Making connections with RV electricity expert Mike Sokol
My plug melted - why didn’t my surge suppressor stop this? What can I do to help eliminate electrical issues in my RV? What should you do if the power cord for your RV is damaged?
On this week’s StressLess Camping RV podcast RV electricity expert Mike Sokol talks about some very simple things that every RVer should do to keep all those electrical connections working safely and at their peak.
Other places to hear the podcast
Mentioned on this episode
The best way to maintain and clean the connections on your RV is with Caig Labs DN5S-2N Dioxin D5 contact cleaner
Make sure that, if you have a 30 amp RV, you twist the connector on the power cord and then turn the collar to secure the connection.
If your cord is damaged in some way one good option is to upgrade those connectors with the Smart Plug
RV Smart Plug
Are all 50 amp connectors built the same way - Mike Sokol’s article on why your 50 amp connector might be dangerous
Our article and graph with RV electricity basics and what you need to know about RV electricity in many RVs.
This also ties in to our article is it safe to use an electric space heater in an RV.
More with Mike Sokol
Our podcast - Changing opportunities with Mike Sokol - new opportunities in the RV space
Our podcast episode with Mike Sokol about electric RVs - are they for real or fantasy?
Mike’s article: Cooking a hot dog with 120 volts in 60 seconds
Some of the places I mentioned in my favorite places to eat were mentioned in this article about things to do in New Orleans.
Join our weekly email family for more tips, tricks, articles, hints and hacks.
StressLess Camping podcast group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/StressLessPodcast/
If you’re confused about solar, battery power or just want to upgrade your RV we have found the solutions from ABC Upfitters are both reliable and exceptional.
We have a podcast episode and video where you can learn more here.
Our trusted partners - RV Discounts and Deals
Automated transcript of StressLess Camping RV podcast episode 210
Welcome to the weekly podcast, all about turning the great American RV adventure into Stressless camping. Each week we explore tips, tricks, ideas, and destinations, and talk to the happiest campers in the RV world. Pull up a seat at the campfire as we enjoy some stress less camping.
Welcome to the Campfire.
I'm Tony.
I'm
Peggy. And we are two RV industry veterans who travel part-time in
A small trailer
Looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips, tricks and discounts.
Si. I'm not really here. Wait.
What?
Well, you know, my mom and sister and niece are gone to Pagosa Springs and invited me, so I was outta here.
Wait a minute. You're right. I don't, I don't see what, well, what am I gonna do? I,
I don't know. You'll figure something out.
Well, I need to find somebody to be my partner in crime. We are being saved by the one and only Mike Soko, who is back again with, with, I shouldn't say us because it's just you and I. We are unsupervised, no
Adults in the room.
Ah, that's <laugh>, that's for sure. <laugh>. Oh, man. Well, welcome back Mike. We are gonna talk about making connections, starting things out. I, I've been seeing a lot of people make, trying to make connections in putting solar systems and batteries in their rvsv and running up against headaches.
Yeah, there, there's, there's quite a few things that can go wrong with that. Um, the thing that amazes me is that somebody that doesn't know how to run a meter or understand what volts or amps are, think that they're just gonna slap some solar panels on the roof and just plug it in and it's gonna work. Yeah. That So I can tell you at least one thing that I know does not work because of a improper connection. What's many of these RVs that you could get, that you can get now had like, what is it, a amp connector on the outside and it says solar ready?
Yeah. So if you go look on the inside, there is no solar charge controller. There's just a wire hanging there. And what these guys have done is just hooked it onto their battery, plugged in some solar panels, and it will charge successfully in many cases, but there's no way for it to limit the current if you're, when your batteries read full charge. I had one guy boil out his, um, oh, lead acid batteries about two weeks.
Oh boy. That, that
Doesn't, cause he didn't understand it. Well, there wires there, they thought it was solar ready. And actually, I, what they really mean is you're ready to spend more money on some sort of a, of a charge controller. So don't do that.
That's why we have just been advocating people. If you're solar curious or you're looking to upgrade your system, or you wanna figure out what batteries and what solar system and all of that, we just really like ABC Upfitters. And so I always recommend you give Scott and his crew a call and they can walk you through, answer your questions and, and get you dialed in. They did a really neat van install last week that they shared pictures of. And I was, I was really impressed how they hid these really high performance systems.
Uh, they use all master vault components and you know, that's from the marine industry. So when you're out on the ocean, there's a pretty low tolerance for failure <laugh>. So it's good stuff, right? And, and we always recommend that you call ABC upfitters and just ask questions that that's what it's all about,
Right? And marine grade stuff is just so far superior than some of the consumer stuff. So we all, we have a saying in the, in the pro sound industry and lost a lot of other industries. You say buy once, cry once.
Oh yeah. Get it done.
Buy the best thing you can possibly afford. If the most expensive tool is a cheap tool, cuz you have to keep buying it over and over again in the same way with, with a solar install,
That's really a good analogy. The most expensive tool is the cheapest one.
