I left my nice spot beside the Colorado River only reluctantly, heading towards Quartzsite: the winter meeting spot of many nomads. I had picked a spot for a group of us to meet, but not in Quartzsite. I was going to be closer to Bouse, camped in an area with fewer people. I had found a spot wayback off the road, out of sight of most people who like to camp in that area. There were even some nice trees to camp beside. That is the advantage of returning to an area you are familiar with, you know the best spots. Come see where I’d be spending a few weeks with friends.
I had learned in my desert RV rental adventure that picking a spot for a group isn’t as easy as it seems. You need to account for people’s rigs for one. Then there are group preferences, like how close to town you want to be, or how close to other people you want to be. Then there are the navigating skills of the people you are inviting to your spot, and the size of the spot being big enough for everyone to spread out a bit. The spot I had picked wasn’t too far from town, but quite far off the road. It was easy enough to get to – a good track led all the way back, making a right at every fork in the road. There was only one rig a third of a klick away, with a couple more visible in the distance. Being farther off the main road, the crowds thinned out enough that we had lots of room to park.
Big group spot with trees behind us
Speaking of crowds, I was disappointed to see that there were many times more people camped in the area than when I was last here two years ago. It seems the spill over from Quartzsite has more people coming out here now. The area is huge so you will still find lots of spots available, just expect someone to be within a quarter a klick of you these days. If I camp in the area next year, I have found another area coming out of Bouse in a different direction that still has almost no one camping in it. The desert is huge, you can still find camping on your own a few minutes from town if you explore away from the people a bit.
Skip ahead if you don’t want to read a long rant about my DC fridge repair.
The Quartzsite area is mostly sunny in the winter, and also has longer days in the winter as compared to Canada. The shortest day is just under 10 hours, as compared to Calgary at a little under 8 hours. That extra 2 hours is multiplied by a better sun angle too, with 33 degrees above the horizon at Quartzsite, versus 15.6 degrees above the horizon in Calgary around the shortest day of the year. That all translates into me have excess solar power, even at the shortest days of the year. I typically hit full charge with my 480W of panels around 11am, so what to do with that extra power? I have full 200 Ahrs of lithium battery to use. I decided this year to try out the DC part of my refrigerator for more than just travel. Let’s see how it works to save me a bit of propane while boondocking out here. I had been testing the fridge out for a bit on the way down, finding that it is a pretty big power suck – to be expected as the DC cooling is rated at 275W. The fridge doesn’t run continuously, or the 22 amps you’re drawing would run down a single battery in about 4 hours. In real world use, where you are starting with a fully cooled down fridge, I estimate about a day of use on DC per 100Ahr battery. That is the main reason you don’t run your fridge all the time on DC – unless you have a large solar and battery setup, you will not keep up with the fridge’s power draw.
My use had been to start the day on propane, letting my batteries get to absorption mode. They are around 90% full at that point, absorption means the charger slows down the charging rate to not stress the batteries putting the last bit of power in. I’m pulling over 300 watts at that time of the day, so the batteries fill up the rest of the way despite the fridge being turned on then. I’ll turn the fridge back to propane in the evening, usually close to sunset. The fridge will have drawn my batteries down a little, as the late afternoon sun isn’t enough to keep up with the draw. If I forget and don’t switch over until after dark, it just takes a little longer to hit absorption. I’m not pushing my power use as you never know when you might hit a few cloudy days and suddenly need all the charging you can get. All in all, I’m saving about 5-6 hours of propane use during the part of the day the fridge is working most while it is warmer and I’m opening the fridge doors more.
In the process of checking my Victron charge controller to see if I was at absorption yet, I noticed that turning on the fridge was no longer dropping the voltage of my system. I don’t have a meter to tell me how much power I’m pulling, but you can use voltage drop as a ‘hack’ to estimate draw. A 22 amp draw will be noticeable in voltage drop, especially if your solar isn’t putting much into the system at the moment. I troubleshoot to make sure the fridge is actually requiring cooling by switching it back to propane. The fridge fires up the gas system and there is no voltage bump. You may ask why I didn’t notice my fridge getting warm during the day. Well, RV fridges are insulated quite well – you won’t notice much temperature change over a few hours especially if you are not in and out of the fridge constantly.
The burnt out relay, symptom of the real problem
So I knew my DC setup wasn’t working properly. Since I was camped in one spot for a while, I had time to troubleshoot the problem. I drag out my voltage meter and start testing about the 12V side, zeroing in on the 12V relay pretty quick as I can see one of the connectors looked a little burnt. Touching the relay, I feel it is pretty hot too. While the relay makes all the expected clicking sounds to switch the power over to the 12 volt coils of the fridge, there is no power actually being sent. A quick test of manually making the connection verifies the DC part of the fridge is working just fine. I need a new relay. In the meanwhile, I can just go back to normal propane. Except that system throws an error code every once in a while, shutting down the system until I power cycle it. Sigh. It always starts up again just fine, and I have caught it switching to error as the fridge finishes a cooling cycle. My only guess is the control board is a bit aggressive about detecting flame at shutoff, a new board might fix things. But it is not enough of a problem for me to try and fix it now.
