Despite our best efforts, Lowe is a morning person. He wakes up a full hour and a half before Ouest—and before we’d like to be awake—but we can’t change him. He’s chipper.
We make him wait until six o’clock before we head downstairs to face the day, and then we head straight for the toy room. He promptly flops down on the rug with the little town on it, grabs one of his many cars, a Little People or two, and is off into his own little world.
This morning he took his car and rolled up to the toy barn full of animals. “Hola, Moo,” he said, in just as cheerful a two-year-old voice as you’ve ever heard.
“Hi Cow, it’s a beautiful freaking morning isn’t it? I’m just so damn happy to be alive. I wish I could wake up even earlier to get the ball rolling.”
Later on Ali took both kids for a haircut, and amazingly, they both followed through on it. It cost a full five times more than a Mexico haircut, so Ali made sure she got her money’s worth.
Here is a shot of those first couple of ceiling panels installed. Look familiar?
One of the things I love about this vintage stuff is the “this-is-going-to-blow-your-mind” names of everything. This here is a battery charger. But not just any battery charger, a Silver Beauty battery charger. After forty-eight years of admirable service I finally cut the cords today. The new inverter has a 50-amp three-stage charger built in.
This is some sort of really ugly relay/charge controller (?) type thing that I traced the positive wire from the charger to. One tiny wire runs from the alternator to one post, the charger to another, and a third goes to the starter battery. I’m not sure if our alternator needs a charge controller or not, so for now I’ve just disconnected the whole damn thing. Nothing but the inverter is charging the batteries at the moment.
Getting ready to roll tomorrow. Headed off for new tires, and more.
11 Comments on “Early to Rise”
Lowes haircut is so darned cute !
Yes, Lowe is rocking that haircut, and Ouest’s front teeth look good.
I’m curious as to what make and model inverter/charger you’re putting in Pat.
I put in a Magnum 1000W Pure-Sine Inverter/Charger. I’ve already installed it. It’s the same as the one I put on the boat except it is Pure-Sine. We’ve never had any problem with our modified sine wave inverters, but I got a good price on this one so the difference was negligible.
I’m not sure about the “ugly relay/charge controller (?) type thing” but from your description it sounds like an isolation reply which keeps your starter battery isolated from the house batteries so you’ll need to replace it. I’m really enjoying the RV renovation project – it’s going to be the coolest RV on the road! Hope it goes well and you can get out of the cold soon!
That would have been my guess, but this isn’t in place between the two battery banks, it’s only wired directly to the starter battery (which was directly connected to the house battery). What it did have was an input from two different chargers, i.e. the alternator, and the AC120V powered battery charger pictured in the post.
Anyway, not a big deal as I’m redoing the whole battery system anyway. I’m just trying to determine if the alternator needs a charge controller or if it is built in. Basically I don’t want to drive for six hours with the alternator pumping full voltage into already full batteries.
Yep, that’s a battery isolator. It’s a set of diodes that allows the alternator to charge both the house and starter batteries, but won’t allow the house batteries to discharge the starter. You can replace it with an ACR (Automatic Charge Relay).
http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Sea-Systems-Solenoid-Series/dp/B000OTIPDQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1392215965&sr=8-2&keywords=automatic+charge+relay+bluesea
Eric
Already bought one. Have used these on both boats and the VW.
Pat, pick up a Gro-clock ( google it). Our daughter is the same age as Ouest and she has had one since 2 and a half. It is a miracle…
A variation on the Gro-clock: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002TKLN46/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mybaslgu-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=B002TKLN46
Heard about it as a project for a Raspberry Pi. More truck-style.
Sorry for being a noob but what is the roof material? I am rebuilding my interior too.