Casini Day 3

April 15th, 2011

We had a very good night's sleep as we normally do in our cocoon.  We got outside, Roxie and I went for a short walk around the campground.  We went down by the river and were very impressed with how pretty and lush this park is.  As we were walking I saw bird diving to the river.  We both saw it hit the water and take off with a fish in its' talons.  It went and landed in a tree and likely started to eat.  We found out later it was an Osprey.

Roxie had a voicemail and a call to make so she did so.  The only problem was she had to stand in the middle of the road to get 2 bars of signal!  We got back to the trailer and started talking with our friends.  This is one of the most fun aspects of getting together, a way to reconnect with old and new friends.  During this time I went into the trailer and the step broke.  Man!  A screw either broke or came loose.  It appeared to be a 'normal' screw and the rest of the parts looked good.

We headed into 'town' to get the part.  We decided to have lunch there also in Guerneville.  We ate at the River Inn Grill.  It was very good food but the booths must have been new since it took a herculean effort to slide into.  We then headed to the hardware store.  This was the most interesting store.  It was SOOO unlike a box store like Lowes.  This store snaked around all over, things were everywhere, even on the ceiling.  Very fun and they had the screw!  The step was fixed in about 10 minutes.

In the afternoon we went down the Russian River and sat by the river.  We watched ducks swim by, an Osprey in a tall tree (maybe the same one) and vultures soaring overhead.  Very idyllic.  We came back to the trailer and promptly fell asleep (well Roxie a bit more promptly than I).  Roxie told me later that I was snoring up a storm and since the door was open the whole park must have heard me.  I don't know how this happens since I don't snore!

Here is a picture of the Chen's trailer, the Morelli's trailer and ours:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another shot of down the row with a few flags flying:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around 6 the happy hour started.  I tried, unsuccessfully, to get Roxie to go with me but she was still tired so I went for a bit.  There were about 35 people there.  I talked to some people, some that I didn't know.  It was enjoyable but COLD!  I hung around the fire and watched some semblance of fog roll through the tall trees.  As I came back to the trailer I took a shot of our lights we hung up:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More to come tomorrow.

An LED obsession

September 26th, 2010

I LOVE LED lights.  I really LOVE LED lights.  The combination of bright light vs low power usage make them a no-brainer in an RV.  I have always wanted to have LED's throughout our trailer but their cost has made it prohibitive.  No longer.

OUTSIDE LED's

My first foray into transforming the trailer started in the summer of '06.  We were heading to the WBCCI International rally in Salem, OR.  I had seen some people put LED's in their taillight in a thread on Airforums.  I gave it a go.

I bought some of these:

 

Taking them apart gives you this:

 

So I take the lenses off of the trailer:

 

I wire them to the connectors and mount the LED platter to the housing.  The way I did this was use wire nuts.  I siliconed the wirenut to the housing and the platter to the wirenut.  (I don't have a photo of this but you will see something similar later on.  I then buttoned them up (this should be an animated GIF):

I

 

I did the 'high' brake light also (another animated GIF):

 

I also did the license plate light.  Here it is all done:

 

INSIDE LED's

Once again a couple of threads at Airforums served as reference and a way to pass on information.  This thread and this thread.  I knew about SuperBrightLeds but felt they were a little pricey.  I found another source, www.ledwholesalers.com.  I just purchased a single bulb to try it out.  These are 1141 replacements:

 

I first tried this test bulb in a fixture.  Here are the representative shots (I used warm white instead of bright white):

I was pleased enough with the results that I ordered bulbs for the entire trailer and replaced them.  However there were a few bulbs outside that I needed to retrofit also.

These were the outside step lights and the torch (I call it the neighbor light because all it lights up is the neighbor's RV).  I replaced those with 1141 equivalents but this time I got them in a more circular pattern, like a normal bulb.  I also got these in bright white since they are outside.  I got these bulbs, and some for my truck, from an eBay seller (ushd) at a very reasonable cost.  Here is their eBay store.

Here is the step light:

 

Here is the torch:

 

Here they are all on:

 

One other thing that I did with the flat 1141's was put them in the backup lights:

 

Here are the backups at night.  It is hard to tell in the photo but they are now bright enough to actually see something behind the trailer.  Previously they were only good to warn people about the trailer moving.

 

In conclusion, I put in LED's for many reasons.  Power savings, decreased heat, reliability, increased output and I think they are COOL!

We have yet to see about the power savings.  Our trip to Yosemite will help prove it.

« Prev - Next »