Were'd You All Go

[T.J.]

Man I can't believe how quite the Classic Winnebago guys are. They must have restored all there rigs and are getting ready to head to Jimco's this year.

[Tim Dailey]

Waiting on spring time....  ;)

[T.J.]

Yeah! Know the feeling well. I just thought some of the more hardy may be working on something or some of the guys out west or down south may be doing something. Seem Classic Winnebago and RV's is drifting away from the old eyebrow Winnebago's so I was hoping the gang might be drifting over here.

[So ska noname]

Trying sell all so I can travel next spring. Downsizing, watching grandkids while daughter goes school one day a week, getting moved to sons house, trying train Orion standard poodle puppy, and in spare time look at travel info!!!!

[So ska noname]

Photos. Thank God the big storm missed out. Not bad out. No gloves weather.

[Keith Murray]

T.J.

You got too much time on your hands sitting around the farmhouse, woodstove going, and the big screen TV being your best friend. Now would be a good time to get out there and roll the runway and get it ready for me to fly in. Or, maybe as always I will bring Barney and use your electricity again. You know Barney is now 38 years old and the old 440 still makes it all the way to your house. Keep warm my friend.

[T.J.]

WOW! 38 Looks better than the owner. Shoot the runways got grass on it. Been the best winter ever here.

[Ralph Javins]

Good morning, all; 

I have also wondered where the Winnebago owners were lurking.  This part of the forum has been very quiet for over a year, except for the announcements of Winnebagos being offered for sale. 

Out here in Latté Land, the work on the Winnebago Elandan WCP31RT is continuing.  The new engine in it has really helped, but many things have been slowed due to other "family things" coming up, but in this case, those particular "family things" are nice ones.  They just involve transoceanic and international airplane flights.  A lot of them. 

So there are others here who also travel light, and need to find accommodations and ground transportation upon arrival.  I do not know if I am still up to something like that now.  I am not sure how much longer the C-172 is going to be around.  Having the Elandan seems to be better for the things that are happening now. 

One conversion others might consider is changing to LED lighting inside and on the exterior of their Winnebago motor homes.  Yes, the claims for power saving are valid, and the batteries really do appreciate it, but there is one thing that the LED guys do not tell you about an older motor home:  Many of the LED lighting replacements will not like the older very simple "12 VDC RV power converter" as found in many of our motor homes when we are plugged into "shore power." .  In full truth, all they are is a center tapped transformer and a pair of diodes providing a full wave rectified nominal "12 VDC" output, which should be fully described more accurately as a "Full Wave Rectified Pulsating DC Voltage Waveform."  That would warn us that this is not the straight line 13.8 VDC voltage level like what we associate with a battery. 

What they do not tell us is that this pulsating DC waveform usually has about an 18 VDC peak voltage on the top of those voltage pulses. 

That is what was destroying a lot of the LED lighting replacements that I was putting into my Elandan.  I have pulled out the old BW Manufacturing amazingly simple "12 VDC power converter."  It has been replaced with a Power Dynamics PD-4655 12 VDC Power Supply  (actually about 13.6 VDC) with filtering and voltage regulation, but any of the other equivalent  replacement power supplies would also serve.  The main thing is to see if the specifications call for a voltage level tolerance around that 13.6 or 13.8 VDC level, and also if a "noise and ripple" specification are included.   That is a reliable indication that it is a true DC power supply. 

The straight line DC voltage output from this power supply is much kinder to the LED lighting, and also to any other modern electronics devices that you may use with your motor home "12 VDC electrical system" while you are plugged into "shore power."  Things like computers, modern flat screen televisions, GPS systems, cellular telephones, digital cameras, and many other current electronics devices.  The devices, or the power supplies for them, may not like that 18 VDC peak hitting them 120 times per second. 

The real surprise for me was that this power supply was cheaper by about  25% than another "up-graded 12 VDC RV power converter,' which inside was the same old simple inadequate circuit I described above.  I do not understand. 

Enjoy; 

Ralph 

Latté Land, Washington 

[Tim Dailey]

Very well explained Ralph!   I ended up working in a Buck / Boost into my system to keep the new electronics happy. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Ak2dA0894

[T.J.]

Ok OK Now you got me nervous. What did you say? I just bought a set of Whelen LED turn signals. Are they going to work on my regular old wiring system?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Whelen-600-series-SmartLED-turn-arrows-60A0...

Oh Timmy?????????????????????>GRIN/strong>

[Jimco_W001]

Looks like TJ needs your advice Tim. Changing to LED lights is not always the same when it comes how pure the input power is?

[T.J.]

Yeah, I guess I'm not sucking up enough yet.>GRIN/p>

[Rich Thomas]

Hi TJ, you should be fine with your turn signals since they run off the battery and not a converted AC sign wave. The problem occurs when the converted sign wave isn't filtered well enough to produce a flat line like you find from a more pure DC source like a battery.