The cheap, a cheap tool, right? The most expensive tool is cheap, is the cheapest tool in the long run. A cheap tool you'll be replacing all the time. But if you wanna keep this stuff, you buy the best grade that you can get. And you know, a lot of people just say that, um, I'm just trying to get you to spend more money and I'm not, I'm trying to get you to spend less money and have less breakdowns
And enjoy Stressless camping
And enjoy Stressless camping.
Well, that's what we're talking about this week is making connections,
Son of a gun. How that was just a random, random
Thing. I think you have ESPN <laugh> or something like that. Well, I used
To do sound for espn, so there you go. <laugh>.
There you go. So Mike, if you don't know, is the RV electricity guru, everybody who thinks electricity and RVs tends to turn to Mike because he just has years of experience and really understands these systems. And so I thought I would, I have Mike on this week because I've seen a lot of people lately with melted plugs.
Oh yes. Why? Well, okay, so here, so there's, there's a, there's a couple different reasons for this. A couple possibilities. First off, if you look at a 30 amp plug plug that you would have on the side of your rv, everybody thinks that that's can draw a whole lot of current, but in reality, it's only 50% more than your wall outlet in your house. So in, uh, your wall outlet, it's about 2,400 watts worth of power. So, uh, that would be your 20 amps times 120 volts.
It's 2,400. Your 30 amp is still 120 volts. So it's uh, 30 amps times 120 volts. It's 3,600 watts. So now you're gonna be tending to run up to that, the edge of that a lot closer. So everything has to be perfect for it to work. Now, one of the biggest fails that I've seen is on the twist lock side, the L connector, you know, that goes into the side of your rv.
Some RV newbies, maybe old, old, old bes newbies, old bes, um, they, they don't aren't realize that the name, the name of this tells you what you've gotta do. You push it in, you've gotta twist it to lock it. If you don't twist it to lock it that extra eighth of an inch, it doesn't make full connection. And if you don't have full connection, it tends to overheat and melt down. And then the second part of it is the locking ring on the outside has got to be spun on to snug this up. Because if you don't do that, the cable is heavy and it kind of pulls the thing sideways and it distorts the contacts.
Makes less connection and overheats and melts down.
Yeah. Which is super bad. That could cause steers.
Oh, oh, it does. It does. And then the third thing is, those really should be cleaned occasionally. I, I think at least once a season. And, and, and some people, you know, when tho those poor shore power cords, they live a sad life. You know, they're out in the weather all the time. And especially if you don't have that locking ring on there, that's the only thing that's trying to keep water out of there. Now they're not completely waterproof. They're, you know, water, you know, water tight, they're waterproof. Um, but I highly recommend a product's called de oxit, D e o X I t D O.
It right now it's not cheap, but a little can, it's like 15 bucks. But you want the D five as in, um, dumb five. Can I say that? Whatever. I
Guess. So
Dumb five, right? D five. And that is because there's all versions of, of, um, this, these cleaners. One is, they have the f version has a big lubricant in it. It's for mix, it's faders on mixing boards, right? Oh. And then the, the G one has gold plating in it and it's for the gold plated contacts. Now I use de oxid on million dollar mixing consoles. And when I say something as a million dollars, I am not exaggerating in any way, shape or form. That's what these big consoles cost. I'm not gonna use anything that's gonna harm 'em. That really is the best stuff on the planet.
It just, it only takes a little spritz, just a, you don't have to soak it, you just spritz it in the same way. I think over on the other campsite side, when you're plugging in into that 30 app connector, that thing's probably worn out. A lot of people have been there before you and they've probably disconnected it under power. And when you do that, it makes big arcs. You've seen that, I'm sure.
Oh yeah, I've, I have. Well here's how we do it. Well, I don't even back into the campsite. I take my Hughes power watchdog and plug it in, turn on the power. And if I get the white dog, I back in. If I don't get the white dog, which the white dog means everything is cool. Okey the red dog means something's not right. Correct. And it'll tell you. So then if I get the white dog, I back in, turn off the power again. Plug everything in and then turn the power back on. That's
Correct. And what this does is it saves you an awful lot of frustration because I've seen people, what they do, they cut, they pull their up their rig up to the campsite, they go back this thing in the husband and wife are having a rather vociferous discussion. <laugh>. Yeah. And I've, I've seen some of the most petite little wives with the most foul sailor mouths that I've ever heard screaming back and forth to the husband about this way. I didn't say this way, I meant the other way. And the husband's screaming at her and I'm going, God, there's gonna be a divorce. Yeah, divorce right here, back in that trailer in, and then what you'll do is you'll level it out and then you'll hook up the water and then you'll get the awning guy out and then the, you know, all of a sudden, oh, now we gotta hook up the power.
And you're already invested into this thing. Best to know what your problem is right up front. And you can decide if you want to accept this or not. You can get the campground, uh, maintenance guy to replace a loose receptacle on it. Cuz that's one of the biggest problems. Those things get so loose. If that 30 amp thing doesn't go in firmly, it's gonna overheat and melt down your plug.
