More on my CPAP and O2 set up in Our RV

 This is the area that most of the electrical comes together in the RV.  The area is also very open with drawers and doors providing only ventilation so I may add a small vent.  However, I have felt in the areas every time they have been operating and felt no temperature difference.

The two panels I have on the roof, each are 100 watts with the wires ran off the back of the RV and enter the basement from under the RV.  I tied the wires off to the AC and vents on the way down to avoid more holes.  I have each bolted on the sides at six points.  I also have two anchor points at the front and one on the back of each as well.  All points have been sealed.  Please note the photo below only shows four points on each side, I added more after this photo.

 My basic solar controller that came with the two panel solar kit seems to be working fine tied to two deep cycle batteries. 

Here is a view of our bed room in the RV.  There is just enough room for the CPAP on the little built in night stand.  Because of the plugs on the wall side of the CPAP there is enough room for ventilation.  For the concentrator on the floor there is ventilation all the way around, the bed has about a inch and a half of overhang as well.

 

In my basement compartment it can hold three batteries side by side.  I currently have it with  two 109 amp hour batteries, which are hooked up in parallel. 

 

The compartment has a vent hole to the outside near its top on the left wall above the controller.  If I can not get at least 6 hours a night with both the CPAP and Concentrator on for two night's in a row I will add a third battery.  Will decide this by 1 June.

 

 

CPAP Concentrator and Solar

CPAP Concentrator and Solar.

Below is my O2 setup in our class C in our bedroom slide out.

On the small ledge next to the bed is my CPAP it just fits and leaves just over an inch all the way around for ventilation.  The O2 concentrator has a couple inches all the way around as well so ventilation is good.  When in a camp ground on shore power it is great.

I also have two 100 watt solar panels on the roof and two 109 amp batteries in the basement just to run this if I am not on shore power.  Following a general rule of one panel to one battery.

At 6000 feet I can run my CPAP on this all night for days no problem. When I add the O2 concentrator I get only about 4.30 hours before the inverter auto shuts down.  The shut down is not from heat but from battery draw.  In temperatures below 32 degrees standard deep cycle batteries lose a third or more of their amp power.  At temperatures between 60 and 80 degrees (F) these batteries should be giving near ideal at 100% amps (Internet search).   This trip out was at 27 degrees (F) which says my batteries gave me only about 66% output.  Based on this at the warmer temperatures I should have about 6 hours on the current equipment.  This will work for me for an occasional night off shore power.

I currently average seven hours a night under pressure at home so this system (6 hrs) will work for the few nights we are off shore power right now.  If the sun is shining every day the batteries should be fully recharged by night fall.  In the future a third battery may be added once added, I should have no problem insuring longer and more nights in a row off shore power.

Also my solar is only hooked to these two batteries to the inverter and to my equipment it is not hooked in to our house battery.  This made me ensure good additional grounds for the batteries and the inverter.  I will probably add a 100 watt portable solar panel with battery clamps to recharge our one house battery.  Once this is done we will rarely need to run our generator when off the grid.

I run my power cords from my equipment to a compartment at the foot of the bed and plug into a cord that I pull out of the compartment.  In this compartment is my water heater, converter and my pure sine inverter for this equipment.

More on this soon.  Comments are welcome.

Boondocking on the Gorge

Boondocking on the gorge in March by antelope campground it is still cold at night in the 20 and 30's the days do warm to the 50's in south west Wyoming.  We are set for the night.

Below we have our lantern ready for early evening before it gets to cold and we go in doors.  A lantern can take the place of a fire on some nights really well.

If we wanted a fire there are tons of dried cow patties which we sometimes call Wyoming fire wood.   These burn well if they are dry, but they do burn fast and some times smell a bit down wind.

On to another topic.

For the night I had my CPAP and a O2 tank at 6600 feet and got a good night sleep.  Once I got home I took out my concentrator and turned it and the CPAP on . They were hooked up to one deep cycle battery (109amp) through a 1000 watt inverter and ran before the inverter low power cut off at 3 hours.  I did some research and found since the CPAP was not on me it ran at max load (high amps).  So by adding a second battery I should be able to increase the run time to 7-8 hours when on my face.

More to follow soon.

60s in the day but 20s at night.

Spring is over a week old but it is still winter in Wyoming.  Stopped off at Key Hole Reservoir, it is still frozen even though it is in the 60s during the day.  After the sun sets it gets down in the 20s and 30s.  By the end of April night temps will probably be in the 40s so winter is fading fast.

 



 Here my daughter and her puppies are checking out the lake.  One of her three dogs just had to go on the ice.  He made it off ok, but you never know this time of year.

RV Slide Out Concerns

Our motor home has two slide outs plus automatic stairs.  We were having some work done on our motor home so when we picked it up we asked (ahead of time) for about a half an hour of a technicians time to go over these and other questions we had.

I already knew I needed a spare slide out fuse.  On my panel it looks like a small cube plugged in at the end of the auto fuses.  I also had the owners manual and it covered our main dinette slide out, but it did not cover the bed slide.   I knew the dinette motor was under the dinette slide and its manual crank was behind the drivers seat. So I had the technician walk me through the steps to manually retract in or out the bedroom slide.  Turns out to access it we needed to lift the bed and move some linen and in the middle take out six screws in the middle panel to access the motor.  There is a manual clutch we can hold over and someone can just push in the slide, or put on a ratchet on a nut and crank it in.

The stairs are automatic and I did have an owners manual on them but wanted to talk through the process.  It was helpful, I was reminded once I disengaged the steps I need something to tie them up because they will want to swing out.  Which is good while camping, but to travel I would need to tie them up to be safe on the road.

More tidbits in a future post.

Solar Panels

Finally got our two 100 watt panels up and working.  Since my roof is only 1/8 inch thick I want to make sure I use good fasteners so they stay attached.  These should allow me to run a few nights off batteries with my CPAP and O2 concentrator, without running the generator or plugging in to shore power.

Have a 30 amp controller installed next to our batteries, our panels only put out about eleven amps so we have room to add at least two more panels down the road.  The lights show the batteries and solar panels are working well.  Right now I have both panels going to one 109 amp battery connected directly to my 1000 watt inverter.  This should keep the battery charged daily.  The two panels together can generate up to 10.5 amps an hour back to the battery on a good day.  Currently, my house battery is not tied into the solar I will need to drive or run the generator to recharge it.

 

Had a good scare.  The day after adding the panels and taking the above photo it snowed.  When I went out to check the system the middle light was "orange" this could be a problem!  Then I realized the panels are snow covered!  So, I waited till the afternoon when the sun had melted the panels clear and checked the system all was green!  Lesson learned about reading the panels:)

Wireless Tire presure and temp monitor installed

I had some work done on the motor home so I had them add these screw on sensors over our tire valves.   I now have all six tires being monitored while driving down the road.

I was about 3 miles off the RV shop site and the new in-cab tire monitor went off, so I manually checked the tires saw no problem.   Then slowly drove back to the shop.  The technician had failed to set the temp minimums for the alarm.   So when I left the shop the 33 degree outside temp set off the alarm.  Once this was adjusted I drove it 250 miles with no more problems.

I also learned when you turn on the tire monitor system allow 5 to 10 minutes for the system to measure and average all tires.  Once the system is in sink an there are no problems you can head out on your road trip.  I feel better knowing the system is constantly checking my tires and if pressure or temp goes outside the range we set the alarm goes off.