RV Lithium Battery Issue Repairs Update + Winter Hikes & Walks

Hi everyone. So it's the first week of February and we're having a little cold snap in BC. Look, it's snowing. Yeah, it's February just after Super Bowl. Yeah, it's just after Super Bowl, whatever date that is. Yeah, we arrived yesterday at Golden Years Provincial Park and we're doing our nice off-season camping. There's hardly anybody here. No, I think I went for a walk this morning at about seven, still in the dark, and I think there's probably five campers in the whole park and they're all very dispersed. Yeah, so it's nice and quiet and peaceful. It's going to get really cold so we'll see if we stay tonight, but just wanted to talk about the video today. It's going to be just a real update about what's been happening. It's been a few weeks again since our last video. We did get our battery charging issue resolved, so Gordon's going to talk about that and we'll have some nice scenery from Golden Years Park and maybe a quick hike. So hope you enjoy this video. So we had to move inside the van because it's snowing pretty heavily out there right now. Yeah, first snowfall for us this year, which is pretty good considering it's like February 8th, but it's coming down fairly heavily, so sitting outside in our chairs was probably not the best thing to do. Yeah, and we might have to skedaddle if it gets too snowy here. Yeah, we planned to spend one more night, but I think it's looking a little too wintry. We'll probably head home. Yeah, and it was pretty cold last night too, and I think it's supposed to drop down to minus... minus six or seven. Yeah, yeah, so it's pretty cold for our van. You can do it, but it's just the furnace is running the whole time. So we've actually been the last month. We haven't done anything too exciting. We did go for one trip out to one of our favorite areas, which is Porto Cove. We spent a nice evening there. The main reason we went was actually to charge our batteries, because if you've been following our channel, you know we've had a lot of challenges with our charging again, and so we went out there, plugged in there. All the sites are electrical. We had a nice evening. We had dinner outside. It was very pleasant. We got to watch the sunset. It was just a gorgeous night and sit outside. Actually, we were probably outside till nine or ten o'clock at night just by the fire, so it was a really nice short little one-night trip, and other than that, we've been... other than that, we've been staying close to home. We've been... our health orders are to stay close to home, so we've been doing that. The weather's been really bad too. It's been pouring rain for weeks, it feels like. Maybe one sunny day, and then it's just like days and days of rain. So we've gotten out on a few... well, sometimes we do what we call fitness hikes, which are maybe an hour and a half. We've been doing some long walks, which are usually, you know, somewhere around five to eight kilometers, and we recently did a nice little... it was going to be a snowshoe, but the snow was so packed down that it turned out to just be a walk in the park kind of thing in the snow, but that... in the mountains. We went into some of our local mountains, and and that was a lot of fun. We'll share some clips on that probably more at the end of the video. Yeah, we'll do a video montage of our walks and hikes, of walks and hikes, local walks and hikes. See, I've changed my hat actually. It's warmer. I wanted to give you just an update of our January challenges, if you will. So in January, as we mentioned, we were out at Porto Cove, and the main reason we went out was simply to charge our batteries. We could charge from shore power, but our batteries just weren't charging any other way. So we came back, and a few days later, I went back to the van, and I started it up, and I noticed there was some noises under the engine. It sounded like the serpentine belt was maybe slipping, so that was a concern. We ended up going to the Dodge dealer, and actually it was a simple fix, not a big deal there, but at the same time, I also noted that the air conditioner was leaking, and just fortunately, we happen to have a big pan on our floor, kind of right about where I'm sitting, and so there was some drips coming in from the air conditioner and going into this pan. So, you know, that meant our, for whatever reason, our air conditioner was also leaking, so I had to get out and cover everything up with a tarp and the pouring rain. We were fortunate that we'd actually had an appointment booked at our dealership on a couple days later, the following Monday, that we'd booked four weeks before. So we took the van in to have the leak at the air conditioner fixed, and also to have really our electrical system issue addressed. We've been having a number of challenges. If you followed our channel in the past, you know we've replaced one of our two batteries once. We've replaced the Balmar once, which is the voltage regulator. We've replaced our underhood generator once, and so we've just had a continual number of challenges with our battery and electrical system, so we're hoping we could get that addressed. And I want to give a shout out to Roadtrek, actually. They've been very helpful in helping us try and deal with some of these issues, and particularly Sean Hines at Roadtrek, who I think is their service specialist, but I think of him as sort of a Jedi knight for Roadtrek. He's just very familiar with any issues, is always very helpful. I'll send an email to their service center, and Sean will reply with advice and guidance. And he'll work with any service technician, whether they're a Roadtrek dealer or others, to help fix any issues. So we really appreciate that. So Sean recommended a couple things. One, he recommended that we remove the Balmar. In our van, and in all but the newest Roadtrek vans, the Balmar used to be located, in most cases, down by the front driver wheel well. And so down around there, it got exposed to salt and dirt and things wet. He recommended that we move it to where the new models have, which is up under the hood. And the other thing he recommended is that we rewire the van to meet the KS2 specifications. KS2 is the battery manufacturer. And previously, the way the wiring had been done, at least my understanding of it is, is that the batteries were always charging even when they're full. And that could lead to premature battery wear. So they recommended that we rewire the battery system to meet the new specifications. And Sean was also kind enough to provide a wiring diagram to assist the dealer when they went and did that work. So that was very positive. And the fix of the air conditioner was very simple. It was literally just some screws that needed to be tightened. The bolts needed to be tightened on the air conditioner. Moving the Balmar was done. Our actual problem with charging had nothing to do with the Balmar. It was actually just a wire that had come loose on the underhood generator. So that was easily fixed. And then they've done the rewiring. And from what we can tell, we've been out on this trip, when we're driving, it's charging. It's charging at about 13.9 volts, which is about what we'd expect. When we parked here yesterday at about one o'clock in the afternoon, our batteries were fully charged at 13.4 volts. And this morning at seven o'clock, they were down to about 13.17 volts. And we ran the furnace and the fridge basically, and some lights for a good portion of the night. So that's pretty much where we'd expect it to be. With our batteries, 50% is 12.8 volts, and the batteries will shut down at about 12.25. So we had lots of power. We could be here probably another couple days easily without running out of any power. So, so far, crossing fingers. Everything looks like it's working well. And our battery system actually seems to be working better than we've ever had done before. So we're hoping our battery challenges are behind us for at least a period of time to come. So now we're going to have to decide. Mickey just got back in. She went outside. It's still snowing heavily, and we're going to have to decide whether we stay here or whether we head home a bit early. Being trapped in the snow isn't particularly something we're looking forward to, but I doubt it'll snow that much. You can see it actually brought a snow shovel with us just in case. So better prepared. So now here is our video montage of the local hikes and walks Yeah, it's very tasty. And tea. We're back from our short little hike to, what's it called? Lower Falls. Yeah. It was pleasant. The parks manager just came by as we were coming in. He's asked us to leave because they, they're expecting a bunch more snow. And then there's a heavy arctic outflow warning. So it's not so much the cold, but it's supposed to be really cold. I think it said maybe minus 12, but with wind chill. But with the heavy wind, he said a lot of the trees come down. So they've asked us to leave now. So we will. Yeah, we were thinking of leaving, but now we don't have to decide. Yeah. Decision was made for us. A little bit more snows come down. Not a lot. Thank you so much for watching our video. Hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, please be sure to give us a thumbs up. And if you haven't already done so, please subscribe. Take care and we'll see you next time. Till next time.