From Solar to the Revolution

Greg showed up this morning to teach me all I need to know about my own personal solar system and run through everything to make sure it all works. Ha. Generator didn't work. Turned out that some of the wiring done yesterday (not by Greg) needed to be rerouted. So...Generator works. Batteries are charged. All systems are go. And I know a lot about solar. Well, I know that if it snows, I need to get on the roof and brush the snow off. I learned where the on-off switch and the circuit breaker switch is. The most important thing I learned is that beyond cleaning off the panels every now and then, there is zero maintenance. I actually did learn more about wiring and other things, but I don't know how long that stuff will be retained.

Greg and Craig also did some maintenance and had suggestions on some of the things that I've asked Hilltop Trailers to take care of and haven't gotten much satisfaction from them. One of the things I'm excited about is that I know how to change my generator oil and filter. Evidently I'm easily amused. It will be something fun to try to do when I get back to Minnesota.

I finally got to be a tourist today. Valley Forge is about a half hour away and I decided I would go revisit it. Last time I was there, I was in second grade and I really don't remember much about it. I won't go into the history of Valley Forge – we all learned about it in school, how it was the turning point of the Revolutionary War. Ok, one fact that I found interesting, which I never thought about was why Valley Forge was called Valley Forge. It was because there was an Iron Forge in this particular valley. Don't know why it never occurred to me. Duh...

Of course guess what today is? It is World Family Day. This means that there are busloads and busloads of families descending on Valley Forge. Once you get past the horror of all of the crowds, there were some very interesting events happening. There was musket firing, there were demos on how to build the enlisted men's' quarters. Lots of people wandering around in period costume. I watched the movie in the theater and then took the ten mile drive around the Encampment Trail.

Enlisted Men Quarters

Inside the Enlisted Men Quarters - damp and dank - lots of disease wandering around back in 1777-1778

Dedicated in 1917 - the National Memorial Arch honors the soldiers perseverance

General Wade statute - commanded Pennsylvania troops

General Washington's Headquarters - they said that about 25 people lived here - it is a really small house for 25 people

It was an entertaining way to spend the afternoon. I did buy one thing that was rather special. C-Span used to have a show on that was called First Ladies. Each week they talked about one specific first lady. I've always had a soft spot for the First Ladies – you never hear about them, but I think an awful lot of them were very important to our country. I really liked watching this show. I found the companion book for the show. I'm excited that I can spend time with my First Ladies.

 

 

Living Off The Grid

I had a big drive today – maybe thirty minutes. Love it. This area of Pennsylvania is lovely, rolling hills, every time you turn a corner there is a house that you know was built hundreds of years ago. It seems that the roads are following the old trails also – fairly narrow, no shoulders. Speed limit was 45, I felt sorry for the people behind me, I was only going thirty because a) it was all the faster I could handle and b) it was all the faster I could handle. There was no place to turn off to let them pass so at least they got to go slow and smell the roses.

I'm at Brandywine Creek Campground. Lots of seasonal people here but I happened to get a prime spot. I am overlooking the creek and happen to be right at a section where there are some mini rapids so I get the sound of the babbling brook as I sit in my site.

 

This campground has all these cardboard dogs scattered around the property.  They have gold tags that say Goose Patrol
 

The main reason I'm here in this area is that I am going to get solar put on my rig. I'm super excited about it. It means that I can go anywhere and not have to worry about having electricity to hook up to. I can go to Camp Wally or out in the boondocks and still run my microwave, have lights and watch TV if I do desire.

The premier RV Solar company is a place called AM Solar in Oregon. Putting solar on an RV is a little different than putting solar on a house – and AM Solar specializes in RVs. The guy I'm having do my solar is Greg Young at RV Solar Solutions. He was trained by AM Solar and is recommended by them. He lives full time in his RV and travels around the country doing installs. I tried to get an appointment with him when he was in Illinois but he didn't have any appointments available. He did have one appointment available in Ohio but the timing did not work out for me. So the next place was Pennsylvania where he only had two openings. So I guess I've chased him around the country. I'm happy that I got to snag one of them. The whole process is supposed to take two and a half days. Two days to install, half a day to educate me how on all the ins and out of the system. I'm nervous about this because this installation involves drilling holes in my RV. It hurts to think of that part of it. My pretty little RV.

Tech Info for those who care – feel free to skip over this paragraph if your eyes are glazing over.
4 160 watt solar panels
3024i MPPT Charge Controller, IPN Pro Remote meter, shunt kit for IPN Pro remote meter, temperature comensation sendor, wiring harness
4 Lifeline AGM Batteries 6V 220 AMH

Greg and his friend Craig spent most of yesterday doing the install while I spent most of the day in a lawn chair overseeing their work. Fun guys and very efficient. By the end of the day, they had the install completed. Greg did not want to turn the system on because it was the end of the day and if something went wrong, he would have to hang out and fix it. Craig evidently did not hear Greg say that and turned everything on. They call it a smoke test – the first test is to make sure that everything is hooked up correctly and is not going to blow up, cause fires, hence the smoke test name. I must say, they were pretty much kidding about smoke test – but in the end, it seems everything went well. They turned it off and everybody went their separate ways for a couple of hours, Miko and I wandered over to their place to hang out at their campfire with Craig's wife Jo and Greg's dog Hobie. Their drink of choice was Red Bull and vodka. I had never heard of that combination before. Evidently, it keeps you awake as you get buzzed.

Miko and Hobie

 

 

Yesterday, Greg said - “I can't believe how easy this install is going” What a terrible thing to say because when they showed up today to finish up, of course there were problems. You just don't say things like that before a job is finished – it causes the Jinx Gods to get all riled up. They decided that they were going to upgrade a charger that I had and they went under the bed where all the wiring for the coach are. What they found was a total mess. I worry about our future when basic workmanship is so underrated. They spent most of the day changing some of the wiring around and keeping me calm which in itself is a full time job. I am pretty impressed so far with these guys. There is no problem with the solar install and with the solar charging my batteries. The problem is coming from the batteries into the coach. I swear the electricity in my couch was done in the factory early on a Monday morning after the electrician had a very hard weekend.

 

Getting Started

Nice Day to Be working outside



The guts of the system

One of the ongoing problems I've had with my rig is that the CO2 indicator keeps going off.  I thought it was going off because of low battery.  It seems that it might not be going off because of low battery but it might be actually alerting me to a CO2 or a LP problem.  Greg went out and bought me a portable CO2 detector and we will see if that goes off also.  It might just be a wiring problem though like everything else in this rig.  At least it gives me something to think about.

 

Hopefully everything is working out.  Tomorrow is education day