Big Red

How To Break Your Truck in the Middle of Adirondack Wilderness. And Fix It When You Get Home.

So this weekend, I was camping in the Southern Adirondacks on Route 8, about 85 miles from home. All was going well today, when I got back from my hike. It was a bright and sunny day, and I had my new solar panel hooked up to my truck, and it was cranking out the amps. Solar power charges slowly, but on a bright and sunny day, it adds up quickly.

So I get back to my truck. I noticed my starting battery was low, and the truck would be needed to be started if I wanted to listen to the radio back at camp. I like using the car radio, as it’s nice and loud, and has all my favorite music on it. Portable radios tend not to have good reception in the Adirondacks, and the alarm clock I had with me couldn’t seem to pick up any radio stations at all.

I could do what I did in the past — just idle the truck and charge up the starting battery. The thing was the accessory battery that powers the inverter was almost fully charged from the solar panel I had plugged in to it, on this delightful Good Friday afternoon in the Adirondacks. But that would be stupid. Why not have the panel charge both the starting battery and accessory battery, when the key was in the “accessory” position.

Fuse Tap from Throttle Position Sensor to Excite Battery Isolator Relay

A person a few weeks ago posted a comment on my blog, about a source of “switched” accessory power under the hood of my truck, known as the “Amplifier Fuse”, No. 41. If I simply switched the battery isolator fuse tap from the “Engine Fuse” No. 5 to No. 41, I would be good to go. So I pulled the “Engine Fuse”, and it came out firmly. I proceeded to unplug the 15-amp fuse from the lower blade of the fuse tap, plugging it back into the “Engine Fuse” socket.

To my shock and horror, the “Engine Fuse” socket was loose. How could this be? How could I have broken the socket, pulling the fuse tap. I know a lot of people hate fuse taps, as you can accidentally break a fuse socket with them, if you bang on it the wrong way — at least in theory. But it beats cutting into a wire, and to be honest, that’s just how the place that installed the battery isolator in my truck did it. I wasn’t going to question it.

I fiddled around under the hood, unable to figure out why the “Engine Fuse” socket was suddenly so loose. I figured, what the hell, I’ll try to start up the truck. Maybe it’s okay. Otherwise, I guess I’m screwed. The truck, to my surprise, started, but it ran awful. It sounded like it kept wanting to die, but eventually it found a high but somewhat rough idle.

I figured there goes another $1,000 bucks due to my stupidity and abuse pulling a fuse from the fuse box. Maybe it won’t be that expensive, if they can take it apart the fuse box and replace the broken socket — and it’s unlikely to be that much labor. But there goes buying the shotgun I’m looking to buy for hunting or that lift kit that I am rapidly losing interest in.

I didn’t have cellphone service where I was in the Adirondacks. I had really only four options:

1) Try to flag down a passing car, and ask for help. Maybe they could at least give me a ride back to Wells or Warrensburg.

2) Try to call a trucker, or maybe a Forest Ranger/State Policeman on Channel 9 on CB Radio. I knew there was a lot of traffic, and maybe they could relay my message along to police.

3) Wait and see if a Forest Ranger came by — they usually do their rounds up there around 10 AM on Saturday mornings.

4) Try to limp the truck home, and if I wouldn’t make it all the way back, at least reduce my towing bill and possibly be in a place better for signaling help, rather than empty stretch of NY 8.

Breathing a sigh of relief that at least the engine worked with the broken “Engine Fuse”, I quickly packed up my gear, and decided to try limping the truck home. I figured with the rough idle and general poor engine performance, it wouldn’t do that much damage over 75 miles driving home. I guess it could gunk up the catalytic converter or maybe damage the cylinder walls, but I figured the risk is relatively low, if I drove it easily. Except for a few sections, it’s mostly downhill, rural roads.

If it got worst, I would try the first three options. But first I really didn’t want to have to deal with towing, getting a loaner car, or having to ask for a ride from a friend. I figured if I made it to Amsterdam, it would mean I could probably find a better garage, plus it would be reasonable to ask somebody to pick me up.

