RE: "normal" light lumen?
I see the forum post page made a MESS of my ASCII chart. It threw out all the spaces and crammed it all together !! :M :M :M
Hopefully, you can make sense of it.
RE: "normal" light lumen?
It was in interesting task. The Safari has no plastic bulb type light fixtures such as found in the usual RV, but has either 15 or 18 inch two-tube Thinlite flush mounted fluorescent fixtures, or inset type (Mounted flush to the ceiling) halogen lights with 35 watt bi-pin bulbs. I replaced three original halogen reading lights with brass ‘bullet’ type fixtures that can be aimed anywhere, and replaced the original 1383 bulbs with 3 watt Luxeon LED’s. The originals didn’t swivel more than 5 degrees, and never seemed to go where I wanted them too.
Key:
TL = Thinlite fluorescent
H = Halogen spotlight fixture with 35 watt bi-pin bulb
120V = 120 volt bulbs
LED = my converted reading light
So… here’s what I come up with:
Location LUX Fixture Dist. from LUX meter
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Galley counter top 675 15’’ TL 18’’
Galley counter top 142 4 ft. overhead 120v Fluorescent 3 feet
Stove top light 129 120V 15’’ (Light is on the bottom of the microwave oven)
Dining table 89 120V 3 feet (Fixture uses a 75 watt PAR type bulb)
Euro Recliner Chair 1,375 LED 30’’ (About where I hold a book)
Couch overhead lights 860 H 3 feet
Bathroom sink 2,400 H 18’’ (Light is under the medicine cabinet)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Salon (Living room)
On top of coffee table 46 Two 18’’ FL (in ceiling) 5 feet, and offset from the two lights
Couch seat surface 105 Two 18’’ FL (in ceiling) 4 feet, mostly under the set of lights
Floor 85 Two 18’’ FL (in ceiling) 6.5 feet, directly under one of the two lights
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Make up table surface 448 Eight 120V bulbs (Clear glass globe bulbs, I think they’re 40 watts each)
Make up mirror 530 Eight 120V bulbs (LUX sensor held about where one’s face should be)
Nightlight 0.5 12 lumen LED installed inside of a Thinlite fixture
Dashboard 10 Cessna aircraft map light 30’’
NOTES:
The Cessna map light… it’s dimmable, swivels, switches from red to white, and adjusts from spot to flood. It doubles as a keyboard light when the laptop is set up on the desk I made that sits on the steering wheel. On full brightness, it casts a nice moonlight glow onto the entire dashboard. I got a pair from eBay a while back.
Nightlight. Actually, there are two of them. I originally installed amber clearance lights inside of the Thinlite fixtures. I’ve since replaced the small push-in instrument bulbs with 12 lumen LED ‘cluster’ lights. It makes just enough light to see where you’re going in the middle of the night. One’s in the main bathroom area, the other in the toilet room.
Make up mirror and table. It sits in the corner of the stateroom. There are three mirrors… the main one and two sides. The bulbs rim the mirrors, just like a backstage make-up mirror for actors etc.
I should’ve but haven’t yet, taken LUX readings at high noon. Also, LUX readings with natural daylight in the coach for comparison purposes. I’ll also have to visit a friend’s TT which has the typical RV type bulb fixtures to see what their LUX levels are.
A couple of links for LUX levels.
Wikipedia... LUX
LUX levels for task lighting
RE: "normal" light lumen?
Another thought on color temperature:
LED’s are a broad spectrum light source. It’s hard to compare to a ‘‘hot wire’’ bulb because of the eye’s perception tend to make the LED appear brighter. So, lumens or LUX isn’t the last word on perceived brightness.
Also, LED’s direct light mostly in one direction. An 1156 or 1147 bulb emits light everywhere, including against the plastic parts of the RV fixture, thereby wasting a lot. The 1156’s 402 lumens might translate to half that of what actually makes it thru the fixture’s lens.
The plot thickens…
RE: "normal" light lumen?
I’m going to have to make some measurements soon. :B
Light measuring standards is a deep subject. There are too many standards in use.
Lumens is usually obtained by firing a flashlight (or bulb) into a spherical chamber and measuring ALL of its emitted light. It’s the best for a light’s true output power.
Candlepower is related, but is measured at a target. That’s a REALLY misleading one, and used by flashlight makers to pump up ratings. It’s somewhat meaningless though, because reflector design figures into it. A light with a narrow beam might have 150,000 candle power compared to one with a wider beam that shows 25,000. You’d think the higher one is the one to buy, but it might have a very narrow beam with little side throw. I have a Pelican Sabre with a high CP number, but it’s a ‘laser beam.’ It projects a tight spot with little side throw… you’d never be able to walk with it in the woods. My Fenix P3D that has a massive 215 lumens and will literally light up an entire 250 person auditorium, but it’s wide beam would have a somewhat low CP rating due to the flood pattern.
