We’ve migrated all accounts over to the new site, so you should be able to log into the new site using your old CoolRVToyz account information.  Once logged in, click MY ACCOUNT, and then click MY DOWNLOADABLE PRODUCTS in the navigation menu on the left.  There is where you’ll find your free updates for download.  If you have troubles getting in, please contact us at sales@coolrvstore.com and we’ll assist you in getting started with the new site.

Of course www.CoolRVToyz.com will still be around and will serve as our blog site.  Come by and read the writings of some of the most interesting people in the RV industry.  Oh, and I even write something once in a while too.

We’ve been busy this Summer!

Our Fall update is finally ready and we’re very proud of this one.  Not only is it bigger, it is a lot better!  Here are just a few of the new features available in this update:

• Over 10,000 new parks and services bringing the total well above 60,000 entries,
• Improved automated geocoding.  We’ve contracted with StrikeIron for our automated geocoding and our entries are now more accurate than ever.
• Visual verification project is underway.  We’ve had some very special custom software written that allows us to start visually verifying EVERY campground in our database.  This project is going to take some time and we’re about 5% through all the parks with this release.  Read more about this process below.
• More campground information than ever before.  We now have CoolRVParkz.com fully operational and that allows the campgrounds themselves to start updating our database with tons of information.  This release has a lot more information than any previous release.  Read more about CoolRVParkz.com and what it offers below.
• Better information display for Garmin Nuvi 6xx and 8xx series GPS units.  Now, all the same information the other Garmin units enjoyed on their “more” screen is also available to users of these great GPS models.
• Updates are now free for life!  That’s right, no more expiration dates.  Regardless of when you became a customer you can now log in and download your updates for life at no additional cost!

If you’re already a customer, log into our new web store at CoolRVStore.com today and get your free update.

If you’re not a customer yet, now is a better time than ever to get the largest, most accurate and most complete RV Parks, Campgrounds and Services Directory for your GPS and Trip Planning Software.  Just go to CoolRVStore.com for all the details.

That’s not the cool part, that’s been around for a while. Products like the Sony GPS-CS1KASP GPS Receiver have been around for a while and can be used with any camera that marks the photos with the date and time. GPS satellites are used to calculate and record position data of captured digital photos and video. The supplied Image Tracker software matches GPS receiver time with digital camera time to write positioning data to photos. Additional capabilities are pretty cool too. It’ll work for up to 14 hours on NiMH batteries or about 10 hours with Alkaline batteries. You can store up to 1 month or 360 hours of data with 31MB internal memory. It’s compatible with all digital cameras and digital camcorders that have built-in time/date stamping. You can click the photo to go to TheNerds.net for more detailed information. They’re also the place I’d recommend buying one if you’re interested. If you’ve got a DSLR camera and want more capabilities, then the Jobo PhotoGPS unit may be your ticket. It’s more expensive and requires a compatible hot shoe, but it does mount on your camera.

The really cool part is the new digital cameras and attachments that capture your geolocation and store that in the EXIF data as well. Many and the major camera manufacturers like Canon and Kodak have announced plans to include GPS data in the EXIF photo information in upcoming models. They may already be out depending on when you’re reading this. Some Canon EOS system cameras can already be connected to an external handheld GPS to record GPS data in the EXIF. If you’re in the market for a new digital camera, you might want to do a little resaearch and see if you can find one with this capability built in. Never again would you go through your photos trying to remember exactly where each one was taken. The embedded EXIF GPS data would give you an exact location in addition to the traditional date and time.

Now, if they can just incorporate facial recognition so the camera even marks who’s in my photos.

Cheap Digital Camera Shop – Cheap Digital Cameras
Canon Digital Cameras Online

These original and distinctive gifts are perfect for the RV lifestyle. When assembled they stand 4″ and 6″ tall respectively. The detail is amazing for an ornament made of 1mm tool steel. They achieve this with a unique acid cutting and etching method.

Acid cutting is used for damage free cutting of the materials. An acid saw is used to cut single crystals of the material without introducing dislocations. It’s a facinating process to watch. The cutter follows the hand-carved master exactly and produces exact replicas each time. All the intricate detail is preserved and there’s none of the distortion normally associated with metal cutting methods that utilize friction or heat.

In our quest to find truly unique items that are perfect for the RV lifestyle, these ornaments stand out. They make beautifully decorative gifts for anyone, but especially RV’ers. They store flat in a very small space and weigh less that one pound. As individually numbered collectors pieces, they can be enjoyed for many generations.

