Roof fan upgrade

Same here, Steve. Every time I talked to Cary I was asking him to add something else custom to our trailer. I was waiting for him to say no - he never did :)
 
Nothing like piling on. I'd been kinda browsing teardrops of various makes off and on for several years when I stumbled upon Camp-Inn, and everything I Googled about it and Petenwell was positive. After the whole idea lay fallow in my mind for a month, I decided maybe I should be serious about getting one, so some more Googling, etc., etc. and I tentatively decided. At that point I sent an e-mail to Camp-Inn with a couple of pretty simple questions, expecting the kind of quick reply one would get from a typical business. Cary wrote this long, detailed, conversational response to each question, I followed up, and got another detailed reply. That's the point at which I decided to (and did) order mine. I'd been feeling kinda guilty about taking so much of his time, but now I see that it's his doing, not mine, since you folks are apparently getting the same, thorough responses. Wotta great small company! The guy must work 25 hours a day. Anyway, thanks Cary.
 
Jim said:
The guy must work 25 hours a day.
Click to expand...

I can vouch for the fact that Craig isn't usually home before 8:00 every night & then spends a chunk of the evening working on new product designs, improving existing ones, or the web page. :crazy:

:cool:
 
Jim - exactly my feelings too, now that you have put it into words. In my industry, sometimes we get a nightmare customer that wants to hash over every detail of their project and be treated like royalty when they are one of our smallest clients. We do our best to take care of them, but then breathe a sigh of relief when the job is done. I was sure that I was that customer after all the questions and custom work that went into my build.

But even after we paid in full, picked it up and left, Cary and Craig have continued to provide the same conversational response to things - replacing a faulty thermostat, sending me new tent poles after I lost then, etc... This is certainly the first company I've ever dealt that provided such good service that I was compelled to host a forum. :)
 
After reading this thread I contacted Fantastic Vent to see about being placed on a contact list to be notified when the upgrade kit came out for the variable speed option. I was contacted by Larry Milks who is the VP there and he told me about being able to slow the fan down by installing 1 or 2 resistors in the circuit. He also said it they would send me 2 plus the instructions on how to install them all for free! I got them last night and as soon as I put them in I'll post an update. I'm not sure if it will need 1 or 2 but will try 1 first and see how slow it makes it.
Bruce
 
Update, I installed 1 of the resistors and we think it slowed it down enough for us but we have yet to camp with it and really try it out. It was real simple to install and if I need to put the other one in I will solder them both. They both came with crimp connectors so I used them.
Bruce
 
This thread kinda died but since I'm reading all the threads trying to learn as much as I can I naturally looked at the Fantastic Vent site also. It appears the latest and greatest is the 6600R w/ 14 manual speeds, infinite variable speeds, rain sensor, reverse fan rotation and a remote control. I'm sure I left out a few options but you get the idea. Oh yeah, it has a thermostat also, so you set it and it cycles the fan as needed and it does open back up when the rain sensor dries out. Anyway, I don't know what the factory installed fan goes for but retail on the 6600R is around $245 delivered. I'm not sure what the upcharge would be for Cary to offer it as an upgrade to the standard model, but I'm sure with his relationship with Fantastic it could work out to be reasonable. I think the retail price for the upgrade kit is somewhere around $160 delivered. When the time comes I'd probably be interested. Maybe it's something that Cary could look into.
 
Even if it is not offered in a standard model, if you want it Cary will no doubt do his best to make it work for you.
 
Evan,

I think you're right about that. Everything I'v read so far tells me that Cary and Craig are most accommodating... you're Raindrop is a testament to that. I think you've inspired many of us to think beyond the norm.
 
Steve,
Go to the web site www.fantasticvent.com and look under the contact us tab. The number for larry and an e-mail option is there. It looks like an 800 number for all of the company. I think I left a request for info and Larry was the one who called me back.
 
A couple of us here had talked to the Fantastic Vent people last year about an updated fan that was supposed to be available sometime last fall. I never followed up to see if it was released, but it was going to sell for about $100, according the them. I liked the variable speed option and the moisture sensor that would automatically close the vent. It'll be interesting to see if it is available and what it's selling for.
 
We purchased the 6600R upgrade kit from Camping World a few months ago and upgraded the stock fan in our 550. It took maybe an hour. The instructions are generally good and include (small) pictures to help explain things, and of course they make perfect sense now. We have been out camping three weekends since the upgrade.

We like the upgraded features. The particular feature we were looking for was to have some slow (and quiet) speeds for the fan. Works great for us, exactly what we wanted for quiet. We do use the remote more often than we expected. We were also a bit surprised one night when the fan closed the dome as a light rain began.

Don
 
It's even better than that. The upgrade only replaces the part of the fan housing that you see from inside the cabin (as well as the small arm that lifts the dome).

The fan, the motor, the dome, and most importantly, the part of the housing you see from outside the teardrop are not changed. That means that you do not do anything to the seal between the fan housing and the roof of the teardrop.

Basically you work from inside the cabin, first unscrewing the plastic housing that holds the screen and the controls. A few wires need to be disconnected to completely remove it. When it comes down you still have the rest of fan, and its seal to the roof, still in place. Then you remove the old lift arm and replace it with the new one. The new lift arm needs to engage the new motor so it can raise and lower the dome. Then the new housing is wired back to the fan and connected to the new lift arm (the new housing has a lift motor) and finally it is pushed up back into place and screwed back in.

The stock fan has four controls: the knob to raise/lower the dome, the in-off-out rocker switch, a three-speed fan-speed switch, and a temperature control.

The upgrade has three controls: the knob to raise/lower the dome (which has now become a push-auto, pull-manual knob), the in-off-out rocker switch and a new rocker switch to turn the moisture sensor on and off.

The remote is roughly the size of a deck of playing cards, just a little longer. It has an auto/manual/off switch, a couple of up-down arrows and some red LED lights. Press the switch once and you are in auto mode. Then the up-down arrows select the temperature, shown by the lights in thirteen steps. Press the switch again and you are in manual mode where the arrow buttons select the speed, again in thirteen steps.

What we wanted out of this was the fan speeds at the lower end of the speed scale. Move some air and be quiet about it...

As I said, we have only been out with the upgraded fan three times so we don't have a lot of experience with it but we are very happy with it so far. We have mostly used the manual fan speeds but have tested the other features briefly. We seem to like the third and fourth fan speeds from the slower end of the scale while we are sleeping.

Hope this helps to give you an idea what actually gets upgraded and what it looks like when you are done.
 
Our best recollection is that the price at Camping World (a physical store, Council Bluffs IA, not online) was between $150 and $160.

We are currently camping in Minden at the ITG4 (but I am commuting back to work 2 hours away where I am typing this now) and a couple of storm fronts went through last night. The dome came down and the dome went back up a couple of times during the night. So the moisture sensor was working. We'll know more by the end of the summer as it gets more of a workout but so far it is working well for us.

Don
 
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