Leaderboard

I just noticed on the Battle Born page that their standard 100aH case blemish battery is $675. It says the battery is 100% functional, but the case has a blemish. Mike

I don’t know if this is a BF price, but it is the best I have seen anywhere and has free shipping. (Amazon Prime is $72.) https://tweetys.com/tank-check-024-1002-dual-propane-level-sensing-system-with-bluetooth-technology.aspx The base spacer rings are not cool, they are a little cheaper than Amazon, but then they stick you with an extra $10 shipping charge. Buy those here: …. Mopeka 024-5002 LP Check Tank Halo I plan to use the IOS app, I personally think the battery powered monitor is ugly beyond words, but if you like it, you could always hide it in a cabinet. EDIT, Tweetys did not charge sales tax, most unusual, that saved me 9%😬 John Davies Spokane WA

If you stand them up like your current AGM batteries you’ll only be able to get three in there. Some have turned them on their sides and got four in. Not sure of the specifics of that, but someone will answer. Here’s what two Battle Borns look like. If I remove the spacer in the front I would be able to get one more in standing up. So far two have been more than adequate. Mike

I just ordered this RV Lock for the front door. It is currently $144 -- normally $240 (shipping is $11.99 - no sales tax in TN). Please post any other good Thanksgiving/Black Friday deals you find that may work for our Ollies. https://www.rvlock.com/collections/frontpage/products/rvlock-v4-0-w-integrated-keypad-for-rvs

Here's where mine went, it is out of the way. but relatively easy to see if you lean down. The data cable goes up the gap between the battery compartment and the inside electronics bay. I was thinking about putting it at eye level, but in retrospect it isn't needed, since I always use the app. FYI the center line of the monitor and other stuff in the pictures is 3.5" below the bottom of the removable counter top. The monitor comes with a huge data cable, maybe 50 feet? I bought a short one that was 5 feet and that fit fine, with the shunt located right below the factory 12 volt positive bus. From this thread: ... https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/5301-how-to-lithium-battery-powered-vent-system/ Some members have not even bothered to mount it where it is visible, it is OK to just leave it hidden under the street side bed. However I think having it located in the cabin is useful if you have visitors who may not have the phone app. I hope that helps. John Davies Spokane WA

Wow, that’s a really good deal!

Tooletries bath organizers are 25% off today. They seem to be pretty popular here in the forum so I decided to give them a go.

Honda 1000 has been our lightweight best friend for over a decsde.

Happy Turkey Day....or in our case, Happy Smoked Boston Butt Day.... Seriously, I hope you've all had a wonderful Day of Thanks, with lots of love and friendship around you! mb

Ending a great Thanksgiving day . B0072E80-011F-46B1-A7ED-BC692D004388.MOV

If you decide to get FLA or AGM, one weird little bonus for the ambivalent is that it won't be too many years before you'll be replacing them anyway and can always slip in Lithium at that point. As for the 3,000W inverter, we had the well documented (remote panel throwing a comms error and inability to update the firmware) issues with the one that was installed when we took delivery in December 2020 but I put in a replacement unit that Xantrex sent me in around June and it's been working fine since replacing the defective one.

Wow, that’s a screaming deal. Purchased ours direct from RVLock for $198 and thought that was a good price on a related note, there was a stripped stud on the upper lock mechanism on our lock and RVLock was very quick to respond to my warranty email and send out a replacement part free of charge along with excellent instructions on how to replace the defective part Highly recommend this company

We can't imagine AGM batteries after having lithium. There are so many advantages to lithium batteries. While everyone knows they last longer, few think about the advantages of the built-in battery monitoring systems. No longer do you worry about over-charging, having to have a trickle charger, depleting them to zero, etc., etc.

