Leaderboard

For sure if your Litho's are going to freeze, then Isolate them! Our Litho's are in a semi-sealed box. That box prevents wind chilling and provides some insulation from the outside situtation. it also gets some heat tranfer from the cabin thru it's inside walls. So when does the battery actually freeze? It would be have to be really cold for a long duration. If I were in your shoes, I would not get the heaters. But I would give myself some "Options". As I have stated many times, "I Like Having Options". Some suggestions for your situtation: Determine the brand/model Extreme Weather info: What is their recommendation for long term storage of the battery in extremely cold conditions with no supervision by the owner. This will give you a worst case process for that battery. For the Battleborns: Charge to 50 - 60% and isolate with master switch until thawed. Then recharge at a reasonable rate to 100% SOC. Remember that is for their battery only. Other MFG's have their process. This would be a consideration in which ones to buy. In your situtation I would consider these (In priority order): Park with the sun on your street side if expecting temps may be an issue. When it warms up, open the battery box door. Close it before it starts cooling down for the afternoon/night. Insulate the door of the battery box. Installed a master cut-off switch if you don't already have one. Just in case your situtation gets really bad. Create cabin air circulation into and out of the battery compartment. A couple of vents (High and Low) and a small 12v fan exhausting the top vent, with a coin style switch to come on when the box is getting near freezing. This would afford significant protection. For less than $200 you could do all four of the above. But, if you really want to go overboard, you could get some bluetooth temperature sensors to monitor the box temperature. Severall greats posts about this topic here in the forum. Hopefully their authors will comment back with their link. Good luck, and enjoy your Ollie! GJ

Batteries with internal heaters are a nice option to have. I like options. 😊 This week it’s going to be in the 20’s and 30’s here in beautiful Western NC. XPLORs (2) Epoch 300AH batts will be just fine.

JD: For giggles and grins it would be fun to do a post mortum on your unit. Then to get even, fix it to cool your Work Shop! Granger carries a Ton of fans. Even if you get the capacity off a bit, it will still cool your Work Shop just fine. And you get to smile every time you turn it on! GJ

FWIW, we have the self-heating Lithionics and they've been great. Don't have to worry about them much. Don't have to remember to turn a heating pad on. But we live, and mostly camp, in the Northeast.

I assure you this was as painful to read as it likely was for you to post! Sorry you weren’t able to enjoy the upgrade experience and now an Amazon return missed opportunity!

Oh, man... so sorry to hear this. Thankfully you got a full refund, at least. Sounds like they left something inside the blower wheel or evaporator housing. Might be worth pulling the top off the evaporator housing to see what's going on? Pioneer has a parts diagram with part numbers for their branded unit if it's an easily changed part. Diagram is here- Exploded parts diagram . I think I finally got mine working the way I want but it took more modification than I think most would be willing to do, especially since it will void the warranty. BTW- dealt with some of the same BS through support as you did when I contacted them with some of my concerns.

Give Mike a call at Oliver Service $3.00 plus shipping.

MAX - those Brinkley's are stunning. Enjoy! DAVID - Welcome to OllieWorld. Get set for fun and adventures! I'm just down the road, like Mike & Carol, and would gladly get together for an impromptu and informal Ollie roundup somewhere here in the Hill Country. Looking forward to meeting you in person. Pete, and his side-kick, Bosker.

Here are my thoughts: edited- We previously owned an Overland Trailer (which had a Max Air fan). We experienced a voltage issue so I had the Orion-Tr 12/12-9 installed to stabilize and maintain 12v power to the fan. Now I do not have to be concerned about possible spikes or a malfunctioning control board. Max Air Fans operating above 13.8v can damage the fans control board. This will prevent damage to the sensitive control board. The black plastic board material used to secure all components is called Starboard or Black HDPE and I can tell you it’s super tough and used in Marine grade applications. Inverter Services uses lots of this material during their installs. Here - https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08M6DJNH4/?_ Open Source info on Max Air Fans- *** MaxxAir fans are designed for a 12 Volt DC system, operating within a voltage range of approximately 10.6–13.6V, with an optimal test voltage of 12.8V. Operating above 13.8V can damage the fan's control board and void the warranty, especially if the system is charging. To prevent issues from voltage spikes, a DC/DC voltage regulator is recommended for stable power, especially when the vehicle's charging system is active.

As they say, "Great minds think alike!" 🤣 Keep in mind the incoming air would have to be ducted another inch too. Perhaps the multiple foam layers they supply would work for this. I haven't looked at how that works. Just took measurements. The Oliver ceiling, center of the 14x14" opening, is 77 1/2" tall (1/4" taller in front and 1/4" shorter behind). The Turbro air handler is only 2 3/4" (1/2" less than the Dometic p2). After adding an inch, there would still be 74" clearance at the front, no problemo! 😎

This is exactly what I'm thinking about doing- adding an inch spacer in between the two inside covers to increase the plenum area. I have a sheet of thin white PVC that I can cut 1" strips from which will be easy to mold into shape to go around the outside edge between the two. I'll also have to do the same with the inner return air opening to keep the return and supply air from mixing. Will add better sound deadening foam too. I didn't measure the height off the ceiling, but I'm sure there's plenty of room to bring it down another inch, at least for 6' tall me....

I only had about an hour or so to play with it so I could have being doing something incorrectly in the settings. Looking forward to spending more time with it, especially once I get the Cielo thermostat installed. And, If the Cielo is able to override the internal temp sensor, that will be worth its cost alone.

