 

Saturday (27) -  It's a very pleasant 79°F this morning while I'm waiting for the morning test session to begin. I am planning to try using the campground WiFi as it seemed to be working pretty well. I've been watching YouTube this morning and some Amazon Prime last night. All in HD.

I went ahead and started the A/C in the RV since I am baking pie crust. There are tons of citrus fruit trees around the RV park and on Wednesday, some of the kids visiting our friends picked a lot of grapefruit. I found a recipe for a grapefruit curd pie. It sounds like it may be worth trying out.

Later -  The WiFi seemed to work okay. Some audio artifacts but overall, it worked. That's good as I had run out of Verizon hot spot data last week and it won't renew for 5 more days.

This is one of two pools here at the park. I figured that it may be crowded as it’s already 86°F. No humidity to speak of. 

Day 22, 23, 24 - Benson, AZ - TT

Monday (22) - This morning, we headed back into Tucson for a birthday party. Bridget ordered a cake from Safeway and, I believe, she is picking up some pizza somewhere in Tucson. 

Tuesday (23) - A test session this morning and another this afternoon. I began to pack up stuff in preparation for leaving here tomorrow. I figured that this afternoon was going to be a bit too hot to sit outside so the table, chairs, and outdoor “rug” are now packed. 

The 5amp AC fuse on the refrigerator control board blew for the third time in 19 months. It just switches to propane when it blows so not a serious problem. I think it has something to do with direct sun on the outside wall and not enough airflow to keep the temperature down. Just a hunch…

Wednesday (24) - A short travel day today. Only 44 miles to the KOA in Tucson, AZ. We needed to be “out” of the Encore system for seven days. We will be returning here in Benson next week. There are other parks in Mesa and Casa Grande but we like this place. 

Day 21 - Happy Easter!

Today, we watched a video prepared by our church in Fairbanks. They have been doing live streams for the past year but today’s service was outdoors. And if you follow the Fairbanks weather, you know that they were/are buried under a lot of snow. 16” to 20” and still coming down. This is pretty unusual for this time of year.

We had Easter dinner with several new friends. Rich and Hope whom we met last Thanksgiving. Sam and Diane who I just met yesterday when Rich and I went to work on their handicap ramp. And another couple who are work camping about 20 miles east of here who are friends of Rich and Hope. I made sous vide lamb, ham in the Instant Pot with a pineapple-honey sauce, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and brownies. 

It was a fabulous way to spend Easter. 

Day 18, 19, 20 - More Solar - Bisbee - Benson, AZ - TT

Thursday (18) - 84°F today!

With the charge controller in the passenger-side rearmost compartment, I need to re-think the placement of the solar panels. Instead of placing them towards the front of the RV, I will locate them all on the driver-side between the two A/C units. Hopefully, this will avoid shading from the A/C units. This will result in 55 ft of 10AWG wire between the panels and the charge controller. This includes both the positive and negative cables. From the chart and ohms law, we get a voltage drop of 0.515 volts or 0.76% loss with the panels wired in series. If I connect the panels in parallel, the resistance would be 3x higher but the loss would be almost 12% due to the lower voltage. This would require much heavier gauge wire from the roof to the charge controller. This is why I’m wiring the panels in series. 

After the morning test session, I put 4” wide Eternabond tape over the Dicor on both of the vent installations. Next week, I’ll put more Dicor on the edges of the tape. 

This picture also shows where I’m planning to install the solar panels. Since I try to have the driver's side of the RV facing south, putting the panels on this side minimizes the possibility of shadows on the panels. A shadow on even one panel could pretty much shut down all the panels in that series connection. But, that’s the trade-off between serial and parallel connection for your panels. The benefit is a higher voltage and lower current. I.e. cheaper wiring and you aren't so constrained by the distance between the panels and the charge controller.

Friday (19) - Today, we spent the day at Bisbee, AZ, an artsy town southeast of here. We went down with Rich and Hope who are staying at the Escapee park about a quarter of a mile down the road. We had met them last Thanksgiving near Lake Whitney, Texas. He is a fellow ham radio operator and they are full-time RV travelers. 

Lots of shops such as this honey store. It was not much wider than their front door. We had a tasty lunch at the Bisbee Coffee Company right on the main street. 

Saturday (20) - This morning, I went with Rich to another RV park in Benson and helped finish a handicap ramp up to a 5th wheel RV. Another couple, Garrett and Carolyn had started and finished much of the framing and most of the decking. We finished the decking, finished the handrail, and primed the raw wood on the handrail. 

Afterwards, Bridget and I headed into Tucson to color Easter eggs with Garrett and Carolyn’s three kids while they were doing their livestream. Their YouTube channel is Diary of a Family.