Dupuis Equestrian Camp

We made it to our camp spot fer’ this week’s stay. Dupuis Wildlife Management Area is managed jointly by the South Florida Water Management District and the Florida Freshwater Fish and Game Commission. Normally when there are hunts going on here it’s closed to the general public. But most of the hunts, that would close the campground, are over for this year except Spring Turkey season.

Our friends Bud and Linda wanted to do some ‘dry campin’ so we decided to come down her and give it a try. We were here last year, not to camp, but just check it out and we liked what we saw. There are two campgrounds here but I don’t believe the one called the ‘Family Camp’ allows RV’s. The other is the Equestrian Camp that we are in. Lots of corrals, couple o’ horse barns and 40 miles o’ trails to ride. There are no horse folks here now, they left yesterday, just us another camper and the camp host. We came to relax and give the solar a workout.

Everyone was really working hard at doin’ nothin’!

Later on Bud decided to get out an inverter that he’s had fer’ a hundred years, well not really a hundred but a long time. He wanted to see if the TV would run from the inverter. So we hooked the inverter to his jumper type battery pack and plugged in the TV. At first we had trouble gettin’ any power out of the inverter but maybe there was a little corrosion on the switch from sittin’ so long, but it finally woke up.

We were watchin’ Dr. Oz outside from the picnic table.

So far this place is nice, we’ll see what the evening brings, so far just us and these guys,

Gotta run fer’ now if I’m be  relaxifyin’ here. Hope to see ya down the road as we’re;

Dancin’ on the Wind.

A Little More Experimentin’

Finished up charging our batteries with the solar panels. Started out slow as we had a good overcast sky and we were readin’ only 5 amps on our TriMetric meter. By 11 am we were pumpin’ out 15.8 amps even though there was a cold front approachin’ and the sky was starting to get cloudy but with holes. Those holes are where the electricity is hidden, just got to get it out of ‘em. By 12:30 our meter was readin’ an astonishing 16.3 amps, that’s almost two and a half amps over the designed maximum.

Yipee!!

While all them good electrons were were gatherin’ in the batteries I changed the door holder on the trailer. Linda had broken the plastic one before we left this summer and I glued it back together. We lucked out and it held all the time we were gone, then broke again the other day. So I ordered a stainless steel one like we have on the Lance camper (lets see her break this one).

The old door holder had a rubber bumper to keep the door from hitting the side of the coach and I thought I’d remount it. Well it was dirty, filthy and had red mold growin’ under the surface of the plastic. So I got out the Goof Off and went to cleanin’ it.

This is what it looked like when I started.

Here it is all cleaned up.

I can’t say enough about this product, it’s amazing.

When the batteries were fully charged and we still had some good sun on and off, I decided to try somethin’ else. I setup our new ice maker and turned it on powered by the inverter. It kept makin’ ice fer’ two and a half hours and by then the sun was pretty weak. But runnin’ while the sun was still chargin’ us we were still at 100% when I shut it off and had lots of ice. That means we can make ice during the day with no effect on our power level as long as there is sun.

Well I got to go fer’ now we’re packin’ to head out fer’ a week o’ boondockin’. I’ll let ya’ know where we wind up after we make it there. Hope to see ya’ down the road as we’re;

Dancin’ on the Wind.

A Solar Test

Now that I’ve done the rainy weather test to see how long it would take to replenish our battery bank from a 4 or 5 day stretch of inclement weather it’s time to see how the solar panels will do in sunny winter weather.

I discharged the battery bank down to 75% again, this time to a 109 amp deficit. Our battery bank is 4 220 amp hour 6 volt batteries, with two hooked in series to create 12volts at 220 amps, then then those two pairs hooked in parallel to create two 12volt, 220 amp batteries yielding us a 440 amp battery bank. It being winter, I wanted to see how long it would take to replenish our power to 100%, being that the sun is low in the sky and the days are much shorter.

Even though we have yet to deplete our battery bank down to this level, we need to be able to recharge after a long rainy or overcast spell and since we tried it with a battery charger a few days ago we need to see how long it will take our solar to do the job.

So at 8 am I plugged in the disconnect I had removed from our solar system to draw down the battery bank. At the time the sky was pretty overcast still, but that was supposed to burn off during the day. I was wonderin’ if I should wait for a clearer day but what the heck. With most things I have infinite patience, but when it comes to playin’ with my toys, and I get an idea rollin’ around in my head, I gotta’ ‘Get ‘er Done’!

