Dan_East
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Re: Dometic awning end plug removal pin
dougrainer wrote: I understand what you are trying to do, but over the years I have seen various OEM awning makers different light wire designs and I can think of no good reason to do what you did to install a wire to allow the wire to roll up and down. I hope you post a pic of the final resulting install to let us understand the design of what you did. Doug I'll post a picture when it's complete. Unfortunately bad weather has come in so I put the awning back together and rolled it up. At least I now have a simple bolt to remove to access what I need to access. The problem is my LED lights are attached to the awning roller tube, which of course rotates as it rolls in and out. That means I either need to somehow run wires on the awning itself that roll up with it (which I don't want to do), or have a rotating style conductor (rotary connector). So I've designed a cheap rotary connector that I'm using, which needs to go around the shaft of the awning. Hence my need to remove the pin to have access to that 11 mm shaft. I've 3D printed plastic bushings that go between a bearing and the shaft to insulate it and also connect the wire to the bearing. The bearing conducts positive power to the lights (the awning arms / tube itself are the ground connector), so it can rotate freely with no wires to twist, require unplugging, or have to somehow attach along the awning and roll up with it.799Views0likes0CommentsRe: Dometic awning end plug removal pin
Fisherman wrote: Q. Does the pin go all the way to the other side and is visible? You may be able to tap it out with a brass punch if you can figure out a way to support the end piece, or, some tool like a ball joint remover or big wide opening "C" clamp pushing in a smaller item to push the pin out the other side. Good luck. It doesn't. I drilled it out, but I had a terrible time with it today. It took me hours to get that drilled out after breaking and dulling drill bits. In hindsight I wouldn't have bothered. If a person totally removed the end cap (drilled out the rivets) to where they could place the part in a drill press then it may be reasonable. I'm not sure why they didn't place a long bolt through it in the first place (which is what I have now - I drilled it out all the way through). I used a 5mm bolt 50 or 60 mm long.806Views0likes0CommentsDometic awning end plug removal pin
I need to remove the non-motor side end plug from a Dometic awning, in order to rig up my wiring for LED lights. I've designed a simple way to provide power to the light strip that can wind up with the awning without having to unplug each time. However I need to remove the plug and have access to the shaft to install it. The plug appears to have a pin which was driven into the shaft. Before I start drilling it out, I wanted to make sure there wasn't some trick to removing this pin. It appears to me to be a single-use type thing, and not designed for removal.2KViews0likes6CommentsRe: Norcold 442 won't cool on LP
Thanks for the suggestions. Please note that the burner tube and orifice is brand new. After putting some tape on the burner tube to keep junk from going into the slots the gas comes out, I removed the flue from the top (or is that the chimney?). There was a long wire clipped to the top, and hanging from it was the screw-shaped baffle. I pulled that up and out and it was all very clean. Just some slight surface rust is all, but no flakes. I ran a wire coathanger down the tube from the top. The only thing that came out below was a tiny bit of surface rust powder from scratching the sides. There wasn't anything in the tube to clean out. I ran the coathanger up from below, and again, there wasn't anything to come out. So at this point, considering it cools great with 110V AC, it has a new burner tube / orifice, and the chimney / flue is clean, I can only come to one of a few conclusions. 1) My gas pressure is too low, and thus the flame is not hot enough. 2) The orifice in this tube isn't the exact one called for, and it doesn't allow a large enough flame. 3) The valve in the refrigerator that turns the gas on and off isn't opening up all the way and is reducing the gas pressure. 4) There is a flame adjustment somewhere and it is adjust too low (assumption on my part there even is such an adjustment - I can't find any reference to one).318Views0likes0CommentsNorcold 442 won't cool on LP
I have an old Norcold 442 in my even older RV. Fridge works great on 110V AC. The burner tube was rusted and the flame wasn't very big, so it wouldn't cool on LP. Yesterday I finally got a replacement burner tube (they now use a flare fitting, which I like a lot better), and installed. After running on LP for 8 hours it hadn't cooled one bit. The flame looks good from what I can tell (not having seen any before to know what a good one looks like). It's blue, about an inch tall, and solid with no flickering. Last night at 4 AM it was still warm as can be in the fridge, so I switched it to 110V AC. Now, 3.5 hours later, it's very cold. The metal box on the back is noticeably hotter on electric than it was on LP. I have some theories as to what might be wrong, the simplest of which is that the flame simply isn't big enough / hot enough. The rest of my LP works fine in the camper (stove burners, hot water heater), so I presume my gas pressure is adequate. My tanks are full. I checked the service manual and did not see any way to adjust the flame - I assume the orifice controls that based on the size of the orifice? Or is there an adjustment? Any suggestions before I start troubleshooting and modifying things? If I can get a gauge I will check the pressure going into the fridge to see if it is correct. If it is then I might try slightly enlarging the orifice if the fridge doesn't have a flame adjustment.985Views0likes5CommentsRe: 12v connectors
smkettner wrote: Are you pulling power from a light fixture? That has trouble written all over it. Yes, I am. The light is designed for two incandescent bulbs which would draw upwards of 4A combined. I am now using LED panels which draw under 300 mA combined. So I have over 3A of current available (even with both lights on) without ever exceeding what the fixture would draw originally with incandescents. Plus, this 40+ year old camper uses 12 gauge wiring throughout. I bet I could pull 15 A from there if I needed (although the fuse in the bus would blow way before that). Regardless, the most I draw is 1A @ 5V for charging, which is only 5 watts, when the fixture can safely draw 48 watts (4A x 12V). I've made my electronics as efficient as I possibly can. I have 19 LED arrays in place of all incandescents, use low power mobile devices, and for fixed entertainment use a Raspberry Pi drawing 200 mA for my media player / data server.599Views0likes0Comments- 599Views0likes0Comments
Re: 12v connectors
Walmart has a 3 port cigarette adapter with a built in 5V USB port. It has a male cig plug on one end. I lopped that off and wired it in directly. It also has a blue LED in the jack box so you can see to plug into the ports at night. I went ahead and took that LED out so it wouldn't be draining my battery while boondocking (I have 2 of them in the camper). I'll try to post a pic of it later.599Views0likes0Comments
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