North America

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I’m Charging My Laptop While Using It!

All right folks, I think we can say that Rae’s battery bank and whole house inverter set up is operating at full capacity!!! I’m sitting in partial sun with about 12.8V only on all the various monitors and I am not only charging my laptop, but also using it! The inverter does beep when the clouds get really heavy, but just for a second! I still think the DC charger I’m getting tomorrow is my best solution, but I feel soooooooo much better than I did yesterday!

I really want to thank everyone who has given me input on my battery upgrade woes. Every single comment I’ve gotten has given me just a little insight into why things weren’t working correctly, how to fix it, what to expect in terms of performance, etc. I really had all the knowledge I needed and the right tools. The problem was with the execution. Make good connections, folks!

Croft asked me how long I plan to stay here and what my plan is if the weather goes bad. I was able to go 13 days on my old batteries with fewer amp hours in mostly crappy cold super overcast conditions. Right now, I’ve got the rig plugged into the whole house inverter and am running the fridge and charging the computer, for a total of 2.8 amps going out. I have 0.9 amps coming in. My monitor is telling me I could run like this for another 43 hours before depleting my batteries. When I was just running a light last night, I could have kept going for 150 hours before depleting my batteries.

So I have a lot of reserve capacity for cloudy days, especially since I don’t have to run the furnace. I suspect I will run out of water and holding tank space before I run out of power. I can haul water from the icky public bathroom and dump grey water there and I can go about six weeks on my black tank. So unless the weather goes really, really bad, I should be able to last four weeks here as I had hoped to do.

This experiment is going to serve me well since I’ve decided I’d rather not put much money into my property next summer. So I’ll leave here knowing if I stand a chance of lasting the summer without plugging in.

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Battery Bank Performance Satisfaction AT LAST

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. My battery bank has been operating as I would have expected it to for more than 12 hours now!!!!!!!!!!

Late yesterday afternoon,  after some helpful comments by reader Dave, I took the wiring apart again, recleaned with baking soda, applied new gel, and tightened everything.  While doing this, I noticed that the connection between the two batteries wasn’t as tight as it could be. That alone could have explained my problems!

Voltage last night never dipped below 12.3, no matter what I was doing, and rested at 12.5 when I had nothing but the fridge and a light on. I had a light on all evening and it would flicker when the water pumped kicked on, but voltage readings remained constant. Just for kicks, I turned on the inverter and vacuumed the hall carpet. No problem. The monitor was correctly registering my usage. When I got up this morning, I was reading 12.5V and no outgoing amps since I was already charging. Perfect!

The computer continues to be an issue and I remain convinced that the problem is not my system. I’m in the truck right now with the engine running waiting for full sun to hit my panels. When that happened yesterday, I was able to get a FULL charge out of my computer while running the whole house inverter and doing other things. My DC charger will be here tomorrow and life should be able to return to normal for me.

Being up early again this morning and not wanting to start the truck that soon, I took my coffee and went for a long walk on the beach. Then, had a pleasant chat with my neighbours who, in part, wanted to let me know they were moving 30 feet down the beach and it had nothing to do with me. How nice of them. 🙂 They commented on how people down here are so much friendlier than folks staying in RV parks in southern BC, something I wholeheartedly agree with.

I want to stay in today and get started on some painting. It’ll be nice to not go anywhere and, at some point, go play in the surf. 🙂

 

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First Impressions of Texas

When I first came to southern Alberta, I thought that it looked exactly like my vision of Texas: mostly flat with a few rolling hills, lots of county roads with super high speed limits to explore, more pick up trucks than cars, and lots of jeans and stetsons. Add in palm trees, and you’ve got Texas so far.

This is the first place I’ve been with my truck that I can legally drive at a speed that requires me to shift into fifth gear! My truck is a speed demon, the ride just gets smoother and nicer the higher over 110KPH I go. This could be a Ford engine design thing; Miranda drives much more smoothly at 110KPH than she does at 90KPH.

I drove to Rockport and back just to get a charge on the laptop. Nothing much was open, but I did get out of the truck to take some boring pictures:

Rockport

Rockport

Nice mural outside of a touristy shop.

Nice mural outside of a touristy shop.

more Rockport

more Rockport

I met my neighbours, nice folks from Colorado.

My batteries are fully recharged, and I now know my battery monitor is NOT working correctly. 🙁 I resynched it to show that I am at a full charge and it immediately dropped to 98% because it claims that I am running 8A when I have nothing running at all except the fridge, which is only an amp if that much. I should have just paid to get a pro to install the damn thing. I saw a couple of ads for mobile RV repairs and I’m going to make a few calls to see if I can find a mobile tech who can come take a look at it for me. Anyway, I’m not worried about power for the next few days as I’m barely running anything and it’s sunny enough to get a full charge by mid-day.

