camper

“Today’s” Project, completed and tested and Apple Pie

I was able to remove the panels so that I could more easily access the connection points. I finished in about an hour. The extra time over my estimate was spent finding the crimping tool I needed to put a terminal end on the 6 awg wire.

Testing is also complete. The Victron 12/12-50 battery charger works perfectly. The only change I made to the default setting for the Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries was the “maximum charge current”. I changed this 25 amps.

The other two systems work properly as well.

So, I just doubled the electrical capacity of the camper battery system and reduced the camper weight by 60 pounds / 27kg (most formally 265N).

This apple pie was this morning’s “project”. The filling and crust were all “home made”. We had only enough eggs for breakfast, so I skipped using an egg for an egg wash and without the egg wash, the crust doesn’t get the “golden brown” color.

Today’s Project

I am converting the truck camper battery system from lead-acid deep cycle batteries to lithium iron phosphate batteries.

These batteries have twice the electrical capacity at one quarter the weight and for a truck camper light weight reduces the load on the truck.

My project is to fit a new charging system into the camper so the truck can fully charge the camper batteries.

To gain the full capability of the new batteries requires a different charging regimen compared to the old lead acid deep cycle batteries.

There are three systems to charge the batteries; from the truck electrical system while driving, from a small solar electric system atop the camper roof and from a “plug into utility power” charger.

The solar and “plug-in” systems can be switched to accommodate the new battery charging regimen so this is merely changing a switch setting. The truck system needs some work.

So, I’m replacing the normal manual battery disconnect with a unit that automatically disconnects the camper from the truck electrical system AND sets things so the new batteries are properly charged.

Unfortunately the old disconnect and the new unit use different means to connect the wiring. This is easy to fix..if I can remove a wooden panel. If I can’t remove the panel, the 30 minute job will probably take 2-3 hours of me being in a rather awkward position….an image of a contortionist doing a handstand would not be too far from “the awkward position”. 🙂

Lots of “Little” Projects

For the past few days, I’ve been working on a lot of somewhat small projects.

First was making replacements for the set of keys that I lost. I make a copy of the original key, put the original away and use the copy of the key. This way, if I need a key copied, I am not using a worn key or a copy of a copy of a copy of a key; both of which are problematic. Eight of the ten keys were easy. Two were annoyingly difficult.

A quick note on modern keys. The blank is a “no teeth” key that has the correct groves and ridges on the sides of the key. The key machine then cuts the teeth to the correct depth and spacing into the blank. Both the blank and the “teeth” must be correct. If the blank is incorrect, the key won’t slide into the lock. If the blank is correct, but the “teeth” are not the correct depth/spacing, the key will slide into the lock, but will not open the lock.

Anyway, one blank was no longer available at all and, for the other, the supposedly correct blank is not correct. I spent about 45 minutes finding blanks that had slots that are too narrow and/or ridges that are too wide. I had the hardware store cut the teeth on those blanks and then I spent another 30 minutes with a file to modify the sides of the so that the key would slide into the lock. Success.

I also had a set of keys to open up Motorola and General Electric 2-way radio cabinets. Fortunately the keys are easily available. I’ve ordered these keys and they should arrive in a few days.

I found another “minimal engineering” issue in the truck camper. When driving on a rough road, one of the window shades in the camper broke free from its mounting clips. The manufacturer of the window shade recommends three mounting clips, but the camper manufacturer used only two clips. I added two additional clips, for a total of four clips, and then spent an hour getting the window shade back into its clips. Then I had to readjust the shade so it would roll up properly, but this required I remove the window valance. Removing the window valance required I remove one side of a cabinet. Removing one side of the cabinet required I remove the table. You can see how this is progressing. Two hours later, all was adjusted and put back together. The window shade works perfectly and now I don’t think it will break free of the mounting clips.

Oh, for what it’s worth, I bought the mounting clips from the manufacturer for US$0.25 each and the screws to hold the clip to the camper cost US$0.08 each. The time to install the clips was about 3 minutes, so had this been done at the time of manufacture, the cost would have been very minimal.

Next was a leaking tire on a Jeep. According to the local tire store, the tire was too old to repair (5 years). They wouldn’t even look further at the tire….just “too old”. I looked at the date code on the tire and it indicated the tire was made the last week of June of 2018…so the tire was one week “too old”. I checked around with other stores and most stores considered 6 years to be “too old”. Unfortunately, it is 400 miles (650km), round trip, to the next nearest tire store. One week….sigh….. I put the tire into a tub of water, found the leak, and patched it. That tire is now the spare.

