rvingman
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Re: Tankless Water Heater
Our rig had a Precision Temp RV-500 in it and we used it for years, but it did have some issues to keep it going. We now have the new RV-550, which is an amazing improvement. It is a much simpler design and has no circuit board to worry about, and doesn't have the issues we had before with the wind. We absolutely love it. I just got our rig out of storage, turned on the propane, flipped the switch and all the hot water I want (subject to supply, of course) My truck camper has the old style tank unit and I hate adding that extra 50 pounds and waiting for the warm up, excess propane use, etc. I am spoiled. Love, love, love, the Precision Temp RV-550. It will cost you a bit more than the tank style, but if our experience is typical it will last much longer and save you some money on propane etc.321Views0likes0CommentsRe: What can you do with solar?
pianotuna wrote: Hi, Please reply with what your solar system can do to enhance your RV'ing experience. Please list the number of watts, Charge controller, inverter (if any) and amp-hours of battery bank 256 watts Unisolar in a parallel/series configuration input to charge controller 33 volts. Blue Sky 3024 di 2500 watt Cobra MSW inverter 875 amp-hours of battery bank. Allows me to operate the RV as if it were connected to shore power. The only high wattage item I do not run is the air conditioner. Just curious...when I was connected to shore power back in the day, I sometimes operated the microwave for 30 minutes. My wife ran her hair drier on high for quite a spell, we never skimped on lights, ran the TV 12 hours a day, used electric heaters.....is this how you operate 'as if connected to shore power?' I am just saying that although we don't feel deprived, we sure don't operate like we were plugged into the grid....we are not NEARLY that wasteful.312Views0likes0CommentsRe: What can you do with solar?
We purchased our 5er in 2000 and had a "system" installed when it was built. It sufficed our needs (with much conservation and not much boondocking) through 6 years of fulltiming. It consisted of 4-75W panels, a Morningstar controller located about 12 feet from the batteries fed by #12 wire down to a 2000W Heart Charger/Inverter and 4-6V golf cart batteries. When we got ready to put the 5er on our summer property in Colorado two summers past, I knew we would have to somehow improve the system to provide for our needs. I found help with Handy Bob. I was planning on adding more panels and Bob convinced me that our system could be "re-engineered" and might not require extra panels. I was a little skeptical, but knew that it wouldn't hurt to improve what was there and add later, if necessary. He took our system and put jumper cable size wire (#4?) from the panels to the relocated controller by the batteries, and IT WORKS! I simplified the installation details just a little, but not much. Here is a summation and what we do. 4-75W Siemens panels (13 years old) Tristar TS-45 controller (Bob advised we didn't need MPPT since this was summer use only.) 4-Trojan T-105 batteries 13 year old Heart inverter Trimetric TM-2025 (not essential, arguably, but essential for us! Makes it sooooooo easy to manage and see what is happening.) We live from mid-May to Mid September totally off the grid in one spot. Last summer my wife worked the entire time so she had her laptop on from around 7:30 each weekday until at LEAST 6:00 and often later than that. She also had her printer on, keeping her cell phone charged etc. During that time, I used my laptop probably 3-4 hours a day. We have an older style 32" LCD, so it is not as efficient as some of the newer models, but we probably use it an average of 3-4 hours daily, mostly with a DVD and home theater system. When necessary, we use the microwave sparingly, her hair drier sparingly, run some power tools, charge my phone, run the outside little fountain for the birds (most of the day) reading lights, charge my wife's iPad, run a line to the truck camper battery occasionally to keep it charged, run the submersible pump to fill the water tanks, run the subterfuge (did I spell that right?) to spin the excess water from the clothes, the water pump. Gosh, let me sum it up and say we just live! And we don't feel deprived, even though we have to be conservative if we have a couple of cloudy days. We do have a generator for back-up and I sometimes will run it to keep it exercised, but honestly I think we could make it all summer without it, unless we had extended cloudy days. But, it is there and I use it and if I was going to run the Flowbee for my haircut for very long, I would fire it up because it is smarter. As a side note, the directional orientation of our rig is not optimum for sun, as our tilted panels can't be oriented to the south, but again, we get away with it because it is SUMMER. I tried to make this shorter and should have just said read my blog. But, hopefully this gives you a good picture. Since the price of panels has come down, I am thinking about adding a panel, just for grins, but I won't HAVE to. And, if you are a solar enthusiast get a solar Sun Oven! We love ours!334Views0likes0CommentsRe: Portable clothes washer?
I am thinking about getting one of these, also, for our summer boondocking. We have been using the hand crank Wonder Wash for a couple of summers and it is ok, but I find it laborious. Since we boondock the entire summer, I liked the idea of not having to use power to wash the clothes. My experiments with larger items like queen bed sheets didn't work so well, but it did fine for underwear socks etc. I would like to learn more more about this Panda, since it seems to get the best reviews in an economy model. Does anyone know how much water it uses? I think rinsing might be more of a challenge, since with the Wonder Wash, I can refill with clean water and do a rinse cycle. We waste very little water, so that part is important. Also, if anyone has tested the power consumption, I would be interested to know that. If it uses very many amps for very long, then it might tax my solar system, a bit. To the original poster, I really, really like the Laundry Alternative countertop spin dryer and can't imagine using this system without it.688Views0likes0Comments
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