Shish kebab

Kathy bought a set of two prong Shish kebabs and they work great the meat or vegetables do not rotate like they do on a single prong.  Here you see two of them in use on one of our grilles.  We received a set of four through QVC.

Putting My CPAP on DC

A few weeks back we had a power failure at night and I had to use my back-up cans of O2 since my concentrater could not be used.  I did not want to go out to the RV because would have taken a couple hours to warm it up.  So I am setting up a DC pack to run my CPAP off a Motorcycle battery.  I checked my CPAP to verify I can use with a DC cord, it can.

 

All I will need to do is unplug the AC plug top left and plug in DC cord. I have a battery and have ordered a DC cord for my CPAP and will give it a try soon.

I got my DC cables!

Here is my battery and DC cable I added the battery clamps.  It all fits into about a third of a shoe box.  I made sure I bought the correct cord for my CPAP they are not all the same.  I hooked it up to my CPAP yesterday at bed time and it ran for just over 6 hours, than shut down.  (Battery was about 85% charged when I started).  I was happy with this! I can buy a bigger battery but I wanted to keep it basic and under 80 dollars total.  I also can plug into a car or RV DC plug if needed.  

I intend this only as a one night back up.  If power is out longer I would have time to fire up the RV propane heater or generator along with 2 electric space heaters.  I have enough fuel to run the generator for 4-5 days depending on temp.  Enough propane for 2-3 days with solar and battery bank for medical equipment.  Plus I have 3 standard O2 tanks for back-up.

I also have a 50 watt portable solar panel to recharge this battery and to maintain our house battery when off shore or generator power.  Our 200 watt solar on our roof is dedicated to our 300amp battery bank which is used only for my medical equipment.

Final Note/recap.

Went back and looked at the battery chart I have the smallest battery.  So it has a max of 30 amp hrs to empty.  If I add an inverter to the system there is not enough instant power amps to run the CPAP. But if I plug in directly as I did above with the DC cord I get 5-6 hours before shut down.  This tells me my battery no-longer has enough energy to run my CPAP after this time.  So I draw it down to about 40% before recharge is required.  With this heavy draw down and since it is not a deep cycle I probably will only get a half dozen uses max, but since it is only an emergency back up it will be fine.

Below is how I store my battery and cords.  The container is a old tupper ware 1/2 gallon ice cream holder and a lunch box the top and handle are out of the photo so you could see everything else.

RV Power Protection

For years I plugged in directly to the power posts in parks with no problems.  Now with parks getting older I am hearing more and more issues with power supplies at parks.  So a couple years ago we added a surge protector at the end of our 30 amp power supply plug for some basic protection. I recommend at a minimum everyone who RV's should consider adding one of these to help protect their shore power feed.  There are more protections you can have but this should be everyone's minimum.

Flaming Gorge 2017 Samon Run Start w Kathy

Flaming Gorge 2017 Samon Run Start with Kathy looking on.  It started early this year and we caught it right as it started.  In the stream photo you can see the red fish spawning.

 Look and you can see some of the now red fish below.

Secondary AC

Last Christmas Kathy's Moms house was in the 90's.  We can not run our generator in her driveway in town to run our main rooftop AC.  Also we can only hook up 15 amp to the house 110 sockets.  So this year in February's visit I am taking a small window AC we have.  If it is in the 80's or 90's this year while we are there I will set up this secondary unit.  It took me 10 minutes to figure out how and to do it.  Here it is.

Here you see our 5000 btu unit set up and plugged in.  I decided to plug in directly to the wall outlet to help overloading the RV fuse, it worked fine.

 I have it set up to go in and come out quickly so when driving it sits under the dinette or in a basement compartment.

 Below id another view.  It does not put out what our roof unit does but it is the only one we have that will run off house 15 amp power.

Walter filter priming

Priming our berkey's glad we did it at home to gain some experience with the manual system.  Here you see the manual filter (you need to assemble) for the big berkey filters.  The instructions worked for me and I recommend everyone do it at least once before you need it for the experience.  I bought the berkey go for those RV parks that do not have good tasting water (to our taste).  Also in a pinch if no clean water is around we can purify our own in small batches.

It takes a few minutes to get the water coming through the filter, once it starts keep pumping for a minute or two then your filter is primed.

Below the black filter is primed and ready to be inserted in to the berkey go container to start purifying water.

Here we have our berkey go, berkey sport, a zero water pitcher to keep full with our berkey go and a plain plastic pitcher to fill the two berkeys.  I do not need to use the zero but we have it so why not use it as well for its capacity, fits well in the frig.   Please note, I use the 18oz camp cup to fill the berkey go and if I leave the filter in when not in use it protects the plastic filter tip from breaking.

Here I am priming the berkey sport by squeezing a few bottles of water through to prime it for use.  I will take this with me while I am teaching today to see how it goes.

With this years summer hurricane's so many people had no drinking water my interest peaked. So I bought some Sawyer Mini Filters and as you can see along with some small Berkey purifiers.  Will leave at least one in our tow vehicle and one in our go bag. 

My New Solar Cooker Bag Mini

I got a solar Cooker Bag Mini for my 62 birthday and have been playing with it ever since.  Here was my first use.  It was 94 degrees and partly cloudy I put on a pot of red beans and rice at noon and pulled them at 4pm.  Temp hung around 175 with me moving the cooker about every 45 to 60 minutes.

At 4pm it is 100 degrees and dry here is our finished product for your viewing and pleasure.

Took some getting use to carrying this baking dish to and from but I did it with only a few drops spilled till I got to the tray.  To be true it dripped on the way in not the way out when it was less flimsy.

