Magnolia Beach

by

No AC

I had some trouble finding the low side port for my Ford Ranger’s AC system as it was not the super obvious one right by the compressor. Thank goodness for YouTube!

I emptied the can in while running Max AC full blast, but that did not convince the compressor to come back to life. So no toad AC for me as I have much more pressing things to spend money on. 🙁

I did succeed in using my new socket wrench set to disconnect the battery and turn off the check engine light (although I had to do it twice since 10 seconds wasn’t long enough). Here’s a tip: regularly checking the oil in your vehicle is a good idea. Forgetting to put the cap back on the oil port is not. 🙂

 

by

A Little Restraint Needed

I woke up to a decalibrated battery monitor that claimed I was at 100% capacity and pulling in 13.0A. Both it and the solar array monitor claimed that I was at 10.5V.

My first thought? Damn, I need to do some carpentry.

I went outside and, sure enough, the batteries had shifted a little from all the wind yesterday (bad enough that I felt so queasy I went to bed at about 9PM after taking a Gravol to help me sleep!!!). The shift was enough to loosen one of the top butterfly-type nuts on the batteries. These are the ones that keep giving me grief, so I need to find a better option for them.

Anyway, the batteries were sitting at about 12.4V and a quick flick of the wrench got everything nice and tight again. I didn’t use much power yesterday and we will have sun today, so I’ll be able to recalibrate the battery monitor shortly.

After installing my new batteries in Suffolk, I restrained them the way I did my old pair, but I removed the wood when I got here to make it easier to keep tweaking the setup. I’ve now learned that it really doesn’t take much to move those heavy suckers and that they should be restrained at all times.

We’re supposed to have sun all week, so I am seriously considering taking the batteries out completely and moving the fuse and shunt to a more accessible location for checking connections. The hiccup is that I am severely limited by the length of my cables and I put the fuse and shunt where they are because there was no more obvious place to put them. So it might just be exercise for exercise’s sake, but I’ve conceded that my battery bank setup is never going work for me and will continue to cause me grief.

Anyway, not a huge deal this morning, especially since I’m very well rested. 🙂

 

by

Slowly Understanding the Battery Monitor

I checked the battery monitor about an hour ago and I was still 20AH away from a full charge and only putting in 4A. Now, it’s flashing full!!!

I think I know what is going on.

The solar monitor gives me a reading at a given moment. I might be putting in 7A for a few minutes, but then the clouds come out and I start putting in 4A. I could end up averaging only 1A coming in for that hour despite that 7A reading at the beginning.

I think the battery monitor is giving me delayed information after the fact. That is, every so often, it tallies up what really came into the bank and then adjusts the amp hour total up or down. The computer is certainly sophisticated enough to do this.

Moreover, I woke up at about 24AH down and have been charging for 8 hours. The AH total has barely budged all day, until now, even though I was supposedly putting in about 3A all day. 3×8=24.

I wish there was a Xantrex LinkPro for dummies book. The information that comes with the monitor isn’t very helpful.

by

Getting the Mail

After putting in a few hours of work on my book this morning, I headed out to the post office where a new battery for my cell phone was awaiting me.

The cell phone has pretty much been dead for weeks, but it took me a while to concede this fact even though the phone will randomly turn off even when it is plugged into a power source. I found a genuine Verizon battery on Amazon for just under $7 with free shipping from a well rated seller. The new battery’s arrival could not have been timed better because the phone shut off late this morning and refused to turn back on!

To my surprise, my O’Reilly’s gift card had also arrived! Walmart didn’t have any refrigerant for vehicle ACs, so I headed to O’Reilly’s to see if they carried such a thing, which they did. Since I’m not sure that adding refrigerant will actually start my compressor, I bought the cheapest kit they had, which was about $20 and included a hose but no gauge.

Next, I moseyed over to the tools to look for a socket wrench kit. Everything on display was way more expensive than I was willing to pay ($50 to several hundred dollars). I crouched down to see what was on the bottom shelf, knowing from my days in retail that you can find very good deals near the floor, and I emerged with this:

IMGP5862

IMGP5863

It’s a 57 piece set with both metric and imperial sockets. Not the best quality, but should serve me well for the little amount I will use it, and was just $20.

I wasn’t even tempted to have lunch in Port Lavaca since I had my lunch all planned out even before I headed out:

IMGP5860

(Lightly seasoned black refried beans, tomato, avocado, a squirt of lime juice over a grilled tortilla.)

It is scary windy out there right now, so I’m staying in, putting as much weight as I can on the passenger side (JOKING), and will wait patiently to see if the can of refrigerant helps my truck at all. As for the socket wrench set, I will be using it to disconnect my truck battery to reset the check engine light. I know why the light went on and the issue was resolved, so there’s no point having it on the dash mocking me. 🙂

by

Xantrex LinkPro Charging Amps Discrepancy

Caroline and her hubby are exercising their generator tonight by letting me plug in. I thought, woohoo! I’ll have a fully charged house battery bank tonight AND a fully charged computer!

Reality according to my LinkPro has been somewhat… disappointing.

Since yesterday, when I actually hit full charging amps from my solar panel for a bit, I’ve noticed that my LinkPro is only showing half the amps going in that my solar charger claims is going. And, yes, this reading is taken with everything off.

I’m getting the same deal from my dedicated battery charger! I’m on the 15A setting and only getting a measly 7.5A in. If I plug in the computer, I only get 2A. 7.5A is barely worth running the genny for and 2A is a waste of gas.

Who do I trust? The solar array monitor and battery charger or the LinkPro, which has been 100% accurate in recording the amp hours going out?

Xantrex hasn’t been any help regarding this and I’m not finding any anecdotal evidence about it. I’m convinced (ie. hopeful) that I’m wired correctly since I’m getting an accurate record of amps going out.

The only thing I can fathom with the current situation, being on the genny, is that the charger realises that I’m above 80% and is only doing the tapering charge. That would make sense when I’m on solar, too, I guess, but if that’s the case, then there’s no sense getting another panel because I wouldn’t squeeze any more juice out of it than I already am.

Do any of my experts want to give their theories on yet another mystery?