It turns out my DC relay part is not so easy to find. 3 way fridges (AC/DC/propane) are less common these days in the RV world – many don’t have the DC operation anymore. This relay is only required for DC operation. A check at every RV/car parts store in Parker has me finding the 20 amp version of the relay, but not the 40 amp version. It would not be until I could get to an RV shop in Yuma that sold me a 40 amp relay out of a used fridge that I could get things working again. I’m going to jump ahead and tell you that the relay was likely not the cause of my problem, but rather was a symptom. Remember the burnt connector? I had noticed when I replaced the relay that the connector was a little loose. I thought it was good enough and let it be. But no, in checking the relay again I see it is still running almost too hot to the touch. This doesn’t seem right to me so I check the connector again, this time crimping it a bit to give it a firmer connection to the relay. Checking the relay again, I see it is running much cooler than before, now being just warm to the touch. My conclusion is the loose connector generated enough heat to fry the first relay, and was probably on its way to frying the replacement as well. I know now to make sure high draw connections are good and tight. It was a good thing I checked the temperature levels after replacing the relay or I’d have been hunting again for this rare beast.
Several food vendors around
But now back to the Bouse boondocking. We had the advantage of having a couple of people with us who had cars along with them, so I decided this one time I’d go into Quartzsite with them to see the “Big Tent”. The Big Tent is an annual RV event that is essentially a big RV show under a large tent, plus spillover to other exhibits outside. You can buy anything from a RV to a relay there, so I was tagging along to see if I could find my part.
Saguaro shades modeling
I wandered through many vendors, but no one was really setup as a good RV parts place. I was there before the actual big tent went up, so the vendor selection was less. From what I have heard, when the full exposition is on, you can find pretty much anything here. But I didn’t leave empty handed. I bought a new set of wear over eyeglasses sunglasses. These are not the huge ‘one size fits all’ beasts you see some seniors wearing, rather several models are available that are sized much smaller to fit specific styles of eyeglasses. They are inexpensive and seem to be built good enough quality for me. The vendor is in Quartzsite every year so go look them up if you need a cheap ‘prescription’ sunglasses solution. I also ended up buying a knife sharpener. I’ve seen those contraptions with the two overlapping washers not knowing what they are. It turns out it is a Rada knife sharpener. I was dubious about the quality of the sharpening, but a demo from the vendor convinced me it was worth the just under $20 price. It makes a medium sharp blade – good enough for basic kitchen use and easy to use.
With my minimalist lifestyle, it was unusual for me to pick up two items window shopping, considering I have to find the item useful especially for whatever space it will take up. My buying shows you that the vendors are definitely setup to market to the desert RV crowd. Most of the time, if I am doing a bit of browsing in the general merchandise stores I walk out with nothing. Even if I had bought nothing, the vendors have an eclectic mix of displays – decorations are definitely less Martha Stewart and more Mad Max. I was glad I was able to hitch a ride down, I still wouldn’t want to come anywhere near the area with my RV.
Brined Turkey dinner
Xmas was spent here, just before anyone else arrived, which I’m good with. I’m not much of a holiday person; most holidays I just ignore entirely. Christmas is an exception, I put up my miniature tree, and cook up a nice meal, preferably one involving turkey. This year, I found a brined turkey thigh, which was excellent. It was very juicy and flavorful, not too salty either. I would definitely buy that again. New Years we threw some color fire powder into the fire. I had found that up at Seely Lake, with a whole “Fire Log” to boot!. I now carry one of those along with me all the time in case I want to have a quick fire. Did you know that one of those burns cleaner than standard firewood? They are perfectly fine to cook over!
Colored fire for New Years
It was a bit of an adjustment for me to be around people for several weeks, but I did OK considering I knew most of the people from camping with them previously. I went for daily walks, always looking for nice rocks in the desert. With ATVs being able to drive everywhere, you are not going to find pristine desert pavement for finding those clear quartz crystals. I managed to find one small one, after many days of walking around the less traveled corners. These days, you need to get far from any towns, always remembering that someone has probably been there already exploring for mineral riches. It is much easier to just pay a few bucks in Quartzsite at one of the many rock and gem vendors, if you really want something nice.
I had plans to visit my friend Larry in Yuma early in the new year, so it was time to say goodbye and move on. I had been parked for longer than usual in the same spot, being the first person there and the second last out. But it was a good area with the trees even providing a bit of a wind break if the wind blew from the south or west. Onward south I went, for more socializing with people! See you next time in Yuma.
