Two Potter Around Northern France

[DBK]

Thank you! I was in a hurry and didn't check. Took some photos of it too but didn't have time to upload those either. I may do it later for completeness. Back home now and unpacking.

Loved following your trip, particularly as you take time out to visit the various megalithic sites on your travels. Apologies for being pedantic, however, the menhirs you mention above is most likely Uzec not Uzes, only mention it because I know how thorough you like to be.

 

[Podney]

Thanks for a great blog Mr DBK........your reports and pics are always a great read.

 

[Devon Sue]

Welcome home to a wet and windy Plymouth. I look forward to your next trip.

 

[DavidG58]

Thank you ?

a load more places added to the options for future trips

really appreciate the time you take to write up your trips

 

[Wagoneer]

Many thanks John for a very interesting and enjoyable blog.

You touched on your 12v power usage in post #161. It seems your recently installed B2B has come up trumps compared with the power issues you had during your previous Autumn trip. And the weather has been less kind to you this time around. Perhaps you could comment on the post-installation performance as an add-on to your original B2B installation thread. I'm thinking of adding B2B.

But I'll let you unpack first, sorting the mail and stocking up with supplies

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[DBK]

Many thanks John for a very interesting and enjoyable blog.

You touched on your 12v power usage in post #161. It seems your recently installed B2B has come up trumps compared with the power issues you had during your previous Autumn trip. And the weather has been less kind to you this time around. Perhaps you could comment on the post-installation performance as an add-on to your original B2B installation thread. I'm thinking of adding B2B.

But I'll let you unpack first, sorting the mail and stocking up with supplies

Yes, the B2B has worked very well, especially in the last week or so when we used several aires without electricity and didn't drive very far between them. Typically the batteries would be showing about 70% capacity just before we drove off in the morning. This is on a total of 180Ah capacity so we had used in round numbers about 60Ah of power.

Our experience was an hour of driving was more than enough to replenition the batteries and even thirty minutes had them looking much more healthy.

The caveat is the NASA battery monitor needs time to work out the battery state and it only does this if there are no heavy currents flowing in or out. For example, after the hair dryer is used in the morning the battery state usually drops to 60% but within a very short time the meter shows it has recovered to 70%. Then when we are driving the battery state may say 80% when we arrive but within a few minutes it is saying 100%. I suspect the meter needs to see what the battery voltage is at rest. It also calculates the state from the knowledge of the battery capacity and measuring the current going in and out but this is only an approximation as it can only estimate how much of a charge going in is converted into stored energy so it improves on the estimate when things have settled down. The batteries also recover through a chemical process of course.

Ours is a 60A B2B which for 180Ah of battery is probably too much but I'm not going to change it and will wait to see how long the batteries last. The B2B is out of easy access but it does get hot as I can hear the fan on it running away when we stop but the cables running to it didn't get hot or even warm when it was running at full tilt which was reassuring and no sound of fizzing batteries either but we probably wouldn't hear those.

In summary, I'm very pleased with the B2B and I must copy this post into my B2B thread for completeness. Thanks for your question.