Our RV Adventures

Today was going to be a play day so at noon we all piled into the truck and headed over to Mishawaka for a day of shopping and eating.

Our first stop was the Verizon store. I wanted to get a Droid Charge and Nick’s new Mi-Fi didn’t want to stay connected to 4G so he wanted to have it checked out.

It took about a hour to get my new Droid activated and all my contacts transferred over from my Blackberry Storm II. Since all Verizon phones now use the online Backup Assistant to store contacts, it’s much easier to move them to a new phone than it used to be.

While Nick, Terry, and Jan checked out the Bargain Books bookstore across the street from the Verizon store, while I sat in the car and played with my new toy. I started downloading a bunch of apps to replace the ones on my Blackberry and was really amazed at the 4G speeds. 4 MB apps downloaded in just a few seconds. And it looks like I may have 4G coverage where we’ll be for a couple of months south of Houston this winter.

Then it was on to the Barnes and Noble bookstore at the mall. Nick wanted to go by the Apple Store because he was having trouble with the AT&T data service on his iPad.

While Jan and Terry shopped, I of course, sat in the Starbucks and played with my toy some more.

The Apple Store people sent Nick down to the AT&T store since the problem was really with their signal. I’ll let Nick tell you the outcome.

By the time we left the mall, it was after 4pm and time for dinner at Red Robin They have great burgers and salads and bottomless steak fries, and we always enjoy it.

After dinner, it was time for more shopping, this time at Sam’s Club and then Wal-Mart. Then after sending a lot of money to Bentonville, AR, we headed back toward home, with a quick detour by Dick’s Sporting Goods for Nick.

Getting back to the Elkhart area, we decided to finish off the day with a cold Dairy Queen treat.

It was really nice to just spend a day doing nothing but having fun. Too bad we only have a couple of more days here before we split up for the winter.

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And now for another installment of . . .

Things Every RV’er should have:

The Silverleaf VMSpc is one of my favorite gadgets. Unfortunately it’s only for you diesel owners, but if you’ve got one, take a look.

The VMSpc consists of a cable that plugs into the diagnostic port under your dashboard, an interface box with a cable that plugs into your computer, and a PC computer program.

The whole system costs about $400, but you can download the software program for free and play with it.

The VMSpc ties into your engine computer and gives you much more accurate information than your coach gauges do, and also gives you some info that you don’t even have gauges for, like horsepower, torque, GPH, turbo boost, and a number of others.

As I said, the Silverleaf VMSpc plugs into the diagnostic port underneath the dashboard and connects to my laptop that sits on the center console when we travel.

In my case I run two programs on the laptop: In the bottom section I’m running Delorme Street Atlas w/GPS. The top section is the Silverleaf display.

The really nice thing about the Silverleaf is you get to design your own panel. You can choose the instruments you want to display, where you want them on the screen, what color they are, and what they say. You can also set alarms so that if, for example, your battery voltage drops below 12 volts, an audible/visible alarm goes off on the screen.

Across the top, left to right, I first have the transmission gear indicator. The left ‘6’ shows what gear is selected on the console. The right one shows what gear the transmission is actually in.

Next, in order, are the tachometer, the turbocharger boost pressure, the instantaneous MPG, and the clock. Down the left side, the first four gauges are alarms for voltage, transmission temperature, water temperature, and oil pressure. Next are numerical gauges for the oil pressure, transmission temp, engine temp, and the total hours on the engine.

Starting from the top of the second column, CSPD shows the Cruise Control Set Speed, next is the total miles on the coach (it had 62511 miles when we bought it), the miles we’ve put on the coach, and the fuel minder. It shows the miles left on this tank, the remaining fuel in the tank, and the recent MPG.

The next column starts with a speedometer. The neat thing about this is that the Silverleaf program allows me to set a modifier on the speedometer.

The tires (295’s) presently on my coach are bigger than the original 285’s. This means my dashboard speedometer is not correct. It reads 51 mph when I’m doing 55, for instance. But by adding a modifier to the gauge, it displays the correct speed.

Next are the generator hours. This lets me track the generator fuel usage at about 1 gallon of diesel per hour.

Underneath that, the green ball means the Cruise Control is set and engaged. If the ball was yellow, it means it’s not engaged, and a red ball means it’s turned off. Just to the right is the miles since my last oil change/filter etc., service.

Next is a vertical bar graph that gives me a instant picture of my engine performance, and below is the miles we’ve traveled so far this year. We’ll probably do another 2-3000 before we get back to Houston right before Thanksgiving.

The right hand column below the clock shows the battery voltage, the fuel rate, the engine torque, the Max Intake Manifold Temp, and the distance to the next rest area.

Lastly, across the bottom is the miles we’ve traveled so far today, and the miles we’ve traveled so far on this tank of diesel.

This last reading, coupled with the fuel used from the Fuel Minder gauge, gives me a very accurate reading on the MPG on this tank. In this case, we’ve gone 488.2 miles and used 52.5 gallons (150 – 97.5) of diesel. This gives me a average of 9.3 mph.

Driving 55 does save gas. From testing, I know that if I drive 65, my mpg drops to between 7.5 and 8 mpg. This difference in miles per gallon saves me about $1000 a year.

Just a note, the fuel usage is very accurate on the Silverleaf because the program actually counts the pulses in the fuel injectors, You can’t get any better than that.

Another neat feature of the Silverleaf is that if you ever get a Check Engine light, just use the Diagnostic drop-down menu at the top of the screen and it tells you the code AND what the code means.

It may seem like a lot of information, some of it not too useful, but it gives me an ongoing picture of my engine’s performance and let’s me quickly see any changes.

I hope this all makes sense. If you have any questions or comments be sure and let me know.

For you gas engine RV’ers, there is a product called Scangauge that will work for you, but it does not use a computer display. Instead it has its own display unit.

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Thought for the Day:

Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.

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Well, we’re on our second day of nice weather.  So something’s gone terribly wrong.

Once again after lunch I headed back over to the RV/MH Hall of Fame. By the time I left about 4:30 I had everything pretty much wrapped up. I’ll go back over Monday for a little while for a last checkout.

Getting back to the park about 4:45, we turned right about around and headed out with Nick and Terry to the Texas Roadhouse right down the road, where we met Al Hesselbart for dinner.

Texas Roadhouse gave us their usual great steaks and service, but it would be nice if the place weren’t quite so loud. It’s hard to have a conversation.

Leaving the restaurant we dropped Jan and Terry off at the rigs and then Nick and I drove back over to the Verizon store.

Nick had decided to get the Mi-Fi and I was going to get the Droid Charge. But, while Nick got his Mi-Fi, it turns out that they were out of stock on the Charge. Bummer!

But I called the Verizon store in Mishawaka and they have several in stock. That works out perfectly since we’re going over there tomorrow for some shopping.

I was really impressed by the speed of Nick’s 4G Mi-Fi. According to Speedtest.net he was getting almost 15 Mbps, just about 10 times faster than the fastest 3G speeds.

Nice. Now if they would just hurry up and cover more of the country with 4G.

Be sure and tune in tomorrow for another installment of . . .

Things Every RV’er should have:

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Thought for the Day;

On Oct. 9, 1903, the New York Times wrote:

"The flying machine which will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years."

On the same day, on Kill Devil Hill, N.C. in his diary, a bicycle mechanic named Orville Wright wrote:

"We unpacked rest of goods for the new flying machine."

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