MERRY CHRISTMAS !

                      ..........Hohoho

 

Next Project, Please....Oh Wait...

Though the next project is already waiting, the battery odyssey gets another volume to it, and most likely, you're not going to believe it.

With all new batteries in place, we enjoyed an evening in our cozy home on wheels when suddenly, around 9pm, all lights went out. I mean honestly, how can all our 12V lights die just like that?

I grabbed a pocket light and went out to check on the new Lithium battery which is supposed to provide us with tons of energy. My multimeter then showed 10.3V which meant that the BMS (battery Management System) had shut down to protect the battery from further discharge. The thing had shown 14V when installed and had, within 5-6hrs, lost all workable voltage. That sure wasn't right! 

In order to restore our lights, I quickly connected the start batteries with our house wiring, which provided enough power beyond the morning. The lithium was then recharged and reached 13.2V the next day. Next evening rolled around and nothing happened. Next morning, it was 5am, I woke up and couldn't see the red stand-by light from the TV. I got wide awake and walked to the front, trying a light switch, but nothing. Battery was dead again. For the second time, I had to connect to the start batteries. Now I am really upset - call me furious if you like.

I removed the Lithium and re-installed the 4 lead-acid batteries. They are still taking some charge.

Since the lithium was purchased via Amazon, I contacted customer service. They promised to take care of the thing.

I took a deep breath and started thinking of my next project. Our metal roof has loosened in two place from the drivers side sidewall. The roof material is standing out to the side and needs to get refastened. The main challenge is exerting enough power to the metal to press it back into place, then use screws into the wall. An examination turned out that the factory had secured the metal with rivets. Absolutely not a good idea, as the rivets had been sitting in fiberglass and had moved out from the holes.

My carpenter-style solution for getting the metal back to the sidewall is visible in the next pictures. 

Using the top edges of our slide-outs as a hold, I brought a 2x4x12 into place resting on our 2 slide-outs. That 2x4 will be the threshold for shorter pieces wedged between the 2x4 and the sidewall. Thus I was able to get enough strength for bending the roof metal back in place. 

An entirely different thing was to get the necessary stainless steel screws. ACE in Holtville did offer me 9 screws, (needing 60), a place in El Centro promised to order them for the next day. I will be happy if I have them after Christmas though.

This is a continuing saga, so check back later!

This Could Have Ended In Total Disaster

Only a few more days and it's CHRISTMAS! 

But before we can sit down with our friends and fellow campers, I had to take on "The Battery Project".

We had long since noticed that our start batteries were getting weak and so did our house batteries. After long considerations back and forth, I ordered 1 300amp Lithium Iron Phosphate battery and 2 AGM 95amp start batteries. Even though they were ordered from 2 different sources, they arrived together yesterday on a FEDEX truck. Stuff we order is usually dropped off at the host station from where we can pick it up.

The 3 cardboard boxes were pretty heavy, though the Lithium battery is actually much lighter than our four 6V flooded acid batteries.

First order of the day was to remove our old batteries. Beginning with the start batteries (also called Chassis batteries) I removed the connectors and wires. Being also AGMs they were heavy enough to lift out of the compartment. The first one still looked OK, except the usual dirt and dust. Hauling out the second I found this:

Obviously, the battery had exploded and one side being ripped open. Looking inside, everything was blackened with signs of a previous fire. I hadn't been able to see that while the battery was still in this tight compartment, but wondered how we had been able to even start the bus when we went dumping. The cause of this battery failure is most likely an overcharge with ongoing excessive heat developing. Never before had I seen such a battery damage. Because of the weakness of the battery pack I had used our external charger with 40amps, which probably had been too much.

Anyway, I was glad that I now had 2 new AGMs to put in their place.

Next was the Lithium battery, which was easy to put in place, as it takes less space than the previous 6V Trojans. The Lithium got connected to our solar charge controller.

New batteries in place

I had been working for hours in the hot sun and got pretty exhausted in the late afternoon, and it was finally time to rest into the evening hours.

After dark we sat inside when suddenly all lights died. What in the world had happened now?

With a light in my hand I went outside and connected my multimeter to the Lithium. To my big surprise it showed only 10.3V. I knew that Lithium batteries shut down when reaching 10.5V but how could this battery have lost so much power? It had shown around 13.3V when installed.

