The Good and the Bad

Being buried under a cuddle pile of Meg’s cats and dog who thinks she’s a cat is a very, very good thing. I found myself in this position several times while Meg worked at the balloon festival. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it. Believe it or not, this isn’t even all of her six (!!!) cats.

Yesterday we went to a monthly flea market in Gordyville, about 40 miles away. Meg normally visits here anyway, plus she was meeting someone to buy stuff in a private transaction. I’m not normally much for shopping, but you never know what you can find at a flea market. As it turns out, I found the perfect solution for a problem I didn’t even realize I had. I already had a small thermos on my Walmart shopping list, something I could brew coffee into and then hold while I drink out of regular mugs. The travel mugs I’ve been using are insulated, and keep my coffee too hot to drink for too long. Then I found a French press pitcher kind of thing, making it easier to make better quality coffee as well as holding it for me until I drink it. I bought it for $6. I tried it for the first time this morning, and it works great!

We got ice cream on the way back to the house. While Meg took a nap, I returned to the van and found it a bit warm inside. The roof vent had closed, and the fan was off. I couldn’t have forgotten to turn it on, could I? Fortunately, it wasn’t a particularly hot day. Lister was slightly unhappy about the warmer temperature inside, but perfectly fine as soon as I opened the van and let him out. Still, this is a disturbing problem. I’m well aware of the dangers of closing critters inside a vehicle on a hot day, and have designed my vans specifically to avoid this problem.

Later on, while I was relaxing inside the van, my entire electrical system suddenly shut off. A few seconds later it turned back on, resulting in the roof vent closing and the fan remaining off. So that’s how things came to be this way, not neglect on my part. This was reassuring in a way, but it also meant that I had an electrical problem. I removed the pegboard from my electrical system enclosure and investigated, but could find no problem at this time. A little while later, everything shut off again and did not turn back on.

The charge controller then indicated that there was a short circuit in the load output, which is where I connect my fuse panel that runs all of my 12-volt systems. One by one, I removed every fuse from the panel. They were all good, with nothing blown, yet the charge controller refused to turn the load output back on. I ended up cutting off all power to the charge controller to reset it and switching the power back on again (the first thing you try with any misbehaving computer). It was now sending power to the load output normally. One by one, I put each fuse back and watched for any problems or blown fuses. There were none. In the end, I was fully up and running again, and have not had a spontaneous shutdown since.

Another possible cause of a shutdown like this is pushing more than 20 amps through the load output. But with the roof fan cranked and the fridge compressor running, I was barely using 5 amps. I don’t think I even have enough 12-volt or USB devices to pull 20 amps all at once to trigger that kind of shutdown.

It’s possible that this was a fluke, a one-time freak accident. I’ll keep watching, though. If this happens again, I may have to connect my fuse panel directly to the batteries. I run it off the charge controller now so that I can monitor my power usage, making sure that I’m generally charging more than I’m using. But if the charge controller is going to do this, shutting down my roof vent while I’m away from the van, Lister could overheat, and we can’t have that. I have enough fuses in my 12-volt system that it would be perfectly safe to run it straight off the batteries. If there’s a short, the fuse for the individual circuit would blow, leaving the rest of them on and the fan running. That’s more important than monitoring power usage if I have to choose between them.

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I’m doing some laundry here since I have the opportunity, then moving on this afternoon. Tonight’s destination is nothing exciting, a Chateau Walmart halfway between here and Des Moines, Iowa, where I’m going to meet some more long-lost family.