Nothing To See Here Folks

Just Keep Moving.

Pretty quiet around the homestead these days. Norma and Kelly (our winter house sitter) have been busy in the garden. Kelly wants to learn about Norma's plants so she can take care of them in the spring and Norma loves having someone young to climb the bank out back and plant.

I have been staying out of the way doing "stuff". I re-hung the door on Norma's large garden shed as the door was starting to sag a little. I took all the screws out of the hinges and then drove a wedge under the edge of the door, raising it up an inch or so to level it before driving in larger screws. Should be good now.

I hook up the motorhome's satellite dish with a 50 foot bundle of four coax cables taped together (two DVR receivers each requiring two cables). I seldom need all 50 feet of cable so I bought 100 feet of RG6, cut it into four 25 foot pieces, crimped new ends on them and bundled them together. So now I have a much easier to handle 25 foot cable as well as the old 50 foot one. So in the very rare occasion when I need extra length (I can only think of one time I did) I can connect the two together to give me 75 feet.

While I was playing in the motorhome I disconnected it from the power pedestal and ran the generator for 90 minutes with the air conditioner running on high to provide a load. This is supposed to be done once a month to exercise the generator and keep everything ready to go when it is needed. It started easily and took the load with no problem. Being able to store the motorhome in the yard is a huge benefit. It is "almost" out of sight of the house.

I decided to leave it unplugged for a few days to test the solar system. I will run the TV for a few hours on the inverter and check voltages. Our friends Kevin and Ruth just did a series of four Blog posts on 12 volt and solar systems that is very informative if anyone needs a refresher. Here is the first, the rest follow it on their Blog.

Here is a very handy chart from Kevin's article that shows the voltave of your battery (ies) as it relates to the charge percentage of your battery. Never let your batteries get below 50% charge (12.1 volts) and they will give you maximum service and life.