Dwight Lindsey

Most GFCI outlets do not like Modified Sine Wave Inverters. Xantrex published an article about this, that you can find here: https://nanopdf.com/download/gfci-compatabilities-output_pdf I bought one of the Pass & Seymour GFCIs and it worked fine for many years. I've since upgraded to a Magnum Pure Sine Wave inverter and of course the GFCI continues to work well. IF you have an MSW inverter, probably the GFCI issue can be solved by buying one of the "Xantrex MSW approved" GFCI outlets. That will be your cheap solution, compared with replacing the inverter with a PSW inverter. Dwight

I installed a Glendinning motorized cable reel. It makes me smile every time I use it. They have a few different models, including a "low profile" model. The easy way to find them is to go to rvupgradestore.com and search on Glendinning. Dwight

I did replace my MSW inverter with Pure Sine Wave. I did that mostly because of a Fisher Paykel refrigerator install, which replaced the dead Norcold. I have the DC to DC charger, but it's not installed yet. At the moment, the alternator is only charging the chassis batteries Dwight

I took out my 4 lead acid 6v 100 amp hour batteries and replaced them with 3 206 amp hour Lithium Ion Phosphate batteries from SOK: https://www.us.sokbattery.com/product-page/sok-12v-206ah-lifepo4-battery-bluetooth-built-in-heater Just one of these will give you about the same useable amp hours as 4 100 amp hour lead acid batteries. So while they are $1200 each, one of them is still less than the cost of the 4 trojan batteries I had previously. With three of them, I have about 3 times the available amp hours that I had with the lead acid batteries. I now run our coffee maker and microwave on the inverter (not at the same time) and still have battery power for several days. FYI, if considering Lithium Ion Phosphate, do think about what temperatures you may encounter. Charging LiPO batteries at low temperatures can kill them. Therefore I bought (see link above) batteries with heaters that come on when the temperature is low. They also have bluetooth, so you can see exactly the state of charge and charge rate. Dwight

We've abandoned satellite TV in favor of streaming. We've got a 5G hotspot in the coach now, that works well in most places and is plenty fast for streaming video and for internet. There's a software switch in the 5G router that turns off download limits and throttling. When we're really off grid, we have a Starlink setup that we put up on the rear ladder with a Flagpole buddy pole, which I highly recommend. Takes about 5 minutes for me to setup. The 5G works going down the road and in most places. Dwight

Mine was leaking at the weld around the drain plug. I pumped the diesel out into a 50 gallon barrel, pulled the tank, washed it out with soap and water and took it to a welder. The soap and water (drain and fill several times) was to prevent any possibility of diesel catching fire from the welding. A floor jack helped me get it out by myself. When the welding was complete, I filled with water and watched carefully for a leak. Not actually a terrible job. I was quoted $1,500 by a local shop to do it, which seemed like more than I wanted to spend on it. I bought a drill powered pump, and a $50 gallon barrel. Welding cost me $29 bucks. It was a long time ago, but I'll bet I spent less than $100. Total time invested, including sourcing barrel and driving to the welder, was about 6 hours. If yours is leaking elsewhere, you may need more welding. First thing is to get the tank out. I'd fill it with water when up on blocks and look carefully for leaks. Dwight

If your windshield has been cracking not due to road debris, be sure that the front cap is secured properly. When Monaco at Coburg replaced my windshields, they found that there SHOULD have been two brackets bolting the front cap to the plywood dash. There was only one bracket and it was loose. So when we were going 60 miles an hour into a 40 MPH headwind, we had 100 MPH force on the cap and it deformed, cracking the windshields. They installed two brackets, three total and the tech had a colleague lean on the cap to get it square before those 3 brackets were tightened down. We'd had 4 windshields crack before this repair. Since the cap was fully bracketed to the dash, we've had no cracks in the last 8 or 10 years. Dwight

