KING BIRD RV COVERS Part 2

I have to get as cheap as possible RV cover every year in So. CA.

This one only lasted March 2023 to Nov 2023.

The UV cooks ALL OF THEM and they become like tissue paper. (See Video!).

I like the tie down and zipper features of the King Bird but they're no better or worse then any other cover.

I have the passenger side to the afternoon sun, so the top and passenger side don't do well.

Drivers side does a little better. Leaves some residue on my propane cover (see pic).

My wife asked me to get the cover off of there, so I cut it up today (Thanksgiving) and 

threw it out. See Pictures below.

                   King Bird RV Cover

This will most likely be the last thing I write about RV covers unless someone comes up with something so great, I can't resist. Otherwise it's the same ol thing. I currently have a Lance trailer the model 1985. 20' box, 24' with the tongue. I am currently (last few years) using the King Bird cover called out on Amazon like this:
 

KING BIRD Upgraded Travel Trailer RV Cover, Extra-Thick 5 Layers Anti-UV Top Panel,
Durable Camper Cover, Fits 22'- 24' Motorhome -Breathable, Waterproof, Rip-Stop with 2Pcs
Straps & 4 Tire Covers

I guess I'm stuck on these because they're (at this time) about $279 a piece and no matter what you buy, you'll have to replace it every year (at least if you live where the sun is out like CA).

I do like the multiple access zippers on both sides and the tie down locations and method.

I tend to use the 3 straps in front and 3 in the rear and then 2 on the sides. Keeps the cover on
in high winds but lets it move around. It comes with a storage bag which I tend to use for
other stuff or give away. Also tire covers which I tend not to need because the cover is over the
tires. They give you extra straps too but at some point, it's too many straps.

This is what it looks like installed...

                          


                          

Espin e-bikes

I was looking for a decent e-bike for my wife without spending a huge amount of money. She doesn't ride that much so I was looking for something around $1500 or less. I like the look of the higher end bikes with the battery in the frame also 48V battery and Bafang motor. 

 I stumbled across these guys:  https://www.espinbikes.com/    

I watched some reviews and talked to some bike people and it seemed like they had a pretty good bike for around $1500. I tried to convince my wife to get a "step-through" Flow model but for some reason, she liked the Espin Sport. 

This Youtube reviewer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lU8dgo9OZg had a link to $150 off. Hopefully if you read this it's still good. It paid all my sales tax at the time, bringing the bike cost to just about $1400 even. Espin seems to be a pretty small place in the bay area of California. Like a lot of bike places during the pandemic, the bike was back ordered. As I recall it was about a 4 to 6 week wait. They hit their website advertised delivery estimate pretty close. The delivery driver left the box leaning on the house and I dragged it inside.

Obviously some assembly required. My wife and I are fairly particular when it comes to any sort of scratches or flaws. I have to say, this thing was packed well and didn't have a single mark or scuff on it!

 

The assembly is pretty much what you would expect. You have to put on the front wheel, pedals, handlebars. It's all pretty straight forward and they supply the allen wrenches.

 

It doesn't take that long, even if you're taking your time to take pictures!

 

The bike is built really solid like a tank but rides really nice and stable. That rear hub motor kicks in fast and you need to learn when and how to use your "power features". My wife isn't a cyclist but she learns how things work pretty fast and got the hang of riding it really quick.

 Loves the "throttle" maybe a little too much!. You do want to watch the assist and throttle 

when you're in a turn but I think that counts for all of the e-bikes. Overall, I don't 

have any regrets with this bike, it's a lot of fun and built well.

(I weighed it and it came in at 56Lbs!).

 Note on service: I did contact Espin with an issue with an intermittent headlight. 

It took a few e-mails back and forth to work out the sending me a spare. It was a bit frustrating

waiting a day between e-mails for a reply and then to finally get the replacement light. 

The process went on for a few weeks. I'm glad it wasn't something functional with the bike

because that customer service process seems really slow.

 

 

 

 

 

 Specialized Turbo Vado 4.0 SL EQ

 I got my first e-bike at the end of August in 2020. It was a gift from my kids. Overall it's a really great bike for people who still want to pedal and get some cardio exercise. It's pedal assist so you still have to do some work.

There were a couple of things I wanted to have just a little different. The bike is sort of a European, city commuter and that's not really my use case. 

First off, I thought that I might not use the rear bike rack for my rides. I tend to take just a small backpack and travel as light as possible.

I took off the rack and noticed that I could cut about a foot off the rear fender and rotate it forward using the existing holes in the fender that were there for the rack. Kept the mud flap and made it a little more mountain bike style.

 

 Cut about a foot off the fender and re-attached.

Then I had to re-wire the tail light back on...

I bought a sort of inexpensive suspension seat post...

The final thing was a bit tricky and required some electrical technician skills. I read that it's a law in some places in Europe to have your headlight always on. I didn't want mine on all the time during the day. Thought I could save a little power. I'm sort of surprised actually that an expensive German bike light had no off switch and also no connector to change the light if you wanted something different. I was able to open up the light and dremal out a little place for a sealed slide switch that I epoxied into place. I was also able to add an in-line sealed connector to work on the light and/or replace it.

That's about it! I weighed the bike and it came in at 37Lbs. really light for an e-bike.

All the standard info. on the bike can be seen on Specialized website  There are also some pretty good videos on Youtube about it.

e-mail me at killak13@gmail.com if you want details on the parts used or process.

USB to HDMI

I have a 12V TV in my new Lance trailer and I found out the TV's USB input 

doesn't play movies. It's only for pictures and  music. 

