The cover was about $350 from Camping World. Yes, pricey, but not terribly so...
So far it has lasted one Minnesota Winter and the only damage was caused by me when I snagged the hem in the rear with my SXS as I was backing it out of the trailer a few weeks ago. It has gotten a little dirty, but not bad.. At this rate, as long as I don't screw it up anymore, it should last at least 3 years. So figure $117 a year. That is really not bad at all..

 

Got some more projects/upgrades done if anyone is interested.

1) My rig didn't have a LR stereo. There is one in the garage and a BT soundbar under the LR TV, but that wasn't cutting it. Removed the BT soundbar and tiny sub behind the wall in the basement. I installed a Sony head unit in the LR cabinet and some Boston Acoustics corner mount speakers up on the ceiling. I was able to gently remove the crown molding to run the wires hidden. I installed my JL Audio sub and amp that I pulled from my last car when I sold it in the basement storage area and ran it's remote volume **** to the LR cabinet right above the new radio. I lowered the TV mount since the soundbar was gone and cut a piece of cabinet fill from my kitchen remodel to cover the exposed area under the TV. Since it's a car stereo the backlighting stayed on even when the unit was off drawing power. I had an empty plugged spot in my master switch panel so I knocked out the plug and installed a matching red lighted rocker switch in the hole to feed the accessory line of the stereo. While the TV was down, I installed a Jensen 12V powered antenna on the wall behind the TV mount. Forgot to take a picture of that.... Don't mind the temporary black electric tape "bezel" around the radio. I ordered a piece of matching 1" wood trim molding that I am going to finish around the head unit with.

2) I installed a Progressive Industries hardwired EMS in the shore line feed. It protects against surges, low voltage, high voltage, line frequency high/low, etc. Very much a giant pain in the rear working on 6/3 Romex in a tiny box in the sub basement, but good piece of mind and warrantied for life. It came with a remote monitor and bypass switch that I mounted inside my LR cabinet above the load management system.

3) I installed a Go Power 300 watt pure sine wave inverter in the basement fed off another rocker switch I installed in yet another empty slot in my master switch panel. From it runs a long extension cord up to my TV and Blu-Ray player. So, when on battery, I can unplug the TV and BD from their outlet and into the extension cord, hit the switch, and run them off battery. They are only about 75 watts between the two so a small inverter was all that was needed. I was going to go big with a 3k Pure Sine but I don't have the battery bank to support it with only my 2 6V AGM's. I also figured that everything else I want to do can be done on battery or propane anyways.

4) The electric side of my hot water heater only had a switch on the outside of the RV behind the access panel. I tapped the 120V feed after the breaker and switched it via a lighted pilot switch that I mounted on the LR cabinet above the new radio. Now I can leave the outside switch on and control from the inside. Plus it's lighted so I won't forget to shut it down.

5) Did some small stuff while the basement was open. I noticed my cable input had broken off it's connector so I fixed that. I also moved my water pump over a couple of inches as it was sitting against some solid pipe making it rattle even more than normal.

























Jensen antenna:

 

Well done Rodney...looks like you were a busy guy

 

I'm impressed Rodney. You're tearing into that new rig like an old pro. Pain in the butt working on the wiring in the panel off the basement unless you have teeny tiny hands - I don't. Been there to do some after market stuff like you and it sucked. Generally the wiring in these rigs seems thrown together like spaghetti - no real rhyme or reason to how things are run since they do it while it is all opened up. But then when you try to make mods you have to try to figure out how and where stuff was routed.

Great photos and documentation - would love to hear how it sounds.

 

Thanks guys. The sound is amazing. I went that particular Sony head because it had a built in Class D amp giving it 40 watts RMS/100Peak. The only one on the market. I had to do this because I didn't want to fish wires to car speakers mounted in the ceiling and the Boston corner mounts were my easiest best bet. They were however, 8 ohm which will cut the amps power since it's 4 ohm. The result was amazing on both music and BD video. Not real surround but we have a great home theater setup at home for that. Just wanted a step above the low budget nonsense that came with the RV...

 

Wow. That is gorgeous. Well done.

 

Thanks much. Here is before and after on the tv setup. The soundbar wasn't up the task for me. Also, a shot of the now full switch panel. I tried to make new tags for the new switch locations to cover what would have been there otherwise. Looked tacky so I'll just have to remember...

 

Very very nice work Rodney...

 

Nice work.. Love the power center.

I also added the same EMS unit aouple weeks ago, and a transfer switch for my upcoming generator.. both had to go in the bottom of a kitchen cabinet where the breaker panel is. later I tried to pull in the slides, no 12v.. turns out in all that movement the converter had come unplugged from the back of the distribution panel!..

I get a good hum/buzz from the two now. still not sure which is the problem.

have you looked at the power draw, now that you have the EMS monitor? In my case, both A/C units were on the same power leg. I had to move some wires around in the distro panel to balance it out for when running on gen.

 

I can see the power draw on either the EMS or the power management center. On mine, I've got two ac's on one leg and the third ac and the electric HW element on the other. The power management will shed 1 or 2 of those circuits if necessary based on draw. With nothing else running, I can run all three AC's on generator or 50amp.

 

cool.. I forgot that you have the third A/C. that Power Mgmt sounds like some neat technology too..

 

It's comes standard when you order the third AC. Just a couple years back it was just a simple switch instead so you could run the front and mid ac or the mid and rear ac. No option of front and rear and no all three. A smart controller like this seems to be a big step forward...

 

sorry to re-ask.. do you get any hum from the EMS?

 

I get hum from somewhere in the basement. Not sure if it's the converter, EMS, or transfer switch. I'm pretty sure it was there before the EMS too. So, I'm guessing it's either the transfer switch or converter.

 

Thx. I had a small hum from the converter by itself.. I need to get back in the cabinet and disconnect the transfer switch and see what I get. ugh..

I wish mine was in the basement instead of the kitchen cabinet.