I have been clearing weeds out from around the house. I want to have a 30 foot (10 meter) fire line around the house. I have been using a “hoop hoe”, also known as an action hoe or a stirrup hoe, rather than the glyphosate spray. I don’t know if the glyphosate would migrate to the well water, but I’d rather not find out….besides the hoe was faster. There are no trees within about 100 feet of the house, so cutting a fire line was not a big issue. The chances of a wildfire around here are low, but I thought it foolish to not spend the 3 hours to further protect our home.

And, finally, I’ve been putting away stuff in the garage so that I can move the cars into the garage. I’m almost there with the project.

The Board

A kind of geeky post follows. I am an engineer, so please forgive me while I spin the propeller on my hat! 🙂

Just in case you’re unfamiliar with the propeller hat, Wikipedia has a quick article on them at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beanie_(seamed_cap)

Awhile back, in my Minimal Engineering post, I was talking about the poor design of the circuit board that controls my camper’s refrigerator and how I had to order a new one. The place I ordered it from said it would be 5-7 weeks for to arrive, so I was pleasantly surprised when it arrived today. I wasn’t expecting it for another month.

This was good news.

Even better, I examined the circuit board and I did not see anything “fancy” being done within it to monitor how much current the 12 volt section of the refrigerator is consuming. So, it doesn’t look like I will need to make changes to the circuit board, and I should be able to have it control a relay and have the relay control the 12 volt power going to the refrigerator.

A relay is essentially an electromagnet that controls a switch. The nice thing is that the electromagnet needs only a small amount of current, in this case around 1/10 of an amp, to control the flow of a much larger current, like the 17 amps needed by the 12 volt section of the refrigerator. The old control board, even in its current “fixed, but fragile” state, will be able to handle the current needed to operate the relay, so I won’t bother to replace the old board. This will save some time and also allow me to keep the new board as a spare.

The only thing I’ll have to consider is if the relay on the control board will be okay to handle an electromagnet type load instead of a “regular” load. If the relay on the board is not rated for an electromagnet type of load, I’ll add two 25 cent components to my external relay to compensate for this. Either way, when I’m done, the refrigerator control system will be (re)designed to operate for the long term and not just long enough to exceed the warranty period.

The best news will be when I get the relay system wired in place and it actually works. All the thinking, considering and calculating is fine, and it gives me confidence that it will work, but until it’s actually going, there is always some amount of doubt.

But first, I need to continue to pack for our impending house sale, change the oil filter, air filter and oil in my vehicles and cook some dinner to take to a potluck dinner at a friend’s house.

It’s always something….

Minimal Engineering

Today, while on the way home from a weekend at a music festival (my wife as in one of the instrument competitions) , I noticed the camper refrigerator wasn’t working properly.

The refrigerator operates on 12 volts DC, 120 volts AC or propane, and the DC part wasn’t working.

There was an error code being shown on the display, so I looked it up in the manual. The text for that error code was, “Unit not operating correctly”. Wow. That was not terribly helpful.

After checking the two fuses protecting the wiring going to the refrigerator and finding them okay, I searched around on the internet and found some wiring diagrams that included enough information for me to start figuring out the problem.

After about 20 minutes of checking, I decided it was a problem on the control circuit board (the ‘brains’). To access the control board, one must remove the refrigerator from the camper. That took about 90 minutes. It took another 30 minutes to remove the control board.

What did I find?

Well, it was quite annoying. There is a fuse on the control board that is inaccessible until one removes the circuit board. Worse yet, this fuse is smaller than the fuse in the easily accessible fuse panel. So, the hidden fuse will likely “blow” before the easily accessible fuse. This fuse had “blown”. But it was not due to a short circuit or an “overload”.

It was caused by a poor design.

The refrigerator’s 12 volt system uses 15 amps. The pieces that connect to the fuse on the control board have an absolute maximum rating of 15 amps. In the electronics world “absolute maximum rating” is something that must never be exceeded for any length of time, and it is best to operate things at less than “absolute maximum”.

It’s sort of like a car engine with “red line” on the tachometer. The “red line” is the absolute maximum rating and, obviously, one never keeps the engine at that speed for any length of time.

So, what happened. The connection, which was being used at “absolute maximum “, started to get hot. This caused the connection to become worse, which made the connection get even hotter…which caused the connection to get worse….and so on.

The fuse was charred and eventually got hot enough to melt inside of the fuse and the solder holding the fuse connections in place. The control board was also charred.

I reworked the fuse connections and replaced the fuse, so the refrigerator is working again on 12 volts, but I don’t think it will last very long.

I called a camper service/parts place to get the needed part ($250) and found out the manufacturer had extended the refrigerator warranty from the listed 1 year to 2 years. This camper is 20 months old. So, I put everything back together, kept the charred fuse and called to make a service appointment.

Had I known it was still under warranty, I would have just called for the service appointment.

