Chad Heiser

I finally got around to adding pictures and updating the website for the 2023 WCR.  It's amazing how little "free" time I have since I "retired."  😜

Here is a link to the page for those that are interested.

https://hdtwcr.com/2023-west-coast-rally/

1 hour ago, packnrat said:

i have just retired. and the dmv office in ca. said i could not keep my class A. if not driving commercially.

so avoid ca.

I am retired and still have a valid California commercial drivers license.  Having a job is not a requirement to get a commercial class A in California.  If you can’t pass the medical or the driving/written test then they can pull your license.

Texas and South Dakota.

As you found, there are no issues running multiple charge controllers in parallel to a single battery bank.  I currently have three charge controllers going to my single battery bank.  I prefer controllers that can be networked to talk to one another to better coordinate charging, but this isn’t required.  The only thing you have to pay attention to is the battery max charge rate.  Every battery manufacturer has a recommended charge rate (how many amps the battery can accept).  You do not want to exceed this number or you could damage the battery (if AGM/Lead Acid) or cause the BMS to kick in and shut down charging (if Lithium).

Whenever I wash the panels, I try to do it first thing in the morning or late in the day (either before the panels heat up or after they have cooled down some).  I don’t do it because I am concerned about them cracking though.  I do it because when they are hot, whatever I am spraying on them to clean them evaporates too quickly and leaves streaks.

The rally was a lot of fun, but went by way too fast.  

The rally was a lot of fun but went by way too fast for me.  Now it is time to relax a bit before heading home.

In addition to the benefits of a residential or 12 volt compressor fridge keeping things colder, etc., by getting rid of the gas absorption refrigerator you remove the number one cause of fires in RV's.

On 6/12/2023 at 12:36 PM, GeorgiaHybrid said:

OK Dan, I have to ask. Now that you have transitioned your fridge to DC only, does it still identify as a RV fridge?

I wanted to ask the same thing, but you beat me to it.  😀

We much prefer our residential refrigerator over the RV type refrigerators we’ve had in the past.  The cooling is better and more consistent and there is more room.  You do need more equipment to keep the residential refrigerator running (batteries and an inverter), but as long as you have the right infrastructure to support it it works great.

3 hours ago, GlennWest said:

If i may ask Chad, How low do you pull your batteries. 

My batteries never went below 50% during the week.  My solar can keep up with a single air conditioner during the day and still charge the batteries back too 100% before the evening.

The 76 amps you saw were DC amps coming from the battery at 12 volt.  That energy was being inverter-Eddie to AC power through the inverter to power the air conditioner.  If that same air conditioner were being powered from shore power at 120 volts it would be approximately 7.6 amps of A/C (alternating current) power.  It takes approximately 10 times the amps/current at 12 volt (through an inverter) than it would require at 120 volt (shore power) to power the same A/C appliance.

When you are plugged into shore power, that power is distributed to all your A/C loads as needed.  When you don’t have shore power, you turn the inverter on and it draws 12 volt power from the batteries and inverts it to 120 volt A/C power to power the same loads.  DC amps will always be approximately 10 times the AC amps (assuming a 12 volt system).

We just spent a week boondocking in the desert south of St. George, UT.  We ran one (of three) 15K BTU roof top air conditioners everyday from about 10:00 am until 5:00 pm.  It was in the mid 90’s every day, so the AC was to keep the living area of the RV cool for the cat and dog (and my DW).  In that week, I ran our generator for a total of about 5 hours.  One of those hours was me testing the generator and a recent fix to keep it from overheating.  The other four hours were to recharge batteries after a full day of mostly cloudy weather where the solar couldn’t keep up with the AC running.

We have a large system on our rig (3390 watts of solar, 1080 amp hours of lithium batteries and dual 5KVA inverter chargers).  I intentionally built the system this large so we could live in our rig pretty much like we were plugged in, whether we were or not.  It is nice to be energy independent, but it does come at a cost.  Luckily for me as an installer/dealer I didn’t have to pay retail prices and my labor was “free” so it wasn’t a horrible cost.

We are sitting in Winnemucca for the night.  We will pull into Ambassador tomorrow afternoon with a couple other rigs.  We are looking forward to seeing everyone.

4 hours ago, Trucker Bernadette said:

Did you single out the drives? I wasn’t going to touch the axles. Can an RV dealer install/hookup electrical? I mean, if someone buys a camper from them and uses a regular pickup truck, I’d think the dealer could handle setting up the electrical connections, doing it on my rig shouldn’t be hard, isn’t it mostly just a different pigtail?

