Recent content by brightbluejim

You know, I should have known better than to ask a question like that. I guess it depends on what kind of driving you do.

Bitchin! Where did you find that? Who makes it? Looks about ideal for me.

Since the question was about carbon monoxide hazard, I'll point out here that a wood stove produces more CO than pretty much any well-designed propane-fired device. Never burn charcoal or wood indoors without a proper flue. Most CO deaths are from people trying to heat their house with a...

A small nit to pick here, but I see this over and over. Inverters are not 100% efficient - most are spec'd at 85-90% maximum, but under normal operating conditions they are closer to 80%, which means that 8 Amps of AC power requires about 100 Amps at 12V. Jim

I think the smaller your house is, the easier it is not to attract attention.  Most people don't drive around with slide-in campers on their trucks, but LOTS of people have caps on their daily drivers.  So if you're serious about stealth, you can live in a pickup/cap, but it's going to be damned...

I agree - the last thing you need when living in a tiny space, is things that take up lots of space, that you will NEVER use. Two spare tires??? Have you ever known anybody who had a second tire fail before they could get the first one fixed? Jim

I gave simple arithmetic examples to illustrate the basic principles using ball-park calculations. I would not expect that somebody is going to measure how many amp hours they suck out of their battery and stop charging as soon as they've put exactly that many back into it, since there's no...

If on average you are drawing 5 Amps and you want to be able to use it for 20 hours, your total usage is 5 Amps x 20 hours = 100 Amp hours. For every Amp hour you use, you have to replace that from somewhere - either solar panels or an AC-to-DC converter, or the vehicle alternator, or a...

There is a LOT of variation in advice I hear, when it comes to how low you should let your batteries get.  In an earlier post I claimed that you shouldn't let lead-acid batteries get below 12.6V.  This was technically correct for batteries with no load on them, but I now realize that this is a...

I wasn't talking about a $10 analog meter. I was talking about the digital ones now available that have the readout right on the cigar lighter plug, like this: http://www.amazon.com/Neewer%C2%AE-Display-Digital-Vehicle-Voltage/dp/B0085GVX8E/ref=pd_sim_auto_6?ie=UTF8&refRID=030YXWSSWCCD24PZ799D...

GOLF CART! Well NOW I feel a little silly. Yes, that not only answers one of my questions (capacity of the batteries), but invalidates my assertion that you didn't have enough information to be recommending 4 gauge wire. Apologies for that. I agree, and I never did and never would recommend...

Hi Gypsychic, I know there's a lot more to it than people expect - our life experience is that we plug things into 120V outlets and they just work. SternWake and Off grid both made some good points, and yet it seems like they're worlds apart. It seems the major point of contention is how big...

akrvbob: I'm afraid to measure MPG, at least until after I do a tune-up on it. Looks like around 13-15 so far, based on the fact that I filled the tank and now I'm down to about the same point on the fuel gauge. The EPA estimates for this truck are 10/11, but I've already gone far enough on...

Gypsychic: It surprises me greatly to see so many expert answers to your question, since it is not possible to answer your question without some additional information! If you want the short answer, go straight to the last paragraph. There are three things that must be known in order to...

I mentioned this project on the Newcomers page, and people wanted to see pictures, so some of this is old news, but I didn't want to continue the thread forever on the Newcomers page. The vehicle is a 1993 Toyota cab/chassis truck (basically a 1-ton pickup without a bed) with a 10x6 cargo box...