Click here for more information.

As I took a nice, long, hot shower this morning (at 11 degrees outside remember) it reminded me that this month marks 2 years we’ve owned our RV-500 direct replacement RV tank less water heater “¦ and I still love it. I can still shower for as long as I want and have plenty of hot water, even at these temperatures.

We usually Winter in warmer climates. This is the first time we’ve been in this cold of a location since we installed the water heater. In the first article I wrote back in January, (you can read it here), I listed all the technical reasons and mathematics why it would work in cold climates, but I had no real personal experience to base that on. Now I do. It really does work the way I said it did, even in cold weather.

After 2 years I’m still an advocate. My RV-500 tank less water heater is as essential a part of my RV as a stove and a refrigerator. I wouldn’t want to live without it. To learn more, check it out on our website by selecting here.

• Corrected folder naming errors
• Added Magellan MGLN files
• Converted Magellan CSV files to use semi-colon delimiter (default in Magellan POI File Editor)
• Enhanced DeLorme XData Datasets with addition information
• Improved RV Services categorization for better layout
• Corrected Garmin Nuvi 660/760 bug in RV Services layout
• Optimized Garmin GPX files for POILoader v2.5.2
• Consolidated Garmin GPX files into Standard and Nuvi3 classes only now that POILoader v2.5.2 no longer requires Unit classifications
• Removed Park ID Number from Park name in Garmin GPX files now that POILoader v2.5.2 properly handles duplicate names
• Added pre-built Garmin POI.GPI files for loading without POILoader.  POI.GPI built with POILoader v2.5.2
• Improved Documentation and moved it online
• Added Streets & Trips EST file for single load of all parks and services
• Additional and corrected RV Parks
• Additional and corrected RV Services
• Now fully integrated with CoolRVParkz.com for Park details

Not only is this release bigger and better, but we’ve fixed several bugs as well.  If you’re an Ultimate RV Parks & Campgrounds Directory owner, you’ll want to download this update as soon as you can.  For complete instructions on how to download and install the update, see our new online help system at /content/coolrvtoyz-help.

If you haven’t purchased your copy of the Ultimate RV Parks & Campgrounds Directory yet, now is a great time to get the largest, most complete and most accurate list of RV Parks, Campgrounds and RV-related services ever assembled.  It’s completely downloadable into most popular GPS units as well as many Trip Planning programs.  Visit us at /content/ultimate-rv-parks-campgrounds-directory for all the details.

Happy RV’ing …

Phil King
CoolRVToyz
(865) 622-7227

If you’ve been considering purchasing the full directory, but haven’t been able to decide, this free demo just might be what you need. Download it now and see what everyone is talking about.

Click here to download your free demo of
The Ultimate RV Parks & Campgrounds Directory

If you’ve purchased the Ultimate RV Parks & Campgrounds Directory within the last year, your updates are free of charge. Simply log in and go to the Files tab of your My Account page to re-download the installer. Save it on your computer and run it to install the new list. You’ll then need to follow the instructions to reinstall the updated list on your GPS and/or mapping program.

If you’ve not purchased your copy of the Ultimate RV Parks & Campgrounds Directory yet, now is a great time to get the biggest and best RV Parks GPS list available. Click here for more information.

Happy RV’ing …
Phil King

I love to read. But, as a full-time RV’er, I don’t like the space and weight taken up by all my books. My solution until now has been to get my books in electronic book (e-book) form and read them on my laptop. That works fine, but it isn’t the greatest if I want to read in bed, or outside under a tree. Now Amazon has the perfect solution for RV’ers who love to read – the Kindle Wireless Reading Device.

This gadget is beyond cool. First of all, it’s only a little over 5" x 7" and less than 3/4" thick. It only weighs 10.3oz, and has enough memory to hold over 200 titles at a time. But, even if you fill that up, you can move the books you’ve read to an optional SD memory card or to your computer to make room for new ones. There are currently over 100,000 book titles available and thousands of newspapers, blogs and other content as well. And, you don’t even need a computer to use it. You search all that Amazon has to offer for the Kindle right on the screen, make your choise and download it wirelessly. You can begin reading is less than a minute. You can even download and read the first chapters of a book for free, just to make sure you’re interested. You only pay if you decide to download the remainder of the book. Currently, the New York Times® Best Sellers are $9.99 each unless listed otherwise.

