Leaderboard

Same here, Patriot! We installed a 12.5kw LNG unit 4 years ago... It's kept us high and dry on many occasions. Self-tests weekly and notifies us via the app if activated when we're away. No more thawed/fouled meat surprises after a road trip!

Truck Weight Class ≠ Tow Capacity Truth! Think your truck’s weight class tells you everything you need to know about towing? Think again. Many assume that a 1500, 2500, or 3500 series badge automatically dictates if a weight distribution (WD) hitch is needed—but that's not the case. Did you know? Today’s 1500-series trucks (a.k.a. half-tons) can tow anywhere from 7,000 to 13,300 lbs, depending on their specific configuration. Compare that to 1-ton trucks from the 1990s, which often maxed out around 8,500–10,000 lbs towing capacity. That's right—modern half-ton trucks can outperform the 1-tons of the past! 😲 Just because two trucks look identical on the outside doesn’t mean they have the same guts. You MUST: Check your exact vehicle build and tow rating. Consult your vehicle’s manual to see if a weight distribution hitch is recommended or required. Call your insurance company—some require WD hitch use when recommended by the manufacturer, others don’t. Additionally, while the Andersen Weight Distribution Hitch includes integrated sway control, it’s important to know that most half-ton trucks recommend the use of a weight distribution hitch when towing over 5,000 lbs—especially to help manage trailer sway safely. Bottom line: Don’t judge a truck by its series number. Know your numbers. Protect your tow. Example of 1500 Truck series and tow capacity ranges based on engine and other equipment: Please note: We are not recommending Chevrolet or any specific truck brand—this example was simply used to illustrate the wide range of towing capacities within a single truck class. Quick Tow Tip: Did you know that in most cases, a 2WD truck can tow more than a 4WD version of the same model? That’s because 2WD trucks typically weigh less, leaving more of the vehicle’s Gross Combined Weight Rating (GCWR) available for towing. Always check your specific truck’s tow rating!

We were just there 3 weeks ago! It’s been drought out West for a couple years now. We got our first rain this week since last fall!

Greetings all, I bought this 30 amp charger from Etrailer a while back when I was planning to convert to Lithium batteries. My plans changed in the end and I ended up using all Victron components. I'm sure it's too late to return it now. So, if any one out there could use this brand new and never used/installed PD 30 amp converter/charger, I will mail it to you free of charge. It does have the Lithium switch. Model Number PD4045CSV Serial Number A24225FO325851 Cheers, Dave

Bill, I think I may have started the SL diversion! We also got the router so we should be set. Some of our stops next trip will not have cell coverage so we’re looking forward to this new (to us) technology. Mike

I have a mini split at my house and I bought the Cielo for it. I use the scheduler and let it run with the fan like a normal mini split in the day but at night it automatically switches over to a different mode I set up where the fan shuts off with compressor. It's a great little Thermostat. You can set up multiple modes with different names within Comfy or Comfy Max and set it up to use them at set times and days.

Thanks for the Mini info! Looking forward to seeing the report on three Ollies in Arizona!

Got the router, new in box, thanks Geoff - Leaving tomorrow on a short trip and we will try it out soon. First try, I'll just use the provided power supply plugged into the 110V outlet. Our TV is 1080p and 4K and I did not set it lower, although YouTube and other services often downgrade the res when download speeds are slow. Your TV will buffer and get ahead when the signal is good to make up for the brief off-line periods. We had little to no interruptions when this occurred! I'll get to the proper "Where's Ollie" subject in two days when I post "three Ollies camping in the Arizona White Mountains!"

Mike please forgive me for going off topic. We will buy the router, too. Question, setting the TV resolution at 720P, will that reduce TV outage time when the Mini is offline for a few seconds then back on again? Probably like most folks here, some places we go there is no cell service or antenna TV reception.

This has been our experience from several years of using Starlink in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. We often had to move the Starlink Mini the whole 50' length of the cord to find a clear sky hole, but then the WiFi signal was so weak we couldn't stream. Now with the new Mini Router, a bargain at $40, the WiFi signal is much better and there is a big improvement in speed and streaming. The USB-C power supply has been working great for the router too!

Yes Bill, this will work, but our experience shows the connection may pulse on and off. Starlink runs a series of satellites in an orbit. As one is in a small opening between the trees and moving off to the east, the next satellite coming from the west must take over. At one campsite with a small opening the Starlink would read “On-line” then “Off-line” for a few seconds, and it repeated this pattern continuously. Because of buffering we could still stream TV. I had some photo uploads fail and determined that happened when I clicked to upload just when the Starlink was “Off-line” for a few seconds!

