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RE: Stove cover
I made my own out of some scraps of plastic like wood left over from a deck project and a plastic cutting board the right size (cheap with assorted colors and sizes on Amazon). not heat proof but if that is important you could add a metal sheet under the cutting board.
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JimBollman
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03/25/23 05:10pm |
Class B - Camping Van Conversions
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RE: Verizon or T-Mobile
Depending on your needs you may want to look into US Mobile. I switched from Verizon almost a year ago and have been happy with the move. They are a reseller using Verizon and T Mobile towers depending on your location and your choice. They have lots of plans and they are different between the two carriers. I have 5 devices two iPads and 3 iPhones and went with Verizon towers since it has better coverage. Two iPhones don't get used much for data, so I put them in a shared pool with unlimited text/phone and 1GB of data cost $21 for the pair, more data can be bought for $2/GB. One iPhone and 2 iPads are on a plan that gives me unlimited text/phone and 75GB of data then they may drop to a slower rate depending on traffic. Because I have 3 on that plan they cost $25 ea. So $96/month. Same number of devices but limited to a shared 2GB across them cost me $130 with Verizon. Never had a compliant about Verizon but wanted more data and lower monthly costs. Prices/plans are always changing but they have locked me in at the rates I have now so look them over and see if they have a plan for you. US Mobile does every thing by phone and chat. I find chat works best because of language barrier. I sometimes have to ask a couple of ways in a chat before they answer me but they have always answered the question or fixed the problem.
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JimBollman
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02/18/23 05:46pm |
Technology Corner
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RE: A spare wheel might be harder to source than you think!
And real important, IMHO, is how sure are you the guy that can't mount a tire on the side of road will be equipped both on the service truck and between his ears, to safely change the larger/heavier than normal wheel on the larger/heavier than normal vehicle?
According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics there is some 13 MILLION transport trucks in the US. That’s north of 230 MILLION heavy truck tires.
Any reputable tire service doing roadside service calls will know how to dismount / mount a tire correctly.
Your call will NOT be their first rodeo.
I think you missed my point; I have no doubt that if I call for tire service truck, unless it is for antique with split rims, the guy that shows up will know what he is doing.
OTOH, I would not place a bet, if cripple A or some other service that declares they can't mount a tire on wheel could safely jack up the RV, or deal with a tire larger than a car. Will he have wrench to fit the larger nuts? Or one to handle the torque to remove?
I would not bet on that. I called AAA to change a tire on the side of an interstate in PA, I had a spare but didn't want to try and change on such a busy highway and a narrow berm. I warned them the spare may be low on air. After about 3 hours he showed up with a light weight jack that could not lift my F250 with an 8' popup camper. I finally told them to jack up the frame and I used my Ford jack to jack up the axle. They got the spare out from underneath and it was low. He took an inflater like you might buy for $50 at Harbor Freight and started inflating, every 10 minutes or so it would stop and need to cool down. Finally at about 35lbs he said that's good. I said it was suppose to have 75lbs and he said that was probably why the other tired failed. It had a 1" hole in the tread like a ran over a hole saw. I limped off the interstate and found a gas station and paid 25 cents per so many minutes to fill it.
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JimBollman
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12/28/22 06:59pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: A spare wheel might be harder to source than you think!
I assumed a rim failure which reminded me of a story a friend told me years ago. He use to do cross country trips in a 1956 Ford Sedan Delivery picking on the back roads. This was in the late 70s and early 80s, don't remember the year it happened but he had a rim failure in the middle of nowhere out West. The rim was enough different he wasn't sure where he was going to find a replacement in this little town. He started walking around town thinking about who he might call that could ship him a rim and noticed a house trailer that had a familiar looking car rim holding up the tunge and took a closer look. Sure enough it was just what he needed. He made a quick deal to trade a failed rim for the useable rim and a few hours later he was on his way again. He had a way of falling into things like that.
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JimBollman
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12/27/22 03:07pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Shore power question
My Class B is 1999 and as far as I know has the original charger, so I don't think it is particularly smart. I'm leaving it plugged in under the carport to run some anti-mouse deterrents so I disconnect the charger and monitor the battery voltage and when it drops down a little I plug the charger back in over night. Luckily they just have the charger plugged into an outlet under the jackknife couch.
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JimBollman
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12/26/22 05:18pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Shadow Cruiser Truck Campers
I had a 2005 Shadow Cruiser Popup and was very happy with it. Used it till 4 years ago when My wife was having trouble getting in the upper bunk because of bad knees so I switched to a class B. I never had any problems with leaks. I did do some mods to it to make it more like I wanted it.
