Gen Vent Stack

I went a head an bought a generator exhaust stack with one extension it works great.  It clears my roof by almost three feet and my AC by over one foot.  I have ran it for hours with no CO2 alarms in our motor home with slides out or in. 

It takes me 5 minutes to set it up and 7 minutes to take it down and put it away.  With this I can boondock for up to seven nights running the generator, plus two on solar.

I need power at night for my medical equipment, so knowing I can go up to nine nights with no shore power.  If I add a third solar panel I can get even more time off the grid.

Please note that the stack must be taken down before moving.

Winter Camping with our rv

Winter camping with Our RV is almost as good as summer, but not quite.  For the winter we winterize which means all waterlines are flushed with RV Anti Freeze.  So everything works fine in the RV except for the water, thus the porta poti.  This limits us to two nights with no shower (sponge bath only).  The heater works fine but drains the battery by morning which causes us to use the generator during the day and the battery at night.  Days can be in the 50/60's but nights can be in the teen's during winter.

I have three extra batteries to run my O2 equipment over night and they are only hooked up to 200 watts of solar panels for recharge.

I just added a generator roof top exhaust pipe and will report on that soon.  My backyard tests  are promising.

Got a Drone

Got a Sky Viper Drone for Christmas.   Thought the learning curve would be quick! Nope!  At least not for this sixty year old.  My son in his mid twenties is getting it much quicker.  Must be do to his computer game experience.  Either way I will keep at it, here are my first two photos.  I am good at skimming the ground and am learning to go sort of up and down:)  I will get there:)

                                Above is a rug view and below is proof I got up off the floor:)

 We did go to the FAA web site and reviewed the new registration requirements for drones.  Mine is in their PDF of examples and weighs 4.7 ounces.  My son's drone (4 oz) is not in the examples but weighs under the 5 ounce limit so it does not need to be registered. 

Solar and Battery Bank for medical back up

Here is my best guess on how my solar currently recharges our medical reserve batteries.  We can run my CPAP and never have down time, but add in my O2 concentrator we can only count on the battery bank every 3 to 4 days.  Please note I could run my generator and run my recharger to recharge the Batteries and of course we can and usually plug in.  If I add one more battery I could get an extra day or two.  But to be honest I was only looking for one day emergency power to start with.

I am no expert here so I sort of reversed engineered the data below.  Also I could shorten up my wires by 10 to 12 feet which may add quite a few amps.  Some day I may.

3 Batts 305 amps

Cable/inverter amp drop 30%	-90
	215
50% Battery AMP Reserve	108
CPAP 3 amps x 8 hr	-24
Concentrater 7 amps x 8 hr	-56
	-80
Leaves usable amps	42
	Plus
Solar 200 watt recharge 5amp x 7hr	35
Day 1 recharge is short	3amps
Can not use solar batteries for day 2
Solar 200 watt recharge 5x7	35
Day 2 recharge	110
Night three should work OK
Clouds or overcast could delay a day or two. Updated 4/10/2016
Solar recharges every 3-4 days should be planned.

Bear Canisters

These are a give away that bears are in the area around Lander Wyoming north.  Now that it is winter there will be few campers and even fewer bears trying to get to ones food supply.  Later this spring I will test one of my Bear Spray canisters to learn how to use them properly.  I figure it is cheaper to do some live training with one of these before I have a real need and have never used one.

Longing already for spring

Looking back over the summer and fall I am ready for it to continue.  We had nice boondocking spots and sites with power and all with a view.

On the gorge we had electricity and a nice spot along the lake for less then twenty dollars a day with our discount.

Other areas of the lake offered no services but nice free views along with good fishing.

Merry Christmass to all

 

                                                  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Have a Dino of a new year, I snapped this at the Hagel Zoo in Salt Lake last fall.