theboondork's RV blog

The fourth of July party

7/3/2022

Click the pics, their harmless... I promise.

A flock of Day Lilies

I checked my odometer on the truck today and found out I only put about 4500 miles on it during my winter travels, from when I left Denver last Fall to when I got back to Denver last month. So it seems to me like I'm traveling a lot during the winter, at least it feels that way, but actually I'm not.

I think one of the reasons it feels like I'm traveling a lot is I'm going to different places, but those places aren't great distances apart. I'm changing locations, but the new site might only be an hour away, which is fine with me. I don't need to be driving all the time, especially with the cost of diesel fuel nowadays.

Today will be party day at my daughter's house. They decided to have their fourth of July party on Sunday instead of Monday because many of their friends are busy on Monday. I hear there's only supposed to be about 20 people coming, so it's not as big as some of their parties, but it's still more people than I'm comfortable being around.... All right, unless it's family members, three people is more than I'm comfortable being around.

I worked on a few things on the Lance this morning. First, I started the refrigerator, so it seems to be working. Then, I replaced a broken light on the back of the Lance and cleaned a small wasp nest out of the outside furnace vent. And replaced a broken outside vent that vents the range hood over the stove.

I've ordered some ten gauge solar panel wire and some four gauge cable that will run down from the roof, where the solar panel wires are tied together, to the solar controller. It's not enough to wire up all five solar panels, but it should be enough for two panels, and that should keep the house battery charged up while I'm working on things.

Theboondork

White wildflowers.

A strange fuzzy wildflower pod.

What passes for the family dog..... Or cat, I'm never quite sure.

4 Comments

Glen

7/3/2022 07:08:53 pm

I am interested in what you think your solar system for the Lance will consist of. How many watts, battery capacity and how many, 120 volt amps or watts. Is the 120 volt just to charge your computers and phone or enough to make coffee or toast, more?

The solar systems I have had on our last four trailers were to keep the batteries charged and charge computes, phones and run a 150-200 watt inverter for TV occasional use.

Tom

7/3/2022 08:22:29 pm

Thank you for that question Glen. I'm planning on putting five 100 Watt panels on top of the Lance, each one putting out a little over 5 amps an hour. And I believe with some ingenuity I could put a couple more, but I worry about my truck, which is a GMC 2500, being able to carry the load, so I'm trying to keep the weight down as much as I can. If it wasn't for the weight problem I would put as many panels on the roof as would fit up their, because my rule of thumb has always been you can never have too many solar panels, or batteries.

And speaking of batteries my battery bank is four 100 amp BattleBorn lithium iron batteries. And even though they weigh about half as much as a regular lead acid battery four of them still adds a lot of weight to the camper.

I have a 1000 watt inverter, which is actually the same size inverter I have in the Arctic Fox and over the years has proven to run everything I need to run on 120 AC. As I'm sure you know batteries don't like to run anything with a heating element in them such as a electric heater, toaster oven, coffee makers, or hairdryers. Fortunately I have no use for a hairdryer, I get my heat from a propane radiant heater, I've given away my toaster oven, and I make my coffee the old-fashioned way, I heat my water in a pot on the stove and put in a spoonful of instant coffee. And as for TV, I don't think I've turned mine on in the Arctic Fox in the last year, the Lance doesn't have one, and I plan on keeping it that way.

So I guess you could say that even though I can't tell you exactly everything that I run on 120 AC, but whatever it's been over the last couple of years it's been enough to keep me happy and comfortable while boondocking.

So even though I won't have many solar panels on the Lance, I have found since using the BattleBorn lithium iron batteries for the last couple of years that since the lithium iron batteries don't have to go through stages of charging like lead acid batteries, they charge so fast that I think I can live with less solar panels.

But if it doesn't work next winter I could always add another panel, or tilt the panels to pick up more sunshine during the winter when the sun is low on the horizon.

Tom

Linda

7/4/2022 02:02:23 pm

That photo of day lilies looked like fireworks to me. Best kind of fireworks in my mind since they look like fire but can't start one.

7/4/2022 02:13:35 pm

Fire is uppermost in my mind when it comes to fireworks, and having to evacuate from two forest fires, I wouldn't condone anything that had a chance of starting a fire. It also rained a couple of times yesterday, and we weren't sure that the party and the fireworks weren't going to get rained out altogether. So everything was safe.

Tom

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The fourth of July party

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