Our Victron Promaster

 Works progresses on GANNET2 and we seem to have found the cause of the problem that burned out our 110 volt battery charger. The shore power plug had crossed wires. Probably they got crossed in Brasilia and luckily Adrián checks everything.

The 110 volter inverter and charger is supposed to be in Uruguay tomorrow and Adrián is ready to install it as soon as it arrives next week. Meanwhile he is preparing to install a 220 volt plug to charge in countries that use that voltage. He inspected our 110 volt plug, the one that’s dangling above and found the crossed wires that burned out our original charger.

The 220 volt charger is the first box and it was tested yesterday: it works.

Then there is the solar charger box and the panels put out full amperage into 50 in strong winter sun. The engine charger has been dropping amperage as it warms up and Adrián is planning to move it to a separate bus bar  to fix that. 

We have a heater that ran perfectly for two hours as a test run.  There are some other jobs to do including some carpentry work.  

The parts cost is around $12,000 which digs deep. Especially as some of it is fixing mistakes made in Brasilia. But now we have a system including new batteries that could last the rest of our lives and with air conditioning heat and powerful solar panels we have a home that will be very livable. 

Adrián is looking into our rain leaks that typically wet the engine on Promasters. He may even fix them knowing him. He cleaned the engine too and got rid of our red Amazon dust.

Victron is all blue: 

Our new Victron 180 batteries, three of them faking  up so little space. 

And it’s all monitored on the phone of the owner. Amazing.

Cabin Heat

This industrial photograph shows the top of the 24 gallon fuel tank which sits between the seats in the Promaster. 

The two kilowatt heater uses three amps of electricity and sips gasoline from the main tank and blows heat which we have missed from time to time in the Andes, in windy Patagonia  and on the cool foggy Pacific coast of Chile.  

It was installed yesterday by Adrián with its switch mounted in the sidewall next to the passenger seat. This is where Layne sits when we are in the van and she will control its seven levels of heat blowing on her feet. The fuel pump cover being screwed down  after the heater installation:

Our only source of heat other than the cabin blower off the engine was a space heater we plugged in to our 110 bolt system and it helped at vast cost in electricity, something like 60 amps. 

The advantages of this heater are that it gives us comfort in a wider range of temperatures (and we are from the Florida Keys), gasoline burns at high altitude where diesel heaters choke, it produces no soot and it uses the same fuel as the engine do we don’t have to carry a diesel tank around with us  

It comes with an optional long hose to direct the heat but we don’t be using that. Our van is well insulated and this single outlet will be fine to keep us warm on cold days and evenings. 

Adrián had to remove the heavy passenger seat to get it out but he is nothing if not careful and precise. It all worked out. 

The solar panels are charging and the direct charge from the engine is producing 50 amps for the house batteries which is excellent as we now have no need to listen to the second alternator protesting with its squealing belt anymore.

Up next: installing the 220 volt shorepower plug and then we await the arrival of the new 110 volt 3,000 watt inverter which is supposed to be in Uruguay from California on Friday. Maybe. 

At The Shop

One more day waiting for GANNET2 to be ready for the next part of the road, but the work is moving right along. Our ever irritating second alternator is out after much grunting. 

It took time and effort but the accessory alternator supposed to charge our house batteries as we drive finally yielded to strength and came out.

Adrián suggested we lost more than a hundred pounds weight removing the alternator that rarely ran smoothly in five years of driving. 

Piles of heavy cable cane with it all replaced by one blue box, the smallest of the there below: 

Next to it are three 180 amp Victron batteries all three combined the sizes of one of our old 250 amp Go Power lithium batteries and we had two. 

Adrián the retired Argentine Air Force engineer is doing a great job of doing things right. I love the logic and simplicity of his installation . We are confident this will hold together for years to come. He likes things done right. We meanwhile keep our fingers crossed. 

Our neighbors and the road out front.  

A French Toyota Land Cruiser in storage. In Uruguay you can easily get permission to store your vehicle up to one year so lots of Europeans do that while they spend summer at home. 

Rusty living well. 

Crossing Uruguay Last Week

Work is underway. 

Meanwhile to pass the time a look back to last week. 

We stopped in the town of Mercedes to spend the night on our way into Uruguay after our struggles at  the border and we saw an illuminated sign on our way to a street camp in town. “Our Country Was Born Here.” 

That statement deserved some investigation. The town was founded in 1788 named the New Chapel of Our Lady of Mercy (mercy is Mercedes in Spanish). The town has a population of 45,000 people and is known for its massive waterfront drive along the Rio Negro which was precisely where we down the night two Sundays ago: 

And the waterfront was where I walked Rusty on Monday morning and where we met the locals: 

The Rio Negro: 

The bank of the Rio Negro:

Rusty on the bank of the Rio Negro: 

Autumn along the Rio Negro. 

Part of the waterfront park along the Rio Negro:

There were a couple of local RVs whose occupants we never saw. 

We had some shopping to do after crossing the border and we wanted to pick up some cash at the ATM. Apparently they had plenty not that we needed that much: 

After the bank got resupplied  with cash we went to the supermarket and got US $100 worth of food, a reminder how expensive Uruguay is compared to other countries hereabouts: 

The quality of the meat is excellent. 

One odd thing about Uruguay is how there aren’t necessarily commercial districts in towns. Businesses sprout up in people’s houses and you have to know where they are especially as most aren’t very good at putting up legible signs. This seems to be a hardware store with a home on top: 

The main supermarket even doesn’t have much in the way of advertising. 

And that was another day in Uruguay.