At 9:30 am I checked our TriMetric meter and the sun was puttin’ 5 amps per hour back into the battery back. Not great but the sky was still kinda’ overcast.

By 10:30 we were getting’ a whoppin’ 6.1 amps, but the sky hadn’t changed too much. The next check was at 12 noon and the sky conditions finally had improved and we were readin’ a respectable 9.9 amps charge goin’ into our batteries.

A noontime Florida sky.

About an hour later I had a brainstorm! This is the winter right? We’re one month from the shortest day of the year and the sun will be the lowest in the sky at that time, right?

DUH!!!

Why don’t I tilt them panels up on the roof that I built them tiltin’ mounts fer?

So up on the roof I go and after tilting the first panel about 50-55 degrees, I came down and check the meter. Yeah now it’s readin’ 11.5 amps.

So up I go again. This would be easier if I had a helper to just tell me the changin’ readin’s but my helper is built-in. That means I talk to myself when I’m doin stuff, drives the DW crazy. She says “Are you talkin’ to me?” “No I’m talkin’ to my helper”. Anyway she’s just jealous cause the voices in my head don’t talk to her!

After tiltin’ the last two panels I see on the meter that it has shot up to 15.4 amps. One hell of a change, 5.5 amps additional just from tiltin’ the panels. That’s like the added benefit one additional panel or more. Our 85 watt panels are rated at 4.69 amps maximum each, times 3 panels = 14.07 amps total. Were getting’ 15.4 amps, that’s almost 1.5 amps more that the rated power and we don’t have one o’ them fancy, overpriced MPPT charge controllers.

With varying sun conditions the power goes up and down with shading from cloud cover. I didn’t catch it at 15.4 amps for a photo. 

By 3 pm sun power was wanin’ and by 4 the sun was dippin’ behind the trees next to us and I watched our chargin’ go down to nuthin’.

So at the end of the day we brought the batteries from 108 amp deficit to a 40 amp deficit, 91% full. I’m sure we could have done better under the same conditions if the panels had been tilted the entire time or the sky conditions were clearer. Tomorrow we’ll top off our charge and get ‘er to 100% I hope, cause there is a cold front a comin’ through.

So that’s all for today and this test of the solar charging capabilities of our system.

Maybe I shouldn’t worry about getting’ a bigger battery charger right now, as we seem to use very little power in the boondockin’ that we’ve done. I attribute this to my mentor Handy Bob, who some feel is out in left field when it comes to solar energy. But I feel this guy knows his stuff after learnin’ the hard way. This is a man who along with his wife has been full timing the boondocking lifestyle for over 9 years, never pluggin’ in to power and never ownin’ a generator. They live normally, but not wastefully, runnin’ any appliance they want from the sun. Bob’s wife is a quilter and runs her sewing machine and even an iron. His system is not huge, 345 watts of solar and four batteries. If they can do, we can do it!!

Under his guidance, I purchased and setup my system and our batteries are charged to 14.8 volts and held there for two hours before they taper of to a float charge.

We do get a 100% charge on our batteries!

This keeps our batteries in top condition and we have lots more power from four batteries and they don’t deplete far in 24 hours of boondockin’.

I guess if really desperate maybe I could piggyback the charger that we have, the available sun power and the built-in charger on the generator. Not sure if that’s possible but that gives me another thing to test. Cloudy skies, some solar chargin’, 12 amps from the battery charger purrin’ at low idle on the generator, while havin’ the generator’s built-in 8 amp charger hooked up direct to the batteries as well. If that works we could get 22-25 amps per hour, maybe more. We’ll have to see another day.

Until then, we hope to see ya’ down the road as we’re;

Dancin’ on the Wind.

It’s Thanksgiving, You Turkey!

Animations provided by MySpaceAnimations.com

We just wanted to take a moment to wish all our viewers a Happy Thanksgiving!

A Rainy Day Trial

First of all it’s not rainin’ here in Florida. I’m doin’ a simulation of an extended rainy, overcast spell o’ four days. Something that I’m sure everyone that camps encounters in their travels. Well these type of ‘bad weather’ stretches to those of us that boondock with solar can be difficult for power production. Although solar panels do produce power under most conditions, they won’t produce enough power to replace what we consume when the weather stays cloudy and overcast.

Without a supplemental method of charging we would be forced to move from that pristine, remote campsite in the wilds to a developed campground with power or run our generator whenever we needed any power. Personally, we’ve found when we setup in one of these pristine camps we don’t want to have to move prematurely, but rather stay and enjoy the peace, solitude and far views it offers.