Yeah. And that's, that's what I've seen quite a bit on photos in various Facebook groups is where the, that plug is plugged in. So you have the surge suppressor and then you have the cord to your trailer, rv, whatever, right? And it's just melted. And people go, oh, my surge suppressor didn't work.
That's not true. It doesn't detect that. It doesn't know. Now there were, there was a brand of these, um, that actually did have a thermal couple that was built into the plug that would sense an overheated connection and shut down. But apparently there's so many problems with that. They, they took that out of the manufacturing requirements. But it, you know, if, if it doesn't go in there tight, just going in and, you know, I've had people, they, they put a piece of foam rubber on it and rubber band the the box clothes.
That doesn't help it. It's not that it's gonna fall out. It's that the, the clamping arrangement inside is not making a tight connection. And so that's the number one. Cause I think of that type of connection, failure along with those things should be spritzed occasionally as well with dioxide. In fact, I think it's doing your a campsite a good deal to go in and just spritz a little bit of that inside of each slot before you plug in. Some people worry that it's gonna blow up. The stuff is not, doesn't appear to be ignitable. It's, it doesn't appear to be that you're gonna get shocked off of it.
I would just simply turn off the breaker, spritz, spritz, spritz. Give it 30 seconds to dry if it feels good when you plug in, turn on the power.
Well, and the nice thing is, uh, it's such a small, I have that, in fact, I bought it at Quartzite. Yeah. And, uh, I have a bottle of that and it's such a small little bottle that it, it's perfect for an RV toolbox, right? It doesn't take a lot of space.
It doesn't take a lot of space. You know, uh, a a a little five ounce thing of that will last you probably for years. Now take it from a guy, when I was younger in the eighties, one of my job was completing com cleaning. We built and, you know, built and calibrated components for nuclear guidance systems. And the cleaning of all of these leads was super duper important. So now, you know, I look at and, and I made up some really, really heavy duty cleaners that would kill you if you breathed it. Um, dioxide does the same sort of thing without being deadly.
You don't wanna just use ScotchBrite on 'em or anything. I mean, you can, if it's really, really bad, but you're just scraping off more stuff. Far better to have a regular regimen, a little spritz of dioxide, and you can actually watch the, the crud will dissolve off of it. It's pretty amazing.
It also really makes it easy to plug. But more importantly, unplug. Right.
It's a lubricant as well mean sometimes
It takes a, a bunch of Poland to get those darn plugs out. Yeah. That dioxin is just a simple, it's a small little device. It's the right simple. Just does the job stuff.
It really is the right stuff.
Since we've covered the 30 amp, any tips for the 50 amp connectors?
Yeah. Okay. So if you don't have a molded one, um, I've seen a lot of 'em. The screws inside, uh, tend to loosen up after a while. And so the ideal thing to use, uh, and we can't see it through the wonders of audio, but I use a toque limiting screwdrivers to go in there and torque them down. You don't wanna torque them too hard. Um, I've got a pretty expensive one. It's a commercial duty here in my shop. But you can get ones for, um, like gunsmiths have these little kits that you can get online for like 40 bucks, 50 bucks and look it up.
There'll generally be something on the order of 20 to 25 inch pounds. Notice I didn't say foot pounds. Right. Inch out inch pounds of tork. Right. Um, and while you're at it, you, you should be also checking things like your, um, this terminating screws in your, your circuit board pan, your circuit panel.
Now interestingly at the Airstream rally that I was out, out, just out in Wyoming, they were talking about one woman needed to have power for her, I guess oxygen generating machine or whatever that she was using. And they said the power went off in the RV and apparently they had to call in ambulance. Um, do you know a bunch of, um, stuff to keep her alive while they went and figured out what was going on in the rv? Oh boy. And, you know, and the guy came after the class and he said, you were talking about loose screws and transfer switches.
Guess what it was? Oh, a loose screw in the transfer switch. And sadly this woman was in very bad shape because of a loose screw. And I would say, see guys, you tighten those screws, but just don't tighten them arbitrarily because if you do, then you can cause more damage and it's easy to break things, especially on transfer switches.
So on. Um, now what, one of the things that I've threatened to do, which would be a lot of fun, I'm actually building a high amage current tester. So I can just use, um, it's a, it's a 12 to one step down with, uh, a transformer that's rated, I think for a 160 amps of current. Wow. That's so I can, I can take, I basically can burn up anything with this <laugh>. And so, so part of what I wanted to do was go get a variety of plugs. Sometimes the molded plugs are not built very well to begin with, you know, from the factory.
And I was gonna put things in, into this run 30, 40 or a hundred amps, whatever I want of current through this. And then I also have a rather high-end FLIR camera, one of those infrared cameras, uhhuh <affirmative> that I could, you could actually look inside of the thing without taking it apart to see where the high temperature points are.
