Preparing a 1991 Scamp 16

[honda03842]

Mounting
I took some blue painters tape and put a strip down where I wanted the front and one side.

I took off the edge release tape by putting the panel down on its cell side. [Protective paper still on cell side].

I stood the panel up on its long edge along the blue tape edge with the short edge aligned with the front tape.[you don't want the panel's vbh tape to touch the blue tape, better to be inside a little, the blue tape is just a guide.]

I slowly tilted the panel down until it was flat. I ran my hand around each edge, pressing it tightly to the roof.

I then pulled off the protective cell plastic and pressed down on the edges again.

You get one try to do this. The vbh tape is very sticky.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Fiberglass RV mobile app

[honda03842]

As a final test I hooked up my Fluke Meter and measured the current. It was 4.1 amps.

I have to connect the wires to the through shell fitting. Kind of a slow week, four house guests for this week plus an RV visit from friends on the way to Newfoundland. I'm jealous of our traveling friends.

[honda03842]

Neglected to mention but I bought connectors for the solar panel and connect it to the solar controller. Works great. We'll be on the road in a couple of weeks,

[honda03842]

At near 73, we've reached a milestone. We started this little thread when we first brought our Scamp home. The thread was partially precipitated by attendance at the FL Scamp Camp where I made a list of potential modifications. It was a long list and I've yet to do everything.

Yesterday we passed 100,000 views of Preparing a 1991 Scamp, amazing to me and hopefully we helped some people.

Sometimes in life you fall in love, often it may not be a perfect love, but like most of life it's what you do with what you have.

I can honestly say we love our Scamp. It's provide a home for us all over the country in all kinds of weather. Just amazing all the joy that really little space provided us.

It's now 24 years old, amazing all alone. I know many new people are hesitant to purchase a used trailer, we have no regrets. It doesn't have every bell and whistle, but it's been everywhere and delivered us each time.

I really can't imagine life without our Scamp. It's funny there are many lovely trailers out there, lovelier and more modern than ours, yet our eyes never turn to them with desire. We have a love.

[biw314]

Norm,

FWIW, As I was preparing my Scamp for a trip I noticed my battery was dead. Long story short, my panel has failed. It is a 30 W flexible panel I installed with VHB tape. I purchased in June 2012 from Sunflexsolarhk.com which seems to have disappeared. It has been exposed to the elements day and night since installation. Once I deduced that indeed the panel was the problem I immediately started thinking about heat - the panel was too hot to touch - and I started searching for answers. That led me here. Now I am very concerned that the very sleek and easy VHB installation is shortening the life of these panels.

-Bill

[gordon2]

Originally Posted by biw314

... I purchased in June 2012 from Sunflexsolarhk.com which seems to have disappeared...

Did you buy that panel from THIS Honk Kong company?

[honda03842]

Originally Posted by biw314

Norm,

FWIW, As I was preparing my Scamp for a trip I noticed my battery was dead. Long story short, my panel has failed. It is a 30 W flexible panel I installed with VHB tape. I purchased in June 2012 from Sunflexsolarhk.com which seems to have disappeared. It has been exposed to the elements day and night since installation. Once I deduced that indeed the panel was the problem I immediately started thinking about heat - the panel was too hot to touch - and I started searching for answers. That led me here. Now I am very concerned that the very sleek and easy VHB installation is shortening the life of these panels.

-Bill

Bill and Gordon,

I don't know why my panel failed. I put a virtually identical panel on my son's Scamp shortly after I installed mine, he's had no problems. I don't know why yours or mine failed. I still have my failed panels and this winter may attempt to figure it out.

Here's my most recent purchase.

Semi Flexible Bendable 100W 100 Watt Lightweight Solar Panel 12V Battery Offgrid | eBay

My only comment is that it came with connectors on the wires but no companion connectors. Other suppliers on ebay provide connectors.

It may be temperature but mine have spent time all over the place without a problem until suddenly....

[RogerDat]

A solar panel is made up of many individual cells, seems like the list of places it could break down and have total failure would be pretty short.

Degradation and Failure Modes | PVEducation

Not my field of expertise but place a short or corrosion can take out the whole panel do not seem plentiful. Both of you are describing total catastrophic failure. Worked then don't work. Might look at the wire attachment point(s) wire does vibrate and I have known small break to not be visible until I tracked it down with meter. Then it was all of a sudden visible. Weird how that works.

[honda03842]

Roger,

What was most surprising is I have two identical panels and they both failed at the same time or nearly so.

[honda03842]

For years now I've used a wireless camera in the rear window of the Scamp in place of extended side mirrors (though I still carry the mirrors in an under Scamp storage compartment).

The camera does the job. I can see people in the cone of blindness behind the trailer and people who are in a sometimes mirror blindspot appear on the display when at the outside corners of the trailer. I see them but the display is not nearly as good as the Odyssey's display.