The oven worked great!  As long as we remember it is a slow cooker we will all be fine:)

Below I cooked a 4 pound Pork Loin in a baking bag and it was great and very moist.

Some Summer Shots

Pinedale, Wyoming dinner by the lake!  Kathy and I having a great dinner and a great view.

Grand Junction, Colorado!

Me at Flaming Gorge, UT:)

Kathy watching the salmon run.

 Kathy in the vineyard.

Salt Lake, Utah

Saving on Coffee and Tea by going back to the basics!

Saving on Coffee and Tea by going back to the basics!

Today Kathy and I use 2 K cup makers one for coffee and one for her tea.  When we first got married in the 80's she often used tea bags or loose tea and I had just switch from a stove top percolator to a drip coffee maker.  Over the decades we switched to K-Cups.  Since coffee oil remains after a K-Cup is made it goes into the next cup "often" tea (I am often up first) which hurts the tea flavor, so we ended up buying two makers.  Now that we are down sizing to go full time RVing in another year I am coming back full circle (Kathy is considering it:)).

I would like to return to the basics, one stove top tea pot, tea bags and a simple coffee brewer like the one I an showing here. Got it and a pack of filters for it for under $5.00.  Of course you can use paper towels as filters in a pinch as well:) .  Plus a can of coffee which I can by for under $5.00.

Using this set up with a tea pot reduces the storage space we now use (2 K Cup units) by 75%, in an RV every bit helps.

Working on a Distiller for sea water

Working on a Sea Water a Distiller

 Cost three bucks at the Dollar store for the three bowls the red one is just over 11 inches.  Dirty water set in the bottom of the red bowl then the clear dome on top.

 After a few hours in the sun it is starting to distilling.

After four hours I got a quarter cup of clean distilled water.  I think I lost a maybe a quarter cup of the water back in the dirty water basin because of the flat top.

Here I stacked the three in each other for storage.  I figure the best results from this would be about a cup a day.   So back to the drawing board:)

I do know I can dig a hole on the beach.  Put a cup in the center and place a plastic clear sheet over the hole. Add a small weight in the middle over the cup or container and get freshwater this way as well.  I just want to try other ways:)

Making a Cookie Cutter

Making a cookie cutter and using my solar stove to cook some more red beans and rice to go with our crab and shrimp.

 I find it easy to make a cookie cutter and to add mushrooms to my morning eggs and cheese.

 Cut both ends off the can and remove the wrapper and you now have a great cutter:)

Our new screen door grille

I found a heavy screen door grille at Walmart on line.  They had a decorative one for fifty and a full heavy wire mesh for thirty.  The second one offered near full lower screen protection.  It presents a good visual barrier that has some strength, short of a closed solid door it is a good safety measure I feel.

This first photo shows it over the screen.  I put one short screw in each corner hole.  The grille came with four mount extenders for larger doors so I took these off and used these holes.  Remember it is a safety/protective device not a kick plate!

 Below is a photo of the finished work looking at our RV.

Cooking a Pork Loin with the Sun

Now cooking a 1.5 pound pork loin with my Sunflair Solar Bag mini.  Temp today should only hit the mid-90's and partly cloudy.  I put the loin with some veggies in a Reynolds Oven Bag and laid it on the flat metal cooking platform.

Here is the pork loin seasoned and ready to go in the bag.

Here it is in the oven at 9am at the minimum recommended starting temp 150 degrees and going up.  I plan to move the bag every hour to keep it lined up with the sun. 

Note! Since I live north to the 40th parallel which is just north of Denver, Colorado.  I can only count on full use of the oven spring, summer and fall.  As the sunflair folks remind us  the winter season north of the 40th does not provide a long enough solar day for some cooking.  This is a good point to remember.  During winter I will limit my solar oven use (when north of the 40th) to items I find I can still cook in less then 4 hours when temps are above 40 degrees.  I will be testing this over this winter and let you know how it goes.  The good thing is I will also be spending part of the winter south of the 40th.

Had to run to some stores so did not get back till 5pm all was done:)  So 8 hours at temps between 150 and 200 degrees (slow cooker as advertised) and taste great:)

Cut in three parts eat one and put the rest in the frig:)  Air temp only got to 88 degrees and more clouds  rolled in.  So another good cook with sun power:)

Update!

Just did a 16oz Cornish Game Hen on an overcast day tasted great and was done in less then six hours.  Still like this little oven:)

RV update

Been having high oil pressure indications my last two outings.  So I took it in for a pressure test.  The tests showed no pressure issue so they put in a new sensor relay that goes to my gauge.  From what I have read and been told this is often the problem it the pressure test is good.  I will let you know if there are any further issues with this.

We have our tow car and dolly ready for full time rving probably starting next summer.  We resealed the roof and windows and added a battery watering system and now are looking at our tires.  Our tires were replaced just under 4 years ago and only have about 16000 miles on them.  So we are leaning toward replacing all seven by next summer, also looking into adding a sleep comfort bed (short Queen).

Walter Filters

We have some Berkey Filters and Sawyer water filters and love them both today we will focus on The Go Berkey.  Here you see the box and the primer removed.

Below I have removed the filter kit along with the portable sport bottle with its own smaller Berkey black filter that is good for a few hundred gallons of stream water.

Here I pulled out the main filter container which is in the travel mode and holds one quart  and the blue bottle with its own mini filter holds 16oz.

Here is the filter with a 18 oz camping cup over the top to protect the filter tip when installed and in the transport mode.