What lithium batteries do you have? I recently installed 3 SOK 206 Amp Hour batteries. Today, while on battery, I ran the microwave and the Keurig coffee maker. Lost all 12v and inverter. The SOK batteries were dead. I had caused a high amp disconnect and the BMS in one or more of the batteries shut down. The way to fix this is to briefly add a charging source to the lithium batteries, which will wake up the BMS and clear the fault condition. I did this using jumper cables from the chassis battery. When you use the "batt boost switch" from the drivers position, you are briefly putting a charge voltage on the lithium batteries. When this happens again, I suggest checking the voltage at the lithium house batteries when the 12v and 120v inverter circuits are not working. Then, when you use the batt boost switch and get things working again, check the voltage again. Of course I don't know what's going on in your system. You may or may not have a fault condition that is shutting down the BMS in your lithium batteries, but you may want to check. Dwight

The Starlink cable is an ethernet cable with proprietary connectors on the ends. In principle you can change the connectors and add shielded twisted pair wire, but coax cable won't help at all. Dwight

Bill: Here's what I did. I bought a Flagpole Buddy Starlink setup. Google Flagpole buddy. It's a flagpole with a cute system to hold it on the ladder of the coach. You bolt two plastic pieces onto the ladder and then you can assemble the flagpole with the Starlink antenna on it, on the ground. I use a camp chair to keep the antenna off the ground while I'm doing this. The cable runs inside the flagpole. You then put the flagpole on the ladder. It's a cute and ingenious setup and easy to do. My coach is a 2005 Knight, with two bedroom slides. The TV is in a box in the curbside slide. I long ago replaced the original CRT with an LCD, so there's LOTS of room in that box. I put the Starlink moden in that box. My inverter is in the rearmost curbside bay. The inverter takes up about half the space on the front side of that bay. I drilled a 3 1/2 inch hole in the floor of that bay, sized to take a deck plate I bought on Amazon. Above that bay is a closet space, which is plumbed for a Splendide washer dryer combo which was never installed. I drilled a small hole through the top of the bay into the floor of that closet. This did require some closet disassembly. I ran the modem end of the cable through the hole in the bay, up into the closet area and from there into the TV box. Most of the cable lives in the inverter bay, just coiled above the deck plate. When I arrive at the campsite, I open the deck plate and feed an appropriate amount of cable through the plate. I run the cable through the lower bracket of the Flagpole Buddy system on the ladder and then up through the flagpole and into the antenna. I then attach the flagpole to the ladder. The whole process of setup takes me about 5 minutes. I love having Starlink. I still have a now unused Motosat antenna on the roof for Hughesnet and there is simply no comparison. Hughesnet was at least a way to do email when there was nothing else available, but web browsing was painful and there was no chance of streaming or VOIP phone. Starlink is amazing. I'm getting between 50 and 200 MB/s Dwight By the way, the Flagpole buddy website is here: https://flagpolebuddy.com/ I'm not a particular fan of their website, but I do like their Starlink flagpole very much. Dwight

I bought a new 12 volt 20 amp breaker at a local auto parts store and connected the loose wire to a positive terminal of the starting batteries. Nothing smoked, nothing blew up . . .

I've just changed our house batteries from flooded lead acid to Litihium Ion Phosphate. I installed three 206 amp batteries. In order to get them to fit I needed to remove the pull out battery tray. So . . . I had to remove the chassis batteries as well. Unfortunately, I didn't note the position of one of the wires connected to the chassis battery. It connects to a wall mounted fuse and the other side of that fuse disappears into a hole in the corner of the battery box. In the attached picture, the wire with the yellow plastic that's connected to the wall mounted fuse, connects to the battery. Positive terminal or negative terminal? I suspect that this is a transmission related wire, but I don't know that for sure. Advice? Dwight

