Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Batteries Again!

Yep……but not as much info as yesterday.  Well, overnight ever thing seemed normal.  This morning I unplugged the 50 AMP and went to solar power.  Everything appears normal after a few hours except the solar charger numbers.  It was still reading 7 volts.  I traced the wires from it down to the batteries. It looked normal but I don’t know what normal looks like so I don’t have a reference. I decided to change the positive cable of the solar cables to another battery (+).  I did.  The solar charger is now reading 13 volts (normal).  I called Mark and he agreed that was the problem probably and that the solar panels were probably charging just that one battery thus the over charge/heated battery.  Four six volt batteries are hooked up in series and parallel.  I had them right but the solar cable was hooked up ?????? wrong.  My dumb luck fixed it but my dumb luck hooked it up wrong several weeks ago when I was “checking/cleaning” the batteries.  Bottom line – I got some old batteries that are OK and they are working just like me – old but still working some.

Later that day/night I put the batteries thru several tests and they performed “OK” and didn’t get hot.

We are leaving tomorrow (Thur) a week ahead of time which is really one week later than we normally leave.  I won’t explain.  Carol & I are running around like two chicken with our heads cut off. It will all come together tonight.  If not, we leave Friday it’s just that simple….. When full timers set for awhile they get the “itch”, which is really not that long usually.  Things move pretty quick and even naps are sacrificed. Well, let’s don’t get too carried away.  I need my power naps.

I’m not sure if my back is hurting or not from moving/lifting all those batteries all around.  I’ve taken so much Ibuprofen I think I could play a couple rounds of golf……NOT!

I got a call from Molly & Bob Pinner the other day. DSC_0016 They are the Escapade National directors for the Escapees RV Club. Molly asked me if I would do a special seminar during the September rally. I said, “sure” then I asked on what?  She told me the subject and I was really surprised that no one had ever done a seminar on this subject. It’s a well deserved subject that needs to be done. I promised that I would NOT tell anyone the topic. So, with that in mind, I guess you all will have to wait.

So I got to go and finish preping the lot for our departure.

See ya…….