No sooner did I have the front door open this morning (the weather has been lovely enough to just use the screen door all day) and the truck started that there was a knock. Thankfully, I was dressed! I turned off the kettle as it was whistling and turned my attention to my visitor, a French Canadian gentleman with the very, very French Canadian name of Jean-Guy.

He asked me if it was my wifi signal that he had picked up the night before on his booster. I explained that I use Verizon and he noted the info, impressed by the fact that I can use the voice plan in Canada. The cost would be a bit much for someone looking just for email, but it sounds like he uses a lot of bandwidth as he actually understands the concept of bandwidth usage.

I gently told him that I consider using those wifi boosters to seek and use open wifi signals is theft (I put it much more politely than that). I said the same thing to the other French-Canadian couple parked near me. I have no problem with the idea of using one of those to get access to a McDonald’s connection from a parking lot since their wifi is free (no purchase necessary) and it’s too slow to be able to steal any bandwidth worth mentioning. But using one to find a random signal from a house in the wilderness is wrong, as evidenced by the fact that the signal was locked down while he was using it.

He’s essentially traveling the same route as me, but backwards, and is headed for New Orleans, having stopped here to avoid the Super Bowl crowds.

Finally, he asked me an amusing question, do I pass myself off as québécoise or French Canadian? I replied the latter. He nodded in agreement, saying, “Me too! Franco-Ontarians and Franco-Manitobans hate our guts! Here’s a tip: don’t wave a Quebec flag around unless you want to alienate the neighbours!” I suddenly had this vision of him and his wife getting run out of a campground by a bunch of angry non-separatist French Canadians waving dirty sewer hoses!

A grey stretch commences…

I want to thank everyone who has commented about charging house batteries with a truck or the RV itself. I encourage everyone to read through the comments on my last few points. I will address a few things here.

Airmon provided a good charging strategy (more on that below) and asked: “Did you set your linkPRO up with the capacity of your batteries and the float voltage charge profile from your solar controller?

Answer: Yes.

Croft suggested a battery cut off switch to separate the alternator from the batteries so that I can get more charge to the house batteries. I will research this further.

Dave chimed in to say that it’s easy to get a battery to 80%, but the last 20% takes hours. This goes with what Airmon said, that I should only use the truck to charge if I’m below 80%, get to 80%, and then let my solar do the work. He also said to attach the jumper cables before the shunt and fuse, but not directly to the battery posts. Dave, huh? I understand the theory, but the only thing before my shunt and fuse are the battery posts.

Finally, Alan said that folks who use their motorhome engine to ‘top off’ their batteries do get a little charge, but it will never truly charge the batteries to full capacity.

This morning is very overcast and I have barely 2A coming in. I did start the day with my batteries in much better shape than they have been in a week (12.4V versus 12.1V!). I finally rehardwired the little solar panel in and that’s giving me an extra amp. So I’m fine for power today… if I don’t charge my computers. That’s where I’m a little stuck. I ran the truck for more than two hours this morning (!) and got a full charge out of the PC and only 75% out of the Mac. The PC wins, right? Ha. That full charge out of the PC gives me at most 2 hours of run time while the 75% on the Mac gives me 3.5 hours. I have to scrap the library idea as it is closed on Mondays! 🙁 I really, really need the Mac today, so I may sacrifice some amp hours in the middle part of the day. And hey, it looks like it might be clearing a tiny bit! And I’m now at 2.5A!

Now that I really understand how the battery monitor works (and that it is working properly), I feel very empowered. I know that even though it is grey out there right now, as long as I don’t charge my laptops, I will end the day with more charge than I started with. That means that I can face tomorrow without fear of a dead battery. It also means that if I ever get to 4A coming in, I can charge the computer during that time, quit when the incoming amps go back down below 4, and still end the day ahead.

But that still leaves me the computer charging problem. I just can’t seem to get out of it. Running my truck for hours to charge a laptop is very inefficient! I am nowhere near due for a new computer, but the Macbook Air’s seven hours of run time on a single charge is starting to look pretty good. 🙁 My 17” Macbook Pro is four years old now, but there’s no reason it couldn’t serve me well for many more years. The hard drive on it is good, I’ve maxed out the RAM, and it has a new battery. So I’m back to finding a better way of powering it.