RandyA

Yes, I use it and constantly refer folks with questions to the site. 99.9% on a Windows 10 laptop I looked at the "static" site and could not tell the difference. Not completely sure what your meaning of "static" is in this case. I disagree that this forum has suffered from contributors turning to Facebook. One issue that I believe may have "hurt" the form is a lack of current contributions from Jack and yourself. Thankfully the Old Goat and Scrap still hang around and contribute. But, I understand - this forum is not anyone's life! I have read many postings in the past two years that I wondered why they were not added to the Resource Guide. My conclusion was that you were extremely busy with other needs and perhaps had lost interest since moving to a MH. Regardless, I greatly appreciate the work you have done and can honestly say that without the guide I would have been totally lost in 2009 when I acquired my Volvo. I believe there are others gathered here that would carry the torch to assist you if given the needed instructions on access and operation. I strongly feel that the guide needs to continue - even if it is static and no additional information is added!

😅🤣😂🤪

FYI - My Mom is 94. Still lives independently, drives, does not wear glasses or hearing aids and seems to have all her marbles. Truth is, she is in many ways in better shape than me at 74. She has taken good care of herself since day one. I just wish I had taken better care of myself a half century ago - something you cannot tell an 18 year old and have them listen to and respect what you say. If you are 18 you will live "forever", Covid masks 😷 and seat belt laws are a government violation of free expression, the Covid virus is a fake, alcohol 🍺 to the point of passing out is "normal". Marijuana and similar "light" drugs will do the body no harm, spending hours in the sun to get a tan is healthy, I can quit tobacco any time I want attitude, Big Macs 🍔 for lunch and dinner, sugar 🥤 out the kazoo in soft drinks and foods are the norm, watching hours of TV or being on your "phone" 📱or computer all day, piercing body parts and covering your body with tattoos, and 150 db sound systems 🔊 are all OK. But they are afraid of lead paint, immunizations 💉, tap water, cars with no air bags, and rabies. I love my grandchildren, but........😶 P.S. - I'm not at all opinionated.

Really nice device also shows speed and RPM too. I was going to sell mine but became so attached I decided to keep it. Anyone with a crash box just starting out can do much better with the Gearmaster. It takes awhile to learn the idiosyncrasies of a HDT gear box and they sure do help! Love mine still after 10 years!

Never had any visitors.

We filled the pool in 3 years ago. Wife does some massage, but not like a pro. Jacuzzi jetted hot tub helps to relax. Surgery went well and I am now functioning without back pain or strong meds. Need to be careful as it takes a year or two for the vertebra to fuse. More concerned about my &%$# prostate. This getting old is getting old but still better than the alternative - I think.

IMHO, New Horizons seems to be the leader. Others I would consider are Space Craft, LUX, DRV. I consider our Keystone Cambridge to be "luxury", but it is not made any more like so many of the nicer, well built units that disappeared in the 2006-2008 economic crash. For someone currently tent camping a new pop-up would be luxury. A very hard term to define without goals and price point.

??????? I'm not following you there unless you mean using more propane to heat the trailer without skirting.

In 1989 I lived in a 22' Wilderness travel trailer from January until May. Yes, it was a cold Virginia winter. My skirting to keep the cold winds out from under the poorly insulated underbelly of the unit were bales of straw, which at the time were $1 per bale. They worked extremely well and it was easy to size them as needed and remove one if necessary. I would not hesitate to use them again if I had to experience a winter other than the ones we enjoy in warmer Florida.

There was a time when Trailer Life was more than it is (or was) today. I have some older copies I saved - they are at least twice as thick with content compared to the current publication. I am not a great fan of Marcus Lemonis, Chairman and CEO of Camping World Holdings, Inc. or what he has done TO (not for) the RV community. I have no desire to read about PUPs, motor homes or travel trailers. My interest lies with 5th wheel units, their features and evolution. This new magazine may be a hodge-podge of stuff with many pages of little interest to the average reader. I regret that Mr. Lemonis has taken this position - which I am sure is to cut his publication cost and apparent declining readership of his current magazines. This cookie cutter one size fits all approach is happening all too frequently. Thank goodness we have a good, focused and well written RV magazine in ESCAPES. He killed Woodalls and now he is killing Trailer Life and Motorhome. What's next?

