Laptop or Desktop - Page 2 - Montana Owners Club

CountryGuy · 12-17-2004, 12:03 PM

HI Steve,

Ya, we did discuss this at the Rally. Since then, as many of you know, there have been some major changes in our unit, thanks to Keystone. Including a new set of tires and some axle changes. A few other things too, that Al and I want to test drive further than 120 miles before we pass judgement on them. When we (hopefully) take out of here mid January we should give it a good test, and we will report back. Our tongue weight is around 3000 pounds (about 24% of total weight). The last weight was somewhat under that, but the changes made to our unit and truck have made that number go up, we need to consider another CAT weight.

That said, we have always found that what ever was in the back of a rig got thrown around, the TT prior to this was the same way, remember me talking about the bed unmaking itself and finding the pillows on the floor at the foot of the bed?? That was a rear bedroom.

When we went out of here last January with the same truck, and the 3295, I had the back end loaded down more than normal,including LOTS of books in the cabinets over the desk. That was when we discovered that the bouncing would force the books to the doors and open the doors, spilling stuff out of the cupboards. Luckily we found the stuff before the stuff tore the facia off the slide.

Sure is a puzzle, isn't it????

sreigle · 12-17-2004, 04:04 PM

The books pushing open the doors of those rear cabinets may well be because of bouncing but there's another possible factor here. Braking. I know things will slide forward during braking, especially during a hard stop, like when that light turns yellow just a little too quickly for you to sneak through. We used to have things on the floor slide several feet forward. We learned to put those things against a wall or anything that will keep them from sliding forward. Likewise, nothing goes in those rear forward-facing cabinets that could push the doors open.

Any chance it's braking action causing those books to push the doors open?

CountryGuy · 12-18-2004, 02:26 AM

Morning Steve,

Braking, maybe, more likely, if you go to our web page and re-read the Adventures of 2004, the section on New Orleans. THE ROADS! (oh, and the doors are now velcro-ed shut)

Thing is, RVing is an adventure, and something different is ALWAYS happening. We all know that. With the pillows and bed unmaking in the TT, it was probably roads, but we had shirt closets in the back of that unit as well, and with nothing but shirts hanging in there, we would find the closet doors open.

With the 5er, I have trouble with the cupboards over the sink as well, Vicki and and I have discussed this, as well as you have been so nice as to post photos of that cupboard in your unit. I have the bars between sections, and the dishes have pushed right on by them, taking the bars down and out in the process. Luckily, knock on wood, we have never had anything break.

In prior unit, bath room was mid way, just behind the axles, the cupboard below the sink was ALWAYS popping open. The cabinets above the sink we had a bar on both shelves, and that kept about 98% of the stuff in place 98% of the time, but I always opened doors gingerly, JUST IN CASE!

The kitchen was in the front of that unit, and even with bars in the frig I would get rude suprises, again, always open that frig door carefully, being ready to grab whatever was flying out. The other kitchen cabinets, same story, only they were so long that I could not find bars to fit, so, I just opened and grabbed whatever was flying out. (By the way, we had double hooks on many of the doors and drawers in this unit, and even then sometimes we would find stuff moved around and out on the floors, stuff put ON the floor in front of the axles even moved around.)

With the 5er, the bedroom and the bathroom we don't seem to be having trouble. I do place the shampoo and cream rinse on the floor of the shower when we travel, but they don't move. I even put my gramma's memorial flower arrangement in there, brought it all the way home from VA and it never moved an inch.

We have always been careful as to what we carry, with considerations to weight and the capabilities of the unit and the tow vehicle. We when purchased our TT I weighed everything that went in, even the pillows! I had a long discussion with a trailer sales person about a "over built" mini motor homes and the carrying capacity. (The man was very under-educated about the weight of anything, did you know that a sweater, for example, can weigh 2 pounds. He told us that we could carry 30 or 40 gallons of water and all the craft items my little heart desired for an entire winter in Florida and still have lots of payload, for, clothes, pots and pans, dishes, necessities, etc. Oh, the payload on this particular unit was less than 800 pounds, TOTAL!) Anyway, the new rig we were purchasing which was a TT not a 5er, we felt was a little on the shy side of payload numbers. We all pack too much stuff, OK, I tend to pack too much stuff. It all weighs something, gallon of milk 9 pounds, another example. So, the end of this long disertation is that I weighed everything, pillows, blankets, toaster, wish I had kept that list

. But, you can educate yourself real quick by going to any catalog, like JC Penney or Sears (do they still have catalogs?) and study the weights. How much does your toaster weigh?? How bout your electric heaters?? We all know how much that 50 AMP electric cord ain't light, feels like a TON, but it is heavy!

Short of it, yes, it could be emergency braking, although we try to keep reasonable distance between the front of our truck and the guy in front of us, and we try to watch for those changing lights. Roads, my daddy used to call it the hard road, and every time I go into a rig and find something moved about, I have fond memories of his term, "Gonna Go Down the Hard Road"!