So let’s get on to the test. We do carry a 2000 watt inverter generator when we travel, for emergency power. It also has a battery charging capability built in but it is only rated at 8 amps. This would take far too many hours of generator run time to reach an 80-90% charge to prove practical. But in this instance it could come in handy to power a battery charger to replace most of the bulk charge in our battery bank and then let the solar system take over when the charger starts to taper of it’s charge. This happens in a charger as the voltage in the batteries goes up the charging rate is reduced.

Let’s explain a little about how battery chargers work. A good battery charger has three stages of charging.

• Bulk charging charges the batteries at the maximum rating of the charger until it reaches 80-90% of maximum charge.
• Absorption being the next stage, charges at a constant rate for a set period of time to insure the battery reaches a full and complete charge.
• Float charge is the last state, which once the battery is fully charged maintains that charge.

With that said, I disconnected our solar charging system and depleted our battery bank to 75% of it’s charge, something we have not seen in real life ‘boondockin’ as yet. We stayed for five days in the woods of Pennsylvania late this summer with Hurricane Irene covering us with mostly overcast skies, wind and intermittent drizzle. Over the five days/four nights we used our TV, computer (you know I’m an internet junkie), computer router(to make us a wireless hotspot), battery chargers for phone, camera, coffee maker, microwave, DVD player, digital box for TV, water pump (including showers), a fan in the bedroom all night every night and anything else we wanted. We did get a little morning sun as we were not oriented properly for maximum sun on our panels and had some tree cover. At the end of that trip our battery bank was at 81% of full. I attribute this good fortune to Handy Bob, a solar genius, whose guidance and mentorship I enjoyed while designing and constructing our system.

So with the batteries down lower than we’ve ever had them to date, at 75% or 108 amp deficit, I hooked up my Schumacher "’Speed Charger’ smart battery charger.

This charger is rated at 12, 8 and 2 amp charging rate, I chose the 12 amp Deep Cycle setting to get juice back into the battery as fast as possible. Well over one and a half hours of charging I reduced the deficit to 87 amps or 81% of full. Although the charger produced 14 amp per hour, more that it is rated for, I would still have to run the generator for far too many hours to achieve my goal. So it looks like we need to look at a larger battery charger. Something capable of maybe 40 amps, run two hours putting us at a 28 amp deficit or 96%. I know the solar can make up the difference even on the worst of days. 

So it looks like a new battery charger maybe in our future.

Well that’s all for today, hope ya’ learned somethin’ new. Next up is a solar chargin’ test from the same 108 amp or 75% of full test, but got to wait for a decent solar day.

As always, we hope to see ya’ down the road as we’re;

Dancin’ on the Wind.

Just Chillin’ Again and Again!

Our friends Wayne and Colleen came to dinner on their first night here and as they were preparing to leave for home, Wayne said, “Hey, I brought you something”. Now I wasn’t expecting anything, but I thought he might have brought a bottle of the Canadian Whiskey that he introduced me to a couple o’ years ago. We stopped at the ‘Duty Free Shop’ before our border crossin’ back into the states this fall and purchased two liters for $11 Canadian each.. I have not found the stuff here in the states, even though it’s made by Schenley and in the liquor store in Brantford it was priced at $42 last year.

Well he goes to the back of the car and brings me this big box. I knew what it was immediately, as we looked at these when we were in Canada and those available here in the states are considerably more expensive.

Our new Salton portable ice maker.

In our fifth wheel we have a separate freezer and most times we have enough space for some ice cube trays. The problem arises when you use those cubes and refill the trays, it takes overnight to freeze those new cubes. So if we can devote even a part of that ice cube tray space to ice cube storage, and this will make new ice in a timely manner, that’s a win-win situation. We gain freezer space and have lots of ice when we need it.

I gave the machine a tryout and plugged it in, in our kitchen after cleaning and drying it. The machine dropped the first harvest of ice after about ten minutes. I was kind of disappointed with the quality of the first couple of harvests of cubes which had to be thrown away anyway. But as the machine made more ice the quality improved greatly and the time between harvests dropped to about six minutes. The literature claims the machine can produce 26 pounds of ice in a 24 hour period and I believe it. The bin holds 2.2 pounds itself, so ice would have to be transferred to the freezer or a cooler for mass storage.

