Leaderboard

You guys are Electric! I plan to have an electrician wire my 30amp service very soon so this information is quite timely. Also, thank you DavidS for your circuit and voltage testing gadget - I checked out your recipe and ordered the stuff from Amazon Prime right away. This will be a simple and inexpensive pre-hookup check at every camp ground. Once again, thanks to all for this great information. As an aside, before I ever heard of Oliver, I was researching Airstream and spent much time monitoring the Airstream forum. What a negative, complaining, poor-mouthing forum. In fact, it was the frequent quality complaints that led me to Oliver. One Airstream commenter suggested "Airstream quality is so poor it might be best to get an Oliver", so, I checked out Oliver and the rest is history (I pickup in April 2019). And this Oliver forum - no one complains and gripes about quality, but offers helpful information and suggestions for improvement. I am so very pleased to have found Oliver owners - looking forward to being one(I did make my 15% down payment, so, I am a partial owner).

EDIT 08/11/18 Uploaded a (corrected) Numbers Revision 01 file and a (new) Excel Revision 01 file. Note: I will keep any future major updates or important comments in this first post. I do not want for them get lost in subsequent replies. If you are at all familiar with Excel or Numbers, this may be helpful. I was keeping my records in a variety of forms, and the data was getting increasingly messy and hard to interpret, so with the help of my wife I now have an all-in-one spreadsheet that I can update on-the-fly, as long as I have an internet connection. I back it up in the Cloud, so I can do data entry from my iPad at a campsite as easily as I can from my iMac at home. It has four tabs or sections. The first is the Trip log. The Date column "self-formats" so all the dates look alike. The Total column automatically updates when you enter the Trip (daily) number of miles. Don't mess with the figures in the TOTAL column. [attachment file=Trip log capture.png] The second tab is the Service Schedule/ Tech page. I have service reminders (stuff I need to do soon), torque values, service info and my Squawk List (aka the "Honey-Do List") - stuff I either want to or need to address, eventually. [attachment file=Service Tech Capture.png] The third tab is the actual Service Record, which includes all routine work, repairs, and mods. I did not include extra columns for cost and detailed lists - I summarized since a future owner would only need that rough data. The paper records are there if I need to get down to small part costs. [attachment file=Service Record capture.png] The last tab is an Inventory section, for me to keep track of loose stuff that is carried in the trailer, in case of loss. [attachment file=Inventory Capture.png] The sample file, which includes the data shown in the screen captures above, but not all my history, can be found at my Dropbox page. Follow this link for the NUMBERS file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/u4fmo7ko7oxde6y/DAVIES%20SAMPLE%20RV%20LOG%20Serv%20Rec%20Inv%20REV01%20%20NUMBERS.numbers?dl=0 Follow this link for the EXCEL file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/07kvpx7u1d9l7bc/DAVIES%20SAMPLE%20RV%20LOG%20Serv%20Rec%20Inv%20REV01%20%20EXCEL.xlsx?dl=0 I strongly suggest that you save your file as a Master, duplicate it and work with the copy in case you mess up some how. Change all the entries and headers as you see fit. I hope it is useful to some of you. The first and third tabs print very nicely in Landscape, the other two work in Portrait. Use the "Fit to Page" option, print one tab at a time, and they will all stay on one printed page, so they are easy to read. Please let me know if there are any problems downloading or opening the file. I know very little about spreadsheets, but way more than I used to ;) John Davies Spokane WA

My hitch started to make the dreaded Anderson Groan during sharp turns, an indication that the sleeve was contaminated with grit. The sound first appeared at about 2800 miles since I bought the hitch.you need a pretty heavy duty external snap ring tool to get the bottom ring off. It is strong. Invert the hitch in the receiver, remove the snap ring, whack the bottom of the ball mount. If that doesn’t work you may have to connect to your Ollie and use the jack to raise up the ball, and jump on the mount to free it. Mine popped loose with a single hard blow of my 2 lb dead blow mallet. Separate the sleeve from the ball mount. Upside down in a vise, one whack. Clean parts with a strong solvent and a red scotchbrite pad. I used brake cleaner. There was a lot of nasty crud stuck to all the parts. Don’t forget to clean the inside of the aluminum mount itself. Cracked sleeve. I don’t see how it could fall out, I just reused it. Reassemble dry, install the snap ring. Good to go.... no more ugly noises. I really think that the hitch needs to be sealed from the elements. Moisture won’t hurt it, but grit and dust certainly will. I can see having to do this annually at least. I plan to carry my snap ring pliers on long trips, just in case. Yes the ball is heavily worn, but it is not getting worse. I do plan to eventually replace it and the coupler in the stronger 2 5/16 inch size. This worn ball works ok, except on the rare occasion that I drive over a really steep slow speed dip, the coupler rotates out of the groove on the ball with a loud bang. Disconcerting but fairly harmless, I hope... John Davies Spokane WA

