EarthRoamer XV-JP "Northwest Edition"

[mhiscox]

A couple of things on that ham radio (Yaesu ftm350)... first based on the placement of the head you dont need to run that external GPS puck. Yaesu has a tiny, low profile unit (FGPS1) that screws to the back of the head and works great.

Thanks for the help with the radio. I'll get the parts ordered up for Paul, and then we can test the roof puck against the FGPS1 and see how we do. Even though fiberglass should be largely signal transparent, the Jeep's GPS performance off the antenna in the top center of the dash is pretty sketchy, and I'm worried that the three layers of thick fiberglass over the roof may be degrading the signal.

I wanted to post up to let everyone know that RobRed knows his stuff. I took off the external puck and attached the screw-to-the-back FGPS1 unit (the lump on the top in the photo).




With the FTM350 control head mounted on a RAM mount in the center of the windshield header,



the Yaesu picked up a GPS signal quickly and held onto it well. So now I have a cleaner install with an easier-to-remove control unit and a signal that seems every bit as good. Thanks for the help.

And the other part of this is that I opened up the top center dash panel and pulled out the Mopar GPS receiver--which had pretty much never received anything due to two thicknesses of the overhanging roof panels plus whatever was between them--and nestled it right up against the base of the windshield.



While it's kind of ugly sitting there all naked, moving it to this location made the GPS happy and, for the first time in years, the display no longer reports me driving around the middle of Puget Sound.

 

[Overland Hadley]

While it's kind of ugly sitting there all naked, .....

Yes, and what will Mr. Jensen say?

 

[mhiscox]

Yes, and what will Mr. Jensen say?

Umm . . . that's a really good point. It does tend to let down the side, doesn't it?

Paul gave me some afromosia wood scraps I could build a tiny box out of. I wonder about afromosia's radio transmissivity. :sombrero:

 

[Overland Hadley]

Umm . . . that's a really good point. It does tend to let down the side, doesn't it?

Oh, not really. I was just giving you a hard time.

It is good to see you using it, and continuing to refine it.

 

[PaulJensen]

Mike got a detail shot and that puts the camera low over that front bar...I bet that it's barely visible when you're behind the wheel...If it's a functional improvement, that's a good thing...

Now whether having the Ham radio controls up high is another thing...I though that the Scanguage, Ham radio contol, factory radio and the tablet computer all at the same level was convenient...

 

[RobRed]

I wanted to post up to let everyone know that RobRed knows his stuff. I took off the external puck and attached the screw-to-the-back FGPS1 unit (the lump on the top in the photo).

View attachment 116749


With the FTM350 control head mounted on a RAM mount in the center of the windshield header,

View attachment 116746

the Yaesu picked up a GPS signal quickly and held onto it well. So now I have a cleaner install with an easier-to-remove control unit and a signal that seems every bit as good. Thanks for the help.

And the other part of this is that I opened up the top center dash panel and pulled out the Mopar GPS receiver--which had pretty much never received anything due to two thicknesses of the overhanging roof panels plus whatever was between them--and nestled it right up against the base of the windshield.

View attachment 116747

While it's kind of ugly sitting there all naked, moving it to this location made the GPS happy and, for the first time in years, the display no longer reports me driving around the middle of Puget Sound.

[Ron Burgandy voice] "I'm kind of a big deal... people know me."

Thanks for the nice word Mike. I'm glad it's working out for you.

Paul Jensen - Sometimes having everything right in your face is too distracting - esp the Yaesu 350. It's dimmest setting is too bright for night driving (IMO).

 

[AeroNautiCal]

Umm . . . that's a really good point. It does tend to let down the side, doesn't it?

Paul gave me some afromosia wood scraps I could build a tiny box out of. I wonder about afromosia's radio transmissivity. :sombrero:

Perhaps using wood from the Indian Signal Tree would help!

 

[ersatzknarf]

Hot Water ?

Hi Mike,
Any update on the Elgena 10L water heater arrival and installation, please ?
Inquiring minds and all that

 

[mhiscox]

Hi Mike,
Any update on the Elgena 10L water heater arrival and installation, please ?