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JimBollman
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12/24/22 04:13pm |
Truck Campers
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RE: Portable Solar Generators
Well ... I paid ~$400 for the Bluetti on a Black Friday sale:
1) Instead, I would have to have installed/wired a 12V DC recepable back by the rear bed, which would have been a real pain (I have higher payback things to do with my time).
2) In addition to 1) above, I would have needed to buy a 12V DC to 20V DC upconversion adapter (medical grade - for failure-proofness at ~$130) to power the CPAP machine.
3) Sometimes our family group campouts have their outside evening camp fires too far away from our rig to run the long extension cords from our rig necessary for powering heated throw-blankets for us.
4) The DW and myself didn't know what other Christmas gift(s) to buy for ourselves, anyway. :B
P.S. #1: So far during my in-home testing of the 537 Wh Blueitti it has powered a CPAP machine for 4 nights - while consuming only around 35% of it's LiFeO4's stored energy.
P.S. #2: It's ultra-safe LiFeO4 lithium battery electrochemistry is way safer than me trying to make my own more dangerous-to-use-in-confined-spaces Lithium-ion, or LA, or AGM portable concoction.
What you're saying is, sometimes it easer to just to buy what works. I agree. I did a similar thing but bought an EcoFLo 2KW unit and when I saw a good sale but a second 2KW add on battery. I can use them in our B or as backup for short power outages for our house so I don't have to get the Honda out. Sometimes spending the money and having a well engineered and packaged product is better than saying I could build it cheaper by piecing it together.
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JimBollman
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12/10/22 04:33pm |
Tech Issues
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RE: Ants in the RV a good thing for once
A friend bought one of these Leak Detector and I have it in my maybe list. Went fully electric with my latest B but do have LP running to the house.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/6144YZjV8ML._AC_SL1408_.jpg width=600
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JimBollman
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12/10/22 04:11pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Suggestions for using "wasted" solar power?
This is an expensive idea but might fit your uses. Buy a few so called solar batteries and swap them out to be used other places on a regular bases. I have 4kw of those batteries for use during short power outages at home. I just charge them from the wall but if I had a motor home with a bunch of solar sitting in the back yard I would store them there and swap them into the shop to use the power. My process now for longer power outages is to charge them with a generator so I don't have the generator running all the time. I have thought abut picking up some solar panels to recharge them but they are still on the maybe list.
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JimBollman
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12/07/22 04:33pm |
Tech Issues
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RE: Rock Collectors
My Mother collected rocks every time they traveled. There were several bushel baskets full of rocks in the basement when we cleaned out her house.
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JimBollman
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09/29/22 05:34pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Stops Catalytic Converter thefts! (inexpensive method)
Never had a CC stolen and don't know anyone that has. I guess I have always picked safe places to live and park. I think it is higher in certain areas because of a few thieves.
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JimBollman
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09/07/22 03:05pm |
Do It Yourself Modifications and Upgrades (DIY)
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RE: Stops Catalytic Converter thefts! (inexpensive method)
The cables add about another 30-60 seconds to removing the cat. It is surprising what one can do in a second who is trained in their profession. LSU football team made a touchdown in 1 second.
Tools needed: Battery powered high speed cut-off tool.
I agree but was guessing 10-30 seconds additional. The police need to shut down the buyers and then there is no place to sell them. I would think it very suspicious if someone came in with a trunk load of cats.
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JimBollman
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09/05/22 05:50pm |
Do It Yourself Modifications and Upgrades (DIY)
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RE: Smaller or more minimalist truck camper
We have moved to a B camper now because of my wife's issues getting into the overhead bed anymore. Before that we traveled many thousands of miles with an 8' slide in popup with a porta-potty. We spent 6 weeks in it on one trip and were still married happily at the end. We hauled on a F250 with the 7.3l Diesel and hardly knew the camper was on the truck so I only took it off when I need the truck bed. Porta-potty has been acceptable to my wife over the last 40+ years of camping and traveling. I used the F250 as our second vehicle so it got local miles when not on trips. Campers were pretty bare bones but had a sink with running cold water, stove and frig.
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JimBollman
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08/14/22 06:56pm |
Truck Campers
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RE: Birds nest in AC
Paid $115 for a new one for my AC a year ago from https://www.rvupgradestore.com
I put chunks of No-Pest Strip in the vents every year because I also had problems with birds and mud dubbers. Not sure if it works but I haven't had any since I started about 4 years ago. I just take the strip out of it's container and cut it in to about .5-1" chunks and push them in the slots around the edges.
