The Vehicle Thread!

All at once?

But why?

To keep up with the Jhumlys.

I just got a boler. Do the Chumly's partake in egg events?

seems like a lot

We have a Trillium, it's the Boler's brother but Mrs. Chumly is selling it because she bought the Escape 17; which is also egg-ish.

Well yes and no. Consider that our vehicles are our vacation systems as well, then you might see that the total costs over extended periods are not as onerous as it may first appear.

Number crunching as a percent of income, opportunity cost loss, deprecation, etc. versus other forms of vacation expenses such as jet travel and hotels!

Looks like we will be selling:
Trillium Travel Trailer
2004 Honda VFR 800 ABS
2002 Mazda Miata
1980 Kawasaki KZ440

Try selling your last European stint or equivalent.

Let alone the fact that neither of us have kids nor want kids, and what might seem like a lot, may well be far more conservative financially than many / most!

See my post to eBeth and it might explain!

Acquisition syndrome? Can the same be said for collecting books and paintings and lovers and guitars I wonder. Is that what's wrong with the world today?

If you want it, here it is come and get it
Mmmm, make your mind up fast
If you want it, anytime I can give it
But you better hurry cause it may not last

Did I hear you say that there must be a catch
Will you walk away from a fool and his money
If you want it, here it is come and get it
But you better hurry cause it's going fast

If you want it, here it is come and get it,
Mmmm, make your mind up fast
If you want it, anytime I can give it
But you better hurry cause it may not last

Did I hear you say that there must be a catch
Will you walk away from a fool and his money

Sonny, if you want it, here it is come and get it
But you better hurry cause it's going fast
You'd better hurry cause it's going fast
Fool and his money

Sonny, if you want it, here it is come and get it
But you better hurry cause it's going fast
You'd better hurry cause it's going fast
You'd better hurry cause it's going fast

Badfinger

I'm a wee bit jealous of the new rig. I went to an egg event this weekend, saw a couple of trilliums, a ventura, an escape and whole bunch of bolers. I'd love to get a 17 ft. but I'm happy just to get out and go camping. I've missed it. I almost felt like I should give up my citizenship because I've been lacking.

There is a certain magic about camping! I used to motorcycle camp with my former wife for two months per year, that was quite demanding at times! One Honda Goldwing, two young lovers.

Sounds like fun to me. I'd love to learn to drive a bike, but it looks like the best I'll do is a scooter.. no road trips on that puppy.

I like the simplicity of scooters, they are fun to work on!

Interestingly, the 2012 Canadian Electrical Code has a bunch of brand new sections for electric vehicles, wind-power, photovoltaics, etc.

I'm just delving into the wide world of electrical stuff. I want to wire my egg with solar power. At the moment it's just a confused bunch of info bouncing around my head... Its at the bare shell stage at the moment, just finished redoing the frame. I'm hoping to get a new fresh water tank and reuse the old one as a grey tank. Install those and then I'll begin the fiberglass repair. Only then will I begin screwing around with the wiring, fingers crossed I can get it done in time to actually go camping.

I think you should have to help pave a road one Saturday a year if you own more than 4 vehicles.

then you could keep up with the joneses while you both shoveled asphalt...

I did a ton of work on the old Trillium egg including rewiring it.

If you are going to go full photovoltaic it will not be cheap/easy because you will need quite a few PV panels, a true sine wave inverter, storage batteries, energy efficient lighting (LED's) etc.

If you want to have a bit of supplementary photovoltaic power then stick with extra-low voltage DC (forget the inverter) and a few PV panels, but in order to use it after the sun goes down you will still need storage batteries and energy efficient lighting (LED's).

In either of the above cases you will not have much success cooking with energy from photovoltaics, but lighting could be accomplished.

I love working on stuff, and it sounds like you do too!

I plan on having both propane - heating and cooking, and solar for lighting, small stereo and some computer/phone hookup - USB plug ins. I'm hoping to stick to 12 volt, so I'll be using all LED lights.
I look at it this way. A good/quiet generator would cost almost as much as the solar set up. So in the end, I think it will even out - minus the extra fuel.
I saw a boler this weekend that uses a water heater(small radiator) with a computer fan for heat. He's going to send me the info so this might be an option to instead of a catalytic heater. I want to install an outside shower - I don't like cold showers.. lol
The reason I stripped the interior, aside from lifting off the shell, was because I want to completely rebuild the interior - bigger bed. I'm glad I did though, as the frame was only held on with gravity and dirt!! Every single screw was a rusted homage to their past glory.
I've been doing some research on boat refrigeration - I forget the official term, but it's kind of like what freezer trucks use. The only time it uses power is when it's cooling the aluminum plates. It uses way less power than a bar fridge and uses substantially less than the typical 3-way. This way I can build a bigger reefer and still have room for everything else. However, this might be a case of thinking toooooo far out of the box.
So many options for such a tiny little space.
I've never done anything like this before. So, it's a bit of a learning curve..

Don't run your batteries in parallel without proper diode protection!

Ok, this is new. Never heard of that. How does one do this?
I was thinking about two 6 volt batteries, as I'm told they hold more juice than 1 12volt. So, I'm assuming it will have to be parallel.

No! Two 6 volts batteries in parallel provide only 6 volts, but at (potentially) double the current.

You need 12 volt deep cycle RV batteries.

If you want to run two 12 volt deep cycle RV batteries for higher amp-hours ("more juice" as you called it) then you should use diode protection, and they must be connected in parallel if you wish to maintain a nominal 12 volts and not 24 volts as they would be in series aiding.

Without diode protection they will both eventually discharge (if left connected in parallel) even with no load connected at all!

Most people do not know what they are talking about when it comes to electrical; way too much misunderstanding of basic principles. The interned has not helped in this regard given self-styled "experts" spewing all manner of nonsense.

To keep things simple, at first you could try one good 12 volt deep cycle RV battery and see if it meets your needs at night.

An alternative to diode protection when using multi-battery setups is isolation switching.