I made it to Amsterdam. It ran awful, trying to stall at every traffic light. It helped to keep one foot on the accelerator and in lower gear. Then I made it to Schenectady, then on the Thruway. I drove about 50 MPH on the Thruway at rush hour in the right lane, which annoyed a lot of people. Finally, I made it home. I decided to take one more look at the fuse box, mostly in despair, and suddenly, I realized I had plugged the “Engine Fuse” into the wrong socket. I got confused. I put the fuse in the right socket, fired up the truck, and it ran like new. The second time I started up the truck, the Check Engine light was off.

I drove it out to my parents house, because I needed a pair of needle nose pliers to reattach the excitor wire on the isolator, which I managed to break in the craziness of this all. But the truck drove just fine, and there is no evidence there was any damage to running the engine like I did back from the Adirondacks. I think it probably will be fine, as I didn’t push things too hard, and just disabling several engine sensors, just forced the main computer to go into fall back mode, which was able to get me home, just at much compromised performance.

I feel stupid. But I am going back to the Adirondacks early tomorrow morning, to enjoy the rest of the nice weekend.

It turns out if you try to run your Silverado truck with the 15-amp "Engine" fuse unplugged it will run, just real poorly.

And this may cause you to panic, causing one to "limp" your truck home, cutting short your camping plans in the Adirondacks.

But heck, I am going back tomorrow. I will just chalk it up to pure stupidity. It's just $40 dollars wasted and maybe 150 miles that I didn't need to drive. I don't think I did any lasting damage to the engine.

New Inverter is So Much More Quiet

I did not budget for purchasing a new inverter when my old one finally quit. Probably running the electric drill on it when installing the CB radio didn’t help it much, but for a while it had been suggesting the the end was near for it – and I kind of had planned on replacing it when it died this summer. At least it didn’t quit during camping, leaving me in the dark.

I bought a $50 Whistler 800-watt inverter to replace my existing $75 Vector 800-watt inverter. The new inverter lacks a built-in voltage meter, but the 800-watt inverter’s voltage meter was on it’s way out for a while now, so it gave me pretty invalid readings. To deal with the lack of a built-in voltage meter, I purchased and installed a voltage meter in the truck cap, so I can easily keep the track of the battery’s charge while camping.

Hillcross Farm Parcel now posted as State Forest

I bought the Vector inverter the day of Barack Obama’s Democratic National Convention speech during the summer of 2008. I remember that. It got a fair amount of use, for an inexpensive inverter, operating in the often dusty and dirty truck cab. I think the dust along with just the inexpensive design eventually caused the fan to start to wear out and eventually die, causing the inverter to die.

Last summer, the inverter would “suddenly” have a voltage drop, without explanation. The fan was getting noisier, and at least once this winter, the fan did not start up until I tapped it, and I could smell the insides of the inverter starting frying.

0000433_pro-800w-whistler-800-watt-power-inverterThe new inverter is nice. It does have a fan, but the fan only comes on when thermal conditions demand in it. The fan is much quieter too. No grinding noises or hum from this inverter. At first camping, I probably will have trouble sleeping not hearing the soothing hum of the inverter. That’s fine, I appreciate the quiet.

The new inverter which doesn't run the fan at low heat conditions, and has a quieter fan at high-heat conditions is quite nice.

CB Radio Install Proceeds Slowly

On Sunday I got the solar controller and CB radio mostly wired up. The solar controller powers the CB radio on it’s load terminals, so it will disconnect the CB radio from the battery, when the battery level drops below a certain point.

Got the antenna mount bent in, so it wasn’t bent out too far — risking get hit by trees. The following weekend, me and dad used some vise-grips, and bent the mount inwards. It was too far inwards then, but I was able to bend the metal gently outwards, until perfectly straight. It still leans a bit forward (the opposite of the truck below), but there is nothing I can do about that as the hood rail leans forward. At speed, the antenna stands up perfectly straight due to wind resistance and spring. But in general, it’s pretty straight, and doesn’t look bent.

IMG_13637On Sunday, I was finishing up my install and removed the antenna connection to tighten it up, and solder the connector. I checked one last time for a ground fault with an ohm meter, and I was good. Of course, I forgot to unplug the radio first, and the poor connection caused the inline fuse to blow. I was afraid I could have fried the radio. Picked up a new fuse on Autozone, plugged it back in, and now we are up and going again.

