A little of this, and a little of that......

 7:16 am - Thursday - January 9th - TWW - 30° F, humidity 42%, wind 12 mph out of the north by northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 47° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were at Simple Simon's Bakery and Bistro in Riverside, CA having coffee and bagels....

....I love sitting across any table from this woman!

Wednesday morning felt a lot like winter with blustery winds, and frigid temperatures. It did not seem like a day one should be outside dumping their black tank, much less doing anything else, but there TLE and I were doing just that at 10:30 am.  We were both bundled up against the cold trying to get the tank dumped, and fresh water back into our fresh water tank as quickly as possible.  By the time we finished it was after 11:30 am, and finally above 40° F.

Even though I had no desire whatsoever to be outside, there were four things I really needed to accomplish Wednesday, but not necessarily in this order: 1) Reinstall the old water pump in the water bay as the new SeaFlo pump produces way too much PSI for our system, 2) cut a hole in the top of the wood box shelter I built for the Predator 5000 generator to make it possible to add gasoline without moving the box,  3) move the charger/converter remote control from the electrical bay into the bedroom so I don't have to go outside to adjust the charge rate, and 4) reconnect the 20 amp cord for the Intelli Power charger/converter to the electrical outlet in the electrical bay.  

Up until now we've had the charger plugged directly into the Predator 5000 to avoid putting too much strain on the Bluetti AC200MAX.  The charger draws over 1 kw all by itself when 'bulk charging' our house batteries.  That combined with the normal draw during the day of 300-500 watts drained the Bluetti faster than we could charge it.  However, now that we have the Eco-Worthy Dual Axis Solar Tracker with its 600+ watts of power generation ability we decided it was time to make the change.  Once the house batteries are at 100% the charger goes into 'float mode' and the draw decreases to about 250 watts, something the Bluetti can handle, and still get fully charged during the day.  It is kind of an experiment, but we are hoping that keeping the house batteries topped off at 100% all the time will reduce our generator run time.....we'll see.  This took me about 60 seconds to make the switch.  Thursday we'll install the two 300 amp hour Cloud Energy lithium batteries in place of our current flooded cell 8d batteries.

I next tackled the generator wood box, as it seemed to be the most straightforward of the projects.  Using a 2" hole saw I cut a hole above the gas cap on the generator, then used a jigsaw to increase the diameter of the hole to about 4".  I used a piece of flat metal which came with the EcoFlow sun tracker to cover the hole, using just one screw to secure it so it can be swing out of the way exposing the gas cap on the generator.....

......that took me less than 30 minutes beginning to end, and it works quite well!

Next I decided to drill a hole in the floor next to drivers side of our bed to run the cable for the 'Charge Wizard', ran the line through the floor to the charger, plugged it in, and then fastened the 'Charge Wizard' to the wall under the window using 2 sided tape provided by the manufacturer.....

.....it allows me to manually put the charger into 'float' mode, or 'bulk charge' mode without going outside.  Why did I wait so many years to do this?  An easy 30 minute job.

Last up, I began the process of removing the new SeaFlo water pump, and reinstalling the older ShurFlo pump which produces a modest 40 PSI.  The 60 PSI provided by the SeaFlo was just too much for our system, and caused the water flow to surge, instead of providing a steady flow.  This reeked havoc with our Girard tankless water heater.  I was expecting this job to take an inordinate amount of time, but within an hour the deed was done, order was restored in our 'water world', and I was done working for the day.  Time to retreat to the warm confines of the Newell for the rest of the day.

I spent the afternoon continuing my efforts to catch up on the YouTube channels to which I subscribe.  And that was our day.

Thanks for stopping by!