Tag: Electrical

Just hanging around home

We have just been hanging around home for the last couple of weeks. Kevin is really busy working on the motorhome’s electrical system. He has added a Electrical Monitoring System (EMS) that protects against low voltage as well as high voltage situations. The coach had built in surge protection, but low voltage can be really hard on electronics so it is good to manage that too. The EMS detects bad incoming voltage and then shuts down external power so nothing gets damaged. Once everything works again, power is restored..it has already been helpful. The storage unit we have has only 15 amp power, much less than the motorhome really needs. Turns out we were running at 104 volts instead of 110, so some adjustments to the charging system had to be made. Kevin never would have known about the problem without the EMS, at least until electronics started randomly failing.

Kevin has also had a great time planning out the solar system. The panels and controller plus all the miscellaneous mounting hardware have arrived. He has already installed the controller in the storage bay near the batteries, and the panels are in the garage waiting for one of my son’s and my son in law to help in a couple of weeks. They will have a much easier time climbing around the roof than Kevin would! He is still going to supervise, but they should get the entire system installed and operating in a day.

I have been remarkably lazy. I did take the three local grandkids to Vacation Bible School last week which was pretty tiring. I keep forgetting just how much energy children (4 and 8) have! They had a blast though. We are pretty happy with one of the local Presbyterian churches, and we will be joining it soon. They have a much more socially active ministry than my church in Salt Lake City, and I am very comfortable with it. I also visited the ophthalmologist in Cedar Rapids I went to before we moved. As I suspected, I have had another vitreous detachment, this time in my right eye. I knew what had happened as soon as the numerous new “floaters” showed up. As with the left eye a year ago, no retinal involvement so it is just a bother, nothing more.

Poor Lily had surgery Friday to remove a spot that just wouldn’t heal. It continued to weep fluid and scab even after multiple treatments with antibiotics,  so we finally had it excised. She has a huge incisision and lots of stitches. She is also in a lot of pain. She is getting an opioid narcotic painkiller every 8 hours, but you can tell from her behavior when it starts wearing off.

The stitches don’t come out for over another week. The vet did send the sample for a path report, but we aren’t expecting any bad news. We all think it was just a spot that was inflamed and never healed. Cats have weird skin issues.

New power converter, table, and other trailer mods

A travel trailer (or any RV) is always a work in progress. First there are the inevitable things that shake loose while traveling. For example, I need to recaulk the shower because the flex from traveling has loosened up a few pieces. Next comes the new and improved things. We call these “mods” in the RV world, and huge amounts of time are expended on discussing, planning, and then finally building them. Kevin loves to have a project going most of the time we are home, so we have lots of lovely mods. The latest is replacing the OEM power converter with a much higher quality unit. This will charge and maintain our batteries much better and make for a faster battery charge when we use the generator. It definitely took Kevin more time than he thought it would. The electrical center of our trailer is a modular system with breakers, switches, fans, and 110v/12v conversion. There are only a few things in the trailer that really run on native 110v – the microwave, the air conditioner, and the 110v outlets. Everything else actually runs on 12v power. The converter charges the batteries and converts the 110v power (when hooked up to “shore power”) to 12v so the rest of the electrical systems (lights, heater fan, etc) will operate. This is what he bought:

And here’s what got removed. Lots of cutting and resoldering connections.

A quick check with the power meter shows everything is working well!

Other mods include replacing our dinette table with a Gidgit brand sewing table. You can see the cutout in the middle that can be lowered when you want a sewing machine to sit level with the table cloth. You can also see the fitted tablecloth I made for it. This table is just a little bit smaller than the original making it easier to slide in and out of the dinette. I like it!

Some other mods I will show include taking out the incredibly uncomfortable jackknife sofa and replacing it with two recliners from IKEA. Kevin modified a small table (with under lid storage) to sit between them. Of course the cats must have a place to relax, so he adapted a purchased cat tree to fit behind the table. The cat tree is attached to the table so it doesn’t fall over while traveling.

Nice huh?