The only reason I can think of is that it wasn't fully charged at 14.4V and that I had been running our inverter from it. And outside we have some Christmas lights. The only help for the moment was to move the inverter connection to the start batteries, which I did. It worked through the evening and the night until this morning.

With the sunrise I looked at my solar charger, but it was dead. The solar charger needs power from the battery to function. Without power it cannot start utilizing the power from the sun. Only way to start charging that Lithium was with an external charger from f.ex our generator. However our mobile charger is old and cannot be used for Lithium batteries. So the need was to get a lithium charger from town. Luckily, I found a little one at Auto Zone in Holtville.

After "waking up" the Lithium I could finally use the solar charger for the rest of the day. But I also learned that it can take up to a full day to fully charge a 300amp Lithium battery. Because daylight hours close to Christmas are short, I have to continue the charging process tomorrow.

The "Battery Project" proved to be time consuming, but at the end of the day, I am happy we didn't have a fire destroying our motorhome. The right thing to do, of course, is replacing batteries in time, after noticing they won't keep the power after use. Too much charge and they can blow up.

And while we are talking about fire danger another warning:

Our neighbour had actually flames licking up the side of his Class A, because his BBQ had been placed too close to the wall and being left unattended for a short time igniting the paint on his rig. Luckily he had a water sprayer handy and could douse the beginning fire. It can happen, folks, we all can make mistakes.

Wishy Washy Window Clean

I have to admit, we are tending to be lazy on those sunny California days. And surprisingly, the day temps are climbing into the 80F-range (28-29C). Most years, while approaching Christmas, the temps stayed significantly lower. So today we crept up into the shade behind the motorhome, and pretty soon our next-door neighbours came over for a chat as well. Always nice to have a social get-together.

But before settling down in the shade, I took on a little project which had been on my mind for days. I really hate it when windows are dirty and our big windshield was plastered with dead insects and road dirt.  I had borrowed a long stand-up ladder from one of our neighbours and with the ladder at hand, there really wasn't any excuse for not cleaning those windows. With soapy water I went about it scrubbing off those smashed insects. It was a much bigger job than anticipated. I'm always having problems getting windshields really clean without leaving greyish streaks across the glass. After I thought I was done, Bea took out some wondrous stuff from her cleaning supplies and went all over it again ---- of course she got more dark stuff off it. 

 

So for our next move to the dumping station in Holtville I have the luxury of a gleaming squeaky clean windshield.

When we went to COSTCO on Tuesday, we had bought one of their signature rotisserie chickens at $4.99.

I had put that chicken on our smoker BBQ to give it more taste and also to make sure it really is fully cooked. Some times those COSTCO chickens are not fully cooked. We now have gotten three meals out of it, plus a nice chicken salad. Can't complain about the pricing.

Some time next week we will go to Yuma for some errands and seeing friends.

The Day With A Few Excitements In Store

It really was a normal peaceful morning, the sky so blue and the sun so bright like she would break a personal record. It was also unusual warm.

After doing some research on the internet, it was time to do some serious shopping in El Centro.

Bea wanted to put some Christmas greetings in the mail first, before we went on to COSTCO, Walmart and the local TSC store. And a 5gal empty container was to be filled with drinking water.

Arriving COSTCO first we got into the maelstrom of cars needing a parking spot. The traffic was overwhelming. Yeah, I know it's called the Crazy Christmas Shopping.

We are usually not buying those mega packs of food at COSTCO, simply because we have no freezer and we are only two people. So while 10lbs meat packages might be tempting, we cannot handle it in our rig, A 3.5lbs pack of good looking sausages would be great for a family of four or six, but we don't want to eat sausages 4 days in a row.

Walmart was next. I had to return a box of Walmart coffee, for its totally bad taste. While I have used that brand for years, this time it tasted like a chemical cocktail. Geez...what happened? But Walmart is good for refunding your money, you just have to complain.

Dixie needed a refill of her favorite dogfood, which is lamb and rice. Anything else, especially containing chicken byproduct she throws up again. We think she is allergic to it. Btw. that would have turned out to be a big problem in Mexico as all the dogfood there contains "Pollo" (chicken)

So finally we had done enough errands and it was time to get home. 

After Bea unlocked the rig, I started looking for my key. It wasn't in my pockets and it wasn't in the car.

P A N I C 

Did I really lose it? We keep spares of all keys in the coach plus that Bea has her own for the entry door.

