RE: Inverter 'Power" Interference
It seems like a worst case of the VCR not liking the invreter, must be some something to do with the VCR reading of the magnetic tape.
Even it the TV and the VCR are plugged into shoreline power once the inverter is switched on I get the interference. Therefor the inverter must emmit some kind of "noise" , broadcast through the AIR that interferes with the VCR.
:h
It seems like you have proven that the interference is being radiated from the inverter or its wiring to the VCR, I agree. That is not really a head scratcher though. An inverter is supposed to make AC Voltage and current at 60 Hz, or 50 Hz in many parts of the world. It certainly does that but in the process of doing so it makes signals at much higher frequencies too, frequencies high enough to interfere with your TV or VCR in this case. At 50/60 Hz the current it generates does not radiate through the air very efficiently because nothing in your MH is anywhere near large enough to act as a good antenna to "launch" radiated energy at those frequencies. At much higher frequencies the wiring and the inverter components themselves can act as good antennas. Your inverter basically generates radio waves in the course of its operation as do all electronic devices. If there is a good enough antenna in the path of high frequency current it will radiate energy just like a radio transmitter.
The FCC interference regulations have long recognized this. They divide all electronic devices into one of two categories: intentional radiators (radio transmitters) and unintentional radiators (everything else, including radio receivers).
Unfortunately, in the small confines of a MH even the inverter's intended 60Hz output could cause a problem since it can couple magnetically to the VCR. It does not have to radiate away into space to do that. It seems unlikely that the VCR would be bothered by 60Hz energy coupled in magnetically however, since that occurs in most home based VCR setups.
If the interference is being radiated into the VCR then getting a separate inverter for it and the TV will not solve the problem. X-ray shielding is not likely to help either. Wrapping the VCR in aluminum foil may help, just as a test. Routing as much of the inverter wiring as far from the VCR as possible may help. Putting the VCR somewhere else far from the inverter may help. Use a longer video cable to the TV to allow this. All of these things can be done as temporary measures just to see what the effects are. If a solution falls out of the testing you can then consider how to implement it in an acceptable permanent fashion.
I think what you should try to do is to first separate the VCR as far as possible from the inverter and its wiring to kill the interference with it and the TV running on shore power. Then without moving anything power the TV from the inverter to see if the problem is still fixed. If it comes back try some ferrite on the TV power cord. If you can get that to work then try connecting the VCR to the inverter power too. Once you know that can work you can start to work out how to get the TV and VCR back into acceptable locations without interference.
Ken
RE: Inverter 'Power" Interference
Ok, you are making progress. I see your PM to me, btw, but it seems best to answer it here since the next guy who stumbles onto this thread won't benefit from a private response.
If I follow what you said correctly you have no TV interference when running the TV on an antenna or the DVD player. You only have interference when using the VCR. Correct?
If that is true, is it still true when the TV is powered by the inverter?
What happens to the signal from the VCR when the VCR is running from shore power through the extension cord? If everything is good when the VCR is powered that way then ferrite beads on the VCR power cord might help. It is also possible however that the VCR doesn't like the AC waveform from your inverter. In that case ferrite won't help, you will have to find an inverter for the VCR that generates a clean enough AC waveform to make it happy -- if they exist.
Ken
RE: Inverter 'Power" Interference
the TV interference appears with ANY HIGH AMP APPLIANCE draw :
It is good that you eliminated the microwave oven. If the problem occurs with any high current load then it is likely to be the inverter. That maybe normal since as the load current increases the strength of any interference the inverter generates would increase as well. At some current it become great enough to bother the TV.
Ken
RE: Inverter 'Power" Interference
I think you first need to determine if the problem is radiated interference from the inverter or microwave or conducted interference through the power lines. An inverter generates some unintended high frequency noise as it operates. The more current you draw from the inverter the more noise power is generated. So the fact that you have interference issues at the high current level the microwave draws is understandable.
A second inverter would partially isolate the power connections between the TV and microwave although they are still connected via the battery input lines. I think a better test would be to run the TV from an extension cord connected to shore power while the microwave runs from your inverter system. If the interference goes away then the path to the TV runs through the power system. In that case a separate inverter for the TV may solve the problem. Putting ferrite interference suppressors on the DC leads to the two inverters as Ron suggested would help prevent the interference from using the common DC connection of the two inverters as a path to the TV.
If you still have the interference when the TV is running off an extension cord to shore power then the path must be radiation from the inverter or the wiring into and out of it. The wiring is the most likely culprit and ferrite cores should help suppress radiated energy as well as conducted energy.
