Converters & my Dogged RV

Today's post will contain a video of my RV that I took a few years ago. I thought I'd share my RV with ya'll. Since I show dogs, it's set up a bit differently than most RVer's choose to set up their living spaces. This is more typical of how a dog show person sets up their rigs though. We set up our rigs more for the safety & comfort of our dogs than we do for our luxury needs. Now I'm not saying that all dog show folks that have RV's set theirs up in this manner. Some have toy haulers with their garage area set up as a kennel type of area. Some take out furniture, such as I did with my dinette. Some get clever with the smaller dogs & actually build kennels & places you'd never think of doing. Some don't set their rigs up at all, but let the dogs ride loose with them. Some buy big buses, some actually even drive Prevosts. Some use travel trailers, some custom vans that are designed for showing dogs out of that still leaves a space for their caretaker to sleep in. Some even have used horse trailers that have the living areas built into them. It is all personal choice on how one wants to travel with their pets. The ultimate goal is that we take care of & love our little friends that we share our lives with.

Here is a photo of my set up in good weather. I do not set up like this when I stay at a state camp campgrounds though. I just take my dogs for a lot of walks when I stay at campgrounds, but at dog shows & campgrounds that are joined into the dog show event, then it's perfectly ok to set them up like this. I also NEVER EVER leave them out unattended!

My RV is a 1996 Coachmen Catalina Sport 22RK (which means rear kitchen) ClassC.

I bought it in 2006, everything was in good working order. Over the past two years though, I've had to start replacing & maintaining things. One being the fridge that died in 2010. It started leaking the ammonia. I was checking into having it rebuilt, until I found out that it cost nearly as much as a new fridge would cost & the service could run about as much as a new installation if not more. So thought it best to just get a new fridge instead, so a few months back, I got a new fridge & had it installed.

I am also on my 4th coach battery since 2006! The first one may have been original to the unit, so no surprise on it. The 2nd one only lasted about 13 months. Replaced it, that one only lasted about 9 months...ok, we have a problem. When I had the new fridge installed, they suggested my converter may be going bad. So I bought another battery & installed it. Now the fridge panel is flashing low DC, so I ordered a new converter, which should be in on Friday or Monday. I'll go pick it up when it comes in & install it in the old converters place. PPL motorhomes had it on sale till the 30th, so if you need one too, act quickly & order it. Good price, sale $141.07, regular price, $219.99. I also ordered the battery wizard & the voltage meter as I'm curious over how stable my voltage is. Here is the link to PPL's catalog page:

http://www.pplmotorhomes.com/parts/rv-converters/ac-to-dc-power-converter.htm

I will let you know how it all works out once I get it & install it. Installation doesn't appear to be too hard, so we'll see.

Back to the fridge, I considered having a regular small house size fridge put in, but since I do a lot of boondocking, I would have needed to run some kind of electrical power source, so I opted to just keep it simple & get another gas absorption fridge instead. I wasn't in favor of running the generator 24/7 while boondocking!  Plus it was on sale at PPL as well! They can buy in bulk & pass the savings onto us, which is great! I am not affiliated with them in any way.

I hope ya'll are having a great day! And as always, be kind to your pets, clean up after them on your travels & respect your neighbor.