Several years back someone with a HDT on this list wrote and published a book - maybe Amazon. I remember a comment about him being on a sail boat. When I say "several" I have been on this list since 2009 (wow - time flies). I would like to know if anyone knows who this was and even the title of the book. Also wondering what ever happened to a super nice guy named Ray that was on this list. I think he worked for a Volvo agency. He was always so nice, knowledgeable and helpful and really helped me in "the early days". I am horrible at remembering names!

I will have to concede that you are basically correct in your observation and application. "Buck" converters in today's market are typically designed to reduce higher input voltages to lower voltages through a FET switching transistor and LC process where very little energy is wasted. They are able to take (for example) a 24 volt 20 amp supply and provide an output of 12 volts at a level approaching 40 amps. The Chinese "clone" market has made such devices relatively inexpensive. This was not true with the family of original voltage reducing converters that relied on PWM and hypersil transformers with non-FET silicon transistors. Those devices were not as efficient and much of the energy was lost in conversion as heat. Still, NO converter is 100% efficient and losses are there - just as using a smaller gauge wire that heats up with a higher than rated current. I personally do not like to use buck converters or load-up a project with an array of additional devices if I can facilitate a project without them. Old school, maybe? I do prefer voltage regulator IC's and/or buck converters when I need to maintain a constant peak voltage - but that is typically in small scale circuits. I had the mantra "you can neither create nor destroy energy, only change it" drummed into my head for years - and I passed the same on to my students. The caveat to that mantra was anytime you convert energy there is a loss. I do have a buck converter on my 48 volt lithium powered golf cart to power the lights and horn. Adding another low voltage system would have been foolish since one was not there to begin with. I also have some small buck converters in the fiver tucked out of sight to preserve the life of Chinese LED's that are not internally regulated and fail quickly when the converter charger kicks up to 14.4 volts. Even below their rated output they can run quite warm and need ample fresh air to keep them cool. Glad to know your system is running working well and running cool.

After reading all the discussion and comments my take away is that you are making things much more complicated than they need to be. First, your coach was built to work off of 12 volts (actually 12.1-14.4). Your lights, slides (if you have them), water pump, furnace, converter charger, refrigerator eyebrow, propane alarm and possibly more were designed for 12 volts DC - as was your wiring and fuse/breaker sizing. You also have the engine side that is 12 volts and provides charge current when driving. If you maintain the converter/charger on shore power you will still need a 12 volt battery connected to operate the slides. Leave all of the OEM stuff alone. Using buck converters to reduce 24 or 48 volts to 12 volts turns a lot of valuable power into unneeded heat. Put 18 volt parallel connected panels on the roof with a MPPT controller and leave the rest of it alone. Now, if I understand correctly, you want the battery bank primarily to power a DC to AC inverter. You also want to be able to recharge the inverter battery bank from solar. Running two solar banks with two controllers is an acceptable method if you have an independently isolated inverter. You can easily arrange this so switching all of your solar input to a single battery system for faster recharge is possible. So, how many watts do you want from your inverter? If you are not trying to run air conditioning or an electric dryer from an inverter you will rarely need over 2000 watts at 120 volts with minimal load shedding and management - even if you have a residential refrigerator and occasionally warm your coffee in the microwave. Pure sine wave inverters with internal chargers and transfer switches up to 2000 watts are inexpensive (by comparison) and quite manageable with 12 volts DC as an input. This allows you to use readily available and inexpensive 18 volt solar panels for the rest of the real estate on your roof with the appropriate MPPT controller. The need to go to 24 volt or 48 volt DC systems unless you need 220 VAC output (which you do not) is really a matter of available solar panels, inverters, batteries, how much 120 volt power you truly need, the time you are willing to put into the project and your pocketbook. As I write this my wife has "Tool Time" on the telly in the background. The show is a perfect example of how "we" as guys have a tendency to over engineer a system just because we can. I encourage you to step back and take another look at what you are getting into. I might add that I have picked up a tidy sum of retirement fun money from finishing over-ambitious electrical projects from boat and RV owners that got in over their heads and couldn't finish a project. Yes, I do like Lithium batteries. But, the cost of new ones is still pretty high. Unless weight is a considerable factor I would even suggest taking another look at AGM's. Again, a lot less expensive not only for the batteries but the charging and balancing electronics as well. Lithium batteries could very easily outlast the life of your MH meaning you will not get "your moneys worth" out of them. After experiencing a Lithium battery fire that destroyed our trailer (and almost us) 3 years ago I am understandably cautious in that regard. I do have two 50 Ah 48 volt lithium batteries in my golf cart but park it well away from the fiver. It also has a 48 volt DC motor.......not 12 volts. Just my dollars worth. You can't get anything for 2 cents any more. 🙂

I once made pretty good money fixing VCR's and performing head alignments on both 8" and 5-1/4" floppy disc drives in both Wang and TRS-80 computers. The last time someone asked me about a VCR was when they said, "What is that?"