The typical bulb such as the 1147’s in RV fixtures are in watts. Forget about comparing to lumens etc. Finding a CP or lumen rating for a small lightbulb is hard for some reason.
LUX is the amount falling on a surface and is probably the best for ‘real world’ purposes.
I have a digital LUX meter, and I’ll take some measurements in the coach. About 500 LUX is good for reading, and is a typical desk lamp’s output on the desk it’s shining on. (Distance figures into it) I just replaced three reading lights with 3 watt Luxeon LED’s. They’re scorching bright, and I’ll have to compare the LUX to the fixture’s standard 1383 bulb. (They’re still around somewhere. :) )
I’ll also see what the overhead fluorescent fixtures do for LUX on the counter tops and the like. I’ll post it all here soon. (Tomorrow, hopefully)
Color temp is measured in degrees Kelvin. 3000K is a warm light, 5000K is a cool light like a fluorescent bulb. LED’s with daylight output generally cost more. Here's a Wikipedia page on color temp.
Click this link for an RV.net forum I started when I upgraded reading lights to LED's.
RE: Pacbrake PRXB upgrade. (Here goes!!)
I decided to wait 'til after the Chelan trip to yank the Bilsteins. I'm sending them off to Bilstein for rebuild. (It's getting ''bouncy and floaty'')
So... while it's sitting shockless and undrivable, I'll clean the engine and check for leaks etc. I bought a couple of cans of Engine Brite. :) I gotta' get it done after posting that photo of the filthy Cat. :B
RE: Pacbrake PRXB upgrade. (Here goes!!)
Oh yes, I have to add one thing… our friends Loren and Sharon were following in their Dodge truck and TT as we dropped down Alt. 97 into Chelan. He said he could hear a fairly loud ‘’brrrraaaaappppp!!!’’ as the EB kicked in, much like a Jake. (I couldn’t hear it)
I guess that must be the PRXB’s rapidly opening/closing secondary valve. I was using it intermittently down that hill to maintain about 55 or so.
RE: Pacbrake PRXB upgrade. (Here goes!!)
Anybody still out there? :B
Just came back from four days at Lake Chelan and Leavenworth. Them’s HILLS in them thar hills!! :B It’s pretty rough country up there, and we made a climb out on 2 heading to Waterville on the way home. We side-tripped to Dry Falls State park for a scenic drive back home.
The PRXB got a real good workout on that trip. It does change the way I drive downhills. I switch it on, and ‘feather’ the throttle. If she speeds up, the PRXB will drag it down fast, and I just ‘feather’ it again to let ‘er coast. If I do it right, I can control the speed without having it downshift to 4th or 3rd.
A switch and relay I added a while back does the same thing as turning on the EB with each brake pedal app. I added a switch and marked it ‘’EB Auto apply’ which, if on, will trip the relay to turn on the EB as if the EB switch was manually turned on. That way, I get an EB assist with a pedal push hard enough to turn on the brake lights. That works great in town and anytime I want the EB to come on without doing so with the throttle pedal let up. Now, the PRXB takes it down to 12 MPH before releasing, and I just mash the pedal a little harder to actually apply the service brakes for the last bit of stopping. (Which ain’t much! :B)
I’m going to leave the programming the way it is because my ‘auto EB’ takes it down to that low speed due to downshifting to 2nd. If I reprogram it to 4th, I’ll then have to manually drop to 2nd each time. No thanks.
An observation: Yes, the PRXB works ‘’the same as the original Pacbrake’’ on downhill runs at near redline RPM, but… before, as the RPM dropped, so did the holding force in a linear curve. So, you’d end up barely holding a controlled downhill speed. Now, the PRXB has the same holding force from high RPM on down, so you actually GAIN in holding (braking) force as the speed drops, and it drops speed at all times rather than just reaching an equilibrium point as the original one does. (did) So, it holds a nice controlled speed on an 8% drop without gaining speed, and loses speed on anything less steep, requiring intermittent usage of the EB.
Another thing, my ‘feathering’ on the throttle is great for just letting her go on straight-aways, (Up to 55 MPH or so) and letting my foot up to quickly drag it back down to 30 or 35 MPH for hard curves. (On two lane downhill runs on older highways at 6% or less grades) I never even touch the service brakes for such roads now.
RE: Headlight relay installation question
Why not run good HEAVY wires directly back to the batteries for both power and ground?
That’s what I did.
I ran a #4 wire to a set of 50 amp continuous duty solenoids. One for high, the other low beams. (The original bulbs have replaced by PIAA’s) Each headlamp is fed from the solenoids by #10 wire. The #4 is fed directly from a main power bus supplied by monster sized 500 MCM cable from the batteries, and I added an 80 amp self resetting circuit breaker. (In this case, the electrical bay is under the driver’s window, with a ‘gazillion’ fuses and relays)
So… now, the OEM headlight switch does nothing more than turn on the two solenoids. Between having REAL power going to the headlamps and PIAA’s, I can see 10,000 feet of highway on brights. :B
As for the OP’s idea, I’d power the added double filament relay coil thru a diode so the brights don’t backfeed and ‘latch’ up the relay. That relay could just ‘short’ across the high/low beams to power them on with brights.