Another great feature are the newspapers and magazines. As an RV’er, I had given up subscriptions to magazines and newspapers because of the hassles of having them mailed to me. Since I don’t stay in one place very long, it was just too much trouble to have them follow me, and too expensive to keep forwarding them from my permanent address. Now I can subscribe to top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; and top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes; and they’re all auto-delivered wirelessly to my Kindle. Even top international newspapers can be subscribed to and auto-delivered wirelessly. If you’re a blog reader (which you may be because you’re reading this one), you can get more than 250 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN’s Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post; all updated wirelessly throughout the day.

The Kindle uses the same EVDO wireless technology used by the cellular network. You don’t have to search for a WiFi hotspot to receive books and updates. You can download content from anywhere you have cell phone coverage. I even use mine to read my email. You can forward your email to it so you can read it any time, anywhere you want. In fact, you can read just about anything on your Kindle. Just put it in a Microsoft Word Document and download it from your computer or forward it to your Kindle via email. It has a built-in dictionary and free wireless access to Wikipedia, the Internets largest and most comprehensive online encyclopedia. Battery life is great too. With the wireless turned on (so I can receive blog updates any time), I only have to charge it about every other day. I never turn my wireless off, but if you do, Amazon says it will go up to 10 days without a recharge.

For the RV’er who is also an avid reader, this is a must-have. No more heavy, space-consuming books in my RV – just my Kindle. Click here for more information on how to get your own Kindle.

If you’ve been unhappy with the quantity of hot water provided by your conventional RV water heater, there is an alternative. In November 2006, Karen and I decided to take the plunge and invest in a tankless water heater for our RV. I was really tired of G.I. showers. As a Viet Nam era veteran, I’d had more than my share of them when I was younger. We did our research and made our choice. Now, I’ll never go back to a conventional water heater again! Read on and I’ll tell you how I am now able to take a hot shower whenever I want, for as long as I want.

Basic Water Heater Design

A conventional water heater uses a storage tank to heat its water. It fills the storage tank with a quantity of water, then heats it up to a specific temperature and keeps it there. This is true whether we’re talking about your home or your RV. In a home, this usually doesn’t present much of an issue. Most home water heaters are at least 30 gallons in size, many are much larger. If you continuously run out of hot water at home, the solution has always been to replace your 30 or 40 gallon heater with a 60 gallon model, or even larger; problem solved. Unfortunately, as RV’ers, we don’t have that luxury. Most RV water heaters have either 6 gallon or 10 gallon tanks. Even if a larger heater is available, there is always a size and weight consideration in an RV. Water weighs 8 pounds per gallon, so even if you had room for a 20-30 gallon unit, the extra 80-200 pounds of water plus the weight of the bigger unit is usually a problem. Simply put, changing the size of your water heater is usually not an option in an RV.

The Alternative

The alternative is a technology that’s been around for more years than you might think – tankless water heaters. A tankless heater is just what the name implies, it doesn’t have a storage tank.

We’re Proud to offer this great RV Tankless water heater at a price below Factory Direct! Click Here for more information.

Instead, it heats the water on-demand as it flows through the unit. This seems simple enough, but actually wasn’t really a viable alternative until the last 10 years or so. It took the computer revolution to make the technology viable and inexpensive enough to make it commercially feasible. With modern microcomputer controllers, the heating rate and flow can be controlled with enough precision to make the tankless heater a great alternative.

How a Tankless Water Heater Works

Instead of a storage tank, a tankless heater has a coiled chamber in it that works similar to the radiator in your car. Your car’s radiator is designed to remove heat from water as it flows through. This cools your engine. The tankless water heater works the opposite and heats the water as it flows through. This means as long as you have water flowing, and don’t run out of whatever fuel (propane, electricity, etc.) you use to generate the heat; you have continuous hot water.

Understanding The Differences Is The Key

There are several key operational differences between tankless and conventional heaters. If you’re considering a tankless heater, you should be aware of these differences in order to have a successful experience.
When we were doing our research to make our decision, I went to many of the forums on the Internet to see what people were saying about their experiences. What I found was amazing. In almost all cases where someone was unhappy with their decision to "go tankless", it was due to a misunderstanding of how they work. This misunderstanding led to unrealistic expectations, which led to dissatisfaction with the product.

