Daylight is breaking, but our RV isn’t!!
Yes folks, I write to you from another comfortable night spent at the Cape Cod/Boston area KOA. They generously took us in for another night after the Mothership decided we needed to finally get to the root of her charging issues when, once again, she didn’t start yesterday morning.
This time we were NOT leaving the RV repair shop until the tech had found and fixed EXACTLY the root of all our RV problems. We set the challenge and “RV tech Rick” at Crossroads RV took it up with a twinkle in his eye like he knew where he was heading after a much detailed report on the journey thus far in breakdowns and time spent in repairs and dead electrical.
We worked the Run for One Planet daily biz from the comfort of the waiting room lounge, complete with heater, TV, and black coffee. Steph continued to organize the immense amount of email we receive for events from our amazing team. Simon set up the new cell service from T-mobile with emails and other gadgets I know nothing about. And I kept Rick up to speed on RV history, calls to media, and lunch duties from the bus.
After an hour or so Rick asked us to come and have a look (with that twinkle now a full grin). We turned the video on as he said “this will blow your minds”. It turns out, most of our breakdowns have been as a result from one of the numerous technicians who has worked on the RV along the way. We’re not sure which one because as Rick put it, it could have been the original person who wired her, or one of the 4 separate technicians since we left in May, cross wired the cables the wrong way. Simply meaning, the electricity generated from the alternator to let electricity flow to the batteries in the coach was being stopped because it was wired incorrectly.
As he explained, every time we start the RV it drains almost half the energy in the starter batteries and when the flow is open, it re-generates electricity from the engine, recharging the whole system by way of the alternator. But every time WE have been starting, we are not only at half energy, but also with no allowance of energy to flow back as we drive, the whole system slowly drained and we eventually are left dead with zero power. Even our solar panels were draining as a result of the whole system working basically together to drain itself with no way to recharge unless we plugged in every night. Even then the system is always creating a deficit.
So there you have it! Our RV issues and the history filled rich with breakdowns, fires and lost days has FINALLY (dare I say) been solved. Stay tuned as we still have just over 6 months to go and as much as we hope (and pray) this is it. We don’t want to get too excited until we go at least 100 miles further.
As the sun is now rising and my other 2 road warriors are doing the same, we say to YOU, have an amazing day. Go for your biggest dreams and never quit, even if your RV does. It is only temporary.