Leaderboard

Ideally*, I would recommend an extra 180-200W of portable solar and an extra 100Ah of battery storage if you add a fridge. That's based the two rules of thumb that guided our solar and battery selection, which I've found to be quite accurate in practice: 1) assume ~20 to 30 Ah per day for each 100W of panels. 2) your battery bank's usable Ah should be sized to ~½ of your total solar wattage To that, I'll add a third rule of thumb for Ollie users, which comes from both personal experience and reports here from others, which is that the typical battery usage for an OE2 is ~70-80 Ah per day. That includes some inverter use for hair dryer, coffee machine, etc. And I guess a fourth rule of thumb would be to budget an extra ~50 Ah per day for a compressor fridge. Mine draws ~2.5 A running, which would be a max of 60 Ah if it ran 24 hours. On good days, it will run ~50% of the time, or 30Ah, plus some for the extra draw when starting. So I see ~35 to 45 Ah on average, which makes 50 Ah a pretty good budget. We've had very good luck with our electrical, having based our solar and batteries on the above, even though we only camp in the spring, fall and winter. Apart from twice when our trailer was indoors at Oliver for service, I've only had to plug in once when not running the AC. That one time was in November, camped under trees, with no sun, and using a toaster over for 30 minutes a night. Even then, we lasted three days. So anyway, if you start with 75 Ah of base usage per day, and add 50 for the fridge, that's 125 Ah. 125 / 25 * 100 = 500W of solar. 500 / 2 = 250 Ah of usable battery storage, which would be 500 Ah of AGM batteries or 275 Ah of LFP batteries. *There's a big caveat to my recommendation, however, which is that Sherry gets by with far less solar and far less battery capacity in her OE1. I'd love to have a long conversation with her one day about how she does it. Part of that is probably that since I do have enough solar and battery capacity that I rarely give a thought to conserving (which is how I got into trouble that one time). But then if you go way, way back to my original post on sizing my solar, my goal was to have enough solar and battery that I don't have to think about it. For the most part, I'd say we accomplished that - and we still don't have, nor want, a generator. So if you run the numbers from above with more optimistic assumptions, say 60 Ah typical usage, 35 Ah fridge usage, and 30 Ah per 100 W of solar, you get 60 + 35 = 95 / 30 * 100 = 317 W of solar, and dividing by two, 160 Ah of usable battery life. Or pretty much a typical OE2. Maybe 80% of the time, that's fine, and an extra 100W portable panel might get you to 90%. At that point, it would depend on when and where you camp, how much of an electricity hog you are, and how much margin you're comfortable living with. Three cloudy days, and I bet you'd want that generator.

They could make a more useful interior if they reversed the layout and put the bath at the rear, where there is more headroom, and the bed at the front, where less headroom is needed. This would keep the great streamlined shape and allow headroom in the bathroom. By widening it 4" they could put a queen bed running fore and aft with just enough room to get in on each side, so no climbing over your partner. include some small cabinets over the bed. Possibly bigger windows. One on each side of the bed. And ones that don't leak with a flip up glass that can be left cracked open in the rain. By lengthening it about 6 inches, they could make a very nice dry bath with enclosed shower, and add just a bit of bed length. Make the storage area under the front bed a pass through setup with doors on each side. Because it would be longer and wider, larger tanks might fit in. Re-arrange the stove to get away from the sideways 2 burner, and add an oven, at least as an option. Keep the AC toward the rear, so it's not so loud and blowing right on the bed. Duct the heat so It actually heats the bathroom. Improve the suspension so the axles have a bit more travel and don't just bang into the frame as a stop. Upgrade the axles to 5200 lb axles with 12" brakes. Stiffen the lower outer body shell to reduce the flexing outside of the frame that so many interpret as frame flex. Upgrade the charging system with an inverter/charger combination unit that is more modern than the setup they now have. This would simplify and improve the system while making the inverter standard equipment. Offer a lithium battery option. The net result would be a trailer about 6" longer and 4" wider. They could call it the Elite 24.

Must be the optimum spot - I had a bird condo in the same spot.

If anyone orders an AC cover would you mind posting up a link? We don’t have our Ollie yet so I don’t know the dimensions of the AC unit n order to place an order. Thanks! -Patriot

I have also lost a few of those black plastic retainer clips for the refrigerator vent covers somewhere "on the road"... I was able to replace them with a more reliable fastener - a cage nut, machine screw flat metal washer and flat rubber washer. I happened to have in-stock some M6 cage nuts designed to fit into a 1/4"x1/4" square punch-out in the side rails of a 19" computer server rack. They fit perfectly into the square hole in the refrigerator vent trim ring (inserted from the inside) designed to capture the black plastic retainer clip. Since my cage nuts are metric, I had to use metric machine screws. You can just as easily use inch-sized cage nuts and machine screws. The upper and lower vent covers require slightly different washer sizes and machine screw lengths as detailed below. Upper Vent: M6-1.0x20mm machine screw, 6mm or 1/4" x 3/4" diameter steel flat washer, similar size round rubber flat washer. Lower Vent: M6-1.0x25mm machine screw, 6mm or 1/4" x 5/8" diameter steel flat washer, similar size square rubber washer. Flat washers and machine screws are stainless steel. Rubber washers are cut down to fit from a larger rubber washer. If you want you can select machine screws with security heads (security torx, security hex, etc...). CAUTION: Do not tighten machine screws too much - they will crack the bracket with the square opening in the trim ring that holds the cage nut in place (don't ask me how I know this LOL). Snug but not real tight. The rubber washers are there for this purpose. Periodically check machine screws to make sure they haven't self-loosened. Tom

Now THAT made me snort coffee onto my keyboard!!

Well, we don’t want to go too heavy! Here’s my thoughts/list... 28’ X 7.5’, maybe 8’. Walk around queen. 4 person dinette. Dry bath. Repositioned/quieter air conditioner. Bigger refrigerator. More and easier to access storage (improve current basement). Bigger tanks - 50 gal fresh and gray, 30 gal black. Lithium option with solar. Bigger windows. Better suspension (look at the Australians/Black Series/Kedron/etc). I’m sure I’ll think of more. Mike

AK - while I've seen ac cover that have a cinch rope at the bottom, I would not trust that to keep the cover in place while traveling down the road. ThomB87 - Probably no need to "cut off their food supply" once you get a cover. But, I did have a bird build a nest on the folded steps under my CalMark cover one year. Bill

If you decide that a full cover is not the way you want to go - you can always purchase a cover that is for the air conditioner only - for example - https://www.amazon.com/ADCO-3021-White-Conditioner-Cover/dp/B0002F68OU/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=5UKZDJJFXALN&dchild=1&keywords=rv+air+conditioner+covers&qid=1585440273&sprefix=RV+air+conditioner%2Caps%2C176&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUE1RjU3Uk9MSThOWUUmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA1NjQ1MDBKTjE2WTVNVUpJVjgmZW5jcnlwdGVkQWRJZD1BMDczODE3NDJPWTFES08wMEg0OUwmd2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl Just make sure that you get the correct size! Bill