Silverleaf VM-SPC

Several weeks ago, while we were staying at Whalers Rest in Newport, we took a drive inland to Albany, Oregon, to visit Silverleaf Electronics (http://www.silverleafelectronics.com/). We had seen displays that other motorhome owners have using their VM-SPC software, and we went to a presentation by folks from Silverleaf when we attended the FMCA Rally in Chandler back in March.

We went to the factory/R&D/all things associated/ Silverleaf location to purchase the hardware components that would allow us to hook in to our engine's information.

A week or so before we were scheduled to get there, we had called Silverleaf and talked with Art, who was extremely helpful - he was knowledgeable about which of their software versions would work best with the Blue Bird (the newest version (4) works better with newer vehicles, but a previous version (3) is best for the Detroit Diesel that we have), and he also gave us a recommendation of brand/model of tablet that many of the other owners have found to be good for running the software and providing a display.

Art recommended an RCA Cambio 10" tablet available for right at $100 from Walmart (this was the package that we got from Walmart.com a few weeks ago).

It runs Windows 10 and has pretty nearly a fullsized keyboard. In addition, the screen is a touchscreen like a smart phone - I have never used a tablet - I am very impressed!

We got it in purple (it is a little deeper purple than the pictures are showing) so it would be easy to find... we have so many electronic things that are black and they seem to get lost unable to be found easily (I am certain that this could not have any relationship to our lack of organization).

Art recommended a Mexican food place and we drove over there for lunch - he had had to take a phone call as we were leaving, but we got caught by a train at a railroad crossing, so ended up at the restaurant at the same time. Dwayne and I shared one fajita dinner - it was YUMMY! (Art took his to-go.)

Art put a customized display onto the tablet for us - we will be able to further customize it with different values showing depending on what we are specifically looking to do (e.g. get better fuel mileage, or make sure we're not over-revving the engine). When I took this picture, the display was not currently hooked up to the engine - we have the components for hooking up to the on-board diagnostics (OBD) but had not yet done it when I took the picture... we were able to run with it from Seaside to Grants Pass. We're now wanting to create some customized values specific to our needs.

We have realized that it would be nice to do the customization while the rig is running and supplying values... so Dwayne did some customization on our way from Grants Pass to Redding on Wednesday. We also realized that we can run the software and do the customization on our laptops and then just transfer the .scr file over to the tablet... even though the tablet is very nice, we are each a lot more comfortable with using our laptops... More to be done to get the best use out of this!