First Trip - Ouabache State Park, Indiana

MrGneissGuy

We just went out on our first trip with our 2015 T@G this past weekend with kid 2 and kid 3 sleeping in the tent (kid 1 still off at college, dog slept with us in the T@G), staying fairly close to home and making it a short Friday night to Sunday morning, just to shake things out and in case something went wrong. The storms that ran through Saturday night were pretty intense, but we all made through.

I found that, while the two burners are too close together for multiple skillets, they work great for a cast iron griddle.

It towed great with my Wrangler 4-door (though I lost about 7mpg during the trip). After the shakedown, there are some things I'll now be searching for in this forum, and/or asking about in other posts, some of which are:

Though it seemed to work just fine, our Norcold was quite loud, maybe abnormally so.

An occasional noise near/behind the converter/fuse panel. Maybe a cooling fan?

During the Saturday night storms (very heavy rain off and on for ~2 hours), there was a fair amount of moisture like sweating on the ceiling in lines (along what appeared to resemble joint tape lines in drywall) that I THINK was condensation and I hope was not from leaking.

There is a switch below and to the right of the radio that I am not sure what it does (I thought we'd figure it out during this trip, but still not sure).

Adding some kind of battery monitor (I did get a USB charger that displays voltage to give us a rough idea of battery state).

Adding a roof vent cover so we can run the vent while it's raining.

The awning we used worked great, until I closed the galley hatch for the night, then there wasn't enough tension for it to handle any wind. I need to figure out a solution for that.

I'm not really looking for answers for these in this discussion (though I won't object to any), but was just a little surprised that after the time we spent going over things in the driveway, the list was this long.

It was a wet/stormy weekend, but we really got quite lucky. It rained Saturday while we were eating lunch under our awning, and it stormed Saturday night, but we packed most everything up and stowed it in the Jeep before it hit, and just went to bed.

Overall it was a good trip, and I think we're going to really enjoy our T@G.

Sharon_is_SAM

The converter fan will run anytime there is a load on the battery or when you are charging the battery from shorepower.

SueBHunny

The mystery switch needs to be turned on when you run the air conditioner. If you are like me and my husband, it's a good idea to cover it with a switch cover. I used to strain my battery by kicking that switch on in the night.

The condensation likely means you didn't have enough venting. The roof vent cover will help. Regardless of the weather I always have at least one window and the roof vent open. Otherwise I wake to the drip of my own breath from the ceiling.

MrGneissGuy

@SueBHunny said:
The mystery switch needs to be turned on when you run the air conditioner. If you are like me and my husband, it's a good idea to cover it with a switch cover. I used to strain my battery by kicking that switch on in the night.

The condensation likely means you didn't have enough venting. The roof vent cover will help. Regardless of the weather I always have at least one window and the roof vent open. Otherwise I wake to the drip of my own breath from the ceiling.

Thank you very much,

Without the air conditioner running, and that switch on, there is a noise like a fan, and a very, very faint (as in so faint I'm not 100% sure it's there) feeling of air movement to the little vents in the cabinet sides where the AC is mounted. So that switch activates a fan that works with the AC; maybe vents out the warm air generated when the AC is running? Any benefit at all to turning it on without the AC, as in my situation below?

Yeah, the rain was so heavy and wind so strong, we didn't have anything cracked open. It was closed up tight. I guess I won't do that again.

SueBHunny

You are likely hearing the inverter kick on and off, and/or the Norcold running. Lots of noises happen at that end of the camper, but they're all normal. And you are correct that the fan throws out the heat that the AC generates.

Welcome to the club! I love my 2015!

GigHarborTom

All the above. However we have not experienced much noise from the frig. Do not know how the planned vent cover and roof rack are going to get along.

Fourman110

Always have the vent open a bit. Moisture inside is an enemy. Might want to consider investing in a Maxxfan deluxe (best mod I've ever done). It's a far better fan and includes its own retractable cover (it folds down pretty flat when not running so easier to get into a garage for my Boondock XL). I made the mistake (for me) of doing just the cover one year only to replace it with Maxxfan a few years later.

Fourman110

By the way, looks like a good setup. Welcome to the club. So much nicer than a tent in the rain.

drsukie

Also installing a vent cover; I live FT in my 32 ft. reno'ed 1998 Bounder and when living in the Columbia Gorge for two years some time back, I realized real quick ways to weather- and rain-proof. Now if we'd just get a day under 90 here in CenTex so I can install it without succumbing to heat stroke...

JamesDow

The rear wall switch for the AC does move some air and only pulls about .1 amp of power. It is designed to pull air in through the chrome vents on the side of the T@G and exit out under the T@G and the two white plastic vents on the side of the AC unit. It does not move a lot of air, but when the T@G is closed up, having it on may be better than nothing. It runs off of 12-volt power. It does make some noise.

✅ First trip completed.

Welcome.