A small update

After a few weeks of working in thousand degree workshop over at Line-X of Plano, the beast got a facelift.

Maybe because of the time spent in New Mexico, but I decided to go for a Desert Tan color. This is the spray on truck bed-liner by Line-X. I'm hoping this will accomplish a few things. Namely: to be cooler in the sun, waterproof the roof for a long time, make the whole vehicle scratch resistant and easy to clean, and finally to add a bit of insulation to the entire vehicle. Oh, and also to blend into the sand dunes and deserts of the U.S.

In the next few days I'll be redoing the solar on top as well, building new railing systems and rewiring some of it. Trying to put as few as possible new holes in my roof covering with the new configuration.

All for now!  Thoughts?

Catching Up after a Blogging Hiatus

After our trip to Padre in December, we decided to make another attempt at it this April. Again we had the beach all to ourselves, though the sand was littered with a lot of branches and refuse that had washed down from the Brazos and into the Gulf.

It amazes me how empty the beaches there are and how peaceful it is. At least until the mornings, when everything is literally dripping wet from the humidity. We managed I believe 3 nights there on the beach before a major storm woke us up early in the morning with some 40-50mph gusts that were blowing over the pet fence. So I ran out there in shorts and t-shirt trying to wrangle all the gear back onto the truck, before the combination of wind, hail, cold and rain forced me back inside to put on some jeans and my fleece jacket to continue the fight. After about 2 hours of fighting the weather I had everything loaded back onto the Beast (normally takes me about 30 minutes tops in good weather.) Of course about 10 minutes later the whole storm vanished, and it was sunny and peaceful again. By that time we were already driving off the beach and I was ready to keep on going. After a quick stop to the Padre National Seashore Visitor center parking lot to figure out a new destination, and to take a hot shower and put on some dry clothes we decided to make the journey to Big Bend National Park. Even after a very sleepless night, I managed to put about 450 miles of the 600 mile trip behind me, stopping near Ft. Stockton for the night, assuming we only had about 120 miles to go in the morning.

Anyone who has been there knows that I was a dummy for assuming that the GPS destination was our final destination. After arriving at the Park, it was another 2.5 hours of navigating the mountain roads and various Visitor Centers along the way to find a campground. We also had about a 30 minute stop along the way after we saw a Prius about 6 inches from about a 200 foot cliff. I offered my very amateur assistance to use my winch to yank the unfortunate lady's car back onto the road, but she opted to wait for a tow truck. Probably the wise decision. No pictures were taken of the lady's misfortune. Found it odd that with about 6 other 4x4 trucks that had stopped, including the park ranger, that I was the only one with a winch on my RV.

We spent about 4 nights there, and didn't see much until the day we left, when we hit a few trails, taking turns in the vehicle. Though the park allows pets, there are strict rules about them. Cannot take them on trails, cannot leave them unattended, and basically can't do anything except sit in the camp with them. Course this all became apparent after making the 700ish mile journey. So let that be a warning to all pet owners.
We did have nice views from the campsite though:

And had a visit from a herd of Javolina and a pair of Great Horned Owls to keep us entertained.

On the way out of the camp we stopped into the Santa Elena Canyon. Interesting enough, I didn't see anyone crossing the border from Mexico here. (Mexico is on the left of the Rio Grande)

We then started the long journey back toward Snook with a one night and day stay at the Caverns of Sonora. My photos cannot do it justice, but I guarantee that it's worth the stop. Also the gift shop wasn't overpriced like most are, very reasonable prices and lots of neat stuff. I believe it is about 200 miles west of San Antonio.

After another full day of travel we arrived in Snook Texas to spend some time with family and recover from our travels. Then back onward to Plano, after what was a 10 or 11 day 2000 mile trip around Texas, where we stayed for a couple weeks to take care of a few things and spend Mother's day with the family. That catches us up to mid May... to be continued.

Life's a Beach, Padre.

A few additions to the Beast..

Most importantly of all: I finally have an inverter installed. This baby came straight from the hard working folks in China, unfortunately all American versions were well outta my price range. For the low price of $299.00 and free shipping, we now have power in the RV for all of our 120 V appliances and powered by our battery bank that powers the a/c.

