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Old 03-05-2010, 04:12 PM   #1
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Trailer: 1977 Scamp 13 ft
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The moisture is killing me and my Scamp I want to install a modern furnace into my 13' Scamp. Scamp sells the Suburban with the Tstat for arround $400 witch is a good deal. The one I am really interested in is the 12,000 Everest Star by Atwood. The Everest Star draws like 1.8Amps when its running. I do all dry camping so the least power draw the better. Does anyone happen to have one of these used? I will have to do some modifications to my trailer to install it. The original furnace was the old school thing under the sink with the vent out the side. It was removed before I baught it. I was hoping to find something I could mount into the closet but I cannot find anyting that short in depth. The catalytic heater I have in there is just not working out! Any imput from somone who has installed one of these from scratch?

Thank you!
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Old 03-05-2010, 04:38 PM   #2
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What kind of cat heater (and BTUs) do you have now? I have a Olympian Wave 3 in my Scamp and it seems to do the job, but frankly I haven't used it much...
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Old 03-05-2010, 08:02 PM   #3
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Dave
Earlier this winter I was ready to buy a 12K Everest but the supplier raised his price about $100 dollars so I put the modification on hold. I did lot of research and my choice of furnace for my 13 Scamp was also the 12K Everest mainly for the power draw specs.
I know you wanted to talk to someone with a "Been there done that, T-shirt" but I have only been there and I haven't done it yet. I just thought I would let you know what my thought were since it looks like I stopped the project at about the same point you are currently at.
Another problem with a closet mount besides depth is the gas line reroute. Under the sink you should already have a gas line convenient to hook into. The depth of the sink cabinet to the outside wall should work with the standard exhaust port. ( About 20"). The sink cabinet cutout should be just slightly larger than the furnace. Since you previously had a furnace you may have to make an aluminum trim plate to close up the old hole and cut a new hole for the new furnace. You need to mount the furnace high enough to clear the wheel well. I was going to make a rear furnace support to mount to the wheel well. Scamp mounts the thermostat to the sink base cabinet (Not desirable.). I was going to mount the thermostat to a mounting plate on the spiral supports or on the end of the upper cabinet if I replaced the light with a led fixture. I also was going to run the thermostat wire up the spiral support buy using shrink tubing or up the wall. You may also need to fabricate a plate for the outside of the trailer for the intake/exhaust port.
Hope this helps.
Eddie
I saw your slide show after posting this post. Maybe you can move your converter to the lower front LH side of the sink base under the furnace and in front of the wheel well. Looks like things may fit but it will be a tight fit.
Great job, and good luck
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Old 03-05-2010, 09:46 PM   #4
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Check...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Atwood-7920...es#ht_500wt_945

Harry
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Old 03-05-2010, 09:49 PM   #5
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Check out,

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Atwood-Hydr...es#ht_807wt_928

Harry
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Old 03-05-2010, 11:35 PM   #6
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I actualy bailed on this last year for the same reason... too expensive. Actualy Scamp has a good deal on the SUburban but I need to be on the super cheap on this project. I like the everest star also because it is so slim. solves some of my space issues. I already ran gas over to my closet in hopes of using the catalytic heater. Becides the moisture issues I have an 11month old now and I fear the gasses. Not to mention the safety of the open fire. Also with the catalytic there is no air movement so at night my daughter in the upper bunk cooks and the rest of us freeze. If I run a fan it heats well but it just does not work for safety. I really wanted to mount the furnace in the closet but its just not deep enough. It's funny the furnaces on Ebay are more expensive then I can buy from the local dealer or even scamp.

On the T stat. You could run a wire under the benches and arrond and mount it on the closet wall. That was my plan anyway.

I will get something figured out and when I do I will post pics and do a write up. Thank you for the imput!

If you beat me to it and get the T-shirt please by all means brag and tell me how you did it!

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Old 03-12-2010, 01:42 PM   #7
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I just picked up a new furnace from the local dealer. I ended up with the Suburban. They had a few on hand that have been collecting dust and I made them an offer. I hope to take on this project this weekend. I will let you know how it goes, I will dig out my camera.

It sounded like they had more than one of them. They are left over from Trail Wagons when they went under. If anyone is in need of Trail Wagons or Western RV parts. Aubrys RV in Yakima apparently worked their auctions and picked up some of their OEM supplies.


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Old 03-12-2010, 03:59 PM   #8
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Check out the for sale ads. I have I for sale that is pilot lit and uses no power. Thats what I have and you don't have to lisen to a fan.
Mike
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Old 03-14-2010, 02:30 PM   #9
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It works!

After a lot of measuring, plotting, and thinking.... I got it installed. works fantastic.

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Old 03-14-2010, 02:31 PM   #10
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More Pictures!
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Old 03-14-2010, 04:14 PM   #11
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That looks just like the factory installed furnace in my Scamp 16. How noisy is it? Mine almost sounds like a vacuum cleaner.

-- Dan Meyer
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Old 03-14-2010, 04:57 PM   #12
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Nice job Dave .
I'll say like you , after measuring,ploting and thinking ,It's possible to have
a nice furnace into an old camper
We have done the same thing two years ago with a Suburban 16000 btu that we have fond on
Ebay for haft the price "new" ,and it wotk real nice . It's very nice thing to have in your camper
We've heeped the original outside grill so it's looked like we still have the old furnace
Nice work Jean-l



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Old 03-15-2010, 09:53 AM   #13
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That looks just like the factory installed furnace in my Scamp 16. How noisy is it? Mine almost sounds like a vacuum cleaner.