Real Soon Now. I got a message from Eurocampers last Friday saying it had arrived down there, so it should be on my doorstep any day.

It'll be close to three full months since ordering. I didn't want to pay for air freight, and I'm OK with the time, but standard shipping wouldn't seem brilliant for any critical part.

 

[ersatzknarf]

Hi Mike,
Wow - sounds good. Hope all goes well from that wait.
I can sure understand not wanting to use air "fright" (!), these days :Wow1:
Glad to hear, too, that things went well with Eurocampers.
Would love to fit a Slim Square, but think that this 10L one will fit the available space better...
Looking forward to your impressions of it, when it arrives

 

[mhiscox]

Hi Mike,
Any update on the Elgena 10L water heater arrival and installation?

Murphy's alive and well and feasting on global commerce.

The water heater arrived about ten days ago. Faithful readers will recall I was trying to get this:

Unfortunately, what we got was this:





You may be able to see that this is a purely electric unit without a hint of the heat exchange plumbing that was the key requirement.

It's not obvious where things went wrong and I'm working with Steve Lashley at Eurocampers to sort things out. Might be a matter of having the right image of what I needed, but the wrong item number. Since the wrong heater was about 3 months in transit, it's not a good development. We'll keep you posted.

 

[ersatzknarf]

Hi Mike,
Oh, no ! ! !
Very sorry to hear about the wrong one arriving
(please look for a PM)

 

[Ford Prefect]

Wow Mike, after all of that waiting, really sorry to hear about this development. Sorry mate, that really sucks.

Regards,

 

[mhiscox]

OK, Sports Fans . . . we've figured out what happened.

It turns out that during the summer, the web catalog for Reimo (the German Camping World equivalent from which Eurocampers orders parts) had this picture of a heat-exchange unit associated with part number 67013.



This was the picture of the unit I wanted, so an order was placed for part number 67013.

Wrong. The picture was incorrect for the part number. Reimo caught the mistake sometime between June and now, and part number 67013 currently is matched with this:



which is the all-electric unit that was sent me.

Mild bad karma for me. No one objects to me returning the electric unit for a refund, and I can easily order the correct unit now. The problem is that I waited three months for the electric heater and will be waiting another three months if I want to get the heat exchange unit. Plus there'd be another round of shipping costs, plus the correct heater costs more.

It's also the case that there's a good chance that I can make this one work. The current draw is under 20 amps, which is not a problem for my electrical system, plus my use is such that I could limit operation to when either shore power or the vehicle alternator input can more than cover the battery drain. My guess is that it won't take too much power to keep a fully heated tank warm, and I'd seldom be taking more than, say, a quarter of the water out at a time (as the hot tank water will be mixed with cold, probably 50-50 or less) . . . anyway, the point is that the all-electric unit I got in error could be a workable approach.

The fly in that ointment is that--see the cream-colored lump on the end of the unit--this electric unit is as long as the Isotemp unit I took out for being too big. It is significantly smaller in diameter, which is good, and there's a chance that I can fit the smaller, simpler connections (on the end not shown) under the cabin floor. That, though, will require modifications to both the heater and the camper, so it's not something I want to try unless there's a pretty good chance that it'll all work out.

I'll probably decide what to do in the next few days, but right at the moment I'm leaning toward making a run at using the electric unit so I can have some hot water now, knowing that, while I wouldn't be happy, I could later order the heat exchange unit if the electric unit turns out to be unworkable. In any event, I'll let you know.

 

[kjp1969]

If you only had a trip planned to Germany (or wherever) you could pick one up.

For the expense involved, would it be feasible to fabricate a coolant heated unit? It seems that an insulated potable water tank, a loop of copper tubing, and a pressure relief valve are all that is required. You could even get fancy and put the coolant tube within another copper tube to prevent a coolant leak from tainting your drinking water, also to show up a leak more easily. You could get a stainless steel fabricator to make it up in any size you wanted. If there was room underneath, you could get it out of the cabin altogether. I bet you could have a fully custom unit for way less than $1000.

I'm starting to convince myself!