Just before leaving on our current trip, I covertly made a new cherry table and installed it to the surprise of wifey. She had wanted to keep the Oliver’s stock modern look, which is understandable considering that the house is already full of custom wood pieces. But after using it on this trip, we both absolutely love it! If I were to choose to have only one Oliver modification, it would be the enlarged table! The original table was small to fit between the seats for a third bed, and it is barley big enough to fit much more than a two piece place setting. The new table is 28” x 37” (about 10” longer and 5” wider) and it makes a huge difference to have the extra tabletop space. We can now fit the computer and our place settings. I realize not everyone has access to a wood shop to build such a table, but there are consignment woodworkers just about everywhere that could easily do it. As wood working projects go, it doesn’t get much simpler to joint and glue planks together and sand them flat. Many hardwood lumber shops even have wide belt sanders available to flatten tabletops. You could even have a lumber shop cut a nice piece of hardwood plywood, round the corners with a saber saw, and dress the edges with real wood self-stick or iron-on edge bands, just like they do for kitchen cabinets. I recommend experimenting with a cardboard template to determine the optimum size to fit your body types. I also remember a guy who advertises wooden accessories on this forum who might sell larger tables. Anyway, it’s a worthy project or expense to think about! Cheers, Geoff

I wouldn’t reset your TV. Starlink is amazing fast with clear sky most of the time. The router should help when you move the dishy to find a hole in the trees. The times you don't have clear sky will be few and you will just have to accept no service or the buffering blips.

Welcome to the SL fan club Mike! Glad to hear you scooped up a Mini and look forward to what you think of it during your upcoming travels! It’s been a game changer for us! Congrats on the new tech! We always try and make sure we are obstruction free when we set up. Have fun with it!

Mike, We had a very small hole in the tree canopy, really surprised me that we could receive signal, but we did! 🙂 Really like the Mini!!!!!

We’re anxious to use our Starlink Mini for the first time during our Aug/Sept trip coming up. It works great in the driveway! Mike

Camped at Davidson River NF Campground NC, We had a campsite with electricity. The campsite was shady with enough of an opening for the Starlink Mini to work fine. Blue Ridge Parkway was not too far away. There are a couple waterfalls on RT 276, not too far from the campground, Looking Glass Falls (old photo)

Our home finished in 1980 has the original A/C with natural gas furnace, an all-in-one meaning the evaporator is also outside in one housing. As far as maintenance, I open up the panels every few years, remove nests, dead squirrels and such, hose the condenser coils clean and that's about that. Five years ago the condenser fan went out and I replaced it. That's it in 20 years ownership of our Prescott home. It has lasted 45 years! But the required 6 lbs of system freon was down to 2 from micro leaks on the coil (was repaired with a fix-a-flat kind of sealant). The service tech was amazed at the condition, so rebuilding the system to newer (legal) freon was possible. A $2300 retrofit including all new valves and seals vs. $16,000 for a new system, I was relieved! It's on our southern exposure where the siding and window mouldings take great abuse, needing frequent painting, from the relentless Arizona sun. Our summer Monsoons and winter storms also come from that direction! Now you can see why our Oliver, also out in the elements, doesn't have that CGI shine! 🤣

I purchased a 22kW last summer, but currently have it in storage at the COW Barn pending our plan to move to a rural location. The tight housing market has caused a delay, but hopefully that will change soon. My goal is to have an enclosed place to keep the Oliver at a home location and forego the rental facility, which are increasingly expensive in our area.

I suppose if we needed to we could move into our Oliver where it’s parked here at home. Our steel “Ollie Hangar” was put to the ultimate test while we were camped in Yellowstone and it survived the brutal rain and hurricane force winds of Helene… a blessing for sure. As for back up power we installed a 24KW LNG whole house generator and never looked back. There is no better feeling than when the power goes out within 8-10 seconds our full home power is restored. Our generator ran for three days while our county and large parts of Western NC was under a complete outage. Neighbors thought I was over the top having a generator installed. After Helene hit and they lost all their frozen food, frigs and freezers, well they thought it was a genius move. 🤔 Several neighbors now have whole house gens🤷‍♂️. Keeping up our preventive service of HVAC and our generator is a high priority for us. But yes, things can and do happen. As for bugging out in the Oliver, we live pretty rural and in a small lake community. Leaving our home is more than likely not going to happen. Where we live we are 911, I will leave it at that. 😉😎 With 2.5 years in, I highly recommend if you can swing it in your budget consider a whole house generator, preferably one that runs on LNG. This gen set immediately notifies us anywhere in the US via Mobile link with a txt and email when every it exercises or runs due to a power outage or if it needs maintenance. Stay safe, stay prepped, and stay cool! 😊🇺🇸

Saw this nice LE11 yesterday by the Buc-ees in Madisonville, TX. Howdy ya'll!

