Training - Day 2

I spent my first night in the new rig after the first day of training.  Most of the evening was spent reading user manuals, a lot of user manuals.  Multi-plex lighting, two-zone thermostat for the two A/C's and two furnaces, three different models of MaxxFans (whole house fans, two manual one remote controlled), 42" HD LCD TV, Denon Home Theater System, Samsung Blue-Ray Player, multi-fuel (propane & electric) fridge, Whirlpool Velos Oven/Convection Oven/Microwave combo, Fisher & Paykel drawer dishwasher, LED lighting, 12 volt systems, 120 volt systems, and the list goes on.

So my head is spinning a little and now it is time to get my outside orientation.  Jeff started us out at the front of the rig.  In the forward compartment of the "basement" are two sub-compartments.  The lower one holds the house batteries.  These are not your ordinary car batteries.  They are however the usual classification of deep-cycle batteries found on RV's and boats.  But that is the only thing usual about these.  These babies are 6 volt, there are four of them total and paired to deliver 12 volts each from two banks of two.  And they are AGM (absorbed gas mat), there is no free-liquid.  This makes them essentially maintenance free, more rugged and more durable.

But all this is not without a price.  These batteries are HUGE, they are almost eighteen inches tall and weigh a total of 500 pounds!  I sacrificed a lot of storage space and carrying capacity for the security of being able to power virtually everything except the air conditioners for a few days before charging is needed.

But that is not it.  You have to have a way to manage the power distribution and charging of these monsters.  Much of what they power is 120 volt AC so there has to be an inverter to step those 12V's DC up to 120V AC.  Here's ours:

This (the white box) is a MagnaSine inverter rated for 3000 watts and has a built-in computer that monitors all battery activity.  There is a remote control panel in the power management cabinet inside by the front door.  There is a CAT 5 cable routed from the storage compartment to the monitor/controller.

It knows the condition of the batteries and can adjust the charge rate based on what temperature the batteries are.  You can tell the system what kind of batteries they are and it customizes how it charges and discharges the batteries so that you get the most out of them while extending their life.

To the left of the inverter you can see the two-stage whole-house water filtration system.  This filter system is for particulates and has charcoal for taste and odor.  Every drop that comes into the rig goes through these filters first then it is on to the plumbing and individual faucets.  There is a second, reverse osmosis filter that feeds a separate faucet on the kitchen sink for drinking and cooking and another line to the ice maker.  Cyndee has never met a glass of water she likes, until now.

Just around the corner from the battery compartment is the BigFoot leveling system.  In all our years of RV'ing we always had to tote around boards and blocks of various sizes to put under the wheels so that we could level the coach from side-to-side.  There are very few campgrounds in the country that have truly level parking spaces.  While it is not absolutely necessary to have your rig level, it does make things like your fridge work better if it is.  And it is nice to have doors stay where you put them and not have your eggs roll off the kitchen counter, or you roll out of bed, and the water in the sinks and shower to drain.  So there was always the routine of putting the rig in the position you wanted, reading the bubble levels, estimating how much to put under which wheel, pull forward, put the blocks down, back up onto them, and see if you got it level on the first try.  The front-to-back leveling was much easier.  You just had to raise or lower the jacks to get that direction level.  Once you had done this a few times, it didn't take very long.  Cyndee and I could get it done in less than five minutes.  But it did take two of us working in a well choreographed routine.  Now, with the automatic leveling system it is a one-person job of just pushing some buttons.

This system is yet another computer.  From a menu you pick "unhitch" and, with the remote, lower the front jacks to lift the rig off the truck's hitch.  Then you pull the truck out of the way, go to the menu choice of "auto-level" and step back.  Using sensors that are buried in the frame at the front and back of the rig the system starts dropping the rear jacks and once it feels the weight it begins to start adjusting for level.

It is pretty cool to hear and watch.  Lots of hydraulic pump sounds and seeing almost 19,000 lbs of camper being elevated and tilted to a good position.  The system has a lot of latitude to work.  The hydraulic rams have quite a bit of stroke length and can accommodate a pretty sloped parking spot.

The spot we are in now has a pretty good slope from front to rear but the BigFoot just kept lifting the back (and lowering the front) until everything was trued up.  Even if that meant lifting four of the six tires off the ground.

