Tech- Tune up your TV antenna
June 11, 2008 by Chris Bryant · 14 Comments
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In my last post on television- TV in your RV, I pointed out that the standard Winegard “Sensar” (a.k.a. “Batwing”) antenna works very well for the new digital tv signals (and, by extension, works well for the digital HD signals).
But… what to do when you cannot get the stations that your neighbor can, or when the antenna gets a bit stuborn while cranking it up, down, or turning it.
Luckily, troubleshooting these antennas is pretty easy, and along with some regular maintenance, the Sensar will give years of top notch viewing enjoyment.
Let’s take a look at the basic of maintenance and repair for antenna and coax cable….
Water Pump Troubleshooting
May 29, 2008 by Chris Bryant · 1 Comment
Tech- Never Assume….
A quick post this week (only a day late!). Yesterday I made one of the basic mistakes in troubleshooting- not knowing how the system was supposed to work in the first place. While it only cost me about 20 minutes (of unbillable time), it could have been worse, and again taught me a valuable lesson.
Tech- TV in your RV….
May 21, 2008 by Chris Bryant · 2 Comments
A bit of a departure for me this week- the many, many changes coming down the pike on how you watch television in your RV.
New technologies are changing the way you watch, whether you get your signal from an OTA (Over The Air) antenna or a Satellite dish, and whether you want to watch High Definition (HD) or Standard Definition (SD) (trust me though- if, like me, you enjoy watching TV, once you see a “High Def” model you will be spoiled)
We’ll start with the transition to OTA Digital TV- Mark Polk gave a
great primer in his post Analog vs Digital TV - I’ll just add a few points….
Tech- Tune up your rooftop A/C
May 8, 2008 by Chris Bryant · 14 Comments
In some parts of the country, the heat is already here- in other parts, it’s well on its way, so I thought it might be good to talk about giving your rooftop air conditioner a basic tuneup.
A couple of things to remember about roof top RV air conditioners- all air conditioners work by removing heat (actually, all refrigeration works that way- as do heat pumps), and RV air conditioner- as they come from the factory- are hermetically sealed, and they only hold about 1 pound of refrigerant (at this time, R-22 is the refrigerant used). The point of this is that with less than 1 pound of refrigerant and a sealed system, 99% of the time, “not enough cooling” complaints are due to air flow issues, and not lack of “Freon®”
Luckily, the average fix for this is easy- clean the coils! Let’s take a look at how to do this….
Tech- Inside a Dometic NDA1402
April 17, 2008 by Chris Bryant · 10 Comments
Last week, I attended a course on the “New Generation” of Dometic refrigerators. The 3 models we looked at are the RM3762/3962, fairly conventional top/bottom 2 door models with new control circuitry, including constant LED readouts of the temperature in the fresh food cabinet, the RM1350, a large 4 door model, with cold water through the door, the same temperature readouts as the RM3762, a “tag line” (ignition switch) hookup which both locks out LP operation for refueling purposes, and activates an automatic door lock, and the most interesting model (at least to me :))- the NDA1402- a side by side model with the first true auto defrost in an RV refrigerator.
I thought it might be interesting to look “under the hood” to see how this model works….
The NDA1402 is a side by side model, with a small twist in layout- as you can see, the freezer portion is somewhat larger than normal, which- added to the vacuum insulation (meaning thin walls with good insulation) gives a fairly large food storage volume.
But… the most interesting part- both from a use and service point of view- is the automatic defrost.
The first thing you have to do when you first start up this model is to set the clock… yes, this refrigerator has a clock. “Why ?” you may ask- pretty simple. The clock lets the refrigerator go in to defrost mode at 1 AM every day, when the doors are likely to be closed, and the refrigerator will have plenty of time to recover from the added heat of defrosting.
Maintenance- Cleaning a Norcold Burner
April 2, 2008 by Chris Bryant · 7 Comments
After Mark Polk’s great post on getting the most from your RV refrigerator, I though I would get my hands dirty a bit, and give some fairly simple hands on instructions on cleaning the burner of a mid to late 1990’s Norcold. While often the burner can be cleaned with either compressed air or a vacuum, if maintenance has been put off, sometimes you need to take the burner out for a good cleaning. Symptoms of needing a burner cleaning include poor/no performance on LP gas, and failure of the flame to ignite and stay burning.
A few safety tips before we begin- even though this is a reasonably simple procedure, you are working with the LP gas system, and proper safety precautions need to be taken- among them turn the LP supply off, disconnect the power to the refrigerator, don’t smoke while working….in other words, don’t blow yourself up (and if you do, don’t blame me or RV.Net!)
Ready? Let’s go…
LP Appliances- Furnaces
March 26, 2008 by Chris Bryant · 2 Comments
The RV LP Furnace is an amazing thing, producing a large amount of heat from a rather small appliance. To put it in to perspective- a 30,000 btu/hr furnace produces as much heat as 5 standard plug in electric heaters (even allowing for the heat lost out the vent). It does this safely, in a unit that takes up only a couple of cubic feet.
RV Furnaces have come a long way in the past 40 years, from the basic metal box with a burner, a pilot and a thermostat valve, to forced air pilot type models, to the modern electronically controlled models- even a 2 speed, 2 stage model, offering a high and low fan and variable flame.
While the basics of the flame safety systems are the same as in the water heaters, the furnace contains more safety devices, which can affect operation. Let’s look at them now…
Any RV Service and Maintenance Questions?
March 5, 2008 by Chris Bryant · 15 Comments
Man- another crazy week. After Daytona Speed Weeks, we had a few days off, now it’s Bike Week in Daytona Beach- an estimated 1/2 million motorcycles- most of them Harley-Davidson bikes.
It’s enough to make your mind numb!
So- instead of the planned furnace/DSI blog post, I thought I would simply ask- what do you want to learn about?
LP Appliances- Electronic Ignition Systems
February 27, 2008 by Chris Bryant · 2 Comments
With the exception of pilot type water heaters and some smaller LP/Electric refrigerators, modern LP appliances in RVs are controlled by electronics, meaning the gas valve is opened, the flame is ignited, and the flame is “proved” (flame safety- making certain the burner is burning). These systems are used for a number of reasons:
- No “standing” pilot flame to waste energy.
- Set and forget operation- for refrigerators, automatic energy selection (LP or 120 volt).
- Operation more like the home appliances
There are 2 methods of “proving” the flame. A purely electronic method, and what I call a “hybrid” method- both are in common use today, and both have specific troubleshooting steps to diagnose any failures.
RV Service- Random Thoughts
February 20, 2008 by Chris Bryant · 5 Comments
Well, Speed Weeks at the Daytona International Speedway are finally over, but they left me with not enough time for photographing and drawing diagrams for this weeks Blog entry, so I’ll take this opportunity to editorialize a bit on RV service and repair.
I started repairing my own RV in 1980, after a…. umm…. “less than satisfactory” experience with an RV repair shop. Luckily, now it has become somewhat easier to find a good, qualified repair place, and training opportunities for RV technicians have greatly increased. While (as in any industry) you can still find bad RV repair shops (as well as good RV repair shops), for the past 10+ years, the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association, in partnership with the Recreation Vehicle Dealers Association have offered RV Technician certification.
