MAX Burner

Awesome looking set-up, JD! Sweet!

So, our 22" Black Stone came with a carrying case, 1lb-LPG Bottle adapter, and the black screw-on adapter for the larger LPG bottles (in our case, the 30#er's). However, not liking to carry around a ton of 1# Coleman gas bottles and really wanting to use one of the 2 OTT QD LPG valves - yesterday I fashioned our 10-foot LPG hose from another grill to allow us to cook on the BS with regulated gas supplied by the twin 30# tanks. The 10-foot hose is configured with the OTT QD fitting on one end and 1/2" fitting on the other end for another type of grill. The mod was straight forward: 1. Cut off the 1/2" fitting on the 10' hose: 2. Sacrificing the 1lb bottle adapter, the stainless steel feed tube was cut just past the 90-degree bend: 3. Using a fine file, chamfered the end of the tube and with some LPG-friendly silicone lube, inserted it about an inch into the open end of the 10' tube, secured splice with a hose clamp. After checking for leaks with soapy water - connected to the BS and fired it up. Very convenient mod. FYI: The 10-foot section rolls up and stows under the BS hood. Now on to the next meal... Cheers!

The Quikrstuff Mach 2 is an awesome rack - double rack version for $1100, not bad...

DAY-5: Another beautiful Sun Rise at "The Q":

...just another beautiful "above-freezing" sun rise at Quartzsite - Day-5: Cheers!

Hey, Jason: That's some fairly restricting criteria, brother! You may need to consider moving up to a 2" receiver - if possible on your new rig. If you can do that, then recommend looking into the 1Up system. They have various models, designed and made in the US, and high quality. They're one of the most "bomb-proof" racks we've found available, IMO. Just north of 8k miles since installed last year (80% of those miles with bikes attached) - we've not had any issues. Rock solid on the 2" receiver with or without bikes aboard. In any case, if you find a rack that meets your specs, please share that source! Cheers!

Welcome to the Oliver Family, Scott and Connie! We're "part-time" Texans, our daughter, son-in-law, and grandson live near Dallas and we're there a lot (does that count?). We enjoy hauling our OTT there from NM for extended periods. Looking forward to seeing pix of your future adventures in your new rig! Cheers, A & D

We had our first Ollie sighting on Saturday. There's a dude here from MT with his new OTT - Hull number 14xx. He stopped by the campsite yesterday afternoon and we went through an hour or so of introducing him to many of the mods to Casa Blanca.

Concur, 100%, @Mike and Carol. We actually bought our first TPMS at the RV Show here in '09!

