Taking a Break

Saturday May 26 and Sunday May 27, 2014
Shawnee State Park
Schellsburg, PA

 

 

SATURDAY

I think we’ve done nearly all we can do on this holiday week-end since we can’t get anyone at Winnebago on the phone or anyone to come out and look at it.   Isn’t it always a holiday week-end when something goes wrong?  In 2001 I broke my ankle on New Year’s weekend, in 2011 I broke it again on Labor Day week-end.  I think I’ll just skip all the holiday week-ends from now on thanks.

 

 

David spent all day yesterday trying to trace all the wires from our lights to figure out where the ground is missing or the short is occurring.  He printed out the electric wiring diagram from the Winnebago Website.  Thumbs up to Winnebago for keeping things on all their coaches, no matter how old, available to their owners.   He’s having to figure out which wires are new ones for the solar that Greg installed and which are original from Winnebago.

 

 

The problem here is in the DC electrical system and we don’t know what was done to cause this.  It looks as though the voltage on the batteries is good, they show full charge of 13+ volts.  We also know that if we turn on any DC load (light, water pump, etc) the voltage at the house DC breaker box drops  and we get low voltage codes on the refrigerator and the Powerline Energy Management system originally in the coach from Winnebago.  We also know that we may be losing voltage at the battery mode solenoid.  With the refrigerator running on AC or LP the available voltage at the DC breaker box is 10.5 to 11.1 volts which is clearly too low to begin with.  Wire tracing shows that the line in to the solenoid has full battery voltage and the line out, which gets relayed to the house, is 0.7 volts lower (with no load).  The 0.7 drop at the solenoid was measured when the refrigerator was off so we are assuming the extra voltage lost at the house DC breaker box is going to the refrigerator.

I know this is making your eyes cross as it does mine but I thought I’d put the details as we know them here in case anyone has an idea or a clue.  I must also acknowledge great email education and suggestions all day Saturday and into Sunday from Jack Mayer whom I consider to be a solar guru. 

 

 

While David worked, I kept notes for him and helped as I could, jiggling wires, handing him things.   I made dinner which we ate on what has become the tool table.

This low voltage is still giving us the worrisome flickering lights so the lights stay off which means flashlights after dark.  We are concerned about what other DC appliances might be or have been damaged by these low voltage days.  We will have had low voltage for a week at a minimum on Tuesday IF we can get it fixed then.   It is possible we could have residual trouble from this down the road.

We do have AC power and our LP stove for cooking so things are not impossible here.  We can charge up all those flashlight batteries for after dark! 

 

 

 

Greg Young has bent over backwards to try to fix this and to compensate us for our troubles.  At this point, I don’t think there is anything more we could ask of him.  He and we thought it was fixed when we drove away on Friday.   But something wasn’t right when we stopped for the night. 

We’re not sure what to do at this point.  It’s something in the DC electric.  We could go back and Greg would work on it until there was a resolution however long it takes. We could stay here and try to get the local RV Tech with 30 years experience to come look at it.  We could go on  down the PA turnpike  to Akron, Ohio which is a bigger city and may hopefully have a good Winnebago person or an excellent DC electrician.  Greg has said he will pay for whatever it takes to get us up and running.  He is definitely losing big time on this install but he is a very conscientious and honest businessman.  We are hoping we have no problems down the road, assuming we ever get there, and are a real fluke in his new mobile solar installation business.  I do greatly admire his upbeat can do attitude.

Of course none of this is AM Solar’s fault, they only supplied the parts.

 

 

SUNDAY

 

 

So today, we have oatmeal pancakes for breakfast on our AC powered griddle.   With pure maple syrup, YUM!

Later, Jack Mayer emails some suggestions so we try them out. One requires that we turn off the chargers for half an hour and then  turn the inverter/charger back on to see if it goes into bulk charge as he thinks it should.  If so, then the problem is not the inverter.  He thinks we have a bad battery pulling everything down. Aside:  (Nancy Mills looks at Bill and says I told you it’s always the batteries)

Eventually,  we go for a hike to allow the charger to be off and to walk off the pancakes.  We take the Antler Trail which runs from the campground.   We think we have a more appropriate name for it

 

On our way we noticed that in this campground there seem to be no rules.  Everyone has clotheslines and hammocks hung from the trees.  Attaching things to trees is a no no almost every where we have been. 

We also see this popup not on the nice flat top of the graveled area of the campsite, in the foreground of this picture,  but pulled in under the trees. 

People park their cars on the grass.  We’ve seen no rangers at all since we’ve been here.   There is one campground host at the beginning of the 149 site campground.   

But we have also found these campers to be among the quietest and nicest of any holiday week-end campground we have ever been in.   There are lots of cars and tents per site but  no wild parties, seemingly no alcohol.  This has been very nice.

 

All long the entire trail are many many wild geraniums and more may apple.   Tis the season, tis the place.  They are in bloom everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a nice cool path on what is becoming a warm Sunday morning.

 

We see quite a bit of Winter Cress also known as Yellow Rocket.   My pictures of in its early stages turn out blurry so I borrow this one so if you see it somewhere you’ll know what it is.

I have better ones of the sweet white violet.

 

About half way around we come to a serious up hill hike through what appears to be a path mowed through the grasses between the woodland sections.   All along this path are giant ant hills.   Single and multiple groups of ant hills.  This picture doesn’t do justice to how big they are.  Where do those little fellas get all the makings for such a big place?

 

 

We think it should be called Large Anthill Trail instead of Lost Antler.

 

 

 

We return and turn on the inverter and get bizarre information from the batteries.  We send it to Jack.  None of this makes any sense to me.  As it gets dark, David is attempting to find out where the negative and positive leads from one compartment come out in one compartment.  We have learned from much experience that assuming is not a good idea.  No success.  Without good deal of difficulty and taking other things apart,  there appears to be no way to find this out.. 

SO here we are.
What’s up for tomorrow? 
We’re not sure.