I completed our new Nova Kool R5810 AC/DC refrigerator installation before our trip to the 2025 OTTO's Rally and the 3 week shakedown was everything we hoped for! I want to thank all of the early adopters, Try2Relax, MountainOliver, Geronimo John, Ty J and rideadeuce, who preceded my installation and shared there experiences. I have attached a few pictures that are similar to those that have already been posted. I would also like to shout out to David & Kristine Hess, Cooper Jenkins and the rest of the folks at Sea Biscuit Metal Designs for their help and creation of the upper and lower vents for my refrigerator installation. If you need something custom made from metal, they are my goto team! Mossey

We have been fortunate enough to have toured and enjoyed this beautiful NP twice. It was sad to learn about this fire caused by multiple lightning strikes. https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/officials-offer-grim-insight-into-wildfire-at-black-canyon/article_806a965f-098f-4332-a404-1ad5ffb96eae.html

After having the ceramic coating on the trail done, how do you stick the rain diverters over the windows. My grandson used mineral spirits to the the area, but the things just fell off on the ground. Please tell me what to do. Thank you all.

Very nice! Foy sells three sizes, standard (24.25 X 28.125), Extended 29.25 X 28.125), and Mega (29.26 X 32.125). Yours is even longer, by 3" each side. That's a lot of space you've made available. Thanks for sharing!

Robert Earl Keen, a Texan singer-songwriter from Kerrville, is leading this fundraising effort. Tickets went on sale today at noon and they are already sold out. Perhaps they will schedule another show? If I were in Texas, I would want to be there. https://www.tixr.com/groups/whitewaterrocks/events/rek-and-friends-applause-for-the-cause-151115

You would have a good margin of safety with that (450 / 12 = 37.5A) and you would not hit the 100V limit either. I went with the Victron MPPT 100|30 for our Renogy 400W suitcase. Thinking 30 x 12 = 360W and this number is the highest I've seen (for a few seconds), most often getting between 200-300W from 400W panels. https://cleversolarpower.com/what-size-mppt-controller/

We to enjoyed our stay there. Hopefully they can recover over the next year.

I miscalculated. I know big surprise! I need a 100/50 for 450 watts of solar. I figured it using the panel voltage not the battery volts originally. It must be Friday.......

Best “COUNTY” park ever??? 😀😀😀

Sorry for being a bit off topic... but, we LOVE camping in Florida! P-cola Beach at sunset a few years back...

We were just at Black Canyon of the Gunnison South Rim at the end of May and have done Grand Canyon's South Rim but haven't made it to the North Rim yet. Sad that so much was lost including the lodge. The historic buildings are such an added bonus when visiting Grand Canyon and wish we'd had the opportunity to see it before this happened. Grateful we saw Black Canyon when we did. The last report I saw said that fire was still 0% contained.

Very easy and smart to have self-restraint when crossing the border to and from Canada. I have a few interesting stories🤣

We meet a couple from AZ at the Buck-ees in Amarillo. We saw another Ollie going west on 40 about 3 hours west of Oklahoma City. Our Ollie count during our 7,000+ mile trip was 3.

Tested and corrected this today. I had 12V+ at the Dometic Fridge DC plug which proves the wiring was installed as planned. Searched the User Manual re DC wiring and it had nothing technical to add. In no illustration did it show which side was +/-. All it stated is do NOT cut off the fused cigarette lighter plug (first thing I did)! The DC positive and ground tested good today, so what's up? My next thought was that maybe I had the DC polarity crossed. I made the wrong assumption that in the bonded power cable the positive should be the 'ribbed' side of the cable. True in AC wiring, check any lamp you have on your desk or in the house, the AC hot is ribbed in a bonded lamp cable, the neutral being smooth. Not true here where Dometic wired it the other way around! I had purchased a HD hardwire kit from Amazon for a later permanent installation and after looking at the kit, wires are clearly colored in Red and Black. I had the wires crossed! A few cuts and splices and all was good. Now running our Dometic CFX5 on 12VDC. Turns out you can have both AC and DC cables plugged in and it will prefer the AC connection and revert to DC when AC is disconnected. That's what I was hoping for, so not to change cable connections at the rear of the fridge. Before I connect the fridge to 12VDC, I measured our dual AGM tow vehicle batteries at 12.53V. When I turned on the Dometic, the display stated battery input voltage at 12.5V without having .01V precision. The reading looked to be accurate and it's nice not to have to measure this often manually. I will check voltage on the display and manually later tonight and in the morning 12 hours later to measure the decrease in battery SOC over time. The Dometic system also has shut-off protection when the batteries read less than 12V. Later plans are to add a dedicated battery, connection to the onboard DC-DC charger (already working today), a 100W Renogy flexible solar panel and Victron 15A MPPT SC... It should soon be GREAT! Love grabbing cold water while working on the truck and Oliver. A good mod for use in while traveling and camping! 🤣