For those campers that may not know about BLM LTVAs (Long-Term Visitor Area), they were established in 1983 on public lands managed by the BLM throughout the Sonoran Desert of southern AZ and CA. The LTVA program allows visitors to camp for as long as 7 months between 15SEP to 15APR. Special permits are purchased at BLM kiosks at the LTVAs. A 14-day permit is $40, 28-day permits are $80, while a 7-month permit is $180. Payment must be cash only - exact amount. Unfortunately, Golden Eagle, Golden Age, America the Beautiful, and military passes do not apply to LTVA permit fees. Campers who wish to stay on the desert outside of an LTVA may camp in one location on underdeveloped public lands for up to 14 days in any 28-day period at no charge. After 14 days, short-term campers must move to a new site outside of a 25-mile radius of their original campsite. Short-term camping in the Quartzsite area is limited, but there are 5 designated LTVAs here. The LTVAs have various levels of dry camping - some have vault toilets, some have showers, some have potable water. There are limited waste water dump sites. All have dumpsters for bagged garbage. Since only minimum facilities are available at most of the LTVAs, campers must have self-contained rigs. This means rigs that have permanently affixed wastewater holding tanks of 10-gallon minimum capacity. So, how is the Casa Blanca behaving on the LTVA? Well, "sort of" as expected, it's been performing famously here on our 4th day on at La Posa West, about a half-mile south of "The Q". My only issue was totally "self-induced". Arrived at La Posa Saturday mid-afternoon with 100% SOC from a combination of solar and DC/DC charging during a 2.5 hour enroute drive from PHX. After a good sleep on night-1, checked the SOC at around 0530 Sunday AM and found it at an unusually low level at 36%. Racking my mind trying to figure out what the heck was consuming all the power from the BBs overnight, it occurred to me to check the Dometic fridge status. Sure enough, it was in the "DC" mode... Can't believe it escaped my checklist item to switch to "GAS" mode on arrival day. Lesson learned, for sure - the DC mode is extremely inefficient in this model of Dometic fridge. Don't get me wrong, its a good mode to use when under tow as the 27-28A from the TV smart alternator can handle the load from the fridge and still charge the BBs. So, it took Sunday and Monday to get the SOC back up to 100%. No biggie - the Honda GENSET still never saw the light of day and stayed in the back of the TV. With 340W roof-mounted solar modules and the Renogy 200W portable module the BBs were receiving a max of 310W during those two recharge days. The BBs were got to 100% SOC by mid-afternoon yesterday. Winter being winter, obviously brings low sun angles and short days. Campers should consider this when boondocking during this time of year. Just because you may have 540W of "solar modules capacity" does not mean that's what you'll get. Our roof-mounted modules are flat, as we have yet to install legs to adjust them for a more optimum angle to the sun - so they're kicking out only about 190W at mid-day this time of year at this latitude. Interestingly, the Renogy portable module needed to be propped-up to a steeper position in the early morning hours to achieve optimum angle to the sun. By doing so we got an extra 1.3A: If it wasn't for the "wall-to-wall" sunshine conditions here at The Q during the past couple days, the Honda would have been called upon to top-off the BBs! Notwithstanding the fridge brain-fart, it was a good feeling to wake up this morning to a 93% SOC. The BBs are expected to be topped off by mid-morning, maybe even before the pot of Black Rifle is "Winchester." This morning's main drill was topping off the fresh water tank. After switching the valves to "Boondock" mode: 6 gallons of fresh water was pumped into Casa Blanca in less than 3 minutes time, taking the fresh tank from 50 to 75%: Now it's heading to Q to refill the container, less than a 5 minute drive from the campsite. But first - a quick egg scramble for breakfast.... More later!

Not to "High-Jackery" the thread, but there's a pretty good size RV Show starting this Saturday in Quartzsite: https://www.quartzsitervshow.com/_files/ugd/b22f43_0c0897c16ed7444994c4fdca711eb3e4.pdf Looks like some interesting vendors will be setting up....

Oh well... Do what you gotta do!

OK @jd1923; after performing a signal strength experiment with the Victron SmartShunt and the Solar Controller, here's what was learned: Placing the tape measure at 15' from the outer hull adjacent to where the components are mounted within, connection was successful: Screenshot of the SmartShunt after connecting at 15 feet: Screenshot of the SmartSolar MPPT Controller at 15': The 15-foot radius from the hull seemed to be the maximum distance to acquire either device. Stepping back to 18 - 20 feet was too far away for the Victron app to connect to the devices. However, as JD noted, in the My Devices screen the readouts for each device seemed to still transmit/receive out to 20 feet. Here's a 20' screenshot of the My Devices page: This got me curious. So, Part 2 of the experiment: Went back out and with the My Devices page selected at about 40 feet - no BT signal received - zero bars on each device, then started walking ever so slowly toward the rig. At about 30 - 35 feet, the signal strength bars started popping up to about 2-3 bars. At this distance the data was now displayed below the SmartShunt and Solar Controller sections of the My Devices page. So, one could get readings from this distance but will not able to connect to the device individually. Pic from the distance of 2-3 bars (approximately 30-35 feet):: Here's a screenshot of the My Devices page at this distance where the BT signal begins transmitting bulk data: Unfortunately, the cab of the TV attenuates the BT signal such that this data cannot be observed when towing. It would be nice to know if the Victron dongle would increase BT signal strength enough to monitor the system from the cab when towing. That would certainly be worth the $40 + tax to have that capability, IMO. Cheers!

We have the same issue using our Furrion with multiple BT devices. We usually do a manual check in "Settings - Blue Tooth" to discover which device is connected when the Furrion displays the "LINK OK" message. We've defaulted to agree we always use D's devices for the music source and my BT is simply selected to "OFF".