As others have suggested the issue could be variations of the AC Voltage to the TV that your meter just can't capture. The shore power test will fix this problem too and most likely, as has been suggested, a separate inverter for the TV will also fix it. In this case the ferrite cores on the wiring would be unnecessary.
Your battery system sounds solid, with enough redundancy to tolerate a weak battery. But it doesn't hurt to double check it.
Ken
RE: Ford V-10 mileage
Another possible (but this one is practical)
I'm not sure this idea is impractical. We've talked about boat tails before and I always assumed they would have to be upwards of 20 feet long to provide much in the way of a benefit. The Dutch claim the optimum length is only 2 meters or about 6.6 feet. That is much more plausible and perhaps it would scale down slightly on a MH. The device they show could be modified to fold flat against the rear when not driving. If the gain is real they might start to show up on trucks and motorhomes. The pressure to increase fuel economy is only going to get worse in the future. Besides, I wonder what happens if you add AirTabs to the rear of the boat tail??
Ken ;)
RE: Ford V-10 mileage
We all need one of these:
Truck Boat Tail
Sorry if the link doesn't work, it points to an industrial newsletter I get at work and I don't know if you need to be a subscriber to see it.
If that does not work you can also go here:
Delft Technology University
If that should happen to come up in Dutch there will be an English link you can press near the top right corner of the page. In the same corner is a search box where you can enter "boat tail" to get links to the available articles. One claims 15% rather than 7.5% gain but all are rather light on details.
Ken
RE: Electrical schematic freedom express dreamer
I emailed Coachmen once before the sale to Forest River and got a quick reply. Not terribly helpful but quick. I don't think it is a good sign that you are not getting a quick response but you could try Forest River too. Who knows if they really monitor the "Coachmen" email anymore?
I did not make a major effort at mining the web for information but I don't see a Freedom Express Dreamer anywhere. I do find a Freelander Dreamer model. I find tons of Coachmen Freedom Express travel trailers. I only find one 2010 Coachmen on Camping World's site and it is a Freelander. From looking at the web it is totally unclear who owns the "Freedom Express" trade name. It may well be that CW will sell house branded MHs made by Thor in the future. They may not be called Freedom Express however.
Ken
RE: Class confussion
What Westronics calls a Class C is similarly called a C Class, or more informatively, coachbuilt, wherein the van body has been left off or removed to be replaced with more spacious and complete living quarters (coach) similar to a small travel trailer (which they call caravans).
The B+ that Wes calls an "undefined marketing term" is very much defined in the Briitish wording:
What we call a B+ is a C-Class in the UK,
So, to sum up what burlmart is saying: In the UK our class C is a class C and our class B+ is also a class C.
Well, that is what a lot of us have been saying all along, they are all class C's and saying "class B+" is exactly the same as saying "small class C". There is no need at all for a "B+" class and since a "B+" is a C, not a B, it only confuses newbies when the term is used. It should be expunged from our vocabulary.
Who knows how the RVIA defines classes these days? They sure used to define classes the way they are defined on this forum, that is where the forum definitions came from after all. They weren't invented here to annoy "B+" owners. The definitions currently posted on the RVIA website are not "usage based", they are vague to the point of being useless. The real RVIA classes, if they still exist, are now hidden away in an area accessible only by RVIA members. The pictures of the various types of motorhomes shown on the RVIA website are a thousand times more useful for figuring out what the classes really are than the words that accompany them. And the pictures don't show what some want to call a B+ at all! So there, it is confirmed that they don't exist. ;)
Here is how useless the current RVIA "definitions" are. I have a motorhome. It sleeps four. It costs $70,000 new. What class or type motorhome is it? Look at the definitions, it is a Type ABC motorhome since it fits all three. To classify it any further with the given definitions we would have to ask some people how they feel about it. If ten people claim it drives like their family van and looks like a van camper then it is a class B, even if it is a 45 foot Diesel pusher (unlikely in that price range, I know!). If the same ten people claim it is roomy and has luxurious amenities then it is a class A even if it is entirely built inside the standard body of an E450 van. If those 10 people claim you could contrive to put a sleeping area over the cab somehow, as an option, then it is a class C. The truth is the words in the RVIA "definitions" are useless, the pictures are what really tell the story, and the pictures agree 100% with the traditional "RV.net" definitions of motorhome classes.
