We have a departure date and an Inverter

We have set Oct 1st, 2017 as our 'get outta dodge' date. There is a lot to do and only 8 weeks to do it now...

I rummaged through the house a couple of months ago and made a pile of stuff in the garage to try to sell in a garage sale. Last weekend I finally got around to having one. Nothing major, I just put a sign over the realtors sign with a couple of balloons and Brad mentioned it on Facebook but I didn't go all out with advertising it everywhere. Did pretty good too, mostly it was just small stuff and I put stupid cheap prices on everything since the goal was just to get rid of it. Having started with many many boxes I am now down to just one box and a few odds left. So I'm pretty happy with that.

On our travels home from Red Deer, AB with this new rig we purchased a 500w inverter for Brad's CPAP machine. We don't want to be tied to 'needing' shore power and the inverter will allow us freedom to boondock whenever we want/need. We have full intentions of putting solar on the rig shortly after we head out in October and will likely have this done in the states but we still need to get to the USA and to that end sleeping would be helpful.

We tried the inverter on that maiden trip but could not get it to operate the CPAP. Having read through the paperwork I now understand why not. Yesterday I had great plans to get the inverter set up into the battery box (basement) and run an extension through to the bedroom but having read through the details I am once again kerfuffled. The paperwork says not to put the inverter with the batteries and not to subject the inverter to the elements, well the battery compartment is open to the elements due to the battery 'off gassing' (can't think of a better way of saying that) so now I guess I shall have to locate a way to have the inverter in a different box with the battery connections close enough to reach the batteries at the front end of the rig and the extension cord heading towards the back.

This will require some thought and as the rig is perched beside our house on the edge of a cliff and I don't like going into it particularly, it will need to be pulled ahead so that I can look around into the compartments and figure out the best configuration without having to punch holes through everything. All of our basement bins are sealed units and I'd sure like to keep it that way but the man has to sleep and a girl has to do what a girl has to do. Yes I'm the technical one in our family. Brad can do it also but he usually has other stuff on the go and I am quite capable of doing things so why not?! Rhetorical question, I don't really want your answer and I may be a girl but I'm a girl with scissors so... let's stay friends.

Anyway, I watched a video on Love Your RV where Ray explains his inverter installation and a couple of other options which is where I learned just enough to be dangerous. I chose the extension cord option for this situation as it is really only a temporary fix for a couple of weeks while we get deep into the States where we will promptly let a professional sort us into some solar.

The great thing about this particular rig is that everything except the plugs runs on DC, gas or propane (this is my understanding at this point - but I'm just a girl ;) so we'll let a professional actually do it) but by my calculations (redone since the previous rig) using the details learned from Pippi Peterson we will require 3 100w panels. Now I need to verify this as I've lost the actual calculations somehow. Someone asked me on a previous blog for the details of solar calculations and I said I would write a Blog about it and haven't yet. I will do this on Tuesday Aug 1st.

Perhaps I will make a video about it, but I will definitely put a written explanation on the blog also. Everything I found online was very piecemeal and confusing so it would probably benefit a lot of people to have a clean concise way of calculating ones solar needs. It is surprisingly simple once you know all the pieces to the puzzle.

Thats enough for today as I have to go to work. Yuk! Who's bright idea was this anyway?! Oh! Nevermind.....

Until Tuesday then.