Hey, @Geronimo John - Mahalo, Brother; Hope all is well in the islands for you and June! If all you're looking for is a means to convert the twins to a larger "cozier" sleeping area, then a single purpose wooden extension between the bed rails is all you'll really need. I'd suggest any high quality plywood in 1/2" thickness. The piece would be the same width (20 1/4") as our Lagun but long enough to fit from the night stand drawer front to the the curve of the bed rails (49 1/2"). The grooves are 3/8" wide to accommodate the white plastic rail edge caps installed earlier (see pic below). The edge cap material protect the raw fiberglass rails as well as your fingers when making up the racks. All edges should be champhered, flat surfaces sanded smooth, then entirely sealed. Being only 1/2" thick, it would stow nicely under a mattress - Princess June would think it was a "pea". In fact, let me make this easy for you - I will design and make a prototype for you. It will be ready when you're here next summer. All you'll need to do is decide on the type of filler material you'll want to use between the twins - frankly, we use the spare pillows, works great and you're not having to stow another piece of kit. Like I mentioned in the earlier post, "easy peasy." Cheers!

Same here - use them regularly; good for up to about 14AWG as I recall... Easy peasy!

Awesome troubleshooting, @Tom and Doreen! Way to think through the issue and fix it! Definitely let OTT and Truma know about your issue...

Frankly, we enjoy having the extra 6 gallons of available water in our standard Atwood water heater. Been using either an Atwood or Suburban in our RV's since the early '90's - we know them and how to keep them working. With the fresh tank syphon tube mod and the Atwood we're toting north of 38 gallons usable... plus a 6 gallon tote in the TV.

Hey, hey, hey! It's a "cold one" - it counts! HA!

@Jps190: Here's an idea for you, brother... We made a Lagun table with Red Oak and fitted it with slots to fit onto the overhanging bed "wings" - its purpose was to be used as both a table and dog log rack. More space for the humans and the canines during slumber operations. I'm pointing to the slots here: The table top can be lowered onto the bed wings and pillows fill in the height gap between the table top and the mattresses. One or both of the Huskies fight for the cushy pillow addition... (Pls. ignore the dog logs in the pix below): Magnus won the fight: You wouldn't need to remove the night stand as the dimensions of the extended (port/stbd) sleeping area is approximately 52.5"W x 80"L. A standard queen is 60"W x 80", FYI. To make this design into a larger sleeping area work for you and save some $'s... All you'd need to do is 1. Make the table top 14" longer or 2. Use the existing Lagun table top dimensions and make a separate 14" section to fill the gap from the table top to the head of the bed. Then it's just a matter of getting a memory foam insert to match the height of your mattresses. The advantage to this system is its versatility - you can have the extra table space of the Lagun-style table plus the larger sleeping area with just a single additional component to your load-out. FYI: We store/strap our Lagun table top onto the inboard bulkhead in the closet - out of the way completely until we need it. Easy peasy. PM me if you need additional details - happy to help out. Cheers!

This is a great hack! We do the same here...

@Mike and Carol: What ever the culprit malady is - please keep us informed. I'm thinking it's related to either inner or outer bearing issues, which could lead to a spindle problem. But as mentioned, an IR temp gauge reading after a few dozen miles might show a higher heat level on the suspect hub. Good luck, Mike.

NEWSFLASH: They don't die...

We're all over the map on camp stoves... We're both pretty much "foodies" and love to cook. Volume and weight not being an issue we'd have our Weber grill, 22" BS, and the 10" Smithy dutch oven for full range of outdoor cooking options. Depending on the trip, we may take all 3 - this current trip, only the BS came along because I'm flying solo and I like the griddle for breakfast and dinner options. Here's a snap of last night's "BS Fest": Strip steak seared to med-rare, potatoes with rosemary and garlic.... What's not to like?

When your position is at the west-end of a given time zone, in this case only 25 miles east of PST, the sun comes up quite late in the AM. 0753, in fact: Nice having a room with a view (the not-so-Tactical OTT Operation Center): Cheers...