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That is nice knowing you can still do some minimal data functions, like phone calls over wifi, and I am Assuming text, and emails in standby mod

Was it the router a mini? Did you use the mesh wifi or did you do RJ45? If you used the mesh wifi where did you put the router. Living in Oregon we are often under a tree canopy, and the cell reception is very spotty at best on the coast, along the Cascade mountain range and in eastern Oregon prairie land. I still have a problem calling something a mountain range in Oregon after spending most of my life in Colorado Rockies. I do have a hard tonneau cover, but no tongue box . My preference would be to set it on the tonneau and then to disconnect it before take the truck on a outing and store it somewhere.

That stand looks pretty cool. What parts did you use to make it work. Also the battery looks like a Dewalt 20V battery. How did you wire into the battery. I like the idea of not using cables if possible and if I use a cable I only what to use one. Either RJ45 or Power. I have a tonneau cover so placing it on the cover when needed would be great, when not possible I would like the stand instead of just sitting it on the ground, and the stand had weight in the base it would be even more stable on the Tonneau. Thanks for letting me know that you arrived at your current setup through a process. I liked to know that. I know your setup is more complex than I want now, though it works great for your needs and you arrived at that over testing and growth. Sorry but what is NIB"🤔 I have a question for you and @Todd B how can you mount the mini on a pole or a tripod, Most tripods are 1/4-20 threads and I have know idea what the pole size @jd1923 uses. Special Addapters or does the mini come with all of those mounting options? Sorry for basic questions, When I was a machinist/ automated equipment tech, and then IT, I usually tried to wrap my head around a situation before I would implement. I am kind of anal retentive at times. I like seeing things from different angles before I purchase something. I do not mind fabricating/ buy adapters to make things work, but it nice to have an idea which way I will move before I purchase something. Sometimes it works and sometimes it is working through a problem/situation to come up with a solution. If someone else has a good solution that works, I do not mind leveraging those solutions. Why reinvent the wheel if someone else has already done it. (Off topic) I built a 42' x 16' free standing awning off the back porch with plastic corrugated roof special ordered from the east coast( my wife's idea), I want a plywood with metal roof. The awning roof cantilevers over the roof on the house . Living in Oregon in with many trees and 90+ humidity in the winter I needed a way to clean the awning roof, because of the debris, moss and lichen growth. When I first tried to do this I made a 3 nozzle sprayer on rollers to hook to my pressure washer. It failed miserably. I ended up recruiting my son, and we both stood on our metal roof, one sprayed the roof with water as the other used a micro fiber mop head on a 16 ft paint roller pole to clean the roof. This worked but it was very labor intensive. I found an old high end pressure washer at an estate sale this year. My son and I made the base so I could tow it with the mower and put a removable hose real on the base. I went over every part of the sprayer. It looks like brand new accept for the dented Honda gas tank. It took a 3 iterations with the old 3 nozzle sprayer, but I got it working great, and at half throttle. Had some fun at full throttle where the sprayer was floating 4ft above the roof because of the spray pressure. When I got it dialed in it took 1.5hrs by my self without getting any over spray on the metal roof, as compared to 4hrs for 2 people and both of us getting wet on a metal roof. The point of the story I may be slow and with limited resources, but I never gave up on finding a solution.

I’m 100% with @Todd B on his post above. I have the name brand Andersen version and wouldn’t camp without them. After two years though the red ones sure are beat. This Amazon item has a 4.7 rating with 3K reviews which is huge! Camping in the mountains I wish they were taller than 4” but taller might not fit between the tires! The Apex has AT tires but is the diameter actually larger? I don’t think OTT would design a suspension that would not accept these levelers. You should ask them or know the tire brand and size and can find the dia in the tire specs.

Bummer just a few days before your trip, and sorry but most things Truma take long. Check into what Craig wrote. Then if you need further troubleshooting, re-open the bypass, remove any access plates/covers inside and out so you can see inside as much as possible. Start the water pump again and recreate the leak. Keep it running until you can eyeball what part or connection is actually leaking. Don’t worry, if water gets in the basement it will drain out of the weep holes along the hull bottom.

I am going to be moving from a 2008 toyota tundra to a 2017 f250 for my tow vehicle. I already intend to add a dc-dc charging system for while I am towing. But I am now moving into the camper full time as I will be traveling for my new job. I would like to install a converter that allows the batteries to charge on a single smaller generator instead of 2 hondas in parallel. Im not sure if this is doable but I would appreciate any input.

