Propane on Fridge Fixed?

Tucson's summer is well under way with highs hitting the low 100's on a regular basis.  It's easy to settle back into our summer rhythm of getting up early for walks and pickleball, while enjoying the evenings as things cool down.  Tohono Chul Botanical Gardens are about 15 minutes from our house. We are members, and have been enjoying local music on the weekends. 

We are making final preparations for our trip north, and I had a new mobile rv mechanic out to evaluate why my propane fridge keeps losing its flame.  It took him about 45 seconds to diagnose the problem, and then another hour to address another fridge problem that had gone unnoticed and was unrelated to the propane.

After removing the housing to gain access to the burner, he found that the lighting electrode was 5/16" away from the gas instead of the 3/16" that it's supposed to be at.  Additionally, it was bent, which is interesting.  The previous owner claimed not to have ever used the propane feature of the fridge.  If he was telling the truth, it had been bent for at least a couple of years.  It's not something that just happens to that degree through usage, I guess.  

Anyway, even when the fridge operated under shore power, it was losing its battle to stay cool during the afternoon heat when temperatures rose into the low 90's during our trip to Silver city.  So I purchased a double fan set on Amazon when we got back but couldn't figure out a great way to mount it because it was too big.  The tech said that two fans were overkill, and that we only needed one.  In fact, the factory fan was half the size of one of the Amazon fans.  When the tech went to mount the fan in the upper vent compartment, he discovered that the factory fan wasn't operating/dead.  So, in theory, that explains why we were having trouble with the fridge warming up during the late afternoons.  The solution was to separate the two Amazon fans, and to wire one of those fans to the fridge thermostat in place of the dead factory fan.  Zip tying was involved in the mounting process, but the tech made it work,  He used a lighter to make the area hot enough, and the fan activated and was moving a lot of air.  

Just as he was packing up to go, I asked the tech to look at one other problem we were having.  The Lance has a front awning, which we will probably use when it's not windy. The awning works fine.  However, the awning has a light switch inside the trailer which is right next to the light switch for the light above the kitchen table. Unfortunately, the awning light switch has a short, which knocks out a fuse for all of the lights in the front of the trailer, including the bathroom lights.  Twice, I've accidentally pushed the awning light switch and caused our inside lights to go out.  

I thought it would be an easy thing for him to tighten up a wire or something to fix the short.  Unfortunately, this last task for the tech doubled my tech repair time.  It wasn't the switch.  It wasn't the wire in the awning itself.  It wasn't the wiring in the converter.  We ended up on the phone with the Lance factory troubleshooting.  It was their conclusion the problem resided in a circuit board under the bed, containing a relay that wouldn't close.  Those things are expensive, and we weren't going to have it by the time of our departure anyway.  What we ended up doing is shutting off the battery power, which fortunately closed off the open relay, allowing us to change the fuse and get the lights back on in the trailer.  The tech made the awning light switch inoperable so that I couldn't accidentally turn it on again.

The tech looked at me and said, "Well, if there was one thing in your trailer that doesn't operate, I guess having the awning light not work isn't the worst thing in the world.  If you want me to replace the circuit board when you get back in the fall...."  Um, no.  The Scamp didn't even have an awning.  I think I can get along without having an awning light on the Lance.

The real test will be the long trip to the Upper Midwest ahead. Having a fridge that operates with propane gives us a lot more flexibility for nights without electric hookups.

Record-breaking Heat

Fun Fact:  Tucson has never experienced 100-degree weather in March for as long as records have been kept.  We are poised to blast through that record this weekend, along with a bunch of other individual day records next week.

Lance updates:  With a couple of hiccups, my LiFePO4 battery project went well.  I ordered two 100 ah batteries from Amazon.  The Lance has a small battery compartment on each side of the trailer, which needed to be modified in order to accommodate the wider SOK batteries.  The local auto parts store was happy to take the dead lead acid batteries.  I ended up building wood boxes that sit on top of the sliding tray in each of the battery compartments. The sliding tray locks in with a rod and locking outside door, and a strap makes sure that they don't move around.  

I bought an Eco-Worthy LiFe PO4 20 amp charger from Amazon to get both batteries fully charged before installing in the Lance, made sure that the batteries fit into my crude wooden boxes, made sure that the wooden boxes fit nicely inside the battery trays of the Lance, and then still managed to make a mistake raising my blood pressure.