Huh. That would, that would really be interesting. Yeah. Wouldn't
That be as interesting as all get out Now, uh, here's, let's do a, a slight segue to an article that I just published yesterday, I think in my sub stack blog. And this was on, not all 50 amp outlets are created equal. There is a $8 leviton, um, outlet that you can buy 50 amp outlets that you can buy from Lowe's. And the contacts are not full width in it. Interesting. Don't like 50% of the width and what people are burning 'em up, they're putting 'em in for like Tesla chargers for, you know, their level two chargers.
And these things are melding down. They, and, and they, and they, they said some, somebody said, well those are light duty 50 amp receptacles. And if you're gonna be doing stuff like charging an ev, you need a heavy duty 50 amp receptacle. I just kind of thought all 50 amp receptacles were the same. But, uh, apparently they are not.
And and if you're an RV park and you're putting in a hundred of these pedestals, two bucks a piece makes a difference.
Do you, you can get one that looks at be perfectly fine for 10 bucks When we do rock and roll shows, guess what? We use Hubble connectors, they're 68 bucks.
Ah man. That's
Serious money. So now if I'm, and you guys know, you know, I did shows for everybody. I mean I did stuff for, you know, black Sabbath and Beyonce and Oprah and the president. You, well
Then Jimmy Buffett.
Jimmy Buffett, I've done Jimmy Buffett half a dozen times, man, he is a trip. But you know, so in that case, if I were to use the $8 connector and that show was shut down because that thing melted it down, which it could do, do you think I would be doing any more shows? No. Probably no man, it wouldn wouldn't hire me cuz you got that idiot burned us down. Right. <laugh>. Whereas if I'm using the absolute top grade stuff and something happens, they can look and they say, well it can't be his fault. He used all the best stuff. Right. So I'm not telling you you gotta pay the $68 for the Hubble connector, but I I I show some of the different ones in that, uh, you know, that's the eight to 10 to $12 ones.
Um, and Scott, you gotta remember, um, again, those things lead a tough life. They're outside right in the weather. Um, and no, I saw one a couple years ago after a big flood. The campground just waited for everything to dry out and just turned the power back on. They didn't replace any of the breakers. They didn't replace any of the outlets. They were under eight feet of water for days. Oh boy. I said, well they're all dried out now. And I went, oh,
And, and something I think a lot of people don't realize, uh, a 50 amp RV doesn't just have 20 more amps of power than a 30 amp rv.
It's got 70 amps more.
Yeah. Which may not sound like it makes sense, but,
And and here's why. Because you have two hot legs, what you would call line one and line two or Hot one and hot two. Each one is good for 50 amps at 120 volts. So when you add 'em together, it is indeed capable of a hundred ampers at 120 volts. And we do a little arithmetic on our fingers that is 12,000 watts. 12,000 watts of power. Cuz that's really what counts is the amount of power that you have. So you can see that going from a 30 to a 50 is not just 20 amps more of juice.
It's like 70 amps more of juice. Right.
And you might be able to run your hairdryer and coffee maker at the same time. Oh
Yeah. Yeah. You can, you can do a whole heck of a lot with on a 50 amp thing. But I have some RVs, some big coaches, they want, they want two connections, you know, cuz they want to be able to run their electric, uh, clothes dryer plus, you know, uh, you know, four air conditioners on the roof. I mean four literally. I mean, on and on and on. I'm like looking at all of this, I mean, oh brother, this is a lot of juice. You can do this, but you gotta pay the price.
Yeah. You'd have to have two campsites. Right. I mean, that's
What they want. That's what they want. So, or they'll put like a 12, um, thousand watt generator or 16,000 if they're 16 k w generator, you know, in the coach. I mean, we're talking about massive huge things. Uh, somebody else is paying the fuel bill. So, uh, again, uh, you can do this, but it's for people with big budgets.
Yeah. I in fact, over the weekend, uh, well when we were in Santa Fe last week, I was at the Santa Fe Brewery and boy I had some good beers, but I also saw a band tour bus with five air conditioners. That is a first for me. I've never seen a seen five. Yeah. I was thinking, what do they like, have a meat locker in that darn thing?
Well, you know, yeah. It, it, it, it's pretty crazy. But you know, I, I see these guys, they, they, they have these tour buses. They paint 'em black. Oh, the black black thing. You know, I just had a rental car, um, out there in Salt Lake City when I went to, you know, when I flew into Salt Lake City, they gave me a black suv. You know, I'm parked out in the middle of the desert there in Wyoming. And you know, you come out to that car after it's been there soaking in the sun for six or eight hours. Oh. You can't hardly touch the car and you get inside it must be 140 degrees in there.
I mean, it feels like it's gonna sear your lungs. So it's like, you know, white stuff, far better, far better. Right. But yet black tour buses look really cool. So you need more air conditioners to get rid of it. Uh, you know, I I tend to be more result driven by, you know, the design parameters. I'm trying to get something that's, that doesn't soak up as much sun.
Yeah. It's just, it makes sense. Basically,
Sunlight is something on the order of what? A thousand watts per square meter. Huh.