RE: How are you and your RV during these times?
So far…
The Oregon coast… twice. Yellowstone nat’l park and a Montana ghost town tour, various trips here and there including a family reunion near Mill City Oregon. Weekend before last was the Potholes state park. This weekend, we’re taking Thursday & Friday off to make for a longer weekend at Lake Chelan.
I swear as soon as the coach rolled into the driveway, diesel fuel quadrupled in price. :M
Then again, the rig gets only a little less economy than the previous Ford F-350 and 30’ TT combo, so a 10% lower fuel mileage makes little difference in a trip overall. The coach as of now costs about 65 cents a mile to operate. It still beats out hotel/motel rooms and restaurants hands down, so it ain’t gonna’ be parked quite yet. :B
The reality is we spend more in gift shops on trips than we do fuel. It’s always been that way, and still is, despite higher fuel costs. This time, we found a Tiffany lamp at an antique shop… there went a couple of tanks of diesel! :B :B
RE: Remote Storage
Get a good universal remote and program all your stuff in it. Put all the other remotes in a box and leave them in the basement.
Been there, done that. There's always ONE item that the universal remote doesn't recognize. And you sometimes lose certain functions such as extended info for the current program (satellite) or other obscure items. I wish someone could make an all-for-one remote that actually WORKS.
And... in my case, the satellite receiver is in the basement and controlled by an RF remote. I don't think ANY universal remote is capable of RF.
RE: Remote Storage
I hang all five (Yeah, I KNOW... FIVE remotes!! :B) with Velcro on the side of the cabinet by the chair. They're handy to grab and replace.
They're: TV set, Satellite receiver, home theater, DVD/VCR, and stereo system.
RE: Street Legal Motorcycle to use with RV
Something to consider about what to get:
Unless you stay only in RV parks within town, you’ll just about always have to deal with a highway to go see anything. A lot of RV parks, state parks, parks on the ocean, etc. are out of town, even if only a couple of miles.
Do you want to try to make it to town or to a side road on an underpowered scooter that can barely make the minimum speed limit? Even a place such as Arch View RV park near Arches N.P. in Utah means about three miles on the highway until you get to the park entrance.
I wouldn’t have any problem on the Yamaha, but I’d be scared out of my wits spitless on a 150cc scooter.
RE: RV overheating
The terms ‘intercooler’ and ‘aftercooler’ get thrown around a lot. Their function: to cool the charge air coming from or going to the turbocharger compressor. Like any air compressor, a turbocharger heats up the air going thru it. In the turbo’s case, it’s a centrifugal compressor that runs at high speed. (50k to 70k RPM) The word ‘turbocharger’ comes from it’s being a supercharger directly driven by a turbine. (An exhaust driven turbine)
Although the terms are interchanged, an aftercooler, which most diesel RV’s have, means the charge air is cooled after the turbo. Look at the routing… the pipes lead out of the turbo’s outlet, thru the aftercooler, then into the intake manifold.
An intercooler cools the air before the turbo’s compressor inlet. It can also refer to an air-to-air radiator between stages of multi-turbo engines.
So… just about all inter/aftercoolers are mounted as the FIRST thing in the air flow. The heat from the radiator, oil cooler, A/C condenser, transmission cooler, etc. should be BEHIND the aftercooler. There will be NO thermo transfer when air is blowing over it as the first item of a stack O’ radiators.
But, if that stack is soiled by dirty oily gum, then air is blocked from them ALL. The radiator will not get enough air as well as extra heat from a partially blocked aftercooler, so everything starts becoming a ‘‘thermal runaway’’ because heat cannot be dissipated properly.
RE: RV overheating
What Brett says is true: be CAREFUL when cleaning the radiator and aftercooler. The fins are all too easily bent over. A pressure washer will lay fins over like nobody's business. They can be straightened with a special tool, but it's a major PITA.
If this helps: Here's a picture of my ''kitty cat'' under the rear bed. (Please pardon the dirt) The Safari has a rear queen bed running lengthwise to the coach. It raises up from the foot of the bed. The cover is held down by rubber ''Jeep'' latches. There's four... two on the end, one on each side. Note: you should use broomsticks or the like to prop up the bed so it doesn't come down on you. Most are held up with lift cylinders, but they don't always work that great.