I really like the design of this ice maker. It’s simple and efficient. The water reservoir sits under the ice bin so as ice melts in the bin the water is recycled back to the water reservoir to be pumped back up to make more ice. It stops making ice when the ice bin is full, as well as when the water reservoir’s level gets low. It makes small, medium and large size cubes. It has a tray that fills with water that sits under the ‘fingers’ that the ice form on. Attached to the tray is an ‘ice shovel’ and when the machine goes into defrost, the remaining water is dumped from the tray back into the reservoir, the ice drops down and the ‘ice shovel’ pushes the ice cubes into the ice bin. The water reservoir has a drain to empty it and it comes with a scoop for ice. As my son would say “This thing is the Shiznik!”

Today I took this out to the fifth wheel and give her a try on the inverter. Just had to know if we could make ice when we were boondockin’. It takes some power but I don’t see any reason we can’t make ice when the sun is shinin’, pumpin’ power back into our batteries. I know folks that quilt and run a sewing machine and an iron from their batteries while boondockin’, as well as every other convenience in their coach and are most days back to 100% charge before noon.

Now all I have to do is figure where do I want to store this new convenience. It is just tall enough to not fit under one of the dinette benches. But not to worry, I’ll find a spot for it somewhere.

Last but not least,

“A big heartfelt Thank You”

to Wayne and Colleen for our new ice maker.

I had it on the kitchen counter for this tryout.

My next test is a battery draw down to see if our generator and battery charger will replenish our battery bank. This is to simulate an extended period of cloudy, rainy weather which is bound to happen as we travel. Since we rely on our batteries for our power we need to keep them in top notch shape. If the battery charger does not replenish our power fast enough we may have to look into getting a more powerful charger.

Anybody want to buy some ice?

Until next time. We hope to see ya’ down the road as we’re;

Dancin’ on the Wind.

Some Visitin’ at Home

One week ago today our good friends from Ontario came for a visit. Wayne and Colleen arrived around midday. They don’t stay with us as they have a ‘Condo’ on the beach. It’s like when we travel, we may stay with folks, but we still have our own space.

Since their arrival we’ve spent every evening with them, either eating here with us or venturing out to one of our favorite restaurant's. One evening it was off to Ft. Pierce for a trip to the Golden Corral, aka: ‘The Feed Bag’. I call it this cause they have everything under the sun fer’ a fella to graze on. It is a ‘Buffet’ par ex-cel-lance’. This trip they were hawkin’ shrimp cooked several ways, of coarse to order. Also what ‘Chocaholic Colleen’ couldn’t wait for, ‘The Chocolate Fountain’. We dined on all types of food and salads and when dessert time came, Ta Da!

I don’t think yer’ supposed to drink from the fountain.

Saturday we all went to a local flea market as Wayne needed to replace his reading glasses. He had bought some there last year and they haven’t fallen apart yet, so he thought he’s buy a couple more pairs.

We walked the aisles up and down lookin’ an’ lookin’. The girls seemed to stop an’ look at everything and us guys play the ‘Waitin’ Game’.

I think us men are more focused when we go ‘shopping’ at a place like this. We’re here for a reason and that’s what we want to take care of first. After accomplishing that task, if we have time to browse, so be it. But lets face it, our interests are not the same as the girls. So we wait for them to catch up to us, then move on down the aisle.  

Wayne did find his readers, Linda bought a Rada kitchen knife for her niece, Colleen bought sunglasses and Barry got nothin’, zip, nada.

After the market we stopped by at I-HOP fer’ some lunch. Good thing too, we were up early and had eaten early as well. By 12:15 my stomach clock was tellin’ me it was 3:15 in the afternoon, even though it wasn’t.

We took a leisurely drive home along the ocean on SR A1A. We had a great outing today. They dropped us off at home and they came back over at dinner time for some baked chicken Linda made. Then we watched some TV and we were all yawns so they left fer’ home and we showered and retired to bed.

Wayne and Colleen will only be here for a few more days, then it’s off to Dallas to the National Clogging Convention where Colleen has some teaching engagements over the Thanksgiving weekend. Then it’s on home to the ‘frozen north’!

Well that’s what we’ve been up to this week. As always, we hope to see ya down the road as we’re;

Dancin’ on the Wind.

The End of the Trail

Well we made it home last Thursday and finally got the last of our stuff out of the fifth wheel and put away. Linda says’ “Next year were not takin’ all this stuff”. Yeah, right! It seems most of the dry and canned supplies we packed in the pantry when we left, we removed the the other day. Just hauled it 7000 miles to air it out I guess. We actually came home with more than we left with, but that was expected. Can’t resist them sales!