Why should we care? The only valid reason for dividing motorhomes into classes, here or elsewhere, is to group similar things together to make them easy to understand and to facilitate discussion about them. All RVs, from the tiniest travel trailers to the largest DPs and fifth wheels, have many features and systems in common. One could argue that we really only need one forum. But that forum would have a huge number of posts per day and people would have to write a paragraph describing what they actually owned with every post so that everyone else could determine how similar their experience was before responding to a thread. Thus the overall forum is divided into subsections. This makes it a whole lot easier for everyone to get the information they need without sifting through screen after screen of perfectly fine information that simply does not apply to them. There are issues that you can have with a class B that you will not have with a class C or class A and the same statement applies no matter which order the three classes appear in it.
There are no issues that are unique to a "B+" and absent on a C or vice versa. None. There is no functionality that you get or lose on a "B+" compared to a traditional C of the same length. I know, I've owned both. They are the same thing and that is why so many of us dismiss the un-needed and confusing class B+ terminology as merely marketing. We would embrace a term that captured the true essence of the subclass without introducing confusion, as Super C does for the large end of the class C universe. Mini C would work, maybe there is something better. I always point to the Winnebago View as a victim of what I regard as the class B+ nonsense. It handles very well and it is certainly small and fuel efficient. Yet no one regards it as a B+ because it has a boxy body and an overhead bunk. On the other end of the scale a 31 footer that is 8 feet wide and has a stylishly rounded fiberglass shell with a fairing instead of a cabover is a "B+".
Where is the sense in that? The View is certainly a Mini C and has far more in common with the photographic catalog of "B+" models that burlmart posted than that 31 footer does. A Mini C sub-class would be both far less confusing and far more useful than this putative "B+" class. Whatever it is....
Ken
RE: Ignorant of terms like Jake brake, house batteries, etc
We generally do not use the term "coach battery," but, when someone does use it, it is usually clear from context which battery is meant.
When I do a search limited to this forum on "coach battery" I get:
"Your search for 'coach battery' found 139 matches."
When I search on "house battery" I get:
"Your search for 'house battery' found 259 matches."
It is clear that "house" is the more common term but "coach" is used more often that it might seem to you, about a third of the time. My dealer uses the term house so that is what I generally use but I would not claim to know if I ever use coach instead or what proportion of the time. Either one works for me as long as people are careful to call the storage device that cranks the engine the chassis battery!
Ken
RE: Cargo Capacity??
That is something I've never understood. Why do the bigger class A's only sleep two or 4 usually, but have carrying capacity way higher than C's? But the C's with much smaller carrying capacity usually sleep four to eight or even more?
Class A's are marketed mainly to wealthy empty nesters and probably among them to those who will be full timing at least part of the year. A class A is not a living room on wheels it is a condominium on wheels! Class A's are more expensive to build so partly the marketing approach is driven by the nature of the beast. Class C's are cheaper to build and can more easily be afforded by young families. Unfortunately the platforms available to build them on are being stretched to their limits to make units that will accommodate the OP's family of 6. You can get small class C's with generous towing and cargo capacities, you just would not want to share their interior space with 5 other human beings for any great length of time.
There are a few smaller class A's that approach affordability and may have more suitable floor plans for large families. It is really the super C's that give you family oriented coaches on a hefty chassis. They have class A prices and with the demise of Chevy trucks those prices will increase as the alternate chassis' are more expensive. Or they have been anyway, maybe that will change due to market forces with Chevy gone. The non-Chevy super C's of the past have been mostly quite luxurious with price tags to match. Maybe you will see some "entry level" models on these chassis' starting to appear.
Ken
RE: Coachman Class C Electrical Problems
SO...you're saying that they DIAGNOSED the problem but didn't REPAIR it? Seems that your dealer does not fully understanding the concept of "warranty" :)
A warranty rarely covers abuse. A warranty almost always leaves the determination of whether abuse has occurred to the manufacturer or their dealers. If the dealer is saying that abuse caused the failure it will be an uphill fight to have the warranty honored. However if the dealer/manufacturer claims the electrical system has been abused then they must have a current specification on the device. I would demand to know what the rating is and then a few measurements with an Ammeter will show whether the rating was or was not exceeded by the load.
Ken
RE: Ignorant of terms like Jake brake, house batteries, etc
I always considered "Coach" and "House" batteries to be the same. They support the living quarters.
The "Chassis" battery supports the main engine, headlights, dash board, etc.
Am I wrong?
No, you are right. That is how those terms are used in the class C forum. I use house more often but when I say "coach" I am not talking about the bits that Ford or Chevy makes! Those parts are the chassis and they are powered by the chassis battery.
