Dry camping update

Last week I posted about problems we had dry camping at Yellowstone with our fifth wheel RV. I'd link to that thread, but it looks like it got poofed for some reason. So here's the Cliff Notes version of that post: Trying to run the furnace at night, we ran the battery flat and were never able to get it fully charged with the generator. This seemed to be due to the camper's WFCO 8955 power converter, which wouldn't switch to boost mode and would only charge at 13.6 volts. On the trip back, we had another problem with the furnace itself when it switched on during a thunderstorm and wouldn't turn off.

So after we unpacked the camper, I opened up the furnace to see what might be the problem. A bunch of water ran out, even though it had been a couple of days since the thunderstorm. Then I saw that the bottom of the furnace was full of wood splinters and metal shavings, presumably left over from when the camper was built. Some of the shavings had become wedged under the control circuit board, presumably shorting it out. I vacuumed out the furnace and tried re-connecting the furnace to power, but the blower was still stuck on. I bought a new circuit board, but when I went to replace the board, I saw that I'd missed one metal shaving under it. I cleaned up the board and dried everything off, then retested with the original circuit board. The furnace now seems to be OK. The new board went into the RV's tool box as a spare.

The next thing I did was to replace the converter module in the WFCO power converter/distribution panel with a Progressive Dynamics PD4655VL converter. The PD unit is designed specifically to replace the dodgy WFCO converter and is known to reliably switch into boost mode when needed. More importantly, you can manually switch it to boost if necessary, which should be just the ticket when you're on a generator and can only run it for a short time. The converter swap went pretty easily. The PD converter is well-made, about four pounds versus two for the WFCO. It has two fans, one in the side like the WFCO and another in the front. Curiously, the DC output leads are only 10 gauge, rather than 8 gauge for the WFCO. Also, if I ever decide to go with lithium batteries, all I have to do is move one jumper on the converter and it's ready for Li-ion.

The new converter seems to work well and I can switch it between modes. I haven't yet tried to deep-discharge the battery to see if it switches automatically like it should. I also moved the furnace to an unused fuse so if I can disable it without killing the refrigerator.

All these problems are attributable to the RV manufacturer, Winnebago of Indiana (formerly Sunnybrook):
1. The furnace failure was the result of failing to clean out debris when the trailer was built, allowing it to get sucked into the furnace.
2. The battery charging issue was caused by the mediocre power converter. Winnebago could have used a better unit, but of course most folks don't dry camp much and wouldn't notice the problem.
3. The furnace should have been on a dedicated fuse, rather than sharing the refrigerator fuse.

Will this post get poofed? I think my earlier post may have been reported by WFCO. This time I'm dissing both WFCO and Winnebago, so there's a good chance this post will disappear.

Mark,
Sorry your post went poof.

Was you trailer made in the capital of Rv's, Elkhart,In,
Which employees Amish that don't believe in electricity?

Mark, how many people know what Cliff Notes are? That's
something people who go to college know about.

My daddy said if you want something done right, you have to
do it yourself. Sounds like you are getting it done right.

Sad you buy a new RV and you have to fix it.

How about the water?

I have had the same sort of problems with my current rig I bought it new in 2018 and so far have replaced the water pump, the thermostat, the Drivers side fender flare and the cable coax to the TV. Mine is a Grand Design Reflection. I hate to say it but I think the quality has gone down just like everything else

> Was you trailer made in the capital of Rv's, Elkhart,In,
> Which employees Amish that don't believe in electricity?

Winnebago Towables are built in Middlebury, Indiana, which is unsurprisingly a few miles outside Elkhart. This was originally Sunnybrook, which Winnebago bought in 2010. I'm sorry, but I don't know what creed its employees follow. Apparently 'cleanliness is next to godliness' is not one of its tenets.

I guess 'Cliff Notes' is a reference whose origin most folks have long since forgotten. I've never actually used a Cliff Notes, but I see the company is still in business.

> How about the water?

Which water? The water in the furnace or the camper's fresh water?

I don't think the furnace would have had any water in it under normal conditions. It was probably blown in by high wind in the thunderstorm that just happened to be coming from the right direction to blow into the furnace vent. The furnace vent has a drain that should keep water from entering the blower section. I will keep an eye on it, though, since the water could be coming from somewhere else.

As for our water supply, we managed to stretch our 40 gallon supply for four days by limiting showers and washing dishes outside. We ran out the day we left Yellowstone.

Know what you mean about RV quality, it's not just Winnebago.

Seen some really shabby workmanship, also poor quality design.

They call it cutting down weight, I call it build them as cheap as possible and then some!

Cliff's Notes = Reader's digest version. They are a summarized version of a work of
literature. An I&T repair manual versus a manufacturer's service manual is a fair
comparison.

The some Amish are eco friendly, they peddle bicycles to work. The
Elkhart area at one time was the capital of many trailers.
I Went to Elkhart and picked it up a dump trailer .
Good dump trailer. Elkhart is 220 miles form TH.

Happy camping.

Nice report back.

Cliff notes, something people who go to college know about?? Really?? I dropped out of 8th grade, got my GED at 35,on my first try, second highest score in the state that year,with no studying, and I've heard of cliff notes. College is overrated

Im pretty sure high school students are allowed to use Cliff notes. Ask your grandchildren.