Along our path of travel home we stopped at Lake Kissimmee State Park as I mentioned previously. We were goin’ to meet up with Wayne & Maureen of Wayne’s RV Travel, a fellow blogger. We had originally hoped to visit them while they were at Assateague National Seashore in MD, as we have never been there, but alas plans did not work out.

After checking in we drove through the second camp loop lookin’ fer’ our site number and came upon Wayne doin’ some pressure washin’. I stopped the rig and went to tell him that I was from Google and I was here because we had noticed he had a blog on our service and that blog was going to be suspended because of inactivity. But he recognized me and that was the end of that scam.

We got setup and they came by to chat for a few minutes and then ran, but they came back later and we talked and talked.

Wednesday they were busy getting the park ready for a State Park Employee camping get together. Retirees from all over the State Park system were decendin’ on Lake Kissimmee State Park.

We did get together later in the day then went to dinner at Chili’s. We had a great time eatin’ and blabin’. After they brought us home and we said our goodbyes we settled in fer’ the night.

Thursday Wayne and Maureen came by in the mornin’ we again talked fer’ a spell and I was able to grab one shot of all of us.

Then it was back to work fer’ them and we started breakin’ camp fer’ our trip home.

We arrived home around 3 and got the rig parked. It seems strange to be at home after all the time we’ve been gone. It took us till Monday to get the last o’ the ‘stuff’ out and put away. It took time to remember where some things belonged in the house, but we managed, I think. Time will tell.

Well gotta’ go fer’ now but as always, we hope to see ya’ down the road as we’re;

Dancin’ on the Wind.

We Made It!

We made it to our home range on Monday and stayed at a Passport park in Sanford area for the night. Town and Country RV park was the stop. We lucked out and they gave us a site right next to the pool.

They were havin’ a Halloween Dance at the Recreation Hall that night and we thought we’d drop on in. I think the last time I was to a real ‘Dance’, the girls stayed on one side of the room, while the guys stayed far away on the other. I was probably 13 or 14. So we had us a quick supper and headed over to the “Dance Hall’ around 7 fer’ some toe tappin’ good times! We danced some on and off through the evenin’, met some nice folks, many which invited us to come back and spend more time, when they discovered we were just ‘overnightin’. Around 9:30 we ventured on back to home and watched a little TV. Linda has not watched her ‘Dancin’ with the Stars’ this year much and she enjoyed seein’ it again. I know when we go fulltime we’ll have to go with one of the satellite TV companies, so we have some decent TV watchin’ options. We have Dish at home and we’d stay with that. While she watched her ‘dancin’ I tuned in another show in the bedroom an’ did an ‘Eyelid Leak Test’. We went to bed shortly afterward.

Tuesday saw us rollin’ south towards our next stop, Lake Kissimmee State Park to visit with some ‘Blogger’ friends. Wayne and Maureen of Wayne’s RV Travel Blog just started their ‘fulltime’ RV life this spring. We were anxious to meet them as it’s always nice to meet fellow bloggers face to face. We’re gonna’ layover there a few days and decompress from our travels.

Sunday, while we were stopped in the Brunswick, GA area we explored Brunswick and St. Simons Island. We visited the waterfront area with all it’s stately Live Oak trees. These trees have to be hundreds and hundreds of years old. Here’s an example.

We also visited the St. Simons Lighthouse but didn’t go up in it cause some of us have height concerns.

While on the island we visited Fort Frederica, a fort built by the British in 1736 to protect the new colony of Georgia and the Carolinas from the Spanish in Florida. The fort and the town that surrounded it were both enclosed by a palisade. It saw only one attack by the Spanish solders from the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine and Cuba. The Spanish felt the British were encrochin’ on their territory and were goin’ to rout them from their land. The British felt the lands in question were part of an unoccupied ‘disputed land’ area. The attack was staved off by the British garrison with the help of a Scottish regiment and the local Indians that the settlers had befriended. The victory of the battle actually sealed the fate of the fort, as peace was declared and the fort was decommissioned and the town around it slowly died.

Today archeological excavations have uncovered many building foundations, while most of the Battery and a portion of the barracks still stand.

The Battery

The Barracks

There were even some settlers still hangin’ round the pub we stopped at.

The Oaks here at the fort have to have been here when they settled this area.

This is a Grape Vine that adorned one of the old Live Oak trees. It had to be two feet in diameter!!!

Well that’s all fer’ now. Hope to see ya down the road as we’re;

Dancin’ on the Wind.