Hey There!
It's 7:34 AM EDT, 62°F, Humidity 73%, Wind 8 mph NE, mostly cloudy
It's gonna be a long day today. Lots of driving and a couple of errands sandwiched in between an audiologist appointment. I hope this is the last appointment for a long time.
Yesterday was a day for getting things done - sort of. After my morning routine I got right to get my stuff together to head to the camp site and do some work up there. I got everything I needed put into the Kia, which hadn't been driven for a long time, so it needed a run. I should be making more lists these days, but I think I got away without making one this time.
I drove to get some gas first, and after I had filled up the tank, the Kia began to show all the stability control lights. I pulled over, shut the car down, ate a donut, and then re-started the car. As I started to drive slowly in the lot, the lights went out. So I continued on.
About 20 miles or so later, the lights came on again. I could not discern any noticeable difference in how the car was driving, so I just kept on driving. The same thing happened on the way home, so it seems to be a pattern. I will take it in for inspection sometime next month, as it's not my primary car.
When I got to the camp site, what I wanted to do was straighten out all the solar issues. I had collected every piece of solar apparatus I had between batteries, power stations, and solar panels, and was going to find out how they all came together and which combination could do what job.
I started off at the motor home, and installed a battery that also had a small power hub connected to it. It's main feature is a small Anderson connector able to charge the battery without using a solar controller. It can't handle more than 100W of solar, but that might be fine for my use case. That got the motor home's DC appliances up and running, notably the fan and the water pump.
Next up was the power station, and here is where I messed up. All my Pecron power stations have a solar power gap. One solar input is limited to 100W, while the other solar inputs require a minimum of 32V just to activate, So there is a wide gap between the two. So I need to connect two 200W panels in series to produce the required voltage just to get the power station to start charging. Once I did that, the power station began to charge, But it was not a sunny day, so the charging was slow. But at least I now knew it worked. I should have purchased power stations without the gap, but I will have to make do with what I have, since I don't want to spend any more money.
Then I went to the cabin to see about using a battery box into which I had installed a 100Ah lithium iron phosphate battery. The box is supposed to hook up to the battery and then provide power station functions: some high-amp DC in/out ports, some 10A cigarette socket ports, and the ability to charge the battery. I thought I had it going, but I misinterpreted the solar input. Only one of the high-amp Anderson connectors is a solar charging port, not all of them. This was a dumb mistake, assuming that a solar controller was connected to each port. The internal solar controller, which controls the amount of solar energy going into the battery, is only connected to one of those ports - the 30A one - and it was the only one I didn't try. So I think the box kept shorting out the battery on me.
So I pivoted to the old standby Jackery 1000 and managed to find the proper connectors to connect the battery to a 200W solar panel outside the cabin. I believe this will work, but by this time I had done enough work, so I then packed everything up, closed the camp, and returned home to rest.
I had a Swiss cheese, ham, and turkey sandwich on sourdough bread when I got home. Then I sat on the couch to rest the muscles, tuning in to some Youtube video, especially my teardrop camper channel. The featured camper was not one I was even remotely interested in, so I ran it through at 2X and muted it. I did a little bit of shopping and research to see if anything was able to be replace or upgraded as far as power stations were concerned, and there are some options. But the upgrade path can lead to spending money I don't need to spend, so it's a crapshoot.
Dinner was a delicious meatloaf with sweet potato and a salad, although I was unable to eat the salad since I had eaten a late lunch and couldn't get through it. After dinner I did a little more shopping and research for any options out there, and I may have found a $50 option that I might go for. I shouldn't be so hesitant about spending $50.
The Thursday Night football game came on, so DW and I watched that as long as we could before succumbing to fatigue. We also kept tabs on the WPBL championship Game #2, which the LA Queens appear to have won, making it 2-0 against the SF Firebells. The Firebells will have to win three straight to take the championship, which appears to be unlikely. Bedtime was 10:55 AM.
That's it for now. 'Til We Meet Again!