And so that's like
Having, yeah, it's like having a thousand watts space heater for every three. What? Three and a half by three and a half foot you've exposed 10 square. Yeah. 10 square feet or so. 11 square feet of black is another, it's like having a, um, a space heater in there. Yeah. For each, each
Section. A big space heater.
Big space heater
Back to the cords. Let's say you, because as you said, those poor pedestals lead a tough life I've seen where people pull away and have forgotten to unplug. Oh gosh. And they just,
I don't wanna laugh, but I laugh. I just do.
If you do manage to damage the cord and it's one of those where it's molded ends, is it better to just replace the whole cord or just fix the cord?
You know, the thing to do is I would fix the cord, but you know what I would do? Cuz I've been exp I've been experimenting with this a lot. If, if I damaged the cord on the side of the rv, I'm just putting in a smart plug. I'm just,
That's funny. You must be looking at my notes <laugh>.
Yeah. That's in the notes. And I, and I gotta tell you. So now they hired me to do a little experiment. This is slightly off the record, but it's okay cuz I, they, they've actually put it in their ads. So I actually did an experiment and I built a system that would let me cycle the inserts and pullouts on a smart plug. I ran it for 50,000 cycles in and out every, and it was in and out every five seconds. Um, with no degradation, no visible degradation, no electrical degradation after 50,000 strokes, 50,000.
Wow. Now if you do the little arithmetic, I think that works out though, like 291 years of camping where you're plugging and unplugging once a day, and I think
That's on the same rv. I can't imagine an rv that plug is gonna outlast the rv. It
Does. You could pass it down, put it into your will, pass it down to your children and your grandchildren. The stuff it, it is, it is the most incredibly tough unit. Now remember the l the l um, you know, L five dash thirties and that the, the locking ones really, they came from the 1930s or 1940s. They were really for overhead power distribution in sewing factories. So you would reach up to the, the, the, the little, uh, trough above you plug in your sewing machine and twist it to lock it.
They were never really designed to be outside. They were never really designed to be on the side of, um, you know, horizontal on, on a vertical surface. But yet Nema they, they, they allowed them and they said, sure, they're gonna be fine. And they are fine if you do everything exactly right. If they're clean, you twist them to lock 'em.
You always put the locking ring on it. I had one guy burn up his whole thing because he didn't put the locking ring on it and he didn't twist the lock a 50 amp. And what it did was allowed the neutral to open up and burned up a whole pile of stuff inside of his rv. Oh. And, and luckily his son was an electrical engineer and so I, I was able to talk him through some tests and that's what we determined what was going on. And I said, and I told the guy, I said, how come, you know, you don't lock it down? He goes, well, nobody told me, you know, blah blah, blah. And I said, how come you don't put the locking ring on it? He goes, well that takes too much time.
Like the one that we got on our latest trailer. It's super fiddly. It's it is,
It always is.
The plastics they used, uh, are just, you know, you're, you're,
You need a smart plug. Don't you know anybody a smart plug?
I think I do.
You need a smart plug. I gotta tell you, you click that puppy in, there's no way you can put it in wrong. There's no way it can be put in halfway. There's no way that you can forget to put on a locking ring. And the thing is built to marine grade specifications. Again, buy once, cry once, it will last forever.
Our friends at techno RV have them and uh, yes, we have a discount to the Yeah,
Well there you,
You go. So there you go.
No, I highly recommend those. They make 'em both 30 and 50 fest. In fact, I gave away three of 'em, uh, in process of giving away three of them at the Airstream, uh, international rally that I was just at. And so one of the things I think that both you and I are going to be at the Frog rally here before Long Reach. We
Are,
I've been talking to the guys that provided free giveaways for, um, for my Airstream rally. And it was so successful that they said they would consider supplying free giveaways for Frog for the, that's another guys you don't know Forest River owners group.
Correct. Yeah. And um, also the people at ABC Upfitters are offering a discount if you come in around frog. So yeah, lots of, and plus at six o'clock there's gonna be the Mike and Tony show. Or wait, what are we calling it? The six o'clock six pack?
Six six. Six o'clock wrap.
Six o'clock. Oh gosh. How could I forget that?
How And we're gonna dress up like rappers.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So every day
My, my bass ba baseball cap on backwards, you know, and I'm gonna have, oh man, the wrap around sunglasses. Lots of gold chains
With dollar signs.
Yeah. That the big money sign. Um, yeah. I gotta do something. I have a big meter hanging in the middle of my chest. That's what I gotta do. <laugh>. Now you guys gotta know, I've, ive, I've actually done sound for wrappers before. It is pretty funny cuz some of them are like the nicest guys when you're talking to a backstage and they get out on stage and they act like real jerks. But I assure you Tony and I are just jerks the whole time. There is no absolutely involved.
Yeah. So don't miss our, uh, six o'clock wrap every day and it'll be on several feeds. We'll, we'll let you know where, but Right. Likely on our Facebook account and I'm sure you'll Yeah,
Whatever we can, whatever we can wrangle. I almost said, man, whatever we can mangle <laugh>, they're both
Correct.