But, I have yet to find a rig that we have hauled around that did not have things moving about and pushing cupboard doors open, even where there was nothing heavy stored in the cupboard or closet, and the latches were lined up correctly and even had extra latches. Current rig, the doors below the tv have opened (no more, more velcro) and all that is down there are 4 light weight dog crates for the kids, err yorkies). This is on the side of the rig, not the back, therefore, I doubt that braking opened that set of doors.

We are careful, drive reasonably, very seldom over 60 MPH, try to exercise caution and common sense when packing and we still have stuff happening, on the sides and on the ends of the unit. It all depends on the roads of the day and the sudden stops of the day and I really think, the gremlins in the 5er that day.

Sorry to have hijacked this thread about laptops vs desktops. For now, our laptops will be our computers of choice for traveling, OK, forever our choice for traveling.

And, THIS is why I was shocked to read that one of our members could actually store a desktop tower in the back of his unit and not have trouble. If it were me, it would probably walk its way to the front door during a day of travel!

sreigle · 12-19-2004, 12:00 PM

Lawdy, Carol, what are you doing to your Montana when you take it down the road? I know you are as careful as anyone but you sure have more troubles with this than anyone I've known. You saw how ours is loaded. Last weighing we had it to 320 lbs under its GVWR. The only door we have to strap down is the one under the TV where Vicki has her 40,000 or so DVD's in cabinets pushing against the doors. We've driven I-10 and I-12 in Louisiana. Had to be the worst interstate we've ever been on, even worse than Missouri's I-70 used to be but we still didn't have nearly the problems you have had. That's why I wondered about wheel balance. Whatever it is, sounds like you've put some things in place to minimize the havoc and damage. By the way, won't those bars screw out a little more for more tension? Or maybe you've done that already.

CountryGuy · 12-19-2004, 01:36 PM

evening Steve,

Sorry to hear you are frozen up, I read your other post.

All I can say, that Al and I have a habit of "great experiences" ????? HAHA.

Honestly, I think we are careful, diligent, etc. We go over Railroad tracks slow and careful, we never, ever, go in and out of gas stations, shopping centers, fast. We do not drive like wild people.

We just live right???? We had a prior TT lose the camber of the frame, YIKES, a huge amount of damage, and costly repair, covered by the manufacturer, even tho out of warranty. Have a trailer to haul around our pontoon boat, guess what, lost its camber too. Also covered via warranty. Same boat, 20 year warranty on the decking material, replaced under warranty, cause it seperated at ends of each piece (4 X 8 sheets) of flooring. Like I said, we just live right????

Remember, that some of our experiences were with prior units. But, those experiences have given us lots of info to deal with the 5er!

OH, the spring bars in the cabinets, I could look into adjusting those again, but I thought I had them adjusted out rather far/tight.

I believe that some of the situation could have been from the axles and that situation, the balding/scalding tires after 6,000 miles. It is quite obvious that something was/is making the back end of OUR Montana bounce a LOT! Stuff in the cupboards over the kitchen table, even when packed quite tightly, tends to scoot towards the front. It never fails to amaze me at how something packed that tight can even MOVE!!!! But, it does.

We will see after the adjustments that Keystone made to our unit and some additional adjustments that we have made to the unit and the tow vehicle will cause the same "scooting" action to continue. Next time we get out of here, and "test" drive the unit and truck with the "improvements" we will know a lot.

Life is an adventure, as one of our MOC members points out. The roads, well, like my daddy used to say, "gonna go down the HARD ROAD!" RVing/camping is an exercise in attempting to perfect living in a home on wheels, not a science by any means, more of an ART! Art, as we all know, is subjective, and FUN!! Life in a RV is a challenge, as you well know right now in Independence with very cold temps!

sreigle · 12-20-2004, 11:34 AM

Carol, I hope you get this all sorted out. It's certainly been a trial for you. Vicki pointed out to me that on very rough roads we do have some things slide around in their cabinets but we don't have the doors opening like you do. We did have some problem with that when we first got the rig. I adjusted the latches to make sure the male part mates exactly centered with the female part so there is spring pressure on both sides. I think we discussed this quite awhile back and you did the same thing. If you ever figure this out, please let me know. I dislike having some mysterious occurrence like this hanging out there unsolved. Just grates on my training and general nature. But at least I don't have to live with it like you do. Luck and all that, hopefully your adjustments have solved it.

CountryGuy · 12-20-2004, 12:32 PM

Time on the hard road will tell. And, we intend on posting our findings, so stay tuned!

Hopefully we are outta here mid January 2005.

Did you ever get UNFROZEN??? Yikes, it is cold here. brrrrrrr.

vickir · 12-20-2004, 12:57 PM

Hi Carol ... Steve is eating ice cream so I'll answer this one. Yes, we finally got thawed out about 10:30 this morning!!! When Steve finishes his ice cream he gets to start washing the mountain of dirty dishes that accumulated when we were hot-waterless! He's so excited.