Ken
RE: Artic Package
I don't see any aluminum foil looking pads on the tanks. I can't find a switch either. Forest River says Sunseekers come standard with an artic package. I'm not seeing how the water is protected.
If there are heating pads on your holding tanks you will see them. They may not look like metal foil, the ones on my Coachmen look like black foam rubber. If there are pads there they will have wires running to them, it would be impossible to miss the wires. If you don't have the pads then I guess you don't have the artic package after all in spite of what the brochures tell you. If that is the case, complain to Forest River. No way to tell if that will do you any good.
If you do have the pads but cannot find the switch it is possible that there is no switch needed. These pads can be thermostatically controlled and they could be directly wired to the power converter. In that case you would want to be sure to disconnect the house battery in the winter so that the heating pads won't drain your battery. Of course you want to do that any way since there are enough other loads that would drain your battery too. Tank heating pads would just drain the battery a lot quicker than most of the other loads.
My guess is that they did not put the pads on your MH or you'd have seen them by now whether they are silver or black.
Now as someone already said there is another way to "winter proof" holding tanks. That is to enclose them in an insulated compartment and route some of the warm air from the furnace into that compartment. I don't think this is common on class C's even though those who have this arrangement seem to think it is universal. If your tanks are not in an enclosed compartment then your MH does not have this system. If they are in an enclosed compartment then most likely it does have this system. You could confirm that by turning on the furnace with the thermostat all the way up and see if you can feel any warm air blowing into the compartment.
Ken
RE: 2010 Coachmen Freelander 32BH
?? CCC ???
CCC is short for Cargo Carrying Capacity. It is the difference between the GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating) and the weight of the MH full of gasoline, propane, water, and engine oil. CCC is the amount of weight you have left over for your passengers and gear before the chassis is overloaded. Unless your leveling system was factory installed it will not be included in the CCC the manufacturer gives you. It's weight will have to be subtracted from the factory CCC, assuming the factory number is accurate. People find two things about the manufacturer's CCC figures that are not universally true but which should be checked before you buy. First is that manufacturers often exaggerate the CCC ratings of their MH's, some would say lie. Second is that the biggest class C's, and a 32 footer is about as big as they come, are often quite limited in CCC.
Traditional class C chassis' only go up to 14,500 pounds GVWR and they would need to be around 16,000 pounds to give a generous CCC for a 32 footer. So you might have only a few hundred pounds of CCC if you get a 32 footer and there have been reports that some class C's this large have zero or even negative CCC when the new owners weigh them. You would want to have your prospective MH weighed before you sign a contract so that you will know where you stand.
Winnebagos and Itascas are generally more upscale in fit and finish. If that is important to you they are good brands to look at.
Ken
RE: 2010 Coachmen Freelander 32BH
Camping World has some pricing on 2009 Freedom Express models which are just private branded Freelanders:
Camping World 2009 Coachmen
They don't have 2010 models listed, maybe they are not going to carry them because they should be out by now unless the takeover by Forest River delayed them. It will give you an idea of pricing, the crossed out prices are the MSRP, the other price is CW's standard sale price.
If you want jacks then try to work them into the deal. Just be careful of the CCC you have to work with since they will eat into that and CCC is often in limited supply on a 32 footer. We did not have jacks on our first MH and on our current one I installed manual scissor jacks because discussions here got me thinking I should have them. I rarely use them though and plastic blocks would serve as well when I do. Everyone's opinion on them is different and level campsites may be much harder to come by where you live so do what seems best to you.
The Freelanders are "entry level" so the fit and finish will never be up to the standards of the industry leaders. We have a CW Freedom Express, the 23 foot model, and we love our entry level coach. This is another area where everyone is different and you need to do what seems right to you. The lowly Coachmen has been working perfectly for us!
Ken
RE: TFT back-up camera system
I would say that pauldub is right. TFT is probably not a brand name, it probably stands for Thin Film Transistor, an LCD technology. I see a lot of generic brand backup systems with TFT monitors when I search for "TFT backup camera". I don't see any TFT brand equipment. If you post the link to the system you are considering someone may have some experience with it. You can also buy a system from a supplier like RVcams.com that a lot of us have used and have been very satisfied. He also sells generic brand systems made somewhere in Asia but he generally checks out what he sells for quality and I don't think very many people have had issues with his gear. Among the few that have I think that most find he takes care of them.
Ken
RE: CB Antenna on a Class C
When I gounded my ladder I used an ohmmeter to check continuity from the top of the ladder to the frame extension. It read zero ohms so that is about as grounded as you can get.
