Silverleaf VMSpc Monitor

Zephyrhills, Florida  (high 82, low 58)

We had our friends Rhonda and William over yesterday for dinner.  Rhonda just got a new camera (traded for the one she got for Christmas that had a detachable lens).  She wanted one just like mine with the super (stalker) zoom.  She got the new and improved Canon SX 40 hs.  It looked exactly like my SX30, but I’m sure there was a difference somewhere.  We got it set up for her and a few Bluebirds came by for her to practice her new zoom.

It’s a pretty easy camera.  I’m trying to get her to use the eye piece instead of the screen to frame her shots….much better results for wildlife and close-ups.   A lot of people don’t realize you can adjust the eyepiece to your eyes.  If you look through the eye piece and its blurry…adjust it.  That is assuming you have an eye piece…a lot of the point and shoot cameras don’t.  The only time I use the screen it to view pictures.

I mentioned a few days ago about our new Silverleaf Electronics  motor home engine monitoring system.  You can actually download the software for free, and get an idea of what it is and how it works.  I encourage you to check it out.  I think it will turn out to be a good investment for us.

Of course, until you get the electronics and cables and hook it up to your coach, you can’t get any readings, but  you can get a good idea of everything it has to offer….which is pretty much anything and everything about about your engine. 

Once I got ours working, I found one of the gauges that told us the total amount of fuel that has ever been put into our  motor home,  the current  odometer reading,  and the average mph for the entire 65,000+ miles that is on this coach.  That total averaged out at 8.7 mph.  Good info to know.  I believe it can be set up to give you a running mpg….which might be helpful to find that sweet spot where you get the best fuel mileage.

We purchased ours from the  Rv Upgrades Store.  The cost is $306.  We were happy with the service we received from them.  I think it can be a useful tool for monitoring your expensive diesel engine.  I do not know if they make a product for a gas engine, but I think most vehicles have computers now so I would think there is something like this available for any type of vehicle.

Once I got to looking, I realized there was a lot of information available and you could get it the form of a graph, alarm lights, gauge or any number of ways. 

I then realized there were so many ways to set up the system I wish I could see how others have set their screens up.   Of course once I Googled it,  I found another blogger that had just what I was looking for.

Here is the link I found.  I am trying to copy his screen and get mine to show the same gauges and readings.  I can always tweak it later if I want to, but I think this is a great place to start.

The following picture is how I want to set ours up.

We will be using ours on my laptop.  A small 10 inch netbook would be great, but since we don’t have one, my laptop will do.  I’ll do the monitoring…and Al will keep his eyes on the road, so it can sit on the dash in front of me.

Has everyone adjusted to the time change?  Being retired makes the transition much smoother, doesn’t it?