Still need to tune the radio as the SWR reading is unacceptably high — 3.4 on Channel 19. Last night was dark and rainy, so that didn’t happen. I think I may have a problem with grounding the ground plate, to the hood rail, something dad warned me about. But I didn’t really want to pull the paint off the hood rail in fear of exposed metal rusting. There is an extra hole in the mount for a ground screw, and I may just run a wire from the ground plate to a grounding post under the hood. I probably should have tested this first.

I still also have to mount the radio. But I am making progress one step at a time, at a painfully slow speed. Pictures once it’s all up and running.

Making progress, slowly. Didn't help I left the radio mounting kit home and blew a fuse, and have a grounding problem leading to a high SWR, but I am hopeful to get this wrapped up soon.

Can a 100 watt solar panel beat an occasionally run 150 amp alternator ?

A 100-watt solar panel in theory can put 7.35 amps at 13.6 volts. In contrast, an 150 amp alternator, run at highway speeds can in theory put out 150 amps at 13.6 volts. Except that 150 amp alternator will put out nearly half as much electricity at idle or maybe 70 amps due to the engine running at half it’s highway speed, and that’s before the regular electrical loads of an engine’s computer and headlights take their bite out of power supply.

When I camp, I usually use my deep cycle battery mounted under my truck’s hood to power my campsite, radio, and other equipment. It works fairly well, but after a while, it becomes discharged and I need to start the truck’s engine to charge it back up for 10 minutes when I hear the low battery alarm or the truck’s computer notices a low battery. I probably have to do this once every 1.5 to 2 hours. This keeps the battery fairly healthy, but it’s still not as strong as when I first arrived at the campsite, after often hours of charging at the maximum necessary charge provided by the alternator.

Second (Inverter) Battery, Battery Isolator (Relay), Second Fuse Tap

Energy Math

Amps are the amount of current Voltage is with how much force the current is moving, e.g. 13.6 watts Wattage is amount of work consumed, e.g. 12 watt LED bulb Amp Hours are the number of amps consumed per hour Watt Hours are the number of watts consumed per hour Amp = Wattage / Voltage

The Truck’s Charging At Idle

Alternator Peak Output – 150 amp Typical Output at Idle (possibly lower after predatory loads) – 70 amp Voltage – 13.6 volts Charging Hours – 10 minutes every 1.5 hours = 0.11 hour charging Amp Hours Charged (over 1.5 hours) – 7.7 amp/hr Watt Hours Charged (over 1.5 hours) – 105 watt/hr Watt Hour Charged per 10 hour day (assuming I start the truck every 1.5 hours during 10 hours) – 0.7 kW/hr

100 watt solar cell

Solar Cell Output – 7.35 amp Realistic Solar Output – 5.1 amp (70% of maximum on sunny day) Voltage – 13.6 volts Charging Hours – 1.5 hour Amp Hours Charged (over 1.5 hours) – 7.7 amp/hr Watt Hours Charged (over 1.5 hours) – 105 watt/hr Watt Hour Charged per 10 hour day – 0.7 kW/hr

Ramsond-100-Watt

A 100-watt solar panel which operates all day when the sun is it on will produce more energy than an alternator running only occasionally.

Solar camping preliminary graphics

I currently have a deep-cycle, second battery under the hood of my truck. It is connected to an 800-watt inverter under the back-seat of my truck.

Battery Diagram

For days when I expect to be camping at a campsite for multiple days without moving the truck, I want to be able to provide the truck with solar power to charge the deep-cycle battery during the daytime and operate low-wattage appliances like an alarm clock, an AM/FM radio, and a CB Radio – and not have to start up the truck every couple of hours. If I plan to go out hiking, hunting, or fishing in the evening, it would be nice to be able to leave a light on campsite and know my battery wouldn’t start to discharge until close to dark.

I think a realistic estimate to power produced would be:

  • 50-70 watt/hour on a sunny day
  • 0.5-0.7 kW/hr for a 10-hour day
  • 20-40 watt/hour on a cloudy/drizzle day or with moderate shade
  • 0.2-0.4 kW/hr for a 10-hour day

Compared to the 2.2-3.2 kW/hr daily that I use in my apartment that is not a lot of electricity. But I am not planning running a refrigerator, electric hot water heater, or a electric stove on it. I also can just crank the truck up when I need more power from the alternator at night when I need more juice to keep the lights on.

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