CountryGuy · 12-20-2004, 01:24 PM

Lucky boy!

Ice cream when it is so cold out??? brrrrr. Give me some hot cocoa. Perhaps spike it a bit with some Butterscotch schnapps. Now, that is a cold weather food!

Montana_1450 · 12-24-2004, 03:57 PM

Well, it looks like I spoke too soon: I just took a broken glass out of the cabinet over the sink when we arrived here at Lake Havasu. That is the first time anything ontoward happened. I used to lay my flat screen monitor down on the desk on top of a folded blanket, but now it rides standing up (there is a tie around the base), with no problems. I hate to gloat (!) but I once left a full coffee cup on top of the counter in front of the sink - the type of cup with the narrow bottom that fits into a can holder in the car - and when I remembered, we stopped at the first wide spot, and the cup was still sitting there, with nothing even spilled. I couldn't believe it; but this trailer really rides very smoothly. Hope, Al and Carol, that you got your problem fixed.
And to get back to the original thread, I do prefer my desktop PC.

sreigle · 12-26-2004, 06:42 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by sreigle

Carol, I hope you get this all sorted out. It's certainly been a trial for you. Vicki pointed out to me that on very rough roads we do have some things slide around in their cabinets but we don't have the doors opening like you do. We did have some problem with that when we first got the rig. I adjusted the latches to make sure the male part mates exactly centered with the female part so there is spring pressure on both sides. I think we discussed this quite awhile back and you did the same thing. If you ever figure this out, please let me know. I dislike having some mysterious occurrence like this hanging out there unsolved. Just grates on my training and general nature. But at least I don't have to live with it like you do. Luck and all that, hopefully your adjustments have solved it.

The furnace kept it nice and toasty in the Montana, Carol. The ice cream was really good! Blue Bunny Homemade Chocolate.

Yes, we're unfrozen. We got full water back a couple of hours before leaving for the kids' on Christmas Day, so we were able to use our own shower. Being frozen really wasn't that bad since we always had cold water at the bathroom sink and had flush water at the toilet. Had we lost that and had to make middle of the night trips to the showerhouse, that would have been much worse. We were warm inside and had water to drink and flush so we were fine. Thanks for asking.

CountryGuy · 12-26-2004, 07:25 AM

Steve,

I saw on another thread where you did get thawed out. Very glad to hear it.

We used to winter camp in Gaylord Michigan. I think they told me there was an average of 300 inches of snow per year. We went skiing right out the door of that TT. Snowmobiling, all that fun winter stuff.

It was COLD. Had the 100 pound propane tank hooked up.

Now, we were NOT fulltiming, would go up there 4 to 6 times a winter for long weekends, 4 or 5 days, and over the holidays for up to a week.

We never used water in the rig during these winter camping sprees, took drinking water, used the showers in the campground (nice and warm, lots and lots of hot water!!). I would cook our food before we left home, or we went out to eat. Dishes were taken home, or better yet, disposable and went in the trash.

For the toilet, we tried to use the campground facilities, but when that was not possible we used our rig potty. This is when we first learned the habit of, no TP unless necessary. The slightly used stuff went in the trash can. We could sit at Gaylord for those weekends and the long holiday week and NOT fill up the holding tank. When we pulled out in late March we would head for a campground about mid state and do a great cleaning out.

We found that we were amazed at how long we could use that rig in the frigid winter with a little creative thinking and a nice warm bathhouse at the campground.

Glad you are thawed out, hope you had a great holiday with those grandkids!

Carol

(Sorry, looks like we hijacked this thread again!)

Montana_2779 · 01-06-2005, 01:37 PM

We're on the laptop bandwagon, as well. Once we decided to go fulltiming, two new laptops were at the top of our list. We'd recommend converting as early as possible so you can transfer the gajillion files you've stored AND confirm that all perifrials work correctly before heading out onto the road. Nothing worse than being 500 miles from the stick house and finding out that the printer doesn't work or that special software is on a disk at home.... We also use the same all-in-one printer that Glenn and Lorraine have. Saves a TON of room and weight! Great compact, light, square body for easy storage. By the way, we went with two "budget" units (on sale at Best Buy for under $800 each) from Averitec and Toshiba. Both have worked wonderfully.

Imp · 01-06-2005, 04:13 PM

Still getting ready for full timing and placed our order for a Dell lap top. I agree you need some time to load and use before doing it 100%. 6 more months to retirement and off we go!!! Myrna

sreigle · 01-08-2005, 06:39 PM

I'd also recommend you take all those files you think you won't need and burn them to a cd from the old machine. There always seems to be at least one file that got overlooked and didn't get moved. Sometimes you just need to go back and get the registration numbers out of that software you reinstalled on the new one but didn't write down anywhere.

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