We will, we are both correct. And we will do that. And basically it's a wrap up of stuff we saw during the day and interesting things. And if we could do giveaways, like I said, we'll, we'll do giveaways during that. What we'll probably have is some QR code you walk up and just click on it with a phone and enter your basic information. And then we, if that all works, this plan, we'll be able to do a live drawing right in the middle of six o'clock wrap.
And we'll also have probably guests, uh, people who are speakers or vendors. Right. Or Frog Bob, I talked to him yesterday. He'll be on.
Yeah, we'll get 'em on there and then we can ask him about an anything, you know, you can actually send in your questions during the day and then we'll put them put, put their feet to the fire and say, Bob Frog Bob, is that really your name? Is your first name Frog Really?
It it is. It it, I I asked him yesterday,
He loves it. He called me Frog Bob. I'm like,
Well, he has a frog on his golf cart.
So he has a frog on his golf cart. He's, he's a great guy. Um, and, uh, yeah, I I love that rally out there. That's just so much fun. I'm gonna be teaching at least three or four classes, um, on my rv, electricity stuff. And, um, and, and oh, I'm gonna be, we're gonna also be doing some live hotdog, um, cooking events and a few other fun things also with electricity. Just
Quick wrap. Um, the Frog rally is August 13th through the 19th in, uh, Elkhart, Indiana. And so if you're able to be there, we'd love to see,
See No, in fact, no, no, no. It's in Goshen. It's in Goshen. Oh, right at the Elkhart Campground.
That always confuses me.
It confuses the heck outta me too. So it's in Goshen, Indiana, which is right next to door to Elkhart, Indiana, but it's the Elkhart four H campground in Goshen, Indiana.
Wow. And and we will, one day we will have those Amish cracked Donut.
Yes. Yeah. Oh no, that's, that's it's, it's some fun, it's some fun stuff out there. But yeah, I'll be teaching stuff. Tony will be teaching some stuff. We'll be, um, having, and like I said, we're gonna try to, to do either with starlink or cellular or Heaven only knows Carrier Pigeon. We're going, going to be doing some sort of wrap at the end of the day around six o'clock. Hence six o'clock wrap.
There you go. Well, you had started to talk about hot dogs and you did a story recently about your vintage Presto hotdog cooker.
Yeah. I, I bought a hotdogger, um, just because I remember doing this when I was a kid, you know, in the Cub Scouts, like back in the sixties. Um, and you could still find, you know, new old stock of this stuff and it puts, you put half a dozen hot dogs in them and they're, and it, and it cooks 'em like in 60 seconds. Now what I also did was I actually ran this off of a south wire, what Elite 1100 solar power station, and it was able to drive and do the hotdog.
I've got videos and pictures of me doing that. And that actually worked really quite great. Now, what I need is somebody that knows how to make chili, because if I could have a little chili on my hot dogs, oh, Tony, are you the chili man?
I have never lost a chili. Cookoff.
See, we, and you know, if we do this, we could actually be handing out electrocuted hotdog to the kids. <laugh>.
Yeah. That <laugh>.
What do you, what do you think?
I think that would be a good idea.
Now, I also had another sponsor offer. If I would get a wine slushy maker that I could run off of solar <laugh>, they would buy all the cheap wine and slushy stuff that we wanted. And, and, and again, you know, this is a, you know, look, if, if you're gonna have to rough it out in the woods, being able to have a wine slushy, I think is a good thing. It truly. Sure. And, and so I, you know, I'm like, I I I I can do some wacky things with this. That would be really kind of fun.
I may also bring along, cause I'm, I'm just, I'm, I'm thinking about doing a story on, uh, swamp coolers. That there's evaporative coolers. It looks like a kind of a tower. Um, yeah. And they said they work great outside. So Tony and I could actually have a solar powered evaporative cooler blowing cool air on us while we're drinking wine slushies, <laugh>, and eating hot dogs
And eating electrocuted hot dogs
Hotdog. And, and I don't make any of this up. I'm telling you, we could do this and you could do this. You could do th so emulate Tony and me. Um, maybe
Don't yet. Oh, maybe, maybe not, but
Well, maybe not, but maybe not. But you know what I mean, what I try, what I try to do is push the limits of every technology that I've got to see what you can and cannot do with that. In fact, I think we're gonna run our entire podcast and everything that we're doing all off of solar, right? Yeah.
It'll be a solar podcast, power podcast drives from
Your podcast master system. Yeah. Yep.
It'll be Solar power podcast. So that, that should be interesting. And we could electrocute hotdog, electro that
Hotdog while we're doing it. Um, yeah. All, all of the above. That is the plan and it'll all be connected together. We'll take pictures and video so you know how to do this.
So what is the best way to eat a hot dog? Or what's the best way to have a hot dog? Are you a mustard guy? A sauerkraut guy?
Okay, so when I, okay, so I, I tell you, I like dirty water dogs in New York City and Manhattan. I, they're just the best. Um, and they, uh, I like it with mustard and, and sauerkraut. Um, and that really, maybe, maybe a little bit of diced onions on it, but ketchup, no ketchup shall ever touch a hotdog of mine. Never.