While I was walking over the distance from the rig to the car looking at the ground for my keys, I stopped by our smoker/BBQ. Like in a trance I opened the lit of it and I was looking at my full set of keys!!! And then - suddenly - it hit me. I had placed the keys there for a good reason. Because we left Dixie in the bus and we seemed to reach higher temps today, I wanted one of our neighbours be able to let Dixie out, in case we would be delayed. But of course all that great thinking had gone where things tend to go these days.... Forgetfulness is not so great.

A little later I climbed up the rear ladder to check on something on the roof, but was met with a small swarm of honeybees seemingly busy with establishing a colony on our roof. I got down that ladder at a record speed!

First action was to call a pest control company. They had nobody available for the moment or even for tomorrow.

We discussed the problem with our neighbours and received good ideas about how to get those bees off of that roof.

In the end we decided to wait until after sunset. With the temperature going down fast the bees might decide to go home. And that was exactly what happened. A check on the roof confirmed that all bees had left again. Maybe they were just having a rest. Busy bees might need that once in a while.

However, we will make sure that their resting place will be sprayed with some nasty stuff tomorrow as we didn't enjoy being host for a couple of thousand bees.

Hey Christmas Is Right Around The Corner

 I still remember Cardboard-Christmas last year. I had so much cardboard from the delivery of the solar panels that I cut out two cardboard Christmas trees, and as long as it was dark it looked nice with the lights on. However, this year there is no cardboard. Instead we have lots of plant material to craft a Christmas tree from.

And when an idea grows in my head, I can't wait to make it into reality. Along the irrigation canal we have a sort of bamboo-like growth which, put together the right way, would make a great skeleton for a tree. And then we have lots of creosote bushes around.

Out of that raw material, and by using a hot glue gun, I made our indoor Christmas tree. I had just purchased some mini-light chain which I got wrapped around our mini-tree. And then it was all ready to be placed in front of our windshield.

This morning we did a long walk of nearly 3 miles (almost a record for Dixie). Went all the way to the end of the BLM property where a huge solar power field has been built over the previous 3 years. It is an amazing facility.

 

These palm leaves are easily 3-4ft in diameter

Desert Days

 A few postings back I wrote that every day is special. But not every special day I write a new posting.

But here is about our days in the desert.

A little bit of Christmas in our rig

We are not the only ones who know this area very well, Dixie does too.

One of the first days we spent here, we started on our morning walk, just following the road north out of camp. Dixie was ahead of us when she suddenly turned right into the desert, then stopped, looking back at us. 

Our outdoor lights

With the flower stands from last spring it is waiting for a new season of growth

Of course!! 

We used to walk there last winter and she remembered. We were stunned, could this really be true? We followed her and she led us right along the same direction we had walked last winter. Another example of her excellent memory happened right after our arrival. While our site from last year was occupied, we decided to park on the opposite side of the road. But obviously Dixie had a different idea, as she was heading to the left where another motorhome was now parked at our previous site.

Dixie keeps amazing us time after time again. She also found her old hole she had dug in the ground under a shrub last winter.

Returning to the Hot Springs means also meeting friends again. So yes, we currently enjoy the company of 2 other couples we camped together with last winter.

We have gone grocery shopping twice now. Today we did another assault on ALDI's goodies. When we go shopping, we have Dixie wait inside the motorhome. It is just too hot for her waiting in the car when we go into the stores.

It had become necessary with a visit to a laundromat. Luckily, we have a nice clean one right here in the town of Holtville, just 8 miles away. When Bea got back I rigged up a cloth line to dry our clothes. With full sunshine and a gentle breeze most of it was dry after one hour only.

Big-Dog Meeting

This morning we got a sudden visitor. Down from the dune behind our rig came Seamus the Scottish Deer Hound. Seamus is really friendly with everyone. Meeting Dixie, he wanted to play with her, but Dixie didn't want to have it, though she stayed friendly with this gentle giant.

Also had a nice chat with Seamus' owner Kathy.

While the days are still getting shorter, our nights are currently rather bright. The full "Cold Moon" has turned our nights into a beautiful silvery nightscape.

We love a full moon and have seen it so many places. I remember the very cold winter nights in the mountains of Norway where the silver light got even brighter as it was amplified by the snow. We have waited for the full moon rise over the Bay of Fundy on the beach of Campobello Island, and it is spectacular to watch over a desert landscape as well. 

The many different experiences of what nature offers us is truly one of the wonders of this world.