 

Converting from Commercial to RV 7 pin connectors requires some hardware with relays to take the separated brake and turn signal on the commercial side and make it a combined brake/turn signal on the TV side.  The most common way of doing this with forum members here is using a Jackalope kit.  It was developed by a forum member here and he has a thread going talking about upgrades he has recently made to the installation manual and kit.  I doubt any typical RV dealer is going to be knowledgeable about the conversion.  If you have any basic electrical skills, it is a fairly straightforward DIY project though.

on edit:  here is the thread I mentioned 

I retired in September of 2021 (kind of).  I decided to start a “part time” business to give me something to do.  Well the business took off much faster and with a lot more work than I expected that first year.  Luckily my wife was still working full time until the end of last year so it wasn’t that big of a deal.  I have started carving out longer travel periods this year now that my wife is retired.  We are currently on a 5 plus week trip.  But, between the business and our travels my honey do list (and my project list) is piling up with not a lot of time to get things done.  I always heard people say they were never so busy as when they “retired.”  Now I believe it.  All the little stuff I used to do to kill time during the day when I was working doesn’t happen anymore.  I just don’t have the time.  😜

We’re almost all packed up.  We’ve got a few things to finish in the morning and then get on the road.  We’re going to take three days to get to the St. George, UT area.  Then we are going to boondocks for about a week in the area while visiting friends.  This is the first leg of our winding travels to the WCR.

17 hours ago, Danfreda1 said:

Got your zingers packed Chad?

I need some more.  I ate the last ones last night.  

We are hitting the road on Wednesday.  We are doing some traveling through Utah and Nevada (from Northern California) on our way to Idaho.  Apparently the quickest route from point A to B is a squiggly line.  😜

We will arrive at Ambassador on the Saturday before the rally.

On 5/12/2023 at 3:11 PM, runaway parents said:

Hey Chad do these trails accommodate  jeeps. If so we might be interested.

There are some trails that will accommodate jeeps and the like.  It is a fairly large area with many different trail types.

We are just about a month away from the rally.  The schedule has been finalized and posted on the rally website home page.  There are a lot of services available to rally attendees this year and hopefully attendees will find them beneficial.

For those interested, a few of us will be gathering after the rally for some boondocking in the area near the rally site.  We will be at the Hemingway Butte OHV trailhead.  It is a nice secluded area and offers lots of trails for those so inclined to go offroading.

See you in June.

4 hours ago, Vegas Teacher said:

Jack is awesome. When you were there you were only 45 minutes from my home town. Did you see any signs with Pittsburg Kansas on them?

I think Jack is one of the most friendly people I have done business with in a very long time. He worked with me for 2 years prior to me dropping off my truck last summer and has been a great person to work with since I have dropped my truck off. When you were there did you see my truck? It was the orange one with the Vegas plate on the front of it.

How are your truck and trailer doing? I know you went through a lot last year and are more than likely on the other side of it now. I hope all is good for you!

Well if you make it to Vegas some time let me know, we need to make a trip to Big Dogs again, they have a new "Tap Room" there now and the selection of beer is very good.

Later,

Cory O

I definitely saw your rig sitting their.  I made mention of it to Jack.  My rig is still plugging along.  I just got back from a 4000 mile trip the other day.  The new trailer is great and I am very happy with it.

14 hours ago, Vegas Teacher said:

There are no updates yet. There will be soon and I will post as soon as I get pictures, I promise. It should be the next truck i the shop.

Later,

Cory O

Ire ognized it sitting on their lot the last weekend of April when I was there.  I got a tour of the facility from Jack.  They have a very nice set up there.

Congratulations on the new (to you) rig.

With a little more information, I can provide some better feedback.  What do you expect to power in the van when you don’t have shore hookups?  This answer in conjunction with how long you want to be able to power those items will better answer how big the system needs to be.

Generally speaking a 3KVA inverter will run any appliance in any size RV.  This usually means one large draw appliance at a time though.  In other words don’t try to run the microwave and coffee pot and hair dryer all at the same time from the inverter.  A 3KVA inverter might be bigger than you need in a van, but it is a good starting point for discussion purposes.  Typically a 3KVA inverter requires a minimum of 400 amp hours of battery capacity.  A good rule of thumb for solar is to be two to three times the battery amp hour capacity in solar watts.  If you have 400 amp hours of battery then that is 800 to 1200 watts of solar (generally) to keep it charged up.  With lithium batteries I like to be closer to the three times mark because they can charge faster than AGM or lead acid.

It most likely has to do with the settings for the shunt.  If the settings are incorrect, it won’t synchronize properly on a full charge and the state of charge will be wildly off over time.  Less likely is the zero point calibration is off.  If it accidentally got calibrated while a load (or charge) was present then all the readings will always be off because it’s zero point is off.