2500 Pure Sine wave inverter, just roughed in and testing.

To connect this inverter directly into my power, I had to fashion what is called a murder cable, basically an extension cord with 2 Male plugs on it, so you just plug it directly into a power outlet. This in turn powers all of the outlets and appliances on the same pole in the circuit box. We are setup with 2 poles, so I created 2 cords that plug into 2 different outlets, and hence power my entire RV.  I tested it and it handles the load of the Washer/Dryer, Microwave, the wife's hairdryer(which takes more power than anything else), and the all important Keurig.

Murder Cables fashioned by me

Also, the way my RV is wired, the 12 V charger plugs into one of the 120 volt outlets, so when I have my inverter powered on I am also providing power for all of the 12V circuits in the rig as well (this is all of the lights, pumps, stairs, and a few other things I'm surely forgetting.)

So, the inverter was really the last piece we needed in order to Boondock and be off the grid completely. I no longer need a power cord when visiting my cousins house to prevent my 12 V batteries from draining. The Solar now keeps everything charged either directly to my 48 V bank of batteries or indirectly thru the inverter, to the charger to my 12v systems.

Okay..If you are still awake after the boring electric stuff, onward to our first Boondock trip: Padre National Seashore!

It's about a 450 mile drive directly from Plano Texas to Padre, but we broke it up into 2 days and stopped at my favorite halfway point, Snook Texas. From there we finished off the remaining 250 miles the next day to Padre. At the entrance gate I went ahead and purchased my Annual National Parks Pass for 80 dollars, which will let me into all the National Parks in the country for a year for "Free". After that I pulled into the visitor center to see what the 'grocery' section had as far as necessities, picked up a couple 6 packs of Coors Light and drove to South Beach. We drove down about 5 miles, passing just a few campers and continued maybe a quarter of a mile past the sign that warns only 4x4 vehicles recommended.

This is our site, no one within miles of us either way.

View to the left

View to the right

Our camp and fence setup

View from the front door

From the dunes(Only point to get a bar or 2 of EDGE network)

Sunrise the 2nd Day

The Neighborhood watch

The 2nd night a cold front blew in FAST, and we relocated off of our beach as the Tide was coming up fast.

After a little scouting the next day I found the RV/Campgrounds. It was still primitive, just gravel parking lots with a bench, but it had grass and some protection from the winds that came constantly off the coast. Plus we enjoyed meeting many of the full timers that were enjoying the Beach. The beach was maybe 100 Yards directly in front of us, easy to access via the handicap access pier/boardwalk thing. For 8 bucks a night, it was worth the piece of mind of not waking up buried under sand. Plus some grass for the dogs to utilize(though it had a million burrs).

Our new site

The experienced folks did start getting me pretty scared by the 4th day, as we had not prepped the Beast for the hardships a beach can do to a rig. Specifically they recommended an uncoat sprayed on before coming to help stop some of the rust. Having never lived in the north where they salt the roads, this was new to me and had me a bit worried. My new grill after 1 day the screws were already rusted, who knows what was going on under my rig.

Enough for now, on that note I'll give you guys the birds. Please keep in mind with the sun out in full force I could no see any of these pictures on my phone as I took them, I just pointed and shot blindly.

Bamboozled

A quick sneak peak at what we've been up to with the Beast.

Ripped out the carpet and foam.

Built my own saw table

My table allowed me to slide boards in and out and remain secure,
so I could use the circular saw with good precision.

Roughed in flooring, still needs glue and trim.

Dinette area. Wire still needs managing.

Snook, Solitude, and Solar

So this last week I took the Beast down to Snook, Texas to do the Solar work at my Uncle's farm. Since he was away on vacation, it was pretty much The Beast, some donkeys, a dog named Fritz, and myself.

First things first, I needed water. I didn't feel like driving the 200 miles with the extra 800 lbs of aqua in my tank.

Filling the 100 gallon tank up water

The front yard.

Since this was taking forever, I took some pictures of where I would be doing my working and sleeping the next few days.

Pretty sure I'm the first one to ever sleep in the workshop

Nestled in among the tractors and tools

Had to unfurl this mighty satellite one more time before removing it to make room.  As well as the HD antenna behind it and the fan vent to the back right.

Over the next few days, my cousin Jason and I got to work on the solar install. We managed to get most of the panels installed before the weekend hit and he had to run off to some fairs and such showing some old tractors. But we did finish the seven hardest to place ones, leaving just a few for me to finish.