I love ketchup and not on hotdog. It's
Just not on hotdog. But yeah, I, I do like that. Or what I really like is, um, you, you, after you get your hot dogs done, you, you put 'em in, um, in a vel vita cheese thing, you know, uh, a cheese slice, melt it down a little bit more and then take it and slather it with some salsa. Oh. So salsa on a hotdog with cheese is fabulous.
It interesting
Is it's just my absolute favorite thing. And it doesn't have to be hot sauce. You can just get mild sauce. So I guess it looks, sort of looks like ketchup, but it is not ketchup. It is definitely not ketchup. Correct. Maybe, maybe we'll bring some salsa along to try this. You know what, you guys can vote if we have, you know, if we got somebody, they could actually have like a little toppings buffet and they could just put whatever stuff you want on your hotdog.
Well, that sounds like actual work.
That does work. We're just gonna make it for ourselves. Heck with you. Yeah. If you don't like what we make, heck with you. How's that? Or
B y o t bring your own toppings.
Bring your own, yeah, bring your own toppings. But, um, you can see that, you know, the, the beauty of this is, this is kind of limitless way to do things. Once you understand how things connect together, you understand the basics of wattage and energy and whatnot. And, and this is why I have so much fun with this,
Your info is always helpful for our viewers. But I'm gonna add one, one last thing about hot dogs here is, here is Tony's favorite way to have a hotdog. So first of all, no bun, you instead have a tortilla, you put the hotdog a pickle slice and chili and mustard in the tortilla, and really, oh boy. Oh yeah. It is. I having bring that are
We're gonna try that. Yeah,
We will try that. Because it is, it is just, it's great.
It's a heavenly dog.
Absolutely. It is. It is. Yeah. I'll bring all that stuff. And of course, good hot dogs too. Not, not cheap hot dogs.
Yeah. Good. Excellent. Excellent. So I hope we answered a few connection things today for you, and
It's always a pleasure to spend time with you and, and appreciate your time.
Thank you very much, Tony.
Thank you, Mike. And, uh, I, I will put links in the show notes to the grease that, or the cleaner that we talked about to the Smart plug article to, uh, the 50 amp connector and to where you can find Mike if you have your own electrical questions
And Right. And, and let me, let me put in a plug for my own ck you know, my rv electricity.ck.com. I have so much stuff in there, how to use a meter, you know, how to, how to measure stuff, you know, what do these things mean? I think it's really, really important for you to have those basic tools so that you can help with the diagnosis and especially when you're doing connections, right? Yeah. It's all about connections, failures, it just is.
How would you like to help support this Stressless Camping podcast and website for free?
Oh, why wouldn't anybody wanna do that?
Well, you can. Our discounts and deals page on our website has all kinds of great deals and discounts that we enjoy ourselves, but we also have a link to our Amazon store. And if you buy stuff on Amazon, which of course we all do, if you click on that link first, we get a teeny tiny cut of what you buy. Now that doesn't raise the price of what you pay at all, but it does, basically Amazon just wants to see if we're referring people, and so they give us a teeny tiny cut if you click that link.
And so it helps support us and it doesn't cost you anymore, and you still gotta buy stuff on Amazon. So it's kind of cool.
Win-win.
Yeah. Winner winner chicken dinner. And you could even probably buy chicken dinner on Amazon. <laugh> probably using, you know, clicking on our link first. We'll mean, we get a, I guess like we get a pea if you're having Shepherd's Pie or something like that.
There you go.
Isn't that cool? So we get a peas of the pie. Oh
Boy.
Well, what'd you think of the interview with Mike? Uh, it's always fun to talk to Mike and as Peggy has said in the past, sometimes Mike will call and it's just an hour, hour and a half, two hours of two dudes nerding out. So, uh, i, I hope it wasn't a little too nerdy for you and make sure to keep your connectors clean. I keep seeing issues with that. So as usual, at this point, we have an RV of the week. We're back with our friends from Alliance RV who have a new fifth wheel.
I'm seeing a lot of the smaller companies like Alliance introducing new floor plans while some of the older companies are not. And Alliance has a new smaller fifth wheel, which I liked quite a bit, but the things I'm seeing from that company are really impressive. The build materials, they're thinking, as I've said in the past, they did a interview with something like 3000 RV owners before they ever came out with their first rv.
And there's so many little touches on this. For example, it's, this is a fifth wheel, it's a smaller fifth wheel, and the upper deck is completely flat because of the way they've built it. They use the bedside tables for space. You should see the size of the oven in this thing. I'm, you know, I, I don't know what my fascination is with that, but yeah, there it is, <laugh> and, and the oven's huge and they put a little handle at the roof, so when you're climbing the ladder, you have something to get up on the roof with, which I also thought was pretty cool.
Just little touches like the shoe garage under the stairs and the epoxy sink is pretty cool. There are countertops and such pretty neat stuff. They're using like double as de they've got a high performance suspension the more I c r e 3000 suspension.
