Battery, the continuing saga of

The new converter is on its way.  I'm continuing to have conversations on line about my battery experience, and one person yesterday rather emphatically asserted that my battery is fried.  Or toast.  Or words to that effect.  I haven't thought so:  I charged it up a little while back, took it to AutoZone, and their little machine said "Good Battery."

But heck, I've got time.  So I brought the battery home last night and put it on my charger overnight.  Yes, it takes that long.

And this morning, damned if the charger wasn't flashing an error code indicating that my battery has an open cell.  Might be "sulfated."   Say what?

So now in the early morning I'm researching batteries.  Deep cycle marine batteries.  Did you know you can lay out more than $350 for one of those suckers? The real price jump seems to come with the "maintenance free" batteries.  Sealed: never have to check the water level.  Seriously, folks, when was the last time you checked the water in your battery?  I just did, this minute, wondering if I'd missed an obvious cause of my problem.  But no, the plates all seem happily covered in a rather murky-looking fluid.

And Oh, Lordy!  Turns out there's a whole category of products which offer to prevent or reverse the dreaded sulfation.  Check this out.

My battery was replaced about 3 years ago.  My mechanic tells me that's about what to expect from a battery in this climate, regardless of how much I spend.  So maybe I'll start with a clean slate.  New converter, new battery.  Unless there's some subtle issue with the wiring from Point A to Point B, that should cover the bases. Right?

A more or less ordinary deep-cycle battery will run me about a hundred bucks.  That should do it.  Should't it?

Scary stuff --

Took out the old power converter.   This is the place it came out of:

And this is the unit, bottom side up:

The vinyl flooring is discolored from heat, I assume, which is why the unit was up off the floor on the two rails.  The new unit has a different way of providing air space underneath.

Now I wait.

New insight

Figuring out how to sanitize the water system(s) has surfaced something I didn't think about when I was considering buying an RV.  

It's one thing to find a place to store it.  It's another to find a place to do maintenance and repair work.  Maybe plumbing is uniquely messy: I could probably drain clean water into the dirt of the place where it's stored.  I surely couldn't do this parked at my townhome complex. The HOA patrol would have a conniption fit.  They don't like seeing it parked there.  

Back at the storage lot,  there's no source of water to flush out the system.  

Hmmm ... 

Water sanitizing video

There's an example of how to do what I'm talking about on YouTube

Look at that RV!  Everything labelled, better fixtures than in most people' homes!

But the process is what I'm trying for.

Water sanitizing

OK, here's the current project:

I'm trying to get the drinking water tank and pipes sanitized, so I can drink water I store in there.  The previous owner didn't do this, preferring to carry bottled water.

The procedure is simple:  using a short hose, provided ...

You suck a solution of bleach and water up into the system, using the onboard water pump.

The hose is supposed to be connected to this:

It's not real clear here, but the knurled grey knob under the words "antifreeze connection" unscrews: it's a plastic, male-threaded plug, smaller than the female hose end. 

I *think* the plug is embedded in a larger plastic fitting with fins, which, if I could remove it, might reveal the male hose fitting I need to attach the hose.  

I'm putting this here in hopes my friends at rv.net can use these pictures to give me some advice.  When I try to "unscrew" the connector with fins, nothing happens.  Since the previous owner didn't do this, I suspect that the connector has seized up with time and temperature.

The new converter is due in on Tuesday.

First upgrade

Well, this should be fun.  And that should give you a notion of how warped my idea of "fun" is these days.  It's a new (well, factory-reconditioned) power converter for the Beast.  This is what takes 110V AC from the generator or external power and converts it to 12V DC for all the lights, etc.  And charges the battery.  Smaller, lighter, and smarter.

It's being shipped to me. We'll see how installation goes. If this works, I will be feeling extremely smug about figuring this out and dealing with it without paying one of the repair shops.

The Beast and social media

When I had the idea that an RV would be a way to escape Tucson summer heat, I was focussing on what using it might do for me.  It turns out that, so far, owning the thing has provided great pleasure.  It's this huge, glorious, multifaceted toy.  A bit scary at times, but even in a few short weeks I'm getting more confident in my ability to deal with what problems there are and to imagine ways to improve the Beast to make it better for me.  It's just like a house, that way.

So I've learned a lot.  The shop drawings I got from a guy on eBay were incomprehensible at first, but  now that I'm learning how to read them, they're useful and even interesting.  I'm lucky enough to have inherited manuals for all the components of the thing -- the furnace, the hot water heater, the air conditioner, the awning... The last post documents not just this but that I had to acquire an illuminated magnifying glass to read the fine print.  Sometimes all there is, is fine print!

My major focus since the shakedown cruise has been the electrical system.  More specifically, the fact that when the thing is plugged in to external power ("shore power") it wasn't charging the battery which provides 12V power to most of the appliances in the "coach."  Lights, the exhaust fan over the stove, the tv, the water pump (!), the starter motor for the generator...  And so as I used those things in one overnight camp, I simply depleted the battery.  The "Deep Cycle Marine" battery, whatever that means.

It looks like the problem is that the converter -- the unit which converts 120VAC power to 12V DC and charges the battery while doing so -- seems to be losing its mojo.  Instead of providing the 14.1 volts it should to charge the battery, the best it can muster is 7.4.  So, I seem to need a new converter.

How do I know what a converter even is?  How do I know where to get one?  How do I know what the proper voltages are?  How do I get the courage to believe I can install one myself?

The internet, of course.  We all know how important the internet is.  But this has been my wake-up call to just how crucial it is.  Google, Craigslist,  eBay, Amazon, a couple of blogs, a Yahoo group, a message board, email.  I would not have found the Beast, or know what to do about problems, or where the nearest free dump station is, or where the good  campsites are in Utah, or just which Walmarts will let you camp overnight in their parking lots while passing through.  Where the cheapest gas is wherever I am.   What services are available at the next exit, where the next rest area is, where I am and how to get where I'm going.

Amazing.  Simply amazing.  And how much I take it for granted, until I think abut it.