Like the driver-side truck camper tie-down that I replaced last year, the passenger-side tie-down seems to be pulling out of the frame of the truck camper. Time to replace it:
First I cut away the fiberglass skin:
Yeah, that’s not good:
I capped the rotted wood above the aluminum frame rail with aluminum L-channel, added a second L-channel on the outside, and replaced the eye bolt:
Finishing up:
It’s much more solid now.
This is a true-color photo of smoke from the Canadian wildfires:
I mounted the compressor of the mini-split air conditioner (900BTU of cooling, 23 SEER2 efficiency rating) on the rear of the truck camper, which required removing the ladder. Not a problem, since the roof is covered in solar:
I mounted the air handler:
I then had to drill a hole behind the air handler to the outside of the truck camper for the drain line and coolant lines, and ran the coolant lines up to the roof and back down to the compressor. My neighbor happens to have an HVAC installation company, so he pressure tested my lines, then vacuumed them out so the coolant in the compressor could be released into the lines.
This air conditioner is amazing! Instead of “all on / all off”, the compressor uses a variable amount of power to provide a constant level of cooling based on the thermostat setpoint. Power consumption seems to range from 900 watts down to about 100 watts.
I can now park anywhere and have A/C and broadband Internet without any hookups! This is a real game-changer, as it allows me to visit and stay in locations that would be too hot otherwise.
I’m attending graduation today in Midtown Manhattan, so I decided to visit the last two NYC unvisited NPS sites. I took the bus to Midtown, just a couple blocks from Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site:
The visitor center wasn’t open, so after a couple minutes I made my way to the subway:
At the southern tip of Manhattan is the ferry to Governors Island National Monument:
View from the ferry towards the nearby Governor’s Island:
Landing:
View of NYC from the island:
Ellis Island in the distance:
Lady Liberty in the distance:
Back to Manhattan:
Congratulations to my graduating students!
The goal for summer of 2023 is to get off-grid (solar) air conditioning working. This is the last step to having a completely off-grid RV.
The first steps are to increase solar absorption and battery capacity.
Since we haven’t used the big RV in a number of years, I decided to harvest from it the solar panels and solar charge controller.
I laid out the solar panels from the big RV (left), the truck camper solar panels (center), and the seven new panels I purchased. The Starlink dish will be mounted to a wood panel in the empty spot:
The panels will completely cover the roof, so the existing power-hungry and noisy rooftop A/C unit needs to be removed:
Hello down there!
I installed a powered roof vent to plug the hole:
Let’s get mounting panels:
As I approached the rear of the roof, I realized that the Starlink would be easier to work on if it is mounted not surrounded on both sides by panels, so I switched the middle and right rows:
All panels installed, Starlink installed:
Taking voltage and current limits into account, I put the 4 big-RV panels on the big-RV’s Morningstar controller (left). The 4 original truck camper panels and 7 new panels are electrically identical, so I wired 8 of them in a 2P4S configuration and attached them to the truck camper’s Renogy controller. The 3 remaining panels are attached to the new Rich Solar controller:
More battery is always better, so I ordered 4 more LiFePO4 cells and a new BMS. Combined with the original cells, I now have a 24V, 304AH (7.3kWh) battery. Fits nicely in a milk crate!
Testing the new battery, using the new 24V inverter to run a space heater:
All that’s left is to install the new air conditioner!
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