The solar charger in the Lance does not have a way to check on the health of each battery, individually.  It only shows when both batteries are charged to 100%. Fortunately, the SOK batteries come with an app that allows me to monitor the batteries individually by bluetooth.  After everything was installed in the Lance, the app worked perfectly, showing both batteries with full charges.  About a week later, I went out to the trailer and could only find one battery on the app.  My first thought was somebody stole one of my brand new batteries.  A few choice words were muttered.  After confirming that both batteries were physically still in their respective battery compartments, I was at a loss for explaining why the second battery wasn't showing up in the app.  

I took the solar charger off the wall inside the Lance and couldn't find anything wrong.  Then I went to Mr. Google and saw that if one of the SOK batteries isn't being charged for awhile, the built-in operating system shuts itself down into sleep/storage mode.  But why wouldn't both batteries be charging?  The sun was continuing to blast into the solar panels in the Sonoran Desert.  I checked battery one.  Nothing wrong with it.  I checked battery two.  Hmmm, the positive post looks different than the negative post.  A washer had hung up when I tightened everything down and wasn't making contact.  I took the wires off the positive post, straightened the washers, and tightened everything back down again.  Sure enough, the app immediately showed both batteries, and they were both still at 100%.  

We are in the middle of our last three sets of guests.  Even though the Upper Midwest has experienced record-breaking snow and cold this winter, I'm afraid they aren't going to be ready for the triple digit days that have prematurely arrived.  Dave and Ruth spent last weekend here and then spent the week in Joshua Tree after driving there in a rental car.  They return today for this weekend.  I've known Dave since sixth grade, and he has always lived within a mile of the moderating climate effects of Lake Michigan.  He's going to think he's arrived in hell!

Saguaro West National Park

Margaritas on the Patio

Do we have any regrets moving to the hot desert?  Not yet.  The thing is I can still wear a t-shirt and shorts almost every day of the year.  And even though it will reach triple digits in the mid-afternoon, mornings are quite pleasant.  This morning it was 62 degrees and even a little bit chilly when I took Callie outside just before dawn.  By the time that I make morning coffee and sat on the back patio, it was a beautiful morning with the birds singing.  Compare that to Wisconsin where we had weeks when it never rose above 32 degrees or even saw the sun.  

Lance Trailer

Yesterday, I had a mobile rv technician come out to storage to get some work done.  My mechanical abilities are limited, and despite having a friend show me how to service the bearings on the Scamp, I didn't trust myself to do it for the first time on the dual axle Lance.  He looked everything over, and everything looked good-to-go by the time he finished.  Unlike some rv repair places, he was glad to take questions as he worked and showed me what he was doing and why he was doing it.  I've been having problems getting the fridge cooled down, and he figured out right away that there was some previous-owner DIY insulation blocking the hot air from going up and out the vent. He also took a look at the roof and pronounced everything good.  

Before he arrived, I had been working on the propane system, which the previous owner claimed to have never used.  I soon found out the reason why it wasn't being used:  there were several propane leaks under the stovetop that were setting off the alarm.  That would definitely provide a disincentive to also use the propane for the fridge or water heater.  Anyway, I disassembled the various bubbling connections in the line and tightened everything back up again.  

The other problem I was having with the fridge is that the flame was going out overnight.  Well, it turns out that the two conventional lead acid batteries were at the end of their lives and not holding their charge.  Unlike the Scamp fridge, which required no battery to operate on propane, the Lance fridge has a control panel and a battery-operated propane ignition. I've got two 100 AH Lithium batteries arriving tomorrow.  That will be the next project.  I have one 190 watt solar panel on the roof and will probably get a portable panel before we leave for our summer adventures.  

Visitor Season

Visitor Season has commenced.  My mother spent a week here in Oro Valley during mid-January.  For 86-years-old, she is doing amazing.  We took her to the Sonoran Desert Museum, Tohono Chul, Whitewater Draw, and Bisbee.  We also fed her more Sonoran Mexican food than she has probably had in her lifetime.  Except for one day of rain on the way back to the airport, we had great weather for her visit.  And no, my Mom is not slamming margaritas, but Julia thought it was quite funny to place a large margarita in front of my non-drinking mother.  Well, it was kinda funny.

We have a couple of weeks without visitors, and then Julia's brother and sister arrive separately in the next wave.  We've been busy during the lull, but I'll save that for another blog post.