The laptop charging situation has completely floored me. I can’t believe it’s taken this long for me to realise that it’s not possible to charge a laptop through an inverter drawing off batteries! Are all other computer using boondockers charging theirs when the genny is running?!

Both my Mac and PC need 16.5V to charge. The Mac is a little less fussy than the PC and I can charge it on the small inverter while I’m driving. But that’s still not high enough voltage for the PC! I’ve found a DC charging solution for the Mac that I will be getting on Saturday, but the PC is trickier. I found a charger, but it’s not for my model exactly, so I don’t even know if it will work. It should also be here Saturday, I hope, and am crossing my fingers it will work.

In other wonderful news, the AC on the truck isn’t working. This is not news to me, but I only just remembered to mention it. I’m hoping it’s because of the leaves I still haven’t attacked. I’ve been a bit gun shy about this repair since step one is to remove the radio. The AC worked fine when I bought the truck, so I’m not convinced at this point that there is anything majorly wrong with it. Ha, famous last words.

It’s quite warm today, but there is a lovely breeze coming off the bay so the rig is comfortable. My neighbour says the water is just below 60 degrees. I bought some wading shoes at Walmart on the way home, so I am probably going to get a little wet today. 🙂

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QUIET

I forgot what quiet sounds like… this morning was the first in way, way, way too long (months? years?) that I was able to wake up under my own steam: no cars racing by, no leaf blowers by the rig, no truck reefers, no birds chirping, nothing. Just blessed peace and quiet.

It was really foggy this morning, but the sun has come out and the batteries are charging. Gina requested a video of the surf, but there isn’t really much of it here on this quiet bay. I have made note of the request, though. 🙂

The water is surprisingly warm and with sunny highs in the low 20s for the next few days, I may actually take out my bathing suit. I’m Canadian. I can swim in 50 degree water if I have to and this water is warmer than that!

I had hoped to just stay in today, but I really do need more computer charge than I have, so I may go for a drive and check out the environs.

Saturday, I’m looking forward to a meetup with blog reader Pam, who was kind enough to accept some packages for me. “Sure, I’ll gladly accept mail for you” is one of the best gifts you can give a full-timer on the move. 🙂 Of course, general delivery is always an option, but with a house address, I can take advantage of Amazon Prime free two-day shipping.

I so wish I was American and that I didn’t have to feel on the move all the time, even when paused. In the back of my mind, I always have that little voice reminding me that there is a very long slog to make back to the border.

But I may end up going just a little further south with the rig this winter. Nuevo Progreso, Mexico, a safe border town, is just four hours away and I’m overdue to see a dentist. So I may get the rig a little closer to the border, drive there with the truck, and walk across for a day, like I did in Tijuana. At any rate, that wouldn’t be well until the end of February. I’d like to sit mostly still at home for a few weeks, rest, and let the coffers fill up again. So I don’t know how exciting the blog will be in the next few weeks, but I will share the projects I’m working on.

Reader poll, what should I do with my new wall?

IMGP5473

– leave it as it is
– paint it yellow
– paint it golden brown
– stain it
– some other option

I was leaning towards stain, but there is a lot of wood filler and it’s not staining as nicely as it should. So paint seems like the best option. The more I look at the wall, the more I think the side panels should be yellow like the other walls in the room and the door should be golden brown like the other solid doors. Hmm, I think I have my answer! But I’m open to suggestions. 🙂

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The Great Boondocking Experiment Starts

The time has come to truly test my new electrical system. I’m starting with a full charge, my batteries are watered, and I’m looking at a long stretch of warmth and sun. This is going to be my first attempt to truly live off grid on a fairly normal routine. The only thing missing is the DC charger for my Mac and that will be here Saturday. So I only have about another hour on my Mac tonight and an hour total tomorrow, then I’ll need to take it for a drive on Friday. Hopefully, the DC charger will work and I will have enough power to use my Mac as much as I need to!

One thing I am going to aim for is to live as much as I can by the sun. The days are short, so that won’t be super feasible, but I am going to try as much as possible to restrain my computer usage to daylight hours and use my iPad in the evenings.

I tend to spend my evenings sitting in the dark when I boondock, but I’m pretty sure that’s ridiculous with my set up. So I am allowing myself one LED light on in whatever room I’m and will see if that’s sustainable.

Finally, I have a ton of projects to do that do not require power but do require good weather. So I will attempt to spend a little less time at the keyboard and a little more time on other things while I am here, in addition to road tripping around the environs.

Well, methinks it’s time for dinner. Spinach salad, bratwurst, and sweet potato fries anyone?