In regards to lithium life span, those numbers are based on full discharge cycles. A set of batteries in a home solar installation, where they are deeply discharged every single day, will work orders of magnitude harder than on RV trips with partial discharges. My Battle Borns have been used for one season, and rarely did they ever drop very far below 50% state of charge. In about 45 days of use, the Victron Connect app shows just 12 cycles. Obviously if you are full timing off grid, you will stress them more, but at the rate I am going they will probably last for the rest of my lifetime….. and be healthy for the next owner. The expected life is 3000 to 5000 cycles. John Davies Spokane WA

My wife and I are taking delivery of an Elite II next summer as well. We haven't yet been required to make a final commitment on upgrades, but we are leaning toward the Lithium Pro Package over the Solar Pro package. In response to an earlier, similar post inquiring whether to go with wet cell or AGM, I stated the reasons we have tentatively chosen the Lithium Pro Package. I have edited it to more specifically address your LIFePO4 vs. AGM query: "We are presently planning to spend the extra $$$$ on the Lithium Pro Package [over the Solar Pro Package], for many reasons: (1) we view it as "future proofing" (it's a lot easier to have the more robust 3kw inverter and wiring infrastructure installed during construction); (2) we hope to be able to run the AC with just our 2kw generator, which requires the Micro Air Easy Start [included in the Lithium Pro Package] (which is also much easier to install in the factory before the AC goes on the roof); (3) we want to be able to run the AC, albeit for only a short time, on the batteries; (4) LiFePO4 accepts a full charge much faster than lead/acid, and so is more efficiently recharged with solar; (5) 390Ah of LiFePO4 provides much more usable battery capacity than 400 Ah of [lead/acid/AGM batteries], because only about 50% of lead/acid capacity is usable before recharge compared to 85% with LiFePO4; (6) payload,and therefore trailer weight, is an issue with our 2019 Tundra 5.7L Double Cab tow vehicle, and LiFePO4 saves a couple hundred pounds vs. [AGM] and (7) the increased cost is offset to some extent by the 10-year probable life of LiFePO4 batteries." I will add with regard to the first point, future proofing, that we plan to own our Ollie for a couple of decades, and we believe that the price of LiFePO4 batteries vs. AGM will continue to drop over that time as lithium R&D costs are recovered. We do not plan to spend the additional $4400 for the 630 Ah Lithium Platinum Package because we believe 390 Ah will be enough. But, if, over time, we decide we really want more battery capacity, it will likely be less expensive later, and we can add it without having to also upgrade the inverter or any internal wiring. I expect you know you will likely get between 3 and 5 years of service from AGMs. So, over the probable 10-year life of the LiFePO4 batteries, you will be required to replace the AGMs at least once, maybe twice. Today, you must pay at least $800 for 400Ah of AGM capacity. And, I note you have purchased a Honda 2200i generator. If you plan to run the AC using that generator, you will still need to spend the extra $400 for the MicroAir Easy start if you don't opt for the Lithium Pro Package. So, over time and considering the cost of the MicroAir Easy Start, the "net" cost differential between the Solar Pro and Lithium Pro packages falls more in the $2400-$3100 range, not $4300. For these reasons, we are still planning to spend the extra on the Lithium Pro Package. Hope this helps with your decision.

Well, we did it. My husband and I have committed to an Oliver Trailer! Now for more decisions. Getting to the point, I would love to hear from Oliver owners their experience with compost toilets. While I love the thought of not having to empty tanks at the campground, I am not sure if compost toilets are worth the extra effort. Personally, my main concern is .... and I hate to have to be so blunt, but after speaking with several women friends, we all have concluded that while using the toilet for No 2, it is almost impossible not to mix pee with the poo. There I said it. There is lots of info about compost toilets but nothing basic like this. It is my understanding that if any urine is mixed with the poo, you will have a problem. If this is absolutely true, I know what decision I will be making. Feedback, please. Thank you

We just bought a used Ollie and the former owner ran a plug in air freshener in there for, I'm assuming, the 3 years they owned it. The smell has saturated every bit of fabric and screen material in the camper. I'm thinking we need to even replace all the screens as they smell super strong. I cannot figure out how to remove them easily...I'm afraid I will break them! Does anyone have any tips or help? much appreciated!

