The electrical bay in our coach includes a Surge Guard power protection transfer switch, which manages switching the electricity between “shore” power (i.e. plugged in to a campground) and the generator. It also serves to protect the coach systems from power spikes and other issues:

However, it’s good practice to have a separate surge protector, since the act of protecting the coach can damage the device. An external one that plugs in to the power pedistal at a campsite is a much cheaper thing to replace if necessary.

One of the most popular ones is the Hughes Autoformers Power Watchdog, so that’s what I got. Here’s its box:

Not only does it protect against power surges and other electrical issues, it also has a replaceable surge module, so just part of it can be replaced if needed, instead of having to replace the whole thing. It also has an app that displays the current power usage.

Here’s the Power Watchdog plugged in at a campground. The dog face glows white if all is well, or turns red if an issue occurs (and the display below shows the error code):

Here’s a screenshot of the app:

At another campground at night; the dog face is fairly bright:

A handy little addition to the wet bay of the coach: a clear sewer hose extension, attached below the sewer valves.

This enables me to better see the water draining from the black and grey tanks; the other end of the hose has a clear portion too, which is also useful, but this lets me see the water before it drains the length of the hose:

Here it is in context, draining the grey tank (from the sinks, shower, etc):

Our coach has two toilets; an electric gravity toilet in the mid bath (that spins a ball to dump straight down into the black tank), and an electric macerating toilet in the rear bath (that uses a bunch of water to pump the waste forward to the black tank).

The mid-bath toilet has a lever on the side of the toilet: pull up to add some water (to help flush solids), and push down to flush.

However, while adding water worked fine, flushing became unreliable. Sometimes it’d work immediately, sometimes one would have to hold the lever down for several seconds.

I researched the unit, and determined that the flush switch was likely the fault. So I ordered a replacement.

Here’s the switch behind the toilet, after I pulled the insulating covers away from the pins. This switch is toggled upwards to flush by the rotation of the lever, or downwards to add water:

The aforementioned lever:

I pulled the wires off the pins of the old switch, and tried connecting to the replacement switch (hanging down); it worked perfectly:

I wore my headlamp to see behind the toilet:

Having determined that the new switch worked, I worked on removing the old switch. It was mounted to the porcelain toilet with three screws under the handle:

Getting those screws out and back in again was the hardest thing, since the toilet was so close to the wall. I tried my drill with an angle bit, but it was too close for that, too:

I managed it by unscrewing the hard way — holding a screw bit in pliers, for leverage:

(I need to get a short screwdriver!)

Another look at the switch:

Replaced the handle; it works!

An assortment of tools for this repair:

It was very satisfying to fix this. Things break in even the best RVs; they’re an earthquake on wheels. Over time I’m sure I’ll build up new skills in repairing and modifying things, just like I did in the homestead. Just a new set of skills.

Many RVs come with a ladder built in on the back, but unfortunately ours did not. Apparently the latest trend is to skip the ladder, so I guess our coach was ahead of the curve. Still, being able to climb onto the roof, or reach other high parts of the sides, is rather useful. Especially since the coach is 12’ 7” high.

So, another useful recent purchase was a ladder. A rather versatile ladder: it can be collapsed for compact storage, and extended to various heights up to 16.5 feet, plenty to reach our roof, plus can fold in the middle to make a two-sided A-frame ladder about 8 feet high, perfect for reaching up the sides. Yet it’s lightweight, at only 38 pounds:

Here it is collapsed and stored in the back of our truck:

Our coach has a multiplex wiring system, where several control panels and features are networked together, so control panels in various places can operate things like shades, lights, TV lift, fans, and more.

Which is great when things work, but a truism of RVs is things are always breaking. One particularly vexing issue was that a control panel and two shades on our front passenger slide-out stopped working after moving the coach one time.

Here’s the control panel, with buttons for lights, shades, and TV lift — it should’ve been illuminated, but it wasn’t, and the buttons didn’t work:

The day and night shades in the living area are electric, so they can all go up or down at a touch of a button. Which again is nice if it works, frustrating if it doesn’t.

I contacted the manufacturer of the multiplex wiring, Spyder Controls, and their very friendly support staff spent lots of time helping me diagnose the issue, including trying different panels in different places, which proved that the control panel itself was not the fault. They got me to try squeezing the connectors, since apparently they can get loose. And even got me to order replacement connectors, and (once they arrived), talked me through replacing them on the control panel and shade controller.

Speaking of, here’s the shade controller (called the G5 shade module); a circuit board that takes the network connection and operates the day and night shades for the two shades on that slide. The green light was blinking, indicating that it had power but no network connection:

We also looked at the wiring in the house network panel (called G6), a rather complicated rats nest of wiring:

Meanwhile, since we couldn’t close the shades, we got some temporary curtains:

We lived like that for quite a while, and had an appointment with a service place, where fixing those issues would’ve been a top priority, since I hadn’t been able to solve them.

However, I recently looked through some pictures of the construction of the same model coach as ours that a kind person sent me, and noticed another connector — which made sense, since the wiring of the chassis and slide-out would be separate, but connected when the slide was installed. I wasn’t sure where it was, but looked inside an exterior panel behind the fridge:

Sure enough, I found a wire from the G6 panel, a couple of wires going to the control panel and shade module, and a hub-like connector between them (G4 common drop tap). Wouldn’t you know it, the cable from the G6 panel was disconnected, as the latch that held it in was missing. Here’s a crop of that pic, showing the bottom orange cable not fully seated:

Here I pushed it back in place:

And just like that, the shades started working again!

That didn’t fix the control panel. So I bought some more replacement connectors from Tiffin, and pulled off the panel again:

I noticed that I hadn’t done a very good job of (unnecessarily, as it turned out) replacing the connector, as I was rushing a bit, since the tech was on the phone. One of the wires was loose:

So I pulled off that connector and installed a new one:

And hey, it works!

Re-mounted:

Next, I replaced the broken connector behind the fridge, so it wouldn’t pop out again:

All better:

I’m really glad and relieved to have solved the shades and control panel issues at last. And very satisfying to have done the fixes myself. Not that I’m at all averse to paying someone to fix things for me, but it’s nice to be able to do it.