On the road again

 

Last morning in Wyoming on my morning walk.

Getting ready to head south

 Packing up so we can start our travels south in a month or so.

All systems checked on the fifth wheel will check truck hookups this week.

Will put our generator on the back cargo carrier rack. I have 10 gallons of spare diesel in the bed and five gallons of premium gas for the generator.

Tested new sm. generator

 Since our primary generator is in the shop I bought a small backup.  All I want it to do is charge our batteries and run the heater blower, the propane refrigerator thermostat and some lights. Tested it today and it ran well.  I also ran 2 drop lights and tried the TV, the TV turned on the overload light but didn’t shutdown the generator so I know it’s limit.

Ran the heater blower with no problem, as well as lights and frig.

                                    Thermostat 

Ceiling lights and I also was running our 30 quart portable refrigerator/freezer.

Parked for the winter

 For medical reasons we will spend the winter and summer in NE Wyoming with family.

Winter battery test

 Winter battery test 16 Nov 23.  I cut shore power at 0700 MST.  My three LAS batteries read 13.4 before shore power was cut, after power was cut dropped to 12.3.  At 0800 read batteries they settled in at 12.4 so I turned on my solar at this time.  Note sun is about 30 degrees above horizon.   My 3 marine batteries are going on 5 years old each with 109 amps each.  Battery compartment is 52 degrees. I have 500 watts flexible solar panels glued to my roof.  Also the front AC will have shade over at least two panels throughout the day.  Since they are in parallel should only impact panels a bit.  Last summer my best drawl with clear skies in northern Texas produced just over 50 %.  This is not the best solar setup but is acceptable to me with fixed panels and a PWM solar controller.

Above is a screen shot of my phone just after system is turned on. At 0930 amps going in up to 4.7 amps below.

Above photo of rig at start and below is the sun at start.

Note today’s temperature range is 32 to 54 degrees.

Six hours in unplugged.  At 1 pm 4.7 amps coming in and batteries at 13.7.  Heater, ref still on plugged in portable freezer to Jackery.

Wyoming Winter has started

 This past week highs have been in the low thirties and teens.  Since we did not plan to be here over a winter we have no skirting so we burn through a 30 lb tank every three days keeping temperature at 55 degrees.  We also winterized our water system so no freezing issues.  We can ware a sweater to stay warm.  We will be moving to a stick and brick for a few weeks to months.

Plants are gone now.  In the mid thirties to the 60s the tank lasted 6 days.

First attempt at salt making

 My first attempt at salt making.  One gallon of salt water into a square 9x9 pan on a hot plate.  Let’s see what one gallon of salt water makes.  The idea is once I evaporate the liquid what remains is salt.  I do a finish dry in a dehydrator or the oven then bottle.  Please note I strained the salt water through a towel.

The pan on the hot plate is cooking down the water to sea salt.

Above is a half a gallon of salt left to cook down in the pan.