After a lot use of our Starlink Mini, our normal method of deployment is to use the outside plug on the side of the trailer to plug in the power supply and then set the dish on the tongue box if we’re facing north-ish or on the bed cover of the truck if we’re not. That’s it. No mount, no tripod. The back of the dish has the right angle if it is on a level surface. I do have the router and we used it once when we were camping in Washington state under a heavy canopy that required the dish to be a little too far from the trailer for good bandwidth. If the dish is on the trailer tongue box we get plenty of bandwidth. Even on the back of the truck it’s no problem. I did have one mishap one evening in New Mexico when a thunderstorm popped up out of nowhere and blew the dish off of the box. It still works fine after its flight and hard landing. Just a scrape on one corner. Mike

JD beat me to it on this one. I traveled a couple hundred miles in Wisconsin hill country today. The steep downhills would have had me braking frequently to stay close to the speed limit. Instead i flipped on the exhaust brake and didnt need to touch the brakes even once and i wasnt even towing this time. When towing the benefit is even much more. I cant overstate how valuable this feature is in the hills and mountains.

I’m sure you’ve done this but just to check a few things: 1: Strainer in place and fully seated. 2: Pop off sealed, try open and close a few times to make sure it seals. If neither of those work you may have a split in the back side of the black mixing chamber. (Looks like a big themos ) This could happen if you didn’t drain and leave strainer out in cold weather. (That would be a big repair bill.$

Hi - I'm getting ready to leave home in a few days and am going through the standard "get ready" list. I found the water pump wouldn't shut off and also saw water leaking outside from the hot water heater. I turned off the bypass valve and the pump and the leak stopped. I checked the overpressure relief valve and didn't see anything obvious, but when I clamped it back in place and tried again, it leaked much worse than before. Is this common/simple? - Thanks in advance - Doug

These lists can get really long and temping to buy all the things when you get started. We are in our third year and recently switched over to these for leveling and love them. Put these down and turn on level-mate pro and getting level is easy. Way easier then pulling on and off different sets of blocks.

I have really liked our Starlink mini when traveling. I have used it for basic keep in touch stuff all the way to video calls for work. We have even held two wifi based phone calls over Starlink mini while on the standby plan! My setup is still pretty basic. I have a tri-pod I mount it on so I can move it to the best spot and plug it into the side of Ollie. Speed and reliability have been great! As @jd1923 mentioned the ability to switch plans is great. Sometimes I have paid $15 for 50GB of data for the 4 days I needed it (just got lucky with how it hit my billing window).

PS - again thanks from Blain, Karen, and golden doodle Martha out of Edmond, OK.

I took another look at the photos and saw where the screws are installed through the frame into the aluminum C-Channel. Thank you so much. I will be doing the same thing here on our 2022 LE1 Hull #951.

“Then placed the frames back on, drilled and attached the shade frames with #6 stainless steel screws.”. — where are the additional #6 stainless steel screws installed?

Hey Bob, there is much experience here. Mine is just one input for you... I purchased the extra router when Geoff posted this (impulse purchase because of the $40 sale): https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/10918-the-new-starlink-mini-router-for-what-ails-you/ Turns out a year later, I've never used it (still have it NIB somewhere)! I just last week integrated our Mini to the Pepwave router which is pretty cool, but our installation is far beyond what you expressed you want. https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/9933-pepwave-cellular-router-and-not-the-common-install/#findComment-126971 You really don't need anything but a simple way to mount the Mini. At first, I just sit it on an upside-down milk crate. I was using battery packs so not to string wire, but the Mini comes with a 120VAC power supply (inverter ON required) with produces 30VDC with a 50' cord. We're always 50 ft within view of the northern sky and I would not want the hardware sitting much further out of sight. The simple stand pictured, better than my old milk crate, is what we use when our truck cannot be parked in the right spot. I have a camping rule to minimize setup which in turn reduces all the work to setup and tear down and we move a lot (as you will going all the way to Alaska)! No poles and suction cups for me. As far as service, there is the monthly $10 cost for stand-by service which includes enough bandwidth to setup, download updates, configure and test the installation. You can also slowly load a web page or send an email, again very slowly but the connection is there. When you upgrade service (Starlink must be positioned and phone setup must first be connected to Starlink W-Fi when there's no cell service), they prorate the first month. Our billing date is the 4th of the month, so for example, if I start service on the 20th of the month, given my billing date I will be charged about half the plan cost. I can immediately change the next month plan to return to Stand-by $10/month, so I don't forget. On such a trip to Alaska, you may just need it ON for 2-3 months. This is good to know, but more so for us where we have the cellular antenna and router and T-Mobile 5G SIM card which costs $30/month on my business plan. If we're getting cell which is about 80% of the days we travel then I'm paying for Starlink only when necessary. But when you activate, you're charged on that date through your billing date.

