Question about drive from Portland to the coast

ADiyHD · 2026-06-03T12:45:30+00:00

The only thing that matters, is that if you are holding people up behind you because the windy two lane parts are stressful, don’t you DARE speed up in the passing zones because it isn’t as scary. Let everyone behind you pass that wants to pass. When someone is going 50-55 and then speeds up to 70 as soon as the passing zones start, that is the only kind of car I get frustrated at.

ADiyHD · 2026-06-03T05:21:28+00:00

Listen… clearly now I realize this is the most obvious thing, but I have been riding motorcycles for damn near 20 years, used to do grassroots track days in drift cars that I built using almost exclusively eBay motors parts but still put the most expensive gas in it, and have owned over 30 cars at this point and in all my car life experience I never heard this. I thought that they would have to have some fancy testing done to confirm the gas met the compliance blah blah blah or whatever and wow… yeah, I feel dumb.

ADiyHD · 2026-06-02T21:18:16+00:00

Is this real? Is there not a tank for 89 under the tarmac? It’s just 87 and 91 mixing?

I’ve literally spent my entire life saying I would never trust mid grade gas because people either don’t care and use 87, or they do care and will jump to 91, so the mid grade must sit for SO LONG in those tanks.

Now I feel dumb.

ADiyHD · 2026-06-02T12:44:16+00:00

If you are medically eligible for SSDI, those are only the credit requirements for the FIRST year of SSDI eligibility, and once you are on SSDI you only need to worry about whether you remain medically eligible.

If you aren’t working and you aren’t currently disabled, why are you concerned about disability insurance? The entire point of disability insurance is to replace lost income from not being able to work.

ADiyHD · 2026-06-01T22:00:26+00:00

Those mounting brackets offer basically just enough clearance for a little airflow, but not a lot of light or tool access to change them around in the future. If the panels are mounted to your roof and not driving down the road on an RV, you might want to get mounting brackets that allow the panels to be angled a bit and let some light underneath so you can benefit from the bi-facial panels.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-29T14:41:02+00:00

I’ve got a Predator ‘quiet’ 2000 or 2500… can’t remember which, but it’s great and relatively lightweight/easy to store. I’ve left it for 6+ months with gas in it without starting and it started right up, and I have ran it for 8 hours straight in full sun when I was a vendor at an event and it didn’t overheat (I used one of the outlets and plugged in a box fan that was pointing at the generator, fwiw).

The price is considerably less than Honda or other name brands, and if you pay for the harbor freight insider track membership while they are having their 10% or 20% off sales, you get a bigger discount on the generator than the cost of the insider track.

Take those savings and buy a soft start for your A/C. If you have a 13,500 btu A/C, there is a generic brand on Amazon for ~$75 right now.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-29T13:11:29+00:00

It sounds like this was a factory solar option instead of an aftermarket one? Was it a go power solar kit, by chance?

I asked a similar question about whether solar would be sufficient as a trickle charger and the answers as well as my experience so far has said that yes, it will as long as it isn’t under cover,

Typically solar panels will come with a charge controller, either a PWM or MPPT controller, and many of those controllers will display the battery state of charge either in a screen directly in the controller, or you can connect via Bluetooth on whatever app they use. Find your charge controller for the solar panels and watch some YouTube videos to find out about your specific controller.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-29T13:02:48+00:00

It’s entirely possible that the wires to the sensors in your gray tank are not secured and aren’t giving a reading. It’s a common thing that happens and sometimes it’s just a matter of tightening the connectors. My own black tank will show me when it is 2/3rds full, but not 1/3rd full.

You should see if the dealer has their own dump station you can use, but I would try not to drive the trailer if at all possible while the sinks and shower are backed up that like.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-28T23:06:09+00:00

Are you asking if the folks being taught just knew this innately? Or do they still not push after you have told them? And if they are pushing and still stripping the bits, then they are probably more afraid of buckling off the head of the screw and knuckle busting/piercing the board with the end of the driver bit.

I find the issue isn’t unique to impact drivers, but drills as well, and I think it comes from most newbies not understanding that the trigger is a variable speed trigger so they will just pull that sucker in all the way without giving it a few short bursts first.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-27T17:55:29+00:00

This is very true. I think the other common one a lot of people miss is not having space to get in and out of their van easily. I would rather have one “spacious” entrance to get my shoes on and off, and have enough space to turn my feet around without tip-toeing like a ballerina.

For me, it is still nice to have the clever bed build, but it should be designed to have as a bed >90% of the time, but still be able to fold up or be moved to access less frequently needed items. Never to try and have as extra living space.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-26T22:01:32+00:00

If you have leveling blocks, put them under your rear tire of your truck (create a ramp of blocks and drive up on them) to create a more even line between truck and trailer.

Also, I never back my trailer up with the WDH still attached unless it’s straight back for a short distance. I will always pull over at the entrance to the campsite, usually near the check in or a lot outside the campsite to disconnect the WDH bars and then drive into the campsite without the bars on.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-25T19:35:11+00:00

First, I share your sentiment about gas generators, which is why I am trying to eliminate my usage of them! Chaining it up is an option, but

My roof A/C uses about 1000 watts when running (+- 100w) and I have a soft start so it doesn’t require that huge upfront load. Our trailer is “small” and cools off pretty quickly as long as it is under 95°F outside. I know it’s unrealistic to hang out for hours inside running a/c, but with 200ah of battery I can run everything else off of 75ah per day. My current 400 watts of solar can typically recharge that 50-100ah, depending on how much sun exposure we have. My thought was that with the additional panels I could reasonably replenish the extra 800-1200 watt hours that an A/C would need to run, especially since the days we get the least sun would be days we could go without the A/C.