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JimBollman
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07/27/22 06:12pm |
Tech Issues
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Electric Ford F-150 and Four Wheel Camper Make Alaska Run
This should be an interesting series to watch. The easy part of the trip, the first 1,082.4 miles they only stoped to charge 9 times. They are traveling with an F-150 hybrid with a built-in generator that can charge the Lightning if they get in a pinch. Of course it took an hour and thirty-eight minutes for the Lightning to charge 8-percent and used a gallon of fuel.
https://www.truckcampermagazine.com/camper-beast/electric-ford-f-150-and-four-wheel-camper-make-alaska-run/
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JimBollman
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07/26/22 05:58pm |
Truck Campers
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RE: Credit Cards For Fuel Discounts
Our Chase Visa card changes what gets bonus kick backs every quarter. This next quarter we get 5% on gas, that helps a little and when we combine that with grocery store kick backs it is almost real money.
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JimBollman
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06/27/22 06:50pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Any Van people out camping
We camped for a week at a bluegrass festival 2 weeks ago. Great week of music but it was cold and wet most of the week so the down time was mostly cooped up in the B. Since cellular service was marginal we got a lot of reading done when there was not music acts going on.
Leaving in a couple weeks for a week long old car event at a county fairgrounds.
Great pictures J.
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JimBollman
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06/12/22 05:24pm |
Class B - Camping Van Conversions
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RE: Solo fire pit
Already posted my support for the Solo but with some of the comments I wanted to address some of the concerns.
I can see where the Solo is not ideal for a larger group because you would be sitting further away and the sides would block the view. In our case 2-4 people is our normal group size sitting around so we sit closer and are looking down into the fire instead of across to the fire. The one time we used it for a much larger group because everyones wood was wet accept my little chunks of wood sealed in a plastic bucket. We just feed more wood in to keep the flames higher.
Since I cut up scraps from wood projects it is all kiln dried so no bugs, not a problem transporting it to areas that have restrictions. If you don't do enough wood projects to feed the stove I'm sure if you ask around someone will give you all the scraps you can use. Just don't use pressure treated, plywood or particleboard scrapes, bad fumes.
Someone mentioned easy cleanup, depending on how long we burn the Solo but our normal fire generates about a 1/2 cup of dust when I clean it out in the morning. Easy to dump most anywhere and then wipe out with a piece of paper towel.
I don't sell Solo stoves, just a happy owner. There are plans online for making your own smokeless stove if your handy.
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JimBollman
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05/21/22 06:33pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Solo fire pit
We have the Campfire model as a compromise in size. Bought in 2015 on the recommendation of a friend that now has the Campfire and the largest model. We like it a lot and originally carried it in a small slide in camper and now in a B. I care it in it's bag in one of those square plastic buckets that are around 5gallon I think. Has a sealable lid. I cut all my scrap lumber into roughly 1"X1"X4" pieces and store them in the same buckets on the shelf. If I put the stove in a bucket with the bag open and fill the stove and all the edges of the bucket it gives me 2 or 3 fires in the evening of a couple of hours, supplementing with any dead twigs around the campsite. If it is a longer trip I throw an extra bucket of wood in. Becomes nearly smoke free within a 5-10 minutes of starting. I carry some small wax fire starters, I light one and drop it in then start adding my mini logs. My friend bought the bigger one for when they are going to be in one place longer and for home use because it makes a bigger fire and will take bigger chunks of wood.
I have been teased about my mini camp fires but after a wet day when everyones fire wood is wet mine becomes popular. I had a homemade small mini camp fire setup years ago but it wasn't smokeless but showed how useful it was to carry your own campfire.
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JimBollman
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05/14/22 07:01pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: 1157 LED Bulb question
I buy most all my LEDs for RV and trailer use from https://www.superbrightleds.com they are a bit more expensive but they last and are guaranteed. As it has mentioned you can compare lumens for brightness and you need to decide what color temperature you want. I like a color temperature in the 4000-5000 range for food prep areas, it gives closer to outside daylight. 5000 close to consider high noon daylight. For sitting around and reading I like in the 3000-3500 range, not as yellow as tungsten but more cozy than 5000. I don't like the ones higher than 5000. Tungsten is around 2800 if that is the feel you are looking for.
You may have to buy a couple before you find the right balance.
I did add two of these magnetic strip lights that are dimmable and rechargeable so they can be used where you need them. I have one tucked up in the range hood and one above the spot I usually sit in the evening. Unfortunately they currently are marked as out of stock but I'm sure other brands are out there. Here is the Link.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51TVppgq4cL._AC_SL1001_.jpg width=600
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JimBollman
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05/07/22 05:00pm |
Tech Issues
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