They bumped the price to 700, still a good deal imo. If anyone needs a Honda companion generator Northern Tool has them in stock. Current “deal” is a $200 gift card to use at their store.

No matter which toilet option you choose, you will still have the gray water tank to empty (the tank that collects water from the sinks/shower) and most states/campgrounds prohibit dumping gray water on the ground, so you’re still dealing with the campground sewer connection. And with the composting toilet you still have to dump the small pee tank somewhere.

I suspect that’s the trick - probably with lithiums too.

John D., 3 -5 years for AGM batteries? We had AGM batteries on our boat and they lasted for about 10 years.

Yeah, if you say retail on 600ah of batteries is $6,000 (high these days), and $3,500 for inverter, cables, etc. (also generous), then that’s $9,500 in materials. I wired my whole trailer in less than a week, and could certainly do it again in 30 hours or less, so with what’s left of the total, that would be over $500/hr in labor. Plus profit on the materials. Maybe I should think seriously about getting into the trailer mod business.

Doesn’t sound right to me. We did some clean up on my cabling and replaced the old non-lithium capable PD4045 adding two Battle Borns and I don’t think I spent more than $3K.

Our delivery date went from 12/29/21 to 01/11/22 - supply delay issues ; fiberglass resin and gelcoat supplies. No worries, flexibility is good and hope quality is not compromised to meet delayed deliveries !! Cheers !! Ed

Carol and I hope everyone has a happy and safe Thanksgiving wherever you may be! Mike

Happy Thanksgiving holidays! Visiting daughter in San Antonio ( military) , enjoying the Riverwalk and other sights . Meeting up with Ollie owners , Ralph , Mike&Carol while here . We pick up our Ollie 2 in early Jan . Much to learn !! Cheers !! Ed

Thanks, I stayed at Mammoth three years ago in May, in my Casita. This was right after a late season snow storm that delayed arrival by a day from the Grand Tetons. No furnace in the Casita, but beat being in a tent. As noted above, Mammoth does allow day use of generators, <=60 DBs.

Yup let’s do that. Sounds like you’ve got a great winter ahead of you. We’ve spent time in Everglades City and Goodland in the past near CSSP..love that neck of the woods. You can get out in the Boonies really quick around there which is very cool.. we are bouncing around between Sanibel, LGI, Brownsville and Nakomis, which is really close to Oscar Shearer. We will be there in February with visiting kids and grandkids from Maine before we head West…

I disagree, most allow it for limited hours. Seven campgrounds with "Gn" in the table allow them, but there is a 60dB limit, so no noisy box store units. If yours is quiet enough, you should be fine with the Yamaha 1000. Just make sure all your other 120 volt AC breakers are open, just leave the converter operating. I would check to make sure it works before leaving home.... 😉 Always check right before you get there, to make sure your info is current. https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/campgrounds.htm John Davies Spokane WA

Happy Thanksgiving ya'll 🙂

You lucky devil - my most very favorite (NOT)😝. As Mike said - those screens should come clean of the smell since they are made of fiberglass. If not for some reason they are fairly simple to replace. If you decide to "scrub" the shades - do so with a gentle hand. Both the shades and the operating cords can be damaged if not treated with care. Don't forget to take the air conditioner filter out and (at least) wash it. Again, these are fairly easy to replace if you can't get the smell out. The rest of the interior is reasonably to wash down and polish. Perhaps the rubber mats that line the "floor" or each of the cabinets could use a scrubbing too. Let us know how it goes. Bill

You will enjoy your Oliver. The solar is the way to go as mentioned in the above posts. Plus the solar keeps my AGM batteries charged during the winter months when my Ollie has gone to sleep.