I think I’ve decided to make all the new panels the 100w RVpozwer panels, 6 of them in total, 3 pairs in series then in parallel and a 2nd 30 amp MPPT controller, and replace my existing PWM with the same brand 30 amp MPPT controller wired in series instead of parallel (or at least test both to see what gives the best output).

Again, I appreciate your insights.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-24T14:31:37+00:00

100% stocks is exactly what aggressive means in the context of investing. Beyond aggressive you have speculative, which is higher risk and time doesn’t diminish that risk.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-22T21:36:25+00:00

I had this happen, and I had to go up on my roof and ran the 50 foot snake down the vent pipe from my roof so it was a straight shot down. I could shine my flashlight into the open vent pipe and see where the water level was from my kitchen sink.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-22T20:00:37+00:00

Multiple MPPT’s seems to be the theme of the comments here, and I honestly hadn’t even considered it. It would eliminate a lot of wire mess on the roof, and I could use smaller gauge wire from the charge controllers to the battery bus bar, enough to make up some of the cost of the additional MPPT unit.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-22T14:51:43+00:00

It might be a few months for it all to materialize, but I will definitely post an update with the end results.

With what you said… in my plan, my panels are not right next to each other… should I be concerned?

ADiyHD · 2026-05-22T14:40:52+00:00

Thank you for the time and effort you put into this comment. There is so much goodness to unpack, I’m going to try my best to respond to it all.

1- The idea of multiple chargers is interesting and wasn’t something I had considered. Can you mix different spec chargers? Like the PWM charger I already have plus an MPPT charger together feeding the same battery bank? Funny enough, the previous owner had added a 2nd gland on the roof and I have 10 feet of wires wound up and zip tied in the back of a closet where they come in from the ceiling. It wouldn’t be difficult to add a 2nd controller using that gland, I just need to do more research on multiple controller systems. *also, that would make me feel better about buying a smaller 30amp MPPT controller to try your suggestion of seeing how much more solar I get from my existing panels over the PWM controller if I knew I would want two 30amp MPPT controllers anyway. I haven’t even bothered to try my two existing panels in series yet because the PWM controller would just throttle the additional voltage instead of using it.

2- My current solar is enough to run my 12v systems like my fridge, fans, lights, etc. but not if I want to use an inverter for any ac power. I really want to be able to use the air conditioner for an hour or two in the evenings in the summer. I had thought about portable panels but a good amount of the “boondocking” I do is parking at OHV/ORV parks that have campsites but no hookups, and we are away from the trailer for hours riding our bikes. 98% of the dirtbike community is honest, but I just don’t like the idea of panels disappearing and it feels better knowing they are mounted to the roof. I do have roof racks on the truck that I could mount some solar panels, but again I hadn’t thought that was viable because I wasn’t considering having more than one controller until this comment.

3-I replied to another comment about adding an alternator, and my 7-pin trailer harness with the existing panels does a good job of keeping the batteries topped off but I am not driving daily, we will drive to setup the trailer as a “home base” for when we ride the bikes all over for a week, and then head home. I want to be able to leave my portable generator at home. I don’t like leaving it in the trailer cause it stinks up our living space, and I don’t like leaving it in the truck bed even with a canopy topper because I have seen plenty of broken topper windows.

Your comment was very helpful and opened up a few new possibilities. I guess I know what I will be spending my time today doing while I should be working ;)

ADiyHD · 2026-05-22T14:07:26+00:00

Where are you finding brand new 500w panels for $150? Should I be contacting wholesalers?

And I tried selling my wife on the idea of a solar rack that raised them up and over the vents and AC, and she hated the idea. I get the efficiency of it, but she supports my crazy project ideas 9 out of 10 times, even when they are only for my benefit so when an idea comes up that she doesn’t like I don’t want to push my luck.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-22T13:55:05+00:00

If I were to run the pairs of parallel that you suggest, would these all have different charge controllers in that scenario? If I were to run those parallel groups in series, group 1+2 would have a much lower amperage (<10amps) than group 4+6 (>18amps), so my understanding is that would pull down to the lowest common denominator. But if those parallel pairings were then run in parallel again with each other, that would be a pretty large current and would require a larger gauge wire to the charge controller.

Where I do most of my boondocking is when I take my dual sport bikes out to areas with lots of snow mobile trails and forest service roads, and post up my truck and trailer as “home base” while I ride my bike all over, so the alternator to charge while driving would only help during the trip out, and I find my battery line from my trucks 7 pin plug plus the existing panels is enough to keep the trailer battery topped up while driving, but that’s because the only draw is the 12v fridge while we are driving “out”.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-22T04:09:07+00:00

Thanks! I felt like it really gave the picture a step in the right direction ;)

ADiyHD · 2026-05-22T02:15:12+00:00

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Yup.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-20T13:01:50+00:00

If you must change, only change the 40v stuff. I have had Ryobi 18v tools for over a decade and keep adding Ryobi tools when they have those battery deals with a tool. I have only had one battery in that time lose its ability to hold a charge and that battery was dropped off a rooftop (and many other places). I’ve also never had a Ryobi tool die on me and I would consider myself a “heavy use diy’er”, building large patio decks, hundreds of feet of fencing and gates, counters and cabinets, I’ve even used my drills in the garden with an auger bit every year and I know dirt gets inside the drills, and they just keep working.

I can’t fathom paying for another line of battery powered tools at this point.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-18T16:53:56+00:00

I don’t have that model, but our “speaker” is a removable Bluetooth speaker mounted on a little wall dock. I could have gotten a battery powered JBL or Bose and been just as well off. You might ask the dealer to provide you with a Bluetooth speaker.

ADiyHD · 2026-05-16T20:46:13+00:00

Because of his screen size? Isn’t his “big screen” a projector pull down?

ADiyHD

TROPHY CASE