I think i may have camped in that same site. Love Fort DeSoto. An oasis, in a very congested county. It's a favorite for us, too. Tough to get a res in the winter season, though, unless you plan a long time ahead. (Not our long suit. Lol.)

Well done! Making great memories for sure! 👍🏻😊🇺🇸

The view from one of the beaches with grandkids in tow….

Your wish is my command 😉 After this morning’s walk on the beach it’s a little hot. So, sitting inside with the Ac running…

Of all the RV designs on the market, I would likely choose the Oliver as a bug-out camper for the same reasons I bought it in the first place. I have also used it to live in while the power was out in our home.

Looks like you're all set, and 👍🏻 you’re keeping your gear clean, high and dry is wise. Setting up and breaking camp for us has never been an issue, fortunately no bumps or lumps or bruises. Unlike many folks, we travel fairly light, ready to camp, and all of our immediate go to set up gear is stored in our Sea Biscuit front storage basket the rest under our ARE Z topper. There are trade offs for sure. I always say, ya gotta roll with what works best for you and puts a smile on your face! 🇺🇸😄

Pickup day at Bretz RV in Liberty Lake Washington June 30. The old and new eggs. The floor plans are identical but the Oli is like a fairy godmother tapped the Casita with a magic wand.

Our Oliver has been an escape pod for two hurricane evacuations and a winter storm retreat when power was out for several days. Times like these is when our COW (Condo-On-Wheels) and the Westinghouse iGen4500DF are put to good use in survival mode!

Similar to “moochdocking” but in your own driveway.

We got to spend a nice week along the Salmon river. On the way home at a gas station I had a guy checking out our Oliver. He comes over and asks to see it. He says “it looks like one of the silver ones”, my first signal he has not looked at trailers much. He asked what they are priced at and I said “they start at 75” to which he said “7,500, that is not to bad” LOL…. I said no not 75 hundred 75 thousand. Clearly not understanding that 7,500 would not get you almost any trailer confirmed that while he can appreciate the Oliver he has no concept of the TT market. 😁

JD, thanks much...hope to visit there soon...safe travels!!!

Yes, pic of Chris & Charley and #113 and the mountain view. Arrive on a weekday after the 4th and Tom, formerly of Prescott is a great host. $28 or $14 on a National Pass.

Recognize Wilson Mountain of Coors fame? I remember when we left Chicago, Spring Break 1972 to Tucson, sat by the pool and drank Coors all day long for a week, back when it was not sold in the states East. Life is Good! All the marketing BS aside, we’ve been to Golden Colorado where there is a murky pond behind the beer plant! 🤣 Sunshine Mountain and Wilson is TDF! Wish we could stay another week! We will again soon, only 8 hours from home, who woulda thunk!

We like to stay at Ridgway State Park which is in the same area. Great location to explore Ouray, Telluride and even Silverton (nice drive down 550). We’ll be back in Colorado in August! Mike

Thanks to everyone before me who did this install and shared it on the forum. Especially, a big thanks to @mountainoliver, @Geronimo John for all the info and pics. The install was pretty straight forward but not as refined as some. So happy to have gotten rid of the absorption fridge. Nothing to add except some pictures. I did end up copying a lot of things. Ended up using a little bit of VHB tape on bottom supports, 3/8 in HDPE for side brackets and used some better plastic to plastic epoxy. The other stuff I used did end up failing @mossemi (you sir were correct!) and ended up screwing (6) 1 1/4 in. SS screws through the backside for stabilization of the MPII. Glad I had the aluminum mount for backup. This time I used https://a.co/d/5IrB3w2 First part of install was quick and I forgot to take pics. Destroyed the Dometic fridge getting it out!. I will be done once I caulk and source some SS vents to cover the top and bottom holes.