Work on the camper is still continuing all be it slowly.
I am/was in the throws of changing my truck. I had purchased another Ford Ranger. This one a 3-litre auto instead of my 2.5 manual.
It turned out to be a right LEMON
I am still trying to rectify the situation with the garage, who are not being very helpful.
The thought of no usable truck to put the camper on took the wind out of my sails a bit. With all sort of options flying about. To sell it? Spend more on either of my truck? I am afraid a new one is well out of my range.
Anyway,
Tidying up the wiring and fitting it into cable trunking is taking quite a time. Shortening some wiring, extending others all is a slow process.
I will try to get the camera out and take some pictures.
The solar panel and controller are working great. I have recently added a data logger to the solar controller to monitor exactly what goes on. It takes a reading every 10 minutes and stores for retrieval later. There is a program available to be able to plug a windows laptop directly into the logger which would be great if I had one. At present, the best I can do is to take the logger to my home PC to access the data. I was hoping to be able to access the logger with my RaspberryPi computer but there is not a convenient Linux program. That is still work in progress.
While the camper is at the home base I might try using a WiFi extender and sender unit to read the logger directly but I would have to swop connections to the internal monitor display as you cannot connect both at once.
With the intension to fit gas struts to the solar panel so that it will be possible to tilt it to take advantage of the winter sun. I am interested to see exactly what difference it will make. Hence the data collection.
A number of runs with the heater confirmed my suspicions that it gives out too much heat for my small (well insulated
) camper. I ran it until I had used all of the gallon of diesel I had. One cold morning I decided to try to fire it up again. This time on some 6-year-old diesel I had leftover when I got rid of my Lister engine. Not a good idea. The heater went through its start-up procedure only to blow cold air from the heater and white smoke from the exhaust. It then shut off with an error code showing incomplete combustion. I suppose it was asking a bit much for the old diesel to still have any go. Then we were back into lockdown so I have plenty of time to get fresh fuel, flush the system through, and have another go.
The idea that the heater was still too big for my requirement bugged me so I searched out a 2kw heater on Amazon. That arrived a week early, today in fact. It is quite a bit smaller than the 5Kw all-in-one obviously and I am looking forward to trying it out. This one has to be assembled and fitted in as opposed to the 5Kw. It even has a more sophisticated digital controller that allows much more system control. I am not sure yet if it compatible with the all singing and dancing Afterburner controller that I yen for but even if it is not this one has far more options than the previous one.
I fitted a bracket to mount a TV. I took the smart TV from the dining room (bac room
) and mounted it in the camper. It is true at present I can only use it when "plugged in" and I have no aerial at the minute. The WiFi signal from the house was not strong enough to reach the TV but I was able to test it out playing music and pictures off a USB key. It worked fine for a couple of days then nothing. It seemed totally dead. I checked the power supply to and in the camper, all good. TV nothing. I took off the bracket and back down to the house. Nothing. I took the back off just to check that there was not a blown small fuse on the boards, nothing. I got my multimeter out, the one that works
, and checked I had power getting to the boards inside. Yep, it was live but nothing from the set. Fed up I put it back together and stood it up the corner out of the way. I thought I would try recharging the remote control batteries just to be sure it wasn't a switching problem.
The next day , with fully charged remote batteries I tried the set again. Bingo, it works. I'm not sure but I don't think the remote really had anything to do with it. I have a suspicion that the st does not like the cold and damp outside in the camper. Or it could be that there is a break in the mains lead, dry joint on the boards or any of the 101 things that can go wrong. I will see when it goes back to the camper.
The extra's that come with that are:- an inverter to use some of my power and an aerial, both TV and WiFi
It might be ideal one day
The winter closing in prompted me to think about finishing the fourth piece of the awning (indoor job) although when I get the heater in?? plenty to do in the camper still.
I had put eyelets in the sheets to enable me to join them with the little bungee balls. That did seem a bit of a pain so I intend to add press studs when I finally finish the corner piece.
Pictures to follow