Our propane system is about the same as it was on our old rig, two thirty-pound tanks.  The difference with this new rig is that the tanks are mounted on a slide out rail system.  This makes it very easy to get the back tank out for refilling.  Another convenience feature we did not have before is the automatic switching regulator.  When one tank runs empty, it automatically starts drawing out of the second tank.

The utility box on this rig combines all the "ports" that were spread out all over the driver's side of the other rig.  In one nice and tidy box there are hook-ups for city water, holding tank valve handles, fresh water fill system and cable, satellite and network interface connections.

In addition to the cable and satellite connections in this utility box, there is also an over-the-air "bat-wing" antenna on the roof.  This too has evolved from a hand-crank raise/lower/point device to powered.  It does a great job of bringing in the new digital HD signals.  We did not have HD service on our TV in the stick-n-bricks.  We spend a lot of time saying "oh, wow, look at that, you can see the pores in their skin".

If you were observant, you may have noticed a little something extra attached to the mast of the antenna.  This is a WiFi antenna and it is fed through a junction box and conduit on the roof to the energy management closet inside the rig where it is attached to the WiFi Ranger (essentially a wireless router).  This antenna will pull in even weak WiFi signals from a mile or two away as long as it has line of sight to the signal.

The signal is then fed to the router which in turn is supporting both of our computers, both of our phones and ultimately any wireless, internet device we install.  This means that we should be able to pull in the traditionally weak signals from campground offices and establish a solid high-speed connection when our neighbors can't even see the signal with their built-in WiFi cards on their computers.

Around back, you can see the large window arrangement.  We really like this feature, it opens up the feel of the inside of the rig and most of the places we have been it also provides for nice views.  Right now we are overlooking what was once a Georgia farm from before the turn of the century.  Now it has gone fallow and is a mixture of volunteer hay and corn that gets mowed every three weeks or so.

In the foreground of the above picture you can see the bird feeding station (click on any picture to enlarge it and see details) that we decided not to dispose of with the rest of our possessions.  There is just too much entertainment from the cast of characters that this thing draws.  Brightly colored song birds, doles of dove, chipmunks and squirrels all come in for a bite to eat.  But it gets interesting when when the hawks start coming in to dine on the diners.  They will glide overhead and let out one of their shrill screeches and everything at the feeder starts looking for a place to hide.

Something else that we were sure to have put on this new rig was a rear hitch.  The old rig did not have one and it was a real pain dealing with the bicycles, either getting them lashed to a ladder-mounted bike rack (you needed a PhD in geometry to get it to work) or using the front bumper hitch on the truck, which put the bikes in your field of vision and virtually blocking the headlights.

This set-up is nice and tidy and it is beefy enough that we could add much heavier things, like a scooter rack.

Moving around to the entrance side, we have our "patio" which is shaded by a 16' long awning.  This awning is a big jump in technology from our previous one. 

The old one had lots of latches and bars and tensioners.  And everything had to be adjusted manually, one side at a time.  This new awning is done with no more fanfare than the flip of switch.  It is electric and is operated from inside the coach.  Deployment has gone from a 15 minute work-out (usually just when the weather, or daylight was right) to seconds of holding down a switch without regard to weather or light.

By the way, that white trailer in the lower left background is my previous rig sitting in its storage spot.  Know anybody looking for a lovingly-used, well appointed 5th wheel?

The forward storage compartment, aka basement, is pretty large.  Of course this is relatively speaking in terms of a trailer.  We have probably triple the basement space that we had in our old rig.  Our old frame had a structure similar to the transmission hump in your car, leaving just a little space on either side.  This frame is like having a front wheel drive car.  There is no hump and the floor is flat all the way across.

 

This new-found space has its plus' and minus'.  The good thing is that we have room to put a lot of things that were just not possible to carry before.  The bad news is that we have room to put a lot more things.  Between 500 lbs of batteries and probably another 500 lbs of "stuff", the weight of the rig is getting pretty high up in the front end.  You can not see it from this photograph, but the space passes all the way through to the other side where there is a single-wide access door.  We are trying to be organized with this new space and containerize everything.  I am sure that the use of this space will evolve with time.

Yet another new technology that comes on this coach are its frameless windows.  These windows completely eliminate the channels and vinyl trim that are on the traditional aluminum framed windows.  There is nowhere for water to collect and no vinyl to mildew and crack with age.  Just a clean, smooth look that should be much easier to take care of.

Whew, long post, I know.  But it was a long day of training.  If I thought my head was swimming a little on the morning of this training, it really was afterwards.