A member of this forum suggested an alternative. Amazon sells a little wireless hotspot that plugs into your camera and can transmit to an android or apple de ice. You get to use something you have with the benefit of a really good display. I haven't tried it but I did buy one that will be here Monday in time for our Maine trip.


http://www.amazon.com/SunroadWay%C2%...cm_wl_huc_item

[honda03842]

I received the wifi hotspot for our trailer's back up camera today mentioned in the previous post. Honestly I was able to hook it to my camera in less than a minute.

All I had to do was plug in the cables into the camera.

I had already down loaded the suggested app available for Android phones, I phones and Ipads but not Chromebooks.

I selected the WIfi Avin Wifi signal and it appeared immediately on my phone. In addition to seeing the camera's output you can record a video of what the camera sees or take a snapshot. Like other images you can zoom in on the image. I did not make a side by side comparison of the image but my phone image looks clearer than the display I added to the car.

I'm actually very pleased.

[honda03842]

we've loaded our trailer for it's trip south. I don't know the weight of the trailer yet, but will by the end of the week. I do know it's the heaviest it's ever been because we've sold our home in NH and have the trailer loaded with stuff.

Ginny says we've managed to condense our 50 years to 4 plastic bins of stuff. Close but not the truth, There's a lot of this and that stuffed every where. We've reverted to a full time bed for the trip to FL, storing a fair amount under the bed dinette, heavy stuff like our emergency food supply.

I weighed the tongue and it only weighs about 5 pounds more than normal, 205 pounds.

Later in the week we'll be taking the trailer to the transfer station and to get the axle weight.

We'll be as loaded as we have ever been and will be driving slower than normal but no dilly dallying expecting to get to FL in a week.

[cpaharley2008]

Have a safe trip, N&G......

[honda03842]

Thanks Jim. We're going to take it easy as to speed, but will drive more hours than normal.

[David B.]

Exciting new chapter opening in your lives. Will you two be coming out to the south west this year.? We would love to see you guys again.
Dave & Paula

[honda03842]

Originally Posted by David B.

Exciting new chapter opening in your lives. Will you two be coming out to the south west this year.? We would love to see you guys again.
Dave & Paula

We should be heading west to see our first Great grandchild but with this springs Newfoundland Caravan I need to get busy organizing the details with Scouter Dave. We haven't formalized plans but some time after the caravan I think we'll leave early from New England next year, head west and than south thru the southwest. We'd love to see you guys again and your always welcome at our place for any amount of time. You can camp in our Escapee park for a week as friends or stay in our place for longer.

I see our FL purchase is going to require a change in our travels, more spring, summer and fall. We've just begun discussing it.

[David B.]

Yes, we also travel to cooler places sping/summer/fall.
Dave & Paula

[honda03842]

I haven't done much significant to our Scamp in years. Yesterday while sitting out a rain storm in Newfoundland I decided to make a list of things to update/improve in our Scamp this fall. Amazingly in a relatively short time we had a list that was 3 pages long.

Many are simple and easy things, others more significant though nothing is an attribute that we can't live without.

When we sold our NH home some 4 years ago it was obvious that there's much you don't do after a long time living in the same home.. Faults you just live with because simply they are livable.

The reality is that the Scamp meets our needs but it's also true it could better meet our needs and that's the plan. I plan to do the little and big things that make it a better solution for us.

As i do these things I'll post them here. Our Scamp is now 27 years old, I'll be 76 by the time I start. I'm sure this will be my last rebuild. I suspect it will be fun.

[Andrew Morris]

Originally Posted by honda03842

I haven't done much significant to our Scamp in years. Yesterday while sitting out a rain storm in Newfoundland I decided to make a list of things to update/improve in our Scamp this fall. Amazingly in a relatively short time we had a list that was 3 pages long.

Many are simple and easy things, others more significant though nothing is an attribute that we can't live without.

When we sold our NH home some 4 years ago it was obvious that there's much you don't do after a long time living in the same home.. Faults you just live with because simply they are livable.

The reality is that the Scamp meets our needs but it's also true it could better meet our needs and that's the plan. I plan to do the little and big things that make it a better solution for us.

As i do these things I'll post them here. Our Scamp is now 27 years old, I'll be 76 by the time I start. I'm sure this will be my last rebuild. I suspect it will be fun.

Have fun with your rebuild Norm - your past modifications have been an inspiration to me and my wife and we have emulated many of those in our own Samp 16.

I'm sure I speak for many here on the forum when I say that I look forward to reading your upcoming posts.

Enjoy Newfoundland!

[Scamper Jim]

Yup, that happens when someone has time on their hands, reads posts of modifications that have been done by others, and maybe even digs out yee olde tape measure.

Like they say, “The most expensive tool you can get your wife is a tape measure”. All kinds of ideas come to mind when they start measuring things!

For what it's worth, when I did larger projects, I didn't tear everything apart when starting, but rather did them as separate smaller projects. That way you can make some improvements and then still hit the road to get in some camping without having to put it off for months on end and the project just sitting there mocking you for not finishing it.

Have fun,
Jim