I agree with JD in the above post. I took my trailer to a certified scale when I was ready to travel and after loading all my gear in the trailer (no water in tanks or groceries) I returned to the certified scale and and my hitch weight was 480 pounds. very little increase

If you want we should catch up. We will be in Naples prior to Christmas at Collier Seminole state park from there up the west coast to Oscar Shearer state park just north of Venice. From there toward Destin area then Dauphin Island Alabama. Then New Orleans, Austin, Waco, Ft Worth. Then to NM AZ and Utah. Then back on route 66 to OKC. From there 40 to Memphis and Nashville then home by mid to late April. Safe travels!!!

Here is Muncho Lake BC. One easy mod you can do is remove both Exit stickers from the glass, and put a single one above the window opening. That way your eye does not focus on the stickers. I also removed the screen permanently, we never open that window, so that improves the view. John Davies Spokane WA

I think Topgun2 is right, you can only answer this question for yourself. A close friend just purchased an Airsteam for this exact reason. He liked being surrounded by windows and I will admit, in the right campground, it's a plus. One consideration is to think about the type of camping you're likely to do. Boondocking and remote campsites will offer great views. However, these days I find for the most part, campgrounds are conjested with not much space between the sites. Add to that someone pulls in next to you with a slide and you're window to window. Times like these I'm happy for the Oliver's strategic placement of windows. Also, we spend most of our time outside the trailer when camping. Best of luck on your decision. John

Were it me (and it's not), I'd probably opt for the solar pro, and see how it goes. Lithium prices keep dropping. You can always add them later, if you actually need them. Depending on the weather, (cooler temps), you can actually turn your gas fridge off for a few hours, if it's cold and full, and be fine, instead of running the 3way on 12v, if your solar doesn't keep up. We used to run ours on propane, traveling, when we had a 3way. (Unless in areas required by law to turn it off.) A 3way is least efficient in 12v. In our case, in the days when we still had a 3way, 200 watts solar, two 12v agm 105 ah batteries, we couldn't keep up running on 12v.

Hey thanks for posting this! I have been thinking about this upgrade and just placed my order.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Battle Born has a big sale, and there is free shipping, as always. The 100 AH one many of us like is $799, down from the regular price of $949. https://battlebornbatteries.com/product-category/lifepo4-batteries/ Keep in mind that for the IRS solar tax credit all purchases for a solar system must be made in the same calendar year. So also buy the cables, terminals, add-ons and maybe even an MPPT controller before the end of the year, for your winter project. And if you already took the credit for a factory solar option, you can’t take it a second time. John Davies Spokane WA

We found that our 4 AGM batteries and 320W of solar worked well when we were off grid for extended periods. I run the fridge on propane while traveling and we were always fully charged when we arrived at our next location. Mike

Here is the Word version of the checklist we used. Again, Fritz and others did all the heavy lifting on this. Inspection Checklist Ver 20211004.docx Now, for the truth....Did we go through EVERY item on the list at our pick-up last month...No . As mentioned above, given the excitement, exhaustion from trip preparation, etc., it was really hard for us focus on every item. But we did take time to enjoy delivery and have fun! We did run through the list, and as I mentioned in our delivery day post, I was totally impressed with corrective actions taken on recent issues. Hanna in Delivery knew of every recent issue I raised and provided a detailed description of what had been done to address it. We I asked about the battery box support nuts, she immediately dove into the rear settee compartment to check them, she mentioned she could not remember having done that on their pre-delivery inspection. And yes, they were tight. So, while we didn't check every item on the list with our own eyes, we asked Hanna about it and discussed it. Other examples include: didn't crawl under the frame to check every zerk fitting, the ones I could see had grease showing in the right areas. didn't check to ensure there were balance weights on the tires, but I did ask if the tires had been balanced. didn't check that the Xantrex inverter had the latest firmware, but asked if it had been updated. didn't get out my ladder and check the roof, solar panel attachments, etc. Now that we are home, we are taking more time to review items. So far, everything that Hanna told us was completely accurate (tires were balanced, inverter had latest firmware, etc). 👍 Given that we were totally newbies, I would add the following to our checklist.... While at the Oliver Campsite (which is very nice!), test every system to ensure you know how it works. We did not try to empty the grey water tank after the first night, even through they have a dump station at the Oliver campsite. A couple of days later when we went to actually drain the tank, we could not get it to drain 😲! We called service, and with calm help on the phone, realized our trailer was not very level at the dump station. Our problem was due to pesky gravity. Had we done this at Oliver's dump site, we would have better understood this issue. 🤪

