Currently I'm not using my batteries much as I have full hook-ups but I leave Thursday and will be relying on my 600W of solar panels a lot more for at least the next month or more.

My current controller is on mostly default settings for the type (AGM) and is set for 120 minutes for Absorption. I read that this isn't enough if you regularly deeply discharge your batteries to the 50% mark. 

So, do I change this? I didn't initially realize that Absorption time was limited to a set time...just thought that it automatically switched from Absorption to Bulk or Float (or whatever it is that comes next) when it reached a specific voltage. I also wonder if this time limit is why my batteries (400AH) didn't get topped off in September after taking them to 70% despite a full day of sun and not using anything (I only had 400W of solar then).

Has anyone heard from Dean lately? 

 Last I heard he was out west and getting a solar system installed.....I think.

Jewellann

If I'm able to keep and set up the Aliner by myself one of things on the " I NEED/WANT IT LIST" is a a simple and ez for me to use hotwater system.  I just googled PORTABLE HOT WATER SYSTEMS and my eyes quickly began to cross.

Does anyone have any experience or recomendations?  I think there is a area where I can rig a simple shower by cutting and hingeing part of a counter top to fold back and then put a tub area there underneath.  This way I'll still be able to use the portable counter top cabinets after they get here by moving them to another spot when I shower.

A shower build kind of like U Tuber Slim PotatoHead did in his Aliner.  Only I can't be lifting buckets of water up to countertop level.

Any ideas/info will be appreciated 

Jewellann

I came across this picture today, struck a chord with me. 

   

For those of us who were in the military in the 60’s maybe you remember yesterday was the beginning of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, commonly called Tet.

1968 Uncle Ho decided that he would drive the US out of Vietnam and coordinated attacks from the DMZ to Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City.

Fun times.

Rob

I'll just leave this here...   https://expeditionportal.com/bruder-exp-6-trailer/

https://www.axios.com/trump-issues-tarif...4e94f.html

Why it matters: Most of the American solar industry has opposed tariffs on panels, saying they would raise prices and hurt the sector. A small group of solar panel manufacturers argued — successfully — that an influx of cheap imports, largely from China or Chinese-owned companies, was hurting domestic manufacturing. It's also part of President Trump's broader trade agenda against China.
Gritty details:

• The tariffs would last for four years and decline in increments of 5% from 30%: 25%, 20% and finally 15% in the fourth year.
  
• The tariffs are lower than the 35% the U.S. International Trade Commission had initially recommended last year, per Bloomberg.
  
• This is actually the third, and broadest, set of tariffs the U.S. government has issued on solar imports in recent years. The Obama administration issued two earlier rounds of tariffs on a narrower set of imports.
  
  

I took the recommendation from someone on CRVL and purchased the Mobley, not one of my better decisions. The device has been returned twice and “fixed” and still either won’t connect or disconnects after a few minutes of service slower than dial up.

AT&T was the carrier and I set up auto-pay. After two hours of trying to find someone, anyone who knew what the hell a Mobley was I finally just called billing and told them I was going to cancel the auto-pay and send the device back. A very nice young woman handled it all, canceled the contract and stopped the withdrawals. I did pay an extra 31 dollars so it wouldn’t show on my credit.

This has been a $150 exercise in futility, but a good lesson. Not everything a self described guru is correct.

Anyone want the Mobley? Might make a good paperweight.

Rob

For those of us struggling to get rid of "stuff" in order to hit the road.  This essay appeared in today's New York Daily News.  Thought I'd post it here for some discussion.  I am neither agreeing with it, or disparaging it.  Everybody is different.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, January 22, 2018, 5:00 AM
 
For the last few years of his life, my father wore a black Burberry
trench coat. He would never have picked out such a coat for himself.
Born and raised in Newark, he had no interest in fashion, least of all
anything British. Newark-born, he tended toward the utilitarian, buying
blue-collar work pants and shirts typically found at, say, Sears.
 
