Solar Pulse Keeps Your Occasional Car Ready to Go

We keep a "round town car" at one end of our frequently traveled trail, and it may go months without use. Last time we needed the beasty, a turn of the ignition key brought a grunt--the battery was on sabbatical from lack of charge.

We've found the answer to that issue: Pulse Tech Products' Solar Pulse. It's a handy little solar powered system that not only keeps your standby vehicle battery charged, it also keeps it in shape with a system that keeps the battery plates cleaned up, knocking down the buildup of lead sulfate that can kill off an otherwise good battery.

We're using the 5 watt version; it's but about 9" square and a 1/4" thick, small but powerful for the application. Since we keep our car under a fabric cover, the question of where to mount the solar panel came up. We picked up a small wood pallet and mounted the solar panel to the pallet, aiming the solar panel south for maximum solar availability. The next question that arises: What do you do with the solar panel and the pallet when you want to drive? The system has a quick disconnect we hid behind the car grill. We simply unplug the panel from the car, and off we go.

Installation is straight forward and most any "handy with a wrench and screwdriver" person can do the install. A control module lives permanently under the car hood, and the whole install process took us only about 20 minutes.

Now when we leave the car alone for a few weeks or months, we don't worry about having to disconnect the battery for fear "parasitic" loads will slowly chew through our stored up power. Besides, disconnecting the battery is to shut off the juice to the onboard engine diagnostics computer--and any critical information stored therein could be lost with the disconnect of power over a long term.

Check out Solar Pulse on the pulsetech.net website.

"Clean" Macerator System

The old plumber's axiom about, "Water don't run up hill, and don't lick your fingers," doesn't have to be true regarding dumping your holding tanks--at least about the uphill part. We still recommend wearing protective gloves anytime you mess about with sewer connections.

Dumping holding tanks from your rig to an uphill (and distant) sewer drop became a necessity for us some time back. Our RV parking pad was 'on the other side' of the hill from the property septic system. The idea of lugging buckets of yuck back and forth was hardly appetizing. A macerator answers the problem. A simple pump, the macerator grinds up your holding tank contents and squirts them through a hose or pipe to where you want them to go. There've been macerators available on the market for some time.

The "wrinkle" with the Clean Dump system is its approach to being permanently attached to the RV. Other macerators often breach mount onto the RV dump outlet port, and that in itself can be a bit of a messy situation. So for the "cultured" among us--and those who don't mind dropping close to $400 for the feeling of increased sanitation cleanliness this may be the ticket.

With the Clean Dump system installed in your RV, you simply open an access door, fish out the discharge end of a 1" (i.d.) hose, stretch it out to the nearest sewer dump (provided that it's within 150 of your rig), pull your dump valve handle, flip a switch, and within what is said to be five minutes, your tanks are emptied and you're ready to rock and roll. Mind you, the basic system comes with a 20' section of hose, so to make that really long uphill reach you'll have to add accessory hose lengths.

If your RV has a washing machine, a handy accessory allows you to leave the system hose connected to a park sewer drop, and gravity feeds wash machine waste water to save your holding tanks from filling up in a hurry.

The Clean Dump system promises less hassle to users: No more "sewer hose" legs to keep the sludge flowing downhill through the standard 3" hose. Less drip with a permanently installed system. All the parts required for the not-so-handyman. For more info visit www.cleandump.com

Hoist Your Banner On Your Personal Street Light

OK, maybe it's not a street light, proper, but the "Solar ID" is most certainly a unique RV product, and one that a lot of boondockers will appreciate. After all, when we "dig in" to our long-term site, there's something about making our little spot in the wilderness "ours."

For years we boondocked on the Arizona desert every winter. Trying to describe "where we live," is hard enough for folks coming by day, but after the sun goes down, getting somebody out to our little place becomes a feat suitable only for those equipped with a GPS system and night vision glasses. The Solar ID is like your own personal lamp post that you can stick out at the end of the drive up to your RV. The lamp is (like our rig) solar panel equipped--ok, so it's a small solar panel--and the light is a high efficiency LED system that casts light all night long.

With a clever cross-arm system, Solar ID allows you to hang something personal out there. It comes equipped with a rather generic "Welcome" banner, but with all that unique RVer know-how, we can envision anything from personal flags to indicators of hobbies or interests festooning the lamp post cross arm. The whole thing is cleverly designed for travelers--when not in use the cross arm comes out of the post, the post itself telescopes down, and all parts pack into a handy (and included) tote bag.

You won't need a pick and shovel (or mini-backhoe) to set up your Solar ID system. A plastic base unit holds the system upright, and for those used to the the nasty winds of the great open plains (or the deserts) you can add ballasting to the base: Think gravel or sand. The folks who designed this clever system tell us that their home base unit, set up in chilly Nebraska, displayed a ice-storm encased banner--stiffly frozen as if blown by winds--still quite upright despite the weight of the icy banner.

You can order directly from the RVers who designed and built this clever system at uniquelyrv.com.