Hi All, Just wanted to share our experience getting a 30A power pedestal installed at home. Wanted a hookup to run everything at home to check all systems, cool down the fridge, and run the AC while working and prepping to leave for trips from home. Electrician came out and installed 2 RV style boxes with the correct receptacles. BUT, wired them @ 240V! We did not realize this, and upon connecting the Ollie to power and starting the AC.... POP! Very loud, breakers tripped on both ends. It took us a while to realize, and we feared the worst. The Progressive Industries surge protector absolutely saved us... that was the pop we heard. Upon rewiring the hookup to 120V, all systems functioned properly... except the tank monitor. Was not getting anything out of that. Felt lucky that was the only thing we blew up, but upon taking the monitor off and unplugging and plugging back in the connector, it lit right back up. There's some kind of reset on it. Not even any fuses blown... we got lucky. Moral of the story is, if you're thinking about getting hooked up at home, be sure you walk the electrician through the specs- 30A, 120V ONLY. The oversight almost cost us the whole electrical system, or at least all of the devices attached to it. This is not how most electricians would wire this hookup, they are thinking of it like a dryer hookup, which is 240V. Also be sure the polarity is correct. The Oliver wants to see white as the hot wire, not black. Most electricians will wire it the other way around. The polarity will not hurt anything, but you will get an error code on your surge protector.

Is not Meeteetse a great find! Love that area. Fished the Greybull river. Fantastic cutthroat trout fishing. Did not get to that reservoir. Will keep it on my to do list next time up there. And of course the Cody Buffalo Bill museum is Fantastic. Wife and I spent two days going thru it and wished we had more time. The gun portion is marvelous. What a collection. Thanks for the boondocking tip.

Wow, you are fortunate, the Progressive Industries surge protector was worth its weight in gold. Glad to know it works as designed. Your experience, unfortunately, is not a one off, it happens more than folks expect. As has been stated, RV park power should not be trusted until proven correct. Not only incorrect construction, but low voltage will cause RV electrical system failure, not to mention personal harm in some situations. I just completed my own home 30 AMP outside power enclosure. Many, many years ago, I made a living as an Electrician, and even with the training and experience you have as a professional, you always verify voltage, grounding, wire and plug amperage capacities, and in this case GFCI protection. If you hire the work out, you must tell the installer it is 120 volt, 30 amp, single phase. John's diagram is a good reference, but not infallible - some people can screw up anything. RB

I posted about a simple and cheap setup to check both the circuit and the voltage of a 30 amp outlet HERE. Simple and easy. I use it every time, before I hook up. I found two campgrounds where there was a problem with the 30 amp outlet.

Not sure about that white being the “hot” line thing. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. This is precisely why I never hire anybody to do this kind of work. I just do it myself, then I know it’s right.

Tolly, There have been discussions on this topic before. There are breakers that can shut off power, that are located under the street side bed. Photos here and here. The positions of the breakers may be different on newer units; they are different on mine. Rather than having to lift the bed to shut off power, I installed a battery disconnect switch. Easy to install and easy to use.

We stay plugged in when not traveling. We keep the fridge running all the time too. If you have the capability I would keep it plugged in whether you winterize or not. We don’t winterize down here and travel almost all year round, so it’s nice to be always ready to go. Mike

Jason Essary at Oliver advised me that the only way to make sure there is no drain on the batteries in storage is to disconnect the cable to the negative post in the battery compartment. I have 4 6-volt AGM batteries. There is a main negative cable that is easy to disconnect. This is the method I used until yesterday. I now have electricity in my indoor storage space, so I won't have to do this in the future! Don

I used this Battery Disconnect switch: https://www.amazon.com/NOCO-ID220S-6V-24V-Battery-Disconnect/dp/B006EH9WUC So far so good...