I am planning a 8-10 week trip in British Columbia,Yukon and Alaska for next summer. I started to think about internet access, and being able to communicate with kids. So I started looking at Starlink posts in the forums here. I am thinking about the Starlink mini and the Starlink Route mini with the mesh network then doing the Pause anytime with standby mode to lessen the Starlink charges. I am not at the point of wanting to drill holes in the Oli or install a satellite in/on the truck. I know others here were talking about going with the Starlink mini and StarLink router mini in order to able able to get the satellite receiver out at the 50 ft limit and still get decent reception back inside the Oli. I was hoping to get some feed back on how this is working out. Thanks, Bob

Just to circle back, I got to field-test my design on my trip, and I’m super happy with how it worked! So much so that it even survived a random weather microburst and the suction cups remained planted! 😂 Not only was I able to camp in extremely hot weather and use the shower often, but after eleven days I still had 25% capacity left in the gray tank. There’s honestly nothing I would change, except possibly adding a wooden bath mat to keep my feet clean. I used one of those inexpensive folding stools to keep my shampoo and soap at an easy-to-reach height, and added another suction hook for my towel. I also attached a tarp clip to a suction cup on the side of ILOVHER to keep the shower curtain pulled in and prevent any unwanted exposure. 😉 I’m really happy with how it turned out. It’s compact, works extremely well, and will travel with me for future camping where gray-water discharge is allowed!

Thanks to all the contributors to this thread. After a summer of brutal heat and a refrigerator that wasn't able to keep up, I was despondent. But I found this old thread, got hopeful for a solution, was able to order the parts and install some fans. I'm excited that they are working and quiet. The real test will be when I drive home to Texas, but I actually had to turn down the refrigerator temperature setting because it seems so much more efficient.

And nothing like the diesel engine with exhaust brake! 😎 I use it always, even around town, towing or not. Somebody cuts in front of you and you're slowing down as soon as you let your foot off the gas. Drove recently Prescott to Phoenix to pickup Chris at the airport. It's a 4300 ft drop in elevation and I made it down the mountain without pressing the truck brake pedal once. Without it, I'd be on the brakes most of the way down. Towing the Oliver down I-17 does require braking a few times where the drop is 6-8%. For sure! Note a couple Forum members recently posted they prefer when the TV weighs more than the TT. It provides balance which boosts confidence when towing in less than ideal conditions. Our truck loaded and hitched (with tongue weight) is 8K LBS with 8,800 GVWR, and the Oliver loaded is 6,400 LBS. Never will the tail wag our dog. Given you're buying new, it's the right time to make it your last and best TV purchase. We're not getting any younger! 🤣

Having done it before, I can say that having a marginal tow vehicle is no comparison to having a competent tow vehicle. A bigger truck is safer and more comfortable to tow with. No weight distribution hitch, no worrying about your weights, much more relaxing. If you're buying a new truck anyway, I suggest going for a 2500. You'll probably end up buying one later, anyway.

I didn’t comment earlier, since I don’t follow new tech and models. But I’m with @FloraFauna 100%. I used to buy used Cadillacs (one Lincoln Mark VII LSC) for my drivers back in the 90s, like the Seville STS, nice car to commute Chicago traffic! They’d come off a 2-year lease, with under 30K miles, and always with a dealer add-on 70K powertrain warranty! I’d keep them another 2 years and trade for another beauty for very little money. I’d spend 28K OTD, for what new would be 60K plus dealer fees and taxes! In AZ if I buy from a private owner, there are NO sales taxes. From a dealer, the plus 8.6%! Think about total cost of ownership. For what you’d be spending for new, you could get the same model but the HD 2500 series, low mileage 2-3 years old, for same or less $$$! Our TV is 26 years old and pulls the Oliver NP! I’ve purchased about 60 vehicles in my life. Only 4 of them were new. I have a little brother who won’t buy anything used to save his life! Maybe because when young he got all the used hand-me-down clothes I grew out of. He’s paid through the teeth and I’ve always had far better rides, way too many to park in our 3-car garage! 🤣

While this does not answer your specific question, many of us prefer to eliminate all those issues you list by simply going with a 3/4 ton truck. Such a truck also eliminates the need for a weight distributing hitch and gives more payload capacity. Its simple and provides more confidence on the road.

Thanks for sharing the information on your upgrade.

I am thinking of buiying a 2026 GMC Sierra 1500 Denali which comes standard with the Premium Suspension featuring Adaptive Ride Control (ARC) Do people that have the GMC Denali find that it halls the Elite II without problems like no porpoising when going over bumps? Does the rear end of the truck squat a lot when conneccting to the Elite II. I would appreciate any information you can share.