I thought I was upgrading my 2004 Rockwood 5th wheel with a 2017 Grand Design Refection 5th wheel last spring. Not overly impressed after 6 outings with it so far. Too much electronics and still having problems with air in the water system and the stupid Nautilus system it has. Too many bells and whistles to deal with for me.

Have we really become THAT paranoid that we think a big company like WFCO or Winnebago cares even the slightest about what one person says on a tiny little TRACTOR forum site? Why would they even be looking here?

They say way worse about these companies on sites like RV dot NET, a site that has RV industry sponsors. No problems. The companies welcome the criticism, and they cast no aspersions that there will be people unhappy with the product.

Was it even poofed, or did it just not get posted? Did you get any responses to your first post? I don't even remember seeing it, though I was quite preoccupied for the better part of last week.

Additional thoughts here, you had a couple of rather MINOR problems, and if this is a new unit, the problems are expected.

On top of that if this is your idea of "dissing" a company... I would call it more "mildly critical." You've got a long way to go to get to a point where a company might want to have your post removed.

> Have we really become THAT paranoid that we think a big company like WFCO or Winnebago cares even the slightest about what one person says on a tiny little TRACTOR forum site? Why would they even be looking here?

Companies can and do search the net looking for posts that might reflect poorly on their reputations. In fact, there's at least one company, reputation.com, whose entire business is searching the web on the behalf of customers who are concerned about their online reputations.

> They say way worse about these companies on sites like RV dot NET, a site that has RV industry sponsors. No problems. The companies welcome the criticism, and they cast no aspersions that there will be people unhappy with the product.

True. But those sites are in the RV business, and they won't stay in that business if they routinely remove posts that reflect poorly on their advertisers. YT isn't in the RV business, so they don't have any incentive to leave up a potentially defamatory post on a topic that's not particularly relevant to their business.

> Was it even poofed, or did it just not get posted? Did you get any responses to your first post? I don't even remember seeing it, though I was quite preoccupied for the better part of last week.

I can't find it, even with a google search which almost always works. Google will show the post in its search results, but when you click it it brings up a totally different post. There were a number of responses, and they were all polite; not typical poof material. Feel free to look for it, as I may have overlooked it. The topic was 'Dry and not-so-dry camping' and it was posted around 8/31.

Right on GrandpaLove.

Gp
I has no idea my post about cliff notes would offend anyone.

Sorry.
Have a happy day.

I found this by searching on modern view
dry/not so dry camping

Illiteracy is over-rated. gm

Yeah, the new campers are junk. No two ways about it. My first clue was bringing it home from the dealer. Nice clean camper when I left the lot. Got home & opened it up to find sawdust & woodchips everywhere! Five months later, I'm taking it into a certified dealer for warranty repairs to the tune of $4000. The other two thirds of that bill was covered by the parent company. It's been downhill from there, for the most part. Had I known it was going to be like that, I would have bought a new Shasta Airflyte. Those had already been out for a few months when I was looking for a new unit & had numerous issues leading up to some major recalls. ALL of the campers that were built went through the updates/upgrades with no $ coming out of the consumers pocket. They even covered the campers that were used as cabins & didn't see the road. Whether or not there have been issues since, I couldn't tell you. Haven't kept up with it. But, that's the route I probably should have gone with.... had I known.

Mike

RVs are not covered under lemon law, and the companies have gotten away with such poor warranty service, they'll argue that having your RV for 8 months of the first year after you took delivery, is not an unreasonable amount of time to get it fixed.
Never mind they slapped it together in a couple days.

I never went to collage but, I have been in many book stores that sold Cliff Notes, and have seen, read, and even touched them.

> I found this by searching on modern view

Thank you. Yes, it turns out my original thread was never poofed. I was wrong about the date it was posted, so I couldn't find it in Classic. And it seems Google incorrectly indexed it, which is unusual.

sounds like a fake story,,, bet it never happened. Just a urban legend.

(quoted from post at 07:18:44 09/06/21) > Have we really become THAT paranoid that we think a big company like WFCO or Winnebago cares even the slightest about what one person says on a tiny little TRACTOR forum site? Why would they even be looking here?

Companies can and do search the net looking for posts that might reflect poorly on their reputations. In fact, there's at least one company, reputation.com, whose entire business is searching the web on the behalf of customers who are concerned about their online reputations.

> They say way worse about these companies on sites like RV dot NET, a site that has RV industry sponsors. No problems. The companies welcome the criticism, and they cast no aspersions that there will be people unhappy with the product.

True. But those sites are in the RV business, and they won't stay in that business if they routinely remove posts that reflect poorly on their advertisers. YT isn't in the RV business, so they don't have any incentive to leave up a potentially defamatory post on a topic that's not particularly relevant to their business.

> Was it even poofed, or did it just not get posted? Did you get any responses to your first post? I don't even remember seeing it, though I was quite preoccupied for the better part of last week.

I can't find it, even with a google search which almost always works. Google will show the post in its search results, but when you click it it brings up a totally different post. There were a number of responses, and they were all polite; not typical poof material. Feel free to look for it, as I may have overlooked it. The topic was 'Dry and not-so-dry camping' and it was posted around 8/31.

Click to expand...

GOSH, I'm "out of the loop"/ignorant!

I had to ask GOOGLE what "dry camping" was!

Turns out it's just a fancy name for what "camping" used to be when I was a kid! LOL LOL LOL!

But now it requires a fancy rig and bucco bucks, I guess!