But after my parents divorced, my father found a girlfriend, and she
soon decided he had earned the right to treat himself to a touch of
luxury. Hence, his appearance one day wearing that coat: trademark plaid
lining, double-breasted, belted at the waist, complete with straps at
the wrist that buckled to seal out cold and rain.
 
After my father died of a heart attack in 1997, I adopted his coat and
wore it every fall and winter. It fit me poorly, baggy in the neck and
chest and shoulders, with sleeves an inch or so past my wrists. But I
never felt the need to get it taken in.
 
Eventually, the coat started to come apart, first with holes in the
pockets, then with fraying in the collar and cuffs. My wife tried to
stitch it up, but even her prowess with a sewing machine failed to
arrest its decay.
 
Resigned to reality, I retired my father’s coat to our hallway closet.
 
There, it still hangs. I bought my first new raincoat in almost 20
years; it fits better, but feels like both a surrender and a betrayal.
 
The girlfriend also persuaded my father to buy a new black Cadillac, a
1991 STS model. All his life, he drove only station wagons and vans, the
back seats always piled high with the tools and equipment he needed for
the residential real estate properties he managed and the technology
non-profit he had founded.
 
After he died, I drove his Cadillac for 14 years. I took our family of
four to places near and far, just as my father had our family of four,
at least on those rare occasions when we all went out together.
 
Then the Cadillac started breaking down too. So one day, we arranged to
give it away to a charity. I watched a tow truck haul it off, and felt
as if I were once again saying goodbye to my dad.
 
Family heirlooms often go out of use, that armoire or silver candlestick
relegated to the attic or basement. Or the fine china is given away to
relatives and the wedding gown sold at flea markets. Should we cling to
these tangible reminders of our past? Or should we let it all go?
 
Anecdotal evidence suggests that Baby Boomers like me are less likely
than the Greatest Generation to cling to them, and Generation X and
Millennials even less likely. Either things are shiny and new or they’re
calculated to be vintage, from some second-hand store. As it happens,
though, the Library of Congress has a Preservation Directorate that
advises the public about how to take care of prized mementos.
 
I opt to keep a tight grip on physical relics of my family history,
especially when it comes to my father. And that’s because his presence
in my life was marked largely by his absence. Off to work he went early,
back home he came late, almost always too busy for his family, let alone
his son.
 
Wearing his coat and driving his car, I quickly discovered, made me feel
good. Maybe if I kept doing so, even if posthumously, I could somehow,
finally, feel close to him.
 
My habit of clutching my family history started years earlier. After my
maternal grandfather died in 1981, my nana urged me for years to take
some of his clothes home to wear. Every time I visited her apartment on
Manhattan’s Upper East Side, she slid open the door to her bedroom
closet in front of me and told me to take something. “Poppa would have
wanted you to,” she would say.
 
For years I gently declined. Making off with any of his belongings, I
decided, would have felt faintly ghoulish.
 
Except one day I said yes. And took home an overcoat, purchased 40 or 50
years ago at Harry Rothman’s. A classic “Chesterfield” affair: heavy
wool, in a rust-brown-beige plaid, single-breasted and loose-fitting,
with a single vent in the back, a small collar and no cuffs.
 
This coat, too, is getting tattered, the silk lining all but shredded.
But family is for keeps. In the face of loss, hand-me-downs can console
us, comfort us, maintain a sense of continuity from generation to
generation. Going around town in Poppa’s coat, I almost feel him still
looking out for me, as if he’s still alive, his arm over my shoulder at
my first Yankee game.
 
We need more than memories to keep us warm. That coat's going nowhere
until I do.
 
/Brody, an executive and essayist in Forest Hills, is author of the new
memoir, “Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes
of Age.”/

what should i be looking for? being gm there are lots of options from the base $35 65 amp to the $100-$150 100-150 amp all the way up to the $400-$500 melt your wires version

saw a few that were rated at around 100 idle amps