POST PR. AGENDA

After living on our paradise island for over a year, we decided to head back to New England for the summer. Aside from not wanting to miss the only time of year that doesn’t have a foot of snow on the ground, summer in the Caribbean is hurricane season mixed with an oppressive amount of heat and humidity. Also, believe it or not, we realized that prolonged exposure to relaxed island living, exotic flora/fauna and beautiful beaches often results in a lack of appreciation for these things many people can only dream about. It’s good to keep things in perspective.
 

So after we said goodbye and promised to return, 
we flew back to the most pompous place on earth- New England!

Re-acclimating ourselves to civilization was harder than we thought, as we quickly remembered how rude and snobby everyone is. Not to mention the fact that drinking a beer in public is usually frowned upon, unlike in our 3rd world home away from home. It didn’t take long for our need to travel and find (mis)adventure to kick back in, so we got it in our heads that we’d buy an RV and see what else the country had to offer! 

                     Having fulfilled our New England duties to visit

family and friends, eat Maine lobster and drink all the maple syrup we could handle, we bought an RV and headed south! This of course was after making all the necessary preparations, figuring out our budget and buying every piece of crap we already had but couldn’t find. We also decided to install an 80 watt solar panel to keep a ready supply of electricity for lights, TV and Nintendo. A solar panel is a cool way to get free electricity and can more effectively charge a battery than what’s produced by driving. However, this “free electricity” isn’t free when considering the initial expense and the pain in the butt installation process. Because our solar panel instructions were even more useless than the customer support people, I’ll explain 
how it’s done.

RV Solar Panel Installation-

This is what you’ll need: solar panel, controller, battery, inverter, wiring, caulking and tools. The basic setup involves connecting the solar panel to the controller, the controller to the battery and the battery to the inverter. The controller is what regulates the flow of electricity from the solar panel and the inverter is what converts the DC electricity held in the battery to the AC type of power needed to run any gizmo with a plug. God forbid we don’t have access to Captain Ron and Mario Kart while we’re roughing it out in the wilderness!

So, now for the installation process: First, make sure to avoid touching the terminals unless you want a green energy shock. Then secure whatever fixtures the panel came with and connect the wires to the terminals. Next, carefully lug the awkward and heavy panel to its destination and bolt it down. Find a safe place inside for the controller, which may require drilling a few holes. We stuck ours in the compartment that holds the giant 30 amp RV cord so we didn’t have to drill. Before connecting to the controller, make sure to fasten the outside wiring so you don’t end up with too much or not enough. 

After determining which wires are positive and negative, connect them to the appropriate controller terminals, which should be labeled. Take the same precautions while connecting the controller to the battery. When wiring the battery to the inverter, keep in mind that 
a shorter distance is more efficient for conducting electricity. We keep our inverter under the bed, which is close to the battery and only required the drilling of one small hole. You’ll also need to splice a fuse in between the battery and inverter to protect whatever's plugged in. Our “Complete Kit” didn’t come with a fuse, nor did it come with the right type of inverter so we had to do a little re-wiring. When you’re finished with the installation, turn the inverter on and plug in. Just remember when you’re running things that the battery can only hold a limited amount of electricity and draining it to zero can make it less reliable.

Aside from learning all about wiring and electricity, we also learned not to trust some of the companies selling this stuff. Their “Complete Kits” are lame and their staff is retarded. We had to buy an extra $100 worth 
of stuff, and the customer service reps couldn’t answer the most basic questions! Very frustrating…

After we got the solar panel all squared away and finished preparing, we threw caution into the wind and started down the east coast. As it turns out, RVing in populated areas like the east coast can be kind of tough. Driving with the thing isn’t always easy and our newly acquired GPS system kept trying to kill us! Turn left, turn right, take a u-turn, now! Hey another life lesson; an atlas can come in handy. Not really knowing what we were doing combined with higher than anticipated gas prices sort of put a damper on things. Being that our RV is used made it a constant project, with odds and ends always breaking, screws popping out and every bump in the road shaking something out of place. Although these initial hassles made us really miss the Caribbean, we kept our heads high and thought of all the adventure in store. And hey! At least our trusty solar panel worked! 

    Forget all the hassles and check out the Brighter Side of RVing!