Walt's Corner

I don’t need any of this glycol at this time, but all my literature says to pay attention to the diagnostic screen as to when I may be required to add more. Problem is, more of what? Walmart antifreeze? NAPA? Checkers? I want to have some on hand in case I need it.

Elwell Corporation’s Timberline 2.0 furnace requires the use of a glycol that is labeled as GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe), and particularly recommends Century Chemical’s part number 19910-C6T. Brady Shirrell from their service department quoted that to me in an email. I had to dig that out of Elwell since it is not listed anywhere in the accompanying literature or their website. But now that I had that info, I headed over to Century Chemical.

An email from Jeremy Southern from Century Chemical says it can be purchased at most Camping World supply stores. I was able to source it from Amazon for $60 for a gallon. I did see it up to $10 cheaper from other amazon stores, but I chose the one sold by a store with an 86% positive rating.

So there you have it from the proverbial horse’s mouth.

I’ve seen this everywhere. Even coming down through “official channels” at work. The warning begins as some form of warning that Apple is actively listening in on your personal conversations, and directs you to look at a particular setting on your iPhone/iPad/iWatch/Mac settings for proof. And there it is. And, there it is! Sho’ ‘nuff, Live Listen is “on” and something about transcripts in the description! Not only this, but since the OS upgrade, it has been set to on by default across all devices!

I’m not going to retype what someone has already written out with an abridged version so I’ll just link to sixcolors article right here. The best description I’ve seen yet.

The gist? Our first clue is that it is in the accessibility area. For folks who have certain disabilities that an added accessibility can assist with. In this case, hearing. Your devices will be used to help cancel out unwanted noise in an environment, and even provide you with a written transcript if you choose. Just like those phone commercials you see where hard-of-hearing grandma is able to read what her grandchildren are saying to her, right on her phone screen.

So do you need this feature? No? Turn that shit off. Should Apple have set that on by default with the new upgrade? I’d say no. But they probably had their reasons. What people need to be worried about is how Facebook manages to use your iPhone’s mic to listen to what you are saying and start showing you advertisements for what you were talking about just 5 minutes ago. That’s the real conspiracy theory, yo. frfr. And that has nothing to do with your Live Listen setting. But folks keep on spreading the conspiracy on the very platform that is the conspiracy. I hate to break this to everyone, but your phone is the listening device, and it is always listening. We choose to accept it or get rid of it. This why I have always named my phones WIRETAP.

So who is getting rid of their phone? What’s that? No one? That’s what I thought.

Which brings me to a variation of my favorite meme:

Nice spot for a quick day trip (for us) to a week. Secured Site 28. Our usual. Pulling in vs backing in was more level.

A lot more crowded than I thought it would be for such a dark and dreary day. High was 50 for a few minutes. Most of the day at 45, requiring the use of the heater. Might as well run that through its paces. Took 5 attempts (4 starts per attempt) to fire up without the error 29 code. This error code can usually result from air in the fuel lines from a bumpy ride. For those not in the know, this is the Timberline 2.0 hydronic furnace/water heater. It gets its fuel from the vehicle’s gas tank, not propane. The furnace heats up a glycol that then gets pumped through a heat exchanger. Some high-end shit. A typical unit runs about $4,500, not including labor/installation.

Due to unfortunate placement of the temperature sensors, the turning point of the temperature sensors don’t align with actual temperature of the coach where you are sitting at or in the bedroom. Keeping the rear (bedroom) thermostat set to 77 and the front (dining/galley) to 75 maintained about 65° in the coach, which is what I like. Overnight low was 41°

Bailey and Lottie hiked with us the 4.7 mile hike starting from our site and walking the Pine Tree Loop and back. Everything was so green. I don’t remember everything ever being so green here like this. The creeks were flowing fast and swallowed some of the trail in places.

I’ve never made red beans and rice before. Well, from scratch anyways. I’ve made that little packet of rice, beans, and seasoning you can get at your local supermarket. But this is the first time I’ve assembled all the ingredients and made it for myself. It was a success! I think I’ll make a modified version of this withholding the sausage to spread over a bed of rice and topped with some blackened salmon. I think that would be amazing.

During my information gathering process I learned that beans, especially red and  kidney beans, contain a toxin called phytohemagglutinin (PHA). How does one pronounce that? I want to say Fido-hee-ma-gah-glutin-in, but I’m sure that is wrong. What are the symptoms of this toxin? According to Wikipedia: “Symptoms can be induced from as few as four to five raw beans. Symptoms usually begin with extreme nausea and vomiting within one to three hours of ingestion, followed by diarrhea. Abdominal pain has been reported in some people. Recovery is usually spontaneous and rapid, occurring within three to four hours after onset of symptoms, although some cases have required hospitalization.^”

With this newfound knowledge, I made sure to hard boil my beans for 15 minutes. Here is my recipe.