Again, a lot of things just that make sense in this thing. As usual, you can find all the RV reviews at our home on the web@stresslesscamping.com, and I post a, or at least one RV a week, sometimes more. I've been getting, doing a few more of these. So, uh, if you're looking for an rv, then you can, uh, turn there. And if I haven't reviewed it, hit us up. We're very happy to check out things that, you know, it's like, Hey, I'm looking at one of these, what do you think?
In fact, to that end, we have a telephone number if you would like to call and leave us a message. We have a telephone number that you can do so with. And that phone number is (707) 739-6661. Uh, 7 0 7 7 3 9 6 6 6 1. It's just a voicemail, but eh, what the heck? Or of course, you can always contact us at Happy camper@stresslesscamping.com.
Happy camper, stressless camping.com. Couple of ways to reach out directly or just find us through our home on the web@stresslesscamping.com. Also, of course, every week we have a question of the week, and that was, what are your best regional food places? And one that surprised me, Kathy mentioned Granz, which is, it's an institution. Uh, it's on the five freeway in northern California, right where it intersects with the 20. And Granz is not only a good eating place, but they pickle all kinds of stuff.
So you go in there, they have olives, all these different kinds of olives and pickles and, and all of that. Every time I pass by, I had to pick up a jar or two or mower. John mentioned the Roadkill Cafe in Seligman, and that's always a favorite. In fact, uh, the picture I used to tell that story was from the Roadkill Cafe, and we've had the same server several times when we're there.
And, uh, she participated in a silly photo. So, uh, if you haven't seen that yet, it's on our Fun and Friendly Stresses. Camping podcast, Facebook group. Wow. Amber mentioned the Log Cabin Diner in Klamath, California in Redwoods National Park, and posted a few pictures and, and Tom Taylor said in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, he went to a place called Boys, kind of, but you know, like what the, what's out in the water? B u o y s kind of a hole in the wall place, excellent seafood. Uh, they also went to a small restaurant called Sea Cow in Hilton Head and had one of the best po boys he's ever had.
And, uh, David wrote Cafe 2 47 in Lucerne Valley, California. We've been there. And, uh, Julie shared the depot at Cody Creek and, and I had to chime in. My favorite fried chicken is from Gus's in New Orleans, the Wild Boar Tavern.
And Pigeon Forge has, it's a German restaurant, but get the appetizers. I I posted a picture. It, it's, it's something. And of course, the Broiler Steakhouse in Redwood Valley, California. It seems like there's a trend here, a lot of places in California. Our question this week, since Mike and I talked about hotdog cooking and last week we talked about burgers. What's your secret hack for hamburgers or hot dogs? Then you can answer that question at our Fun and Friendly Stresses Camping podcast Facebook group. Another way you can keep in touch with us is with our once a Week newsletter, which is absolutely free.
Comes right to your email box and we have links to the stories, videos, and podcasts that will help you get the most outta your RV experience. Now here's the thing. Last month we were giving away a prize, a air gear, water hose to someone who signed up last month.
And, uh, we have an a winner. They will get an email from us. It's also going to be in our email this month. We've got something even bigger. So if you have not signed up for our once a week email, we'll announce that shortly, but know that it's a pretty doggone good prize. So all you have to do is visit any page on our website and you can sign up for our weekly email. And of course, you know, we never share your info with anybody that, that's just not Stressless camping. You'll also find the show notes for this episode on our website, episode two 10 on the podcastPage@stresslesscamping.com.
And that's all the lengths and things that Mike and I talked about. That's also where you'll find a heavily revised discounts and deals section. I just, uh, spent a bunch of time redoing that, adding and just making it better.
So, uh, discounts and deals on stressless camping.com and of course we're also in all the social places, but you can start@stresslesscamping.com. Uh, upper right hand corner, if you're looking at it on the confuser, you can click off to all of the different places where we like to be social. You can subscribe to the Stresses Camping podcast. It's free to subscribe to on any podcast catcher or we just post them on our home on the web with all that other stuff. And as Peggy always says, you know, a review will help, uh, those podcast catchers tell more people about the Stresses Camping podcast.
We want more people at our campfire. Of course, if you've already left a review, first of all, thank you very much. Don't forget, you can share articles you find on stresses camping that really helps get the word out also. So we appreciate your being part of our little virtual family here. So thank you again for being here this week and, and sitting through a a week without Peggy. She will be back later today that we're not gonna make a regular practice out of your having to just listen to me. But I do appreciate that you did have a great week everybody.
Hope you had a wonderful Independence Day celebration. How, how awesome was that, right? A four day weekend. Wooey, thank you so much and most of all, happy camping. We
Hope you learned a lot and had some fun and got some tips for your next Stressless camping Adventure. We're honored by your reviews on Apple Podcasts, which helps others find us too. Don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss out on the adventure. And we look forward to your joining us next week. Until then, happy camping.
Tony and I are just jerks the whole time. Absolutely. There is no persona involved.