I also found out the part is currently on backorder and is likely unavailable for the next 2-3 months. So, after they examine the unit and decide it really is bad, I’m making some modifications to the system so that the control board, even with the charring, will likely last for many years.

The control board will control a relay that I’m adding to the system. A relay is essentially a remote controlled switch that uses a small current to power an electromagnet in the relay and the electromagnet operates a switch capable of handling 30-40 amps of current. This relay needs about 0.1 amp from the control board, so the control board won’t be stressed. The relay will then do the “hard work” of switching the 15 amp current needed by the refrigerator, and since the relay is being used far below its ratings, it should last a very long time.

I paid $12 for the components.

Had the design used better parts to connect to the fuse (an extra 75 cents…I checked…..) or the $12 system I’m going to set up, this problem wouldn’t have happened. My guess is that the engineer knew this, but was told to minimize costs and build it “just good enough”…with just good enough being “lasts long enough to make it through the warranty before failing”.

Sigh…

Portable Pressure

My wife and I did leave home on 31 May, just like we planned, but we took an extra few days to get “up here” to northern Michigan.

Neither of us mind driving the Interstate highways, but we find them rather boring. We started out on the Interstate highways but after the first day, we both decided to reroute ourselves via the older US Highways and various state highways. One can see a lot more by driving *through* the towns instead of around them.

We also decided to take 2 vehicles because the dogs didn’t have much room in the back seat of the crew cab pickup truck. Our 14 year old dog loves to ride, but has problems walking for about 10 minutes after getting out of the truck’s back seat. With the extra car, we could lay the back seats down and she (and the other dog) had plenty of room to stretch out. So, when we would get her out of the car, she had no problems walking around.

Now, to the title of the blog. We (my wife and I) are probably 90% vegan. In other words, we prefer plant based meals if it’s not a difficult thing to accomplish. With the camper, this isn’t too difficult as long as we can find things at the grocery store.

Dried beans and dried rice are wonderful in the camper–light, no spoilage, no need for refrigeration until after cooking. But, the beans take a long time to cook. So, we found a small pressure cooker. Instead of beans taking all day, they take 30 minutes in the pressure cooker. This means we can cook beans at a lunch stop.

So, there is the small pressure cooker on the stove in the (fits in the back of a pickup truck) camper. Yes, the space is tiny, probably 80 square feet (7 square meters), but IT CAN GO PLACES!

Not that I get anything out of the recommendation, but the pressure cooker is made by Presto. I follow https://refarmer.ca/ and in one of their posts, they were describing a 50 year old Presto canner and how the company still had parts for the canner. To me, any company that supports 50 year old products is a good company.

So, if you need a small pressure cooker, the Presto brand is one to be considered.

We’re Home

As the title suggests, we are back home in the desert southwest after completing my engineering work in the Grand Canyon and then traveling through Arizona, Utah, Montana and Idaho.

During our travels in Northern Idaho, we got to meet the folks behind the site, https://livingasustainabledream.com/ and we had a great few hours talking with them.

Besides the work at the Grand Canyon, our trip had a purpose– to look for “nice” places to move. My wife hates the desert heat and I dislike living in a big city. “Not hot” and “not city” leaves a lot of places and our favorites are: Kanab, Utah; Bonners Ferry, Idaho; Troy Montana.

My wife grew up in a tiny town in the “snow belt” of Upstate New York, so she is used to both the cold and snow. I grew up in a tiny high desert town where it rarely snowed but was both hot and moderately cold (115F/45C in the summer and 10F/-12C in the winter). I also did a lot of work on mountaintop 2-way radio sites where daytime temperatures struggled to reach -20F/-30C…so I am at least aware that there is a condition called “cold”. Still, before we make the final move, we will try to rent a place for the winter months to ensure our memories of “cold” have not been overly dimmed by 40 years of time.

Our new slide-in truck camper’s shake down cruise had only three problems to report.

The first problem was the lavatory faucet leaking water to the compartment below it. I fixed this myself because a replacement faucet was only US$16 and it took me less than 5 minutes to change to the new faucet.

The second problem is the comfort heater (furnace) only works when the camper is connected to commercial power or the truck engine is running and charging the battery system. I did do some checking on the furnace and came to the conclusion that the logic circuit board/safety system of the heater is at fault. This circuit board costs around $250, so I decided to wait and get this fixed under warranty.

The third problem is the microwave oven. Yes, I know, a microwave oven. I’ll just say that using it makes our wilderness experience complete. Anyway, the door doesn’t pop open like it should when I press the “door open” button. Instead I also have to pull the door open while pressing the button. Since I was waiting to get the furnace fixed under warranty, I just added the “microwave oven door won’t pop open” to the list for the warranty repair work.