If your bed is on a slide room and sitting sideways, the engine is likely under a large hatch. Look for access there. A lot of those type rigs have a raised bed floor. That's the engine hood.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-3/1160325/DSCF3507_resize.JPG
RE: Radio
Take it from a radio tech:
AM = Amplitude Modulation
FM = Frequency Modulation
A bad or lacking antenna will cause an AM station to fade away in volume. The same problem will show up on an FM station as 'static' since the receiver has trouble remaining 'locked' on it. The antenna may be semi-bad, but there are enough FM stations close by to mask the problem.
Try holding onto the antenna and see if the volume increases. If no change, you’ll have to see what’s wrong. It may be unplugged, the coax is bad, etc. There should be SOME change when you ‘help’ the signal by adding to the antenna with your body.
Quite a few stereos have a 'null tuning' control on the back panel. It's to eliminate the whistling problem on AM stations. That may need reset. What robatthelake says may well be true too, as AM radio seem to be relegated to talk radio and sports stations anymore, and the AM band is slowly becoming obsolete.
RE: Searching for a stolen generator
Thieves can be pretty stupid at that.
My second favorite is an idiot who stole a Motorola Mocom 70 control head from a parked Benton County patrol car. This was about 20 years ago, back when radios were a ‘Samsonite suitcase’ in the trunk, and a ‘control head’ on the dashboard. The fool was too stupid to think that maybe the 35 ~ 40 wires in the cable he cut with a knife just MIGHT lead somewhere important. And, by the way, the cable can be easily UNPLUGGED from the control head.
Later, he pawns the control head, complete with the cut cable dangling from the back of it. (Telling the pawn broker it was a ‘’C. B. radio’’) The pawn broker’s IQ was a ‘tad higher’ and knew what he was looking at, so he hit his button under the counter while the guy tried pawning other items. When the cops searched his car, the trunk was full of stolen items… cameras, VCR’s, etc. etc. etc.
My favorite is the vandals/thieves that broke into a building on Inspiration Point. (A site that’s gated also) They managed to get into the very building that houses the repeater and remote base radios for the local police and sheriff’s depts. The building’s alarm system sends signals out right over the air to dispatch. (Nothing in the site indicates the alarm’s active) They didn’t even hear the plethora of cops drive up during their rummaging around inside the concrete block structure. Boy, were they SURPRISED when they walked outside!! :B A search of their house revealed a pile of stolen items from burglaries all over the area.
The stolen generator reminds me of the City of Kennewick. They were running a survey with a remote differential GPS transmitter unit set up at a water tower. Suddenly, the guys in the field couldn’t work anymore because the signal from the DGPS abruptly quit. Since we work on their systems, they called us to run out and check it. (They were miles away) We went up to the water tower and there was nothing there except footprints and dents in the ground where the tripod stood. As far as I know, the $10,000 unit was never recovered.
RE: Slow Learne, or poorly written manual
It depends on the programming. Mine is 0.5 MPH increments. It’s handy when pacing trucks to maintain the distance. (Except for cotton pickin’ cars that squeeze into the gap! :M)
About the only thing that’s always bugged me is that it seems backwards. Flipping the switch forward is DEcelerate, and backwards is ACCelerate. It seems to me that pushing it forward should go faster, backwards, slower. I guess that’s just me. :)
Speaking of documentation lack and other stupid things, I’ll never figure out why Allison had a ‘’Microsoft moment’’ and hacked out the monitor digit for a few years. Everyone must’ve complained, because the new ones are double digits again. (The shiftpad has both a Select and monitor digit)
RE: Allison Transmission
The ‘use the same gear as you used to climb the hill’ rule was because most (if not just about all) mountain pass roads are as steep and winding on the way down as they are up. If you climbed up in 3rd range with 30 MPH corners etc., then you’ll be going at about the same speed on the way down for the same reasons. (Barring having a really gutless engine on the up climb, that is. :B) You wouldn’t want to let it hit top gear, because when you couldn’t safely take the sharp corners on the way UP, you certainly don’t want more speed on the way DOWN.
That rule was started back in the days of double clutching big rig manual transmissions. If you missed a gear on a downshift, you might NEVER get it reengaged when the truck picks up speed, and engine braking then becomes a moot point.
A modern Allison automatic will downshift regardless, so there’s no missed gear problem. But, it will up-shift if the engine RPM exceeds safe limits. Starting out from the top in 3rd or 4th range will tend to keep it in that same range all the way down, and control your speed.
Also bear this in mind for climbing and downhill runs: the Allison transmissions are in overdrive for ranges 5th and 6th. 4th range is direct, so there’s no clutch packs, bands, planetary gears, or hydraulic slippage going on, so things will run cooler.
RE: What gassers support a motorcycle carrier
A problem of gassers isn’t just a lighter duty frame, it’s because of their long overhang. Notice the typical gas coach… the rear axle is at or slightly behind the CENTER of the coach body. You don’t want another 800 lbs. levering the back end down when there’s 20 feet of rear overhang.