There is still much to be said for the Lithium Pro Package, largely because of the lithium batteries themselves. But with recent threads about solar controllers, solar charging levels, DC to DC converters, and options for increasing current flow from tow vehicles, I'm inclined to think there are at least 2 relatively low-cost improvements that would make the Lithium package more much useful, efficient, and appealing. The first is to use a MPPT charge controller instead of a PWM controller. There doesn't seem to be a substantial cost difference, and the MPPT will allow batteries to reach 100% charge from solar. The second is to install a heavier gauge wire during initial construction from the hitch area to the batteries (with dedicated fuse) that can be used by a later, owner-installed charging system from the tow vehicle. Such a system would allow greater charge rates from the tow vehicle than is possible through the 7-pin connector. If the AC is to be run for short periods of time from batteries (e.g., for 15 minutes at a rest stop), it would be very nice to return portion of the battery charge during 2-3 hours subsequent driving (at least more than is possible through the 7-pin connector). A dedicated owner-installed heavy-gauge wire from TV battery (as LifeBlue has suggested) to the TV hitch is part of the solution; a matching cable from the hitch area to the trailer-battery area is another part (a DC to DC converter could also be installed later by an owner, if desired, but the harder part seems to be installing a heavier-gauge charge wire from the trailer hitch to the battery area). In fact, for those opting for the Pro package, a 12V charging port for connection to the tow vehicle may be more useful than the optional 30-amp connection near the propane tanks. Such a 12V connection could also be used for additional TV-mounted solar panels (with separate controller). I can only imagine that such vehicle-based charging will become more popular with hybrid and electric pickups. It seems both of these relatively low-cost improvements would make the Pro Package much more useful, allowing short-term use of the AC without needing to hook up a generator or plug into shore power to charge batteries afterwards (which kind of defeats the purpose of the beefier batteries, inverter, etc. Perhaps Oliver would be willing to weigh in on the feasibility of these changes for those of us in line for a 2021 trailer. And one other non-solar (but wiring-related) suggestion: might it be possible to wire one exterior light (e.g., the one by the door) separate from the others? This would provide lighting to enter or exit the trailer at night without needing to light up the entire campsite. Several others have commented on this; I think it would be a popular improvement. To Oliver: thank you for your dedication to thoughtful engineering and quality builds, and for the opportunity to have these community-wide discussions. My hope is that these suggestions could make an already stellar product even more so.

oh yes thanks for the reminder about the air conditioner filter!! and I didn't realize the liners of the cabinets come out too, so I'll air them out as well. so far testing on the screens (for anyone in the future that has this problem) I've used: alcohol and essential oils, nope. Pure ammonia wiped on then let sit for a few minutes before soaking in water with ammonia added, nope. Purple Power, nope. I'm going to get them air out over the winter in a cold place and see how they are in the spring. Too bad too...because I think we are going to have to replace the cushions. they are like brand new and the upgraded material. they completely wreak.

While I don't disagree with this I am curious on the cost for this. I was talking to an owner who said the Oliver service center quoted them $25k to upgrade their existing AGM to lithium. That sounded pretty crazy to me. Not sure what size wires come with AGM but do they all have to by upgraded to go lithium? If not where in the world is that cost coming from?