We’ve just passed the one year anniversary of owning our 2015 Jayco 19XUD Hybrid Travel Trailer. While generally, we love it; there are a couple “shortcomings” that need to be addressed. One of which is the poorly designed storage cabinets between the door and reefer. Here, Jayco has three LARGE storage areas, without shelving. While this was likely done to accommodate installing rubbermaid shelves or the like, I truly suspect the reasoning is weight reduction. If they had installed shelves, it would be very easy for someone to store a lot of items here, which could quickly add too much weight behind the trailer axles, which would not be safe. We are now on our third iteration of organization in the camper, and each time these cabinets just get unused or under utilized for what size they are. Their location lend themselves to use for items that need to be …keep reading …
Installing a Digital Furnace Thermostat in Jayco 19XUD Hybrid Travel Trailer
There is no other way to put it – The thermostat that comes with most campers absolutely suck. If you have ever camped in the cold, you know how difficult impossible it is to get the furnace to an accurate and tolerable temperature. The good news is, that this is a simple five minute project to fix. All you need is a two-wire (ideally heater-only) thermostat. I bought mine, an Emerson 1E78-140, from Amazon for about $20. Instructions 1. Turn off or disconnect your battery. 2. Locate your current mechanical thermostat. 3. Remove cover, and unscrew from wall 4. Disconnect wires, noting where they were connected. For mine, the white connects to W and the red/white connects to the R. 5. Open your new thermostat 6. Route the wires through the back and connect them to the matching connections; White to W and red/white to R (or RH). 7. Install …keep reading …
My $100 DIY PVC Kayak Rack
With our newly acquired kayak collection, storage has become an important requirement. While there are plenty of commercial solutions available, most are prohibitively expensive, difficult to use, or require large amounts of wall space. With a little digging on the net, I was able to find a relatively easy and inexpensive solution; PVC.
My MAME Arcade Cabinet – 20hrs of Work, but Worth It
I bet there is not a techie anywhere that has not seen a Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) cabinet and not wanted one. Building one is somewhat akin to earning an eagle scout badge, in the world of geekdom. For those of you who’ve never heard of a MAME cabinet; it is a PC built within a normal looking arcade cabinet, running a specialized piece of software which “emulates” the old hardware of real arcade machines. This emulator allows the actual ROMs from arcade games to be loaded and run, in all their 8-bit glory. Apparently MAME’ers like to brag and gloat, because there are a ton of information online about MAME cabinet projects, because . While the best source of information is Arcade Controls.com, it was Chris Moyles’ “The Story of a Cabinet Built in 24 hours” that gave me the itch.
Make your own $15 Lightbox
If you Google “DIY Lightbox” you will get a bunch of how-to pages. Most are just WAY to complicated for the average shutterbug. Others are just too fragile and will likely get destroyed in short order. Nearly every one you find will cost more than you are likely to get out of it. I noticed that my local WalMart has a portable lightbox kit in the camera deptartment for $49, which actually looks nice. But me being a cheapskate, decided that I can make one cheaper. So here you go. [more] (2) Clip-on-Lights $2.50 from Target (1) Clear Storage Bin $7.50 from Walmart (2) Posterboards white and blue $1 (2) BinderClips Assemble like the pic! Nothing difficult. The clear(ish) bin works to filter and soften the light. Best thing of all, is that everything stores in the tub when not used. Just remember to turn the dark background out before …keep reading …