No, it's in there. Right between Aluminum Dust and Toxic Smoke 🙂.

Sorry if I am hijacking Carl's thread. What the news is saying: "The methanol is absorbed through the skin and can lead to serious medical issues." An ongoing list of "dangerous" sanitizers can be found here. I'm 74. I grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where I was exposed to radiation from my Dad's clothing when he came home from work and improperly managed radioactive waste. After all the methanol, acetone, lacquer thinner, MEK, gasoline, mercury, leaded paint fumes, lead in gasoline, lead in solder, aluminum dust, asbestos, toxic smoke from fires in EMS work, PVC paint fumes, dust from sawing arsenic treated lumber, DDT, carbon tetrachloride, etc. I should have been be pushing up Daises long ago. Tests run a few years back at my request showed no liver damage, heavy metals, kidney problems or respiratory damage. Maybe I am just lucky..... but I believe there is a consistent over reaction to exposure of such chemicals. Speaking of drinking sanitizer.... not a recent statement from a prominent political leader to drink bleach.... I wonder if the use of alcohol based mouth wash or maintaining a higher than normal blood alcohol level would be beneficial against contracting Covid-19? In many ways the virus is a real paradox - how do you kill something that is not really alive?

Well, to my surprise Lowe's had what was labeled "Water Resistant Outdoor Plywood" on their racks today. No pressure treated..... just this "new" stuff. No price posted. Nancy could not find her favorite "Oat Bran" bread in any of 4 different grocery stores. BTW - big recall on hand sanitizers (which ones??) because they "may" contain some trace amounts of methanol rather than pure ethanol. Tell me Doc - if you are not drinking it what difference does it make? Gotta find news somewhere 😗.

And as strange as it may seem....... pressure treated lumber at both Lowe's and Home Depot in the Richmond market is virtually non-existent. I need a couple of sheets of 1/2" to 3/4" pressure treated plywood for an outdoor project. None in stock, has not been in stock or available in the foreseeable future. A few 2x4's and 2x6's on the rack and a very small amount of 5/4 deck boards. The only "possible" reason is the plants producing the product are shut down due to the virus. It is not just food items. TGFA (Thank Goodness for Amazon). Local availability of many of the hardware items and even appliances is poor. We bought a new LG refrigerator at Home Depot the end of June. But the earliest possible delivery is August 8th. Same story at Lowe's. Back last September I bought an "Amazon Renewed" Dell M4800 business laptop - Core I7, 3.8 Gig, 1T SSD, 12 gig memory, etc. for under $400. It was a deal and I love it. I checked today thinking I might buy another for my 10th grade grand daughter. I was shocked - the cost for the same machine has almost doubled today. Possibly because of the demand for laptops and Chrome Books for online programs schools are going to. Campers or RV's are at a premium and in short supply. The demand is high. Want to buy a pontoon boat? Again, demand is high and the plants that make them are closed. It is a strange new world....... Can you even imagine what the Black Friday and Christmas shopping scene will be like this year?

Bob - my Volvo is a 2004. No regen. Unless regen is embedded with the data accessible from the DID like idle time and mileage I can't help you there.

Carl - if you are hesitant to use the power tool because of the two prong plug (no grounding) you can replace the 2-wire cord with a three wire grounding cord by attaching the green wire to the exposed metal case of the tool. I remember when I was about 16 years old polishing my '53 Studebaker Starliner Hardtop Coupe with my Dads electric drill and a wool bonnet. Dad had recently worked on the drill (replaced the trigger). Needless to say it had a polished metal case. I was on damp concrete in the carport when the drill "bit me" and I could not let go of the thing. I danced around yelling bloody murder. Fortunately my Dad was close by and heard my screams and came running, knocking the power cord from the wall socket. After that, he cut the cord off and threw the drill in the garbage can. To this day I prefer cordless drills - maybe that event has something to do with my preference?