I don't have a gaming system or streaming device that I use in there so had to find a way to play movies off a USB jump drive into the TV.

Found this little "Media Player" That you can connect your jump drive to and it outputs HDMI into your TV.    Like everything else. I got it on Amazon.   Media Player,
The device does run sort of warm/hot and although I have tested it out, I haven't run a whole movie on it yet. There are some reviews that say it stops working. I will try to run it longer and report back.

One other thing I realized is that having a 12V TV wouldn't help me if I needed to plug in this device. It has a wall adapter that plugs into 110V. 

I noticed that the adapter output is 5.2VDC and the Lance trailer has USB charging ports near the TV

so I thought I could probably run the player off the Lance USB charging ports. 

I needed to check with Lance to make sure the ports on the trailer could supply 1.5A

remember the thing runs hot...  So I sent a note to Lance and they said their ports supply 2A.

Then I needed to get a plug to fit the Media Player, I found these on Amazon too. Plug

I had to get a 10 pack but I have a lot of "free points" on Amazon  😉

I cut the small end off a USB cable and soldered this small plug on, center pin =  +5V

Which was the red wire on my USB cable. Be careful here if you don't know what you're doing.

 This is what all the stuff looks like. Then just plug the USB cable into the charging port on the trailer, the jump drive into the player and the HDMI cable (you need to have) into the TV.

The onscreen interface is not too bad, pretty simple... Player comes with remote (shown)
 

Tekonsha P3 Brake Controller Installed on 2017 Tacoma

I'm pulling a Lance Travel Trailer Model 1985 with a "3rd Gen Tacoma".

 

Never towed anything before so I asked around and read a lot of reviews. 

 I saw a lot of 5 star ratings on this controller so I thought I'd give it a shot. 

I had it temporarily wired and velcro'd in until I found a spot where I'd be happy. 

The problem for me is, I'm 6'4" and none of the knee areas around the steering wheel worked for me.

I thought about the little utility compartment to the left of the steering wheel

but I found that it was sort of nice if the passenger (my wife) had access to the thing as well.

So I settled on the compartment above the cup holder under the panel of 1 ECT button

on my SR5.

Sorry I didn't get video of the installation but I was really trying to get it done

sort of quick. 

I've done a lot of electrical work on my job over the years so I had to use those skills here. 

To get the P3 in that compartment I had to buy the Toyota harness (3017-P)

and then splice in about a foot of wire to lengthen the harness. Fortunately, I was able to use the harness wires that came with the controller and just cut off the connector. 

Tried to do a nice job soldering and heat shrink tubing...

 Connecting the connector to the harness in the kick panel was really straight forward and can be found on Youtube. Then you have to run them over to the center console, in the panel above your knees. 

Not too difficult. The hard part was committing to drill a hole in the compartment. 

I thought the best spot would be in the triangular area in back. I also had to remove the pins from the connector and feed the individual wires thru a grommet. Write down what color wire goes to what pin... If you unplug the connector in the kick panel, there won't be power to them and they won't short out!.

I used a small length of split loom over the wires.

The device comes with a couple of mounting brackets, you can see which one I chose to use, here's a picture of the harness and the bracket...

 

 Then the controller plugs in and can be snapped in to the bracket.

Looks like this when finished...

I'm really happy with the way it came out.

You have to be a pretty good tech to pull this off and not get in a hurry. 

If you have any questions, you can send me an e-mail.

 

RV Covers again, National RV Covers 

DON'T ORDER FROM THESE GUYS UNLESS YOU'RE REALLY SURE WHAT YOU WANT. 
THEIR REFUND POLICY IS HORRIBLE!.

 

 I have a new Lance travel trailer now and I thought I'd try a different brand of cover this time. 

A friend told me he planned to try this place: National RV Covers

So I thought I'd give it a try too.

They're not crazy expensive but time will tell how they hold up. 

If they have the cover you want in stock, they ship fast and here in CA they will come in

a day or two. The place is near San Diego somewhere.

 The covers have some really nice features like straps to hold it down and zippers in all four corners also side zipper panel for door access. It has nice straps in the front and rear also.

They say 3 Year warranty but when I asked about it, it's not going to cover the wind ripping it or the UV from the sun destroying. Seems like they only cover it if the thing comes apart at the seems.

We'll see how long I can get out of it. I installed it June 16, 2018.  I'll post when It dies  ;-)

One (long) note of caution with this place, they say "Easy Returns" on their home page but I found it to be sort of a pain. 

Like most companies, they can suck the $ out of your account immediately but putting it back is not so easy. I made the mistake of assuming that the Lance info. on the trailer size was correct without measuring it. Lance says the "box" is 18ft but it turned out to be 20.

Originally, I bought an 18ft cover and it didn't fit. National said that sending a return authorization number would take two days, I finally got one in five. You also have to ship back at your expense and there's a restocking fee.  😕   This is no Amazon.

They got the cover back, June 19, 2018 and I haven't heard from them about a refund yet. 

 Today is June 24th. I'll edit the post when I get my money back. Refund Came July 9th, 3 weeks!!

Of coarse they didn't have the same cover I wanted in a 22ft so I ended up getting a 

more expensive version. Instead of the original $270, the new 22ft cover in the different version was about $350.

Instead of the "Expedition" I got the "Expedition S2". Don't ask me what the difference is, I can't tell. 

I needed to get something sort of quick before the really hot weather comes.

The larger 22ft size fits over the hitch on the 24ft OAL trailer. Here are a couple of pictures...

UP-DATE: This cover was pretty much killed by the sun/wind I threw it in the trash
9/20/19 I got a year and 3 months out of it. Pretty much like all the other cover places.