Actually it is not as grounded as you can get or at least your Ohmmeter is unable to tell you whether it is or not. Your Ohmmeter uses a DC current to measure the resistance of your connection. It gives you a valid reading for DC and for AC power wiring at 50/60 Hz. But the resistance your 27 MHz CB transmitter sees will be higher because something called the "skin effect" causes the current at those frequencies to flow only on the outer surface of condutors and that makes the effective area or "gage" of any wire or conductor far different from its physical dimensions. In addition wires will have significant inductance at these frequencies which further complicates the picture.
In fact it is a simplification to believe that the vehicle chassis itself is "ground". In reality the whole metal structure of your MH becomes part of the antenna. The results you get can vary quite a bit depending on where and how your ladder (to stick with the current example) is connected to the rest of the chassis. I am not saying this to prove that you are wrong or to discourage people from using the ladder as a "ground" for their CB antenna. I am just pointing it out so that people will understand that if their ladder mounted antenna needs more tuning than another person reports or gives better or worse results it is because the situation is quite complex and variations in results are to be expected.
The situation is not hopeless, it seems like most people do get good results from ladder mounted antennas. Analyzing the situation for any given MH is a daunting task that most radio engineers would struggle with. So we MH owners tend to use the experience of others as a guide instead of attempting to calculate an optimum installation approach for our own MH. Any of the techniques mentioned here will likely give you similar results, just understand that because of vehicle variations your results will vary and an antenna placement that works very well for some can turn out to be poor for others. That just means that if one doesn't work you should try another.
Ken
RE: CB Antenna on a Class C
Several people over the last few years have reported good results from an antenna mounted on the rear ladder with a foot or two above the roof line. The ladder must be grounded unless you use an NGP antenna and results with NGP antennas have been mixed from the reports I've seen. RF energy does diffract around the motorhome body so while the body does distort the pattern a typical mag mount antenna on the hood will not necessarily work poorly. It should have a fairly decent pattern to the front in fact and if you are primarily interested in getting information on what is happening in front of you they are worth trying. Reception to the rear will be reduced, just not always as much as you would expect. A front bumper mounted antenna should work as well, or better for those with fiberglass hoods! An antenna mounted on the rear bumper will work well too but it will favor the rear over the front. I recently mounted a 7 foot Firestik on my rear bumper to use as an amateur radio antenna. Unfortunately the trip where I planned to test it on the road got canceled so I still don't have any road experience with it. The autotuner I have attached to the radio will tune it all the way from 5 MHz to 54 MHz so that much works great!
Ken
RE: CB Installation
I have done some listening on channel 19 recently because I bought an Amateur Radio transceiver that would receive on, but not transmit on, the CB band. Seems to me it is still the same madhouse it has been since the big CB craze of many years ago now. However, as Gary says there are a lot of good people on it who can give you information when you need it. There are also enough idiots to make it useless as an entertainment medium -- unless you are in the mood for that sort of thing. The language remains pretty "earthy" most of the time.
Ken
RE: Freedom Express Class C Motor Homes
A Freedom Express is a Coachmen Freelander private branded for Camping World with different decals slapped on it. It may have some minor upgrades, for example ours came with two instead of the Coachmen standard one coach batteries. Opinions about Coachmen abound, your friend should have no problems finding posts about them.
Here's mine: ours is the 23 foot rear queen bed model and it is a year and a half old with 5k miles. It is entry level through and through but if your friend has looked at any he undoubtedly already knows that and is comfortable with it. We travel with three dogs and frankly the entry level hard flooring is perfect for that. We find the floor plan very efficient and we love the huge outside storage area under the bed. In fact all the models we considered to replace our previous and slightly more upscale BT Cruiser had that feature, it was a must-have for us. The Coachmen has given us nearly zero problems although granted we have not had it terribly long. There is some minor rusting in the city water/fill valve box on the rear of the unit. Not enough to address at this point. Worse was the poor paint job on the square steel tube rear bumper. It was rusting underneath the paint in quite a few spots and I recently used a rotary stripping brush in an electric drill to strip it down and then I repainted it.
Ours is on a Chevy chassis which has plenty of power, plenty of towing capacity (although we don't tow), plenty of CCC, and which handles very well. Fuel efficiency is about 1 mpg worse than our Ford powered BTC was, probably because the coach is a little wider and taller and much less aerodynamic. I don't need or want upscale amenities, no offense to those that do, and I find little to criticize about our new Coachmen.
Coachmen RV division was recently sold to Forest River so depending on the age of the unit he likes, maybe you should be asking about Forest River instead.
Ken