The information in a "computer dump" really is not going to give you a lot. Once fault codes are erased by the user the computer does not keep a record. What cannot be erased by the user is information like hours idling, total hours, mileage, and VIN. All of this is available from the dash panel DID with a 4 number password - default is 1234. Various fault codes usually proceeded by a PID number and description may still be available from the DID if the user has not erased them. Unless they have been corrected any faults should return for viewing within 50 miles of travel. A Volvo dealer has the ability to enter a VIN number and get a print-out of all features included in the original build (I have one 3 pages long for my truck). Unfortunately, service done across several dealerships that are not warranty related are not linked. If the truck was serviced by a single dealer they will have the records for what they did but that is as far as history goes.

I have two different sets that are at least 30 years old. One is an ACE (Hardware) and the other is Craftsman. Actually, they are probably closer to 45 years old now that I think of it. They still work great and none have ever broken. Undoubtedly the set you would buy today under those names would be made cheaper than they were "way back when". While it is not pleasant to think or talk about, "old timers" who may own decades old quality sets are passing away every day. When we were in Florida last winter Bob and I got into the habit of visiting every estate sale we could find. We were able to add to our tool collections at really good prices and quality not readily available today. You must be able to tell the difference in age and quality though. Anyway, tools do not have to be new to be good. Look around........you may find the best quality tap and die set or other hand tools that have been loved and taken care of that have been left behind that the heirs have no use for or clue what they are. You just can't get mine - my sons already have their bid in.

Charlie - I feel you already know this but I will put it out there anyway. If you have no air flow across the condenser you are not going to remove the heat picked up at the evaporator. Since pressure and temperature rise in concert, your high side line (condenser) will get very hot. I've know quite a few folks that believe that if they don't have cold air they must be low on "freon" and add more (bad idea without pressure gauges). Actually, the less freon in the system the colder the air across the evaporator. That's good when it is very hot outside but when the air temperature is not high enough to melt any ice collecting on the evaporator the evaporator freezes into a solid block of ice, blocking any air flow so there is no cold air. At the same time temperature at the condenser rises. That's when you possibly need to add freon using gauges connected to both the high and low side to carefully monitor pressures expected for the ambient outside air temperature. Our trucks have both high and low pressure sensors/switches that will cut out the compressor clutch if pressures are too far off. So, as you noted, when your truck is idling (sitting still or in traffic) and the fan is not running temperature and pressure will rise at the condenser and the sensors will disengage the AC compressor clutch and you will not have any cooled air. It would be darn near impossible to properly charge your trucks AC system unless you vacuumed it down and weighed in the charge with the engine fan NOT running. So, me thinks you are right - your truck used to run the engine fan when the AC was switched on while idling. Sounds like you will have to force the fan to run when you connect your gauge set (you do have a R134a gauge set, don't you?) to even begin to get an idea of what your gas pressures are. I wish I was there to scratch heads with you 'cause you always make me think of things I forgot I have forgotten - that is if I ever knew them to begin with.

Let's face it...... some people are both clueless and stupid. I've met more than my fair share in campgrounds and on the road 🙃.

To add some to my comment....... About five years back, on a trip to Indiana, my fan would NOT turn off at all. My fuel mileage dropped like a rock and the constant roar was more than a little irritating. We stopped at a campground in PA and I pulled out the electrical schematics and manuals I keep in the truck and learned that my fan clutch was controlled by air. The source being a solenoid under the truck. While at the campground I switched the air supply for the fan to a 1/4" line I had added for my added air horns. I had a spare single function 1/4" air solenoid in my spare parts bag for the air cylinder I had added to assist my clutch and used it to rig a manual fan control that I could turn on and off from inside the cab. I continued to operate the fan via the switch by checking the temperature gauge for the next 2,000 or so miles. Back home I discovered that the multiple port solenoid I mentioned had a leak in the body at the fan control end. It had once also controlled the air for the hitch slider and second axle air locker, which I no longer had. The only function left was the fan (I may be forgetting something - it has been a while back). Anyway, being the cheap DIY type I am I bought an adjustable fan switch from a local auto supply for a lot less than what might be needed to replace the OEM solenoid and correct the problem from the VECU. I poked the sensor into the radiator fins, set the switch for 160 degrees, added a Bosh relay to correct the on-off polarity and continued to use my single port solenoid. It has been that way since and worked fine. When I did all this I believe it was Carl that commented that the fan on his later model Volvo was NOT controlled by air - rather it was temperature controlled from inside the fan clutch. That very well may be what Charlie has rather than what mine does - or did. So, whatever you do keep in mind that there are at least two different methods used to control the fan clutch and be sure which one you have.