Well, internet problems abound! We left Lazy Days and headed down to Royal Coachman/Encore park in Nokomis, FL. We were early for our reservation so we had to boondock before we could move onto our reserved site. As I mentioned, we are welcoming this as we plan to do a lot more in the future. We had a lot of issues with Tengo Internet, the provider at this park as well, so we had no internet at all for several days. We have been playing with the AGS (Automatic Generator Start) to see how it works. We are a bit stymied though. It seems to be starting the gen for no reason. You can set the generator to start based on interior temperature or battery voltage. The idea is if the coach gets hot, the gen will start to allow the AC to run and cool things off, and if the batteries run down, it will start the gen to recharge the batteries. We can monitor the voltage, so we know where the batteries are when the gen starts up. We thought we had everything set correctly, so we're sitting there reading with the batteries reading 12.5 volts, we had it set to start if the batteries got down to 12 volts, and boom the genny starts up. Turned out, we think, that the temp parameter which we thought we had turned off kicked on the gen. Made some adjustments, and we think it is operating correctly. Now though, it appears we may need new house batteries. We bought our coach used, it was owned about 6 months, and sat for about 6 months, so unfortunately we don't know how it was treated during that time. We had to replace the chassis or starting batteries already, they were weak and mis-sized anyway. We have AGM batteries, Absorbed Glass Mat, they have a lot of advantages over regular wet cell batteries, no maintenance, more recharging cycles, quicker recharge, don't leak or gas, etc, BUT, they are expensive! We have 4 huge house batteries that are now about 5-6 years old, and may need to be replaced. We just are not getting the time out of them we expect with the amount of current we are drawing. I think we will plan to stop by a Lifeline Battery dealer in Texas this spring after we leave our daughter's, and have them do a load test and see where we are. Hopefully they are good, but we'll see.
I have some other maintenance issues this week to take care of. Jan's away, so I'm batching it. She and her two sisters are taking their mom on a visit to relatives in PA.
As I mentioned our freezer died, so I will be fixing that by installing a new cooling unit. Our accumulator tank for our water system needs to be replaced, so that's on my agenda as well. We noticed while boon docking our water pump would run the moment we turned on the water. The accumulator's function is to smooth out the flow so the pump builds up pressure in the tank, then when the pressure goes down the pump starts, just like your well pump and house system work if you have a well. At first I thought the tank had lost it's precharge, but when I tried to check it water came out the air valve. It is a bladder tank, so no water should ever get to the air valve. So I'll get that replaced as well.
I also want to wash and hand wax the coach. We have never ever hand waxed the motorhome before, always paid to have it washed and waxed and buffed out. But now with retirement, I'm telling myself I need to get a really good coat of wax on it. The people that had done it before did a nice job, but the liquid spray-on wax never lasted too long. We will be sitting here for a month so a lot to do! Good!
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