First 4 panels on front glued and screwed on

Framework for 2 of the panels in the back right

I took to the road back to Plano Texas early Saturday morning and subjected the build to a 80 mph wind test on I-45. Happy to report that none of the panels blew off! I stopped and checked at a couple rest areas along the way to make sure nothing was amiss as well.

This Sunday I completed the Solar install, building a platform for one panel in which the cords all connect and go down into the electronics cabinet below. I also hooked up five of the panels to test out the supply to the batteries. They were putting in about 5 amps at 95+ volts.  Once I connect the second set, it should be up to about 10 amps. I may have to juggle this around a bit to optimize my amps to the batteries.
The OCD among you might want to just ignore the panel in the lower left...there was just no other way.

Late today some MC4 connectors I had ordered arrived which allowed me to create the cables I needed to connect the 2nd set of five panels. Unfortunately the sun had gone down so I had no way of testing if they were working as I planned or not. I have to wait until tomorrow. Once the test is complete I'll do the wire management and secure some of the hanging wires.

In other news, the interior of the RV got a bit of an upgrade. The uncomfortable leather got replaced, though we did save the old covers. Here's the transformation:

Fancy Electronic Do-Dads

My heartfelt apologies to those of you who don't enjoy all the technical mumbo-jumbo, but I need to get this stuff documented for my own good.

Yesterday I took about 3 hours to wire in some additional features to my new power station of 8 batteries. One is a disconnect switch which can be turned off/on to allow current to and from the batteries.  Handy if I'm storing it for a while or if I just need to disconnect power going to the batteries.  This will be helpful when I have the solar wired in as it will allow me to disconnect the power from the batteries and confirm that the new Kingtec air conditioner is running purely on Solar Power.

The other thing I wired into the mix was something much, much, more useful. That thing is the amazing Trimetric battery system monitor by Bogart Engineering. This is such a useful item, as it's wired into the system via a Shunt(pictured below), which will allow you to monitor how many amps the system is draining, how many amps are going to the battery when charging, and how many amps you have left (i.e. how much juice you have left in the batteries.) A few years ago I had actually bought one and was planning on putting into my last RV, The Chinook. I just never quite got around to doing the upgrades I wanted to that rig before switching to the Beast. Anyhow, so I have an older unit, though still new: mine is the Trimetric TM-2025RV. I actually got lucky that I had bought the higher end model years ago, as this particular model allows you to monitor up to a 48 volt battery systems instead of the standard 12 volt which is prevalent in most RVs.

I just have the Disconnect switch and Trimetric roughed in for now, they simply need to be screwed in place somewhere. The Disconnect Switch I have a home for right next to the Shunt picture below you will see the hole next to it. The Trimetric I believe I'll be placing inside the rack with all of the electronic equipment(dvd player, stereo, etc.)

Here's some exciting photos of the above items!

Disconnect Switch roughed in.

Blurry Picture of where the switch will be.  This is under the bench in the dinette, because of the overhanging wood it would be impossible to accidentally switch it on or off. Also it has to be depressed and turned at the same time.

The 500 Amp shunt mounted and sending valuable information to the Trimetric.

The Trimetric in action!

This is the Trimetric showing 51.8 Volts. When the batteries were brand new, they were sitting at 52 Volts. So I've lost .2 Volts over the last month while they sat waiting for me to work on them and also they got drained a little when I ran the A/C for a good 10 minutes on just the batteries. I have yet to recharge them, that's where the Solar comes into play very soon!  Also on the to-do list is some serious wire management.

Solar Preparations

With the temperatures cooperating for the first time in 6 months, I crawled on top of the Beast with 10 sheets of Styrofoam that are cut very close to the sizes of the 10 solar panels I bought.  They were also conveniently in the solar panel boxes sent to cushion them for shipping.

Until now I only had a rough idea of where I was putting the 10 panels, I was pretty sure there was space, I just wasn't sure what all would be on the chopping block to make room for them.

So I have my before picture of the very cluttered roof:

Cluttered Dirty Rooftop

After placing my solar mock-ups around, I ended up with this series of looks..

7 Panels, bye bye to the HD Antenna and the wind cover for the fan.

As I suspected, the Solar Dish is a goner. Middle 2 panels.

Final Panel in the back corner.