• 1 pound red beans
• ¾ cup equal proportion of holy trinity (onion, green bell pepper, celery)
• Olive oil (as needed)
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeño, diced
• 6 cups chicken broth (I used bouillon based)
• Earl Campbell’s Original Smoked Sausage, 1 rope, sliced
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tblsp dried parsley
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tblsp cajun seasoning (I used Slap Ya Mama)
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper
• ¼ tsp dried sage

Directions

Prepare red beans by soaking overnight or utilizing the quick soak method. Drain. Hard boil for 15 minutes. Drain again and set aside.

Slice sausage to your desired thickness. Fry in large stew pot until a bit crispy, remove sausage from pot and set aside.

Sauté the holy trinity and garlic until just translucent (5-6 minutes) in the left behind sausage grease. Add olive oil as needed.

Add all spices but bay leaves to the mixture, mix well. Add chicken broth, beans, and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 2 hours.

Mash some of the beans. This will release some starch and give the liquid a creamy texture.

Add sausage. Simmer for another 30 minutes.

Serve over rice.

Had my first troubleshooting experience in the Airstream and it went pretty well. At least a happy ending.

TLDR

A distribution bar holding 3 heavy duty (I’m talking about cable thick enough to handle 300 DC amps) cables worked loose and was bouncing around on top of the Inverter, right where the power button is. This button being “on,” overrides the power button located on the remote-control panel. The inverter was always on. A vampiric draw of current while in storage that would eventually drain the battery in a matter of days. I mounted that bar over and away from the inverter. Turned the power button off on the inverter. Now it will turn off at the remote-control panel. Both problems solved. Both? But I haven’t talked about the other quirk here in this Too Long Didn’t Read paragraph.  

The Problem(s)

After sitting in the undercover storage for a week, the battery would be very low. Did I turn off the main 12-volt switch? Check. Something is wrong. Not a problem while camping since the battery stays charged via solar/generator/DC-to-DC converter/truck alternator. In fact, while camping I didn’t even notice this was a problem. I had an energy vampire!

Side problem? Energy-wise, I can afford keeping the inverter on while camping. Not a big enough power drain to make a difference one way or another. Driving down the road, I would hear the microwave turn-on beep. You know. That beep the microwave makes once power is applied to it, just prior to having to set the clock on it. Only experienced this while hitting bumps on the road. I figured it must be a loose connection somewhere. Perhaps even in the inverter itself.

Touch Screens

The problem with adapting to new technology is that common tasks such as turning on the bathroom light is software driven. There is no physical switch to turn a light on. Have to piss real bad? Rush into the bathroom, close the door, and realize that you can’t turn on the light in there. GODDAMNIT! I’ve got to run to the touch panel and turn it on first! I’m getting used to this change of practice. All lights are controlled through the Firefly Multiplex System. Starting the generator? Touch the panel. Turn on/off the water pump? Panel. There is a 7-inch touchscreen in the front of the coach and a smaller 5-inch panel in the bedroom. The only physical switch is the bathroom fan. Therefore, if there is a light that won’t turn on, the problem could be a traditional power problem, or it could be a software glitch. Controlling the Timberline 2.0 furnace and water heater is essentially the same – a touchscreen panel.

Inverter Panel

Nestled between the Firefly and Timberline touchscreen display panels, sits the remote panel for the Xantrex Freedom XC 3000 watt (6000 watt surge) inverter. Kudos to Airstream for selecting this premium piece of equipment. High. Quality. Shit. The more I dig into the guts of what makes this RV tick, the more impressed I am.

This panel is not a touchscreen. A standard LED display with push buttons. During my troubleshooting I learned that the panel appears to be the same panel that is flush mounted on top of the inverter. Being hidden as the inverter is, this panel up front is just an extension, or remote-control. Also, as I would eventually learn, the power button on the actual inverter takes precedence over the remote panel. In other words, if the button on the inverter is off, you can then turn the unit on or off via the remote panel. However, if the inverter power button is on, then one cannot turn the inverter off via the remote panel. And this was the crux of my problems. Both the battery drain and the random cycling of the microwave circuit.

After our last camping trip, I noticed that the inverter would not shut off. The display dims after a certain amount of time, so it’s not like I’d notice the display on and say, “hey, why isn’t that turning off?” Nope. I just assumed it was off. But I noticed my microwave clock still on after I thought I had turned off the inverter. I googled reasons why my Xantrex Freedom XC would not turn off and it came back with an answer. The one I described in the above paragraph. I then googled where my inverter was located and google provided that info as well. I had to remove the rear access panel under the bed on the driver’s side, as well as the shelf of that same area. That is when I saw the inverter and the problem. A distribution bar that connects 3 large cables, about an inch thick each, was just laying there on top of the inverter, directly on that power button. You can see this in the picture above. I could not locate where this bus bar should’ve been mounted. I did find a nice location to mount it to the frame of that area. You can see my mounting job in the picture below.