I've just replaced our Norcold with a Fisher & Paykel RF170. I lowered the platform about 4 inches to just above the furnace. I Just got the refrigerator placed in the motorhome this morning. Three of us pulled it through the drivers window. Now I'm starting to consider how to bolt it in. I see there's a steel plate at the floor level in the back of the refrigerator, accessible from the outside through the fridge access panel. I'm considering drilling holes in that plate and screwing down to the plywood platform. I'm not sure that's enough to hold it solidly. What have others done to secure the fridge in place securely? Thanks! Dwight

We did a weekend trip to Santa Barbara and the beach and for the first time I had issues with the speedometer. On the way West to the beach the speedometer was occasionally reading the correct speed, but more often was flailing violently between 0 and 55mph. Silverleaf VMS PC MPG looked pretty normal. On the way back from the beach today the speedometer was even more wacky, never stabilizing and Silverleaf MPG was 0 most of the way home. Halfway back I got a check engine light. The diagnostic code from the Silverleaf is: ENG PID 84 2 Road Speed Invalid Data 6/6/22 11:29 Where to look? Wheel sensor? If so, where is it? ECM? Ground? if so, where? I'm not thinking it's the speedometer itself, since both the speedometer and ECM are affected. I'll appreciate any advice about where to look. Dwight 05 Knight (Very similar to an 04 Diplomat)

Besides checking the flame sensor and blower motor circuit as Harvey suggested, you might check the battery voltage when you're having this issue. If the 12v DC voltage is lower when not on shore power and if you're losing some voltage due to dirty connections, that might explain it. If you've not personally replaced the batteries, it would be good to know how old they are and how well they've been treated. Multiple cycles of complete discharge can damage batteries. Dwight

Brad: I'd bet flame sensor. When that happened to me I opened the access panel and removed and replaced all the spade connectors, cleaning the connections. For me it was the spade connector to the flame sensor that was dirty

Ron: Joe B had his Executive painted at Navarro Brothers and it's a spectacular paint job, just beautiful and perfect. Hopefully he'll see your message and comment, but I've seen the paint job and it's incredible. Dwight

That does not sound like an original piece of furniture. Pictures would be helpful. Dwight

I believe the thing that you circled is a soap dispenser Dwight

Adam: You should check to see if the 120 volt power is getting into the coach. That is make sure power is getting past the transfer switch. If you know what you are doing and if you are careful, you can open the transfer switch and test to find power on the shore side of the transfer switch AND the house (motorhome) side of the transfer switch. Dwight

Call RVCAMS: www.rvcams.com Tell them what you have and what you'd like to do. They are very helpful. Dwight

Do watch your new GFI outlet. When I replaced mine, the GFI would randomly trip. Since I wasn't smart enough to keep the original breaker, I had to do a search and find a special GFI made by Pass & Seymour. If your new GFI trips randomly . . . put the old one back in if you can.

What inverter do you have? If it's a Magnum, they are on the side of the inverter facing out toward you. They are labeled 16 and 17 in the picture below. Dwight If it's not the inverter circuit breaker, there's one more thing you could check, which is the "high current breaker". In my coach it's on a sidewall in the battery bay. Mine has a rod that pops out when it trips. The rod looks sort of like the long side of an Allen wrench. I popped mine years ago when I turned ALL the lights on in the coach while dry camping. At that point I had halogens in many places. I've since replaced everything with LEDs and it probably would not happen again. An electric heater might also pop that breaker, which would kill all input from the batteries to the coach. Dwight One more thing . . . you mentioned you replaced the GFI outlet. If you have a pure sine wave inverter, you shouldn't have a problem. If you've got an MSW inverter, most GFI outlets will not work. Don't ask how I know that. If you've still got your original GFI outlet, you may need it. If not, there's a small list of GFI outlets that will work with MSW inverters.

Check the breakers on your inverter. On my Magnum they are push-in to re-set breakers.

You should have battery shutoff switches in the battery bay, one for house and one for Chassis. Those are the ones you need to shut off.