brunnhilde said no to trailer winch battery

 

Brunnhilde is known to haul all sort of thing, including a car trailer fully loaded across the Continental US. For most street cars converted into track cars, I have no problem driving the cars up and down the trailer with the ramps. However, with radical race cars they are next to impossible to do so because of the aggressive racing clutches, and non-existent flywheel mass due to sequential gearboxes.

brunnhilde cutting her landline - part 2

 

I continued the work of repurposing the defunct POT and cable TV jacks on rear quarter panel.

air conditioner soft starter for Honda eu2000i generator - part 5

I have been doing more testing of the air conditioner powered by the Honda EU2000i generator in full sun hot days at 1,880 ft elevation. When I install the air conditioner back in 2015 I could not imagine there are that many parameters that affect the generator's ability to support it in Eco mode, as well as the tuning I would found in recent tests.

air conditioner soft starter for Honda eu2000i generator - part 4

 

It must be a labor of love. It is a major PITA to make the Kerstner AC control panel functions exactly as original. The Coleman Mach 8 Cub does not have variable blower speed control. Instead it has High and Low. Due to the shaft size of the original potentiometer and the tight confine it is very difficult to find a two position switch. Since I have the TRIAC speed control I decided to find a potentiometer that is approximately the right value (to increase the odd that I have one on hand) and move it off the TRIAC speed controller and locate it back onto the control panel.

air conditioner soft starter for Honda eu2000i generator - part 3

Yesterday was the first day the weather gotten hot enough to do some testing in the later part of the day when the van has been heat soaked in the sun. To my disappointment in no time the generator's overload protection was tripped. My heart sunk to say the least. I was running ethanol mixed premium fuel (not that premium octane has any benefit). I tried a number of time restarting and monitoring it still running in Eco mode, each time upon restart the engine will stumble and slow way down to which point the AC voltage dropped way low. What happen? I scratched my head dumbfound.

air conditioner soft starter for Honda eu2000i generator - part 2

 

One more thing. As I wanted to keep the Westfalia interior unadulterated, I adapted the air conditioner controls to use with the Coleman Mach 8 Cub AC. For the blower speed the Coleman has a fan high/low selection switch, while Westfalia had a variable speed control. One with think it should be easy to just swap out the potentiometer and put in a SPDT toggle switch. No. the nut and lock washer for the potentiometer is hidden behind the aluminum sheet that forms the faceplate of the controls. It is secured by high strength double sided pressure sensitive adhesive tape. To remove the faceplate you have to destroy it.

air conditioner soft starter for Honda eu2000i generator

 

Here is some preview of my recent battle to sort out some pesky issues with the Coleman low profile AC which I had planned to use my Honda EU2000i generator to power it, in Eco mode which is a very tall order. I want to use Eco mode as the generator will only run as fast as the load requires, hence gives the longest running time and most fuel efficient. However even not running in Eco mode, the surge current when the AC restarts it would often trip the overload protection of the generator. You cannot reset the electronic breaker without powering done the generator and then restarting it.

brunnhilde cutting her landline

 

We have been wanting to do this a very long time. That stupid landline POT jack on the rear of the camper is finally due for repurposed for something useful to meet a new need. I once planned to install a jack for portable solar panel. But I soon realized storing even a modest size panel is challenging, not to mention I have to worry about strong wind blowing it over. Very often at the race track I get to plug into 120Vac for light usage. This means nothing over a couple of hundred watts or less.