A conventional heater heats the water in a storage tank to a specific temperature, typically about 120° Fahrenheit, and keeps it there. That means you will always get 120° water from your hot faucet when you turn it on, until the tank begins to replenish the tank from the cold water source. Then, the temperature of your water will slowly decrease until the hot water in the tank has been completely replaced with "cold" water. It which time, the water temperature from your hot faucet will be equal to the temperature from your cold faucet. With only 6 to 10 gallons of storage capacity, this usually doesn’t take long. The typical person takes a shower at somewhere around 105° at a flow rate of roughly 1.5 gallons per minute. Since you need to mix some cold water into the hot to lower the temperature from 120° to 105°, that gives you about 5 to 7 minutes from a 10 gallon tank before the water temperature drops below the 105° point and you begin to feel the shower is too cold to be comfortable. During this time of course, you’ve been constantly lowering the amount of cold water in the mix to keep the shower at a constant 105°.

A tankless water heater works very differently. It heats its water based on temperature rise and flow rate. The computer controller prevents the temperature from ever exceeding the preset maximum, typically the same 120°, just like a conventional heater. What you should understand is this means the temperature of your hot water can be lower than the maximum if one or both of 2 conditions are present. If your source water (the cold water) is very cold or if your flow rate is very high, your hot water temperature may be less than 120°. The tankless heater we purchased is rated to heat water 85° at a flow rate of 1 gallon per minute. A little simple math will help us understand this. If my source water is 64° and I set my shower at a flow of approximately 1 gallon per minute, then the hot water would be the maximum of 120° because 64° + 85° = 149°. Typical groundwater temperatures range from about 42° in Michigan during the winter to about 72° in Florida during the summer. Of course, if you lower the temperature of the source water and/or raise the flow rate, that changes the equation. Taking a bit of an extreme as as an example, if I’m in Michigan during the Winter (42° source water) and I set my shower at 1.5 gallons per minute (a typical shower rate), then the temperature rise of the heater I have is closer to about 70° than 85° at that flow rate. That means the temperature coming from my hot faucet is 42° + 70° = 112°. At that rate and temperature rise, I would need to mix far less cold water with the hot to get my desired 105° shower. It is possible, at very low temperatures (cold climates) and high flow rates (2 gallons per minutes or more), that you may find yourself taking a shower with nothing but hot water since 100° to 105° is about the maximum the heater can produce. The bottom line is this. As you change climates, the way you mix your hot and cold water to achieve a desired result will change also. As long as you understand this, and it doesn’t bother you, you will have a successful experience owning a tankless water heater.

There are advantages to these differences as well. The first of course is there is no storage tank to run out of hot water. As long as the water flows, and you don’t run out of propane, you have a constant flow of hot water at a consistent temperature. Once you have your hot and cold water mixed, there is no need to move it during your entire shower. The second advantage is cost. A conventional water heater keeps the storage tank hot around the clock, whether you are using the hot water or not. This requires energy (fuel) even when you don’t need hot water. A tankless heater only uses energy while it’s heating water. This can represent a significant savings. In our case, we’ve noticed about a 25% savings in propane since we switched the heater, and I have a tendency to take long showers – just because I can. You may see as much as a 50% savings in propane costs according to the manufacturer. For me that works out to a return period of less than 4 years. In 4 years my tankless water heater will have paid for itself in propane savings alone. That’s great! Especially considering I get to take REAL showers instead of G.I. showers.

Conclusion

Based on my experiences, a tankless water heater is beyond a cool toy, it is an essential part of my RV. I will never be without one again. Even if I decided to quit RV’ing full time and go back to a conventional home, it would have tankless water heaters in it. The model we chose is the RV-500 from PrecisionTemp. It is the only tankless water heater designed specifically to be a direct replacement for conventional 6 gallon and 10 gallon RV water heaters. Installation was a breeze, I even did it myself. If you’re not inclined to do it yourself, any qualified plumber can install it in a short time. If you are a do-it-yourself’er, both the documentation and the support I got from PrecisionTemp when I had questions were superb. The quality of the unit is excellent and it has operated flawlessly since installation. I went ahead and got the model with the Cold Weather Protection kit so I could stay in cold climates, even though we typically head to warmer climates in the Winter.

At CoolRVToyz, we’re proud to now offer this same great water heater at a price below factory-direct. Get more information about this cool product by clicking here or by shopping in our store.

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