-- Dan Meyer
Thank you!

It's pretty noisy... but I can deal with it. I am amazed how fast and hot it heats up the cabin. It will work out nice for us. I plan on coating the inside of the cabinet with that reflectics (I think is how it's spelled) that should cut down some of the noise. But most of the fan noise dumps right out the front. I think it is an even trade. The Catalytic heater was quiet, but it was slow to heat the cabin, and between the fumes and the moisture... It just had to go. I was allways worried about it with the kids. One toss of a stuffed animaul and it would have been a disaster.
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Old 03-15-2010, 09:59 AM   #14
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Nice job Dave .
I'll say like you , after measuring,ploting and thinking ,It's possible to have
a nice furnace into an old camper
We have done the same thing two years ago with a Suburban 16000 btu that we have fond on
Ebay for haft the price "new" ,and it wotk real nice . It's very nice thing to have in your camper
We've heeped the original outside grill so it's looked like we still have the old furnace
Nice work Jean-l
Wow thats cool! I have that same port on my rig. I wanted to use it, but it dident work out. How did you get the breather tubes to work with that grill? My problem was that I had installed a power center just to the left of the sink. I ended up installing the furnace to the right of the sink.

Can you post a picture of how you installed it? And one of the finished product?

The dealership should have the grill into day or tomorrow I am excited to see how it looks all put together.
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Old 03-22-2010, 05:39 PM   #15
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The RV store finally got the Grill in!! I decided to add a cold air return on the bottom door as an experiment. It seems to do a good job pulling all that cold air out of the floor pan. I still have some touch up work to do but It did come out pretty good! Looks like it might be time to repaint
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Old 03-24-2010, 12:02 PM   #16
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Our furnace noise drives us batty, too. Perhaps one day I'll design a circuit that drops the voltage supplied to the furnace fan after it starts up, shunting the current through one or two resistors so I can drop the voltage supplied to the fan to 10.5 volts. That'll reduce the fan noise and cut power consumption in our trailer.

The trick will be to make sure the fan gets at least 10.5 volts power, meaning the circuit will need to adapt to changing charge levels as the battery discharges and its output voltage drops.
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Old 03-24-2010, 01:42 PM   #17
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Our furnace noise drives us batty, too. Perhaps one day I'll design a circuit that drops the voltage supplied to the furnace fan after it starts up, shunting the current through one or two resistors so I can drop the voltage supplied to the fan to 10.5 volts. That'll reduce the fan noise and cut power consumption in our trailer.

The trick will be to make sure the fan gets at least 10.5 volts power, meaning the circuit will need to adapt to changing charge levels as the battery discharges and its output voltage drops.
That is a good Idea. You could try using transistor based transformers. You can order them to a specific voltage. Just parallel them in the circuit until you have enough current rating. You could put a relay circuit on a timer. Have it automatically cut over to your 10.5 Volt converter after about 30 seconds or so. Where did you come up with 10.5? having it kick down would be good so that you guarantee a good start on the fan, and you wont put start load on your digital converter. You can order a timer circuit kit from DigiKey as well as the other parts. As I recall they have a pulse timer that comes as a small board with the IC and potentiometer that you adjust for the timing. I just briefly worked up a diagram of how I think it would work I will PM it to you. If you can make it work I would be interested in modi'n mine as well.

Oh note on the transistors: They can usually take any kind of power you through at them and keep and even constant voltage. As long as you have enough in the bank to cover the amperage you need. So if your fan is 2Amps and each transistor is 500mH you would want 4 transistors. I would add one more for reliability. They will also need a heatsink. You could mount it in the cold air return... Keep it relay cool!


!

BTW will you be at Silver Falls?
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Old 03-24-2010, 05:29 PM   #18
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Old 03-24-2010, 10:39 PM   #19
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Using several 78xx in parallel would not be my first choice. Yes, each unit is rated at up to one amp of current and three of them could theoretically handle the load, but in practice there are slight variations in the 78xx output voltages, and since electricity prefers to follow the path of least resistance that means a circuit like the one you suggested would shunt more current through the more permissive regulator and overheat it.

My thinking was to use three switching transistors with matching resistors to shunt power around one or two big (10w) ceramic resistors, passing all current through both resistors at 12.6 volts and above, around one low-value resistor at 11.5 to 12.6 volts, around one high-value resistor at 11.0-11.5 volts. Below 11.0 volts the third transistor would pass pass power directly to the fan.

By doing the voltage reduction in a pair of robust, high-watt ceramic resistors I'd be passing the current handling and regulation tasks to components designed to handle a high-current connection as well as high-resistance heat loss. This part of the approach is very similar to what I've done to our Fantastic Fan, which has a 10-Ohm, 10-watt resistor circuit added to it to create a very slow & quiet fan speed setting.

As for a timer that would allow the fan to come up to speed, a fourth transistor/capacitor pair could shunt power directly to the fan until the capacitor reached full charge and its voltage rose to match that of the battery.
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Old 03-25-2010, 01:27 AM   #20
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I see you have a furnace. That should work fine. 12K BTU is probably required because windows have to be left open to combat the moisture from breathing.

You started out talking about catalytic heaters. Here is a good discussion of them:

http://www.rverscorner.com/catalytic.html

They do put a lot of moisture into the air.

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