This makes me feel better! 😂

Yeah, seems as though little thought went into designing a proper plenum to distribute the airflow and reduce sound. Aesthetics over function? It's amazing that it's as quiet as it is... If enough of us complain, maybe they'll redesign a new inside cover?

Your comment got me to open up the smaller 2nd package containing the interior air handler. The design is certainly poor for cold air handling. There is barely more than 1" clearance from where the air is forced straight down from the exterior unit to where it has to turn 90-degrees towards the front and rear (pic1). They only have a 4mm sheet of foam glued to the air deflector panel (pic2). And notice the thin plastic curved air baffle. It is designed to push more air to the front since the cold air ducting is further from the front. This extremely thin plastic baffle must alone be a source of noise. it looks like it would vibrate like the reed of a wood instrument! Some butyl or rubber on the back side of this baffle could help. You could remove this piece but that would push more air to the rear and your Oliver Attic would get very cold! Removing it and mounting a more substantial baffle further back would push more air to the front. I may do this after I find out how much these parts cost (in case I make a mess of things)! 🤣 In the Oliver, we'd prefer if the majority of air came out the front, towards the kitchen and dinette. The sleeping area will get to set temp soon enough. You can see why you noticed only 1/3 of the vents flowing. Without interior baffles, the air will exit mainly through the closest vents. All they had to do is have an extra inch there, room for greater airflow, and add some curved baffles to turn the 90. This air handler is smaller in length and width than many A/C brands I've seen. Though I've not measured height off the ceiling. They used 1/2"+ of height for an LED feature! 🤣 Notice the recessed opening around the perimeter (pic3). This space could have been utilized inside the Air Deflector. The recess will collect dust. It will be 4 weeks before I get ours installed. I'll run the A/C first without the Deflector Panel to see how quiet it should be. The inverter compressor, the rooftop unit, must be quiet. Somehow, we'll get more air/less sound out of the air handler, TBD! 😎

In looking back at my search I didn't put it in quotes. I just typed backup camera in the search field. I think the quotes are important. I am new to the planet and have a lot to learn. Thanks for your patience. You're all very helpful.

I’m surprised, thank you! Maybe I get lucky… Bought from Turbro direct. These manufacturers seem to rarely want their defective products back. That’s why they wanted me to do their testing! How will they ever determine cause to improve their design and build processes?

So, I have a bit of bad news on my Turbro purchase... I finished the installation 2 weeks ago. Adam and I, standing on top of the scaffolding, lifted the relatively heavy unit into place. We placed it on a bath towel so as not to scratch the new ceramic coating, and it slid nicely into place from the rear side of the Oliver. He stayed up top and I went inside. I pulled the towel down through the 14x14” opening and it only took a wiggle to line up the unit and bolt up the Fixing plate. I didn't yet mount the Air Deflector Panel because I wanted to first hear it run w/o the panel in place. When it powered up it started in the default Auto mode and was relatively quiet. It was not hot nor too cold in the cabin, so I believe it was just in fan mode. The fan control on the remote; low, medium and high settings did not change the fan speed. I put it into heat mode and turned the thermostat up high. It took a minute or so to kick in and when it did, the noise was terrible (listen to the video). Switched it from fan to heat modes and the noise returned three times. I was bummed and powered it down. I had been in contact with Turbro Support prior to purchase of the unit, so I thought to reply again to “Mason” the CS Rep. I reported my case and enclosed the video recording of the noise. He replied the next day, “The video has been received and forwarded to our manufacturer for further investigation.” Twice he wrote “the manufacturer” like Turbro Support was a 3rd party CS org. I spent a week with Turbro Support, sending one email a day, since I would only get one reply a day, always early AM! I came to realize that Turbro Support must be based in China. The differences in time zones made for the once-a-day communication. Also, I could feel the Chinese culture in the wording of these emails, having worked with Chinese for years at Motorola. Close to a week later, I was getting fed up! Each day they asked for more information. After their “further investigation” email they wrote “It sounds like there may be an issue with the indoor blower wheel.” They asked me to runs some tests, like I’m supposed to be their field engineer! The next time I powered up the unit, the noise got even worse and soon plastic fins and bits from the blower wheel spit out of it and all over the back of the Oliver! It took Turbro Support a full 6 days to finally state they would replace the unit! I had originally purchased the black model to save $100 thinking I would paint it gray to match other trim I had painted. Then over Black Friday, they priced both white and black models down to $949 (previously the white was $1,099, the black $999 with promo codes). I had asked them to replace mine with a white unit to just barely compensate for my troubles. I made this request on day 2 and finally on day 6 he wrote. “Please kindly know that we can only ship the replacement unit in the same color.” I was livid, and in reply I wrote: “After all you have put me through, you should satisfy the WHITE color request. Please REFUND my money to the original form of payment. I don’t feel I can trust the product quality and Turbro Support is too difficult.” (All quotations are exact copies from our emails). 24 hours later, their reply was, “We've issued a refund for your prior order…” So Chinese, no consideration of others in business! So, I have this albatross sitting on top of our Oliver. A good friend of mine suggested I should source a blower wheel and for the cost of it I’d have a new A/C. First off, the part is likely not available. RV A/C units are not considered serviceable. Secondly, why did the fan run OK but not so after the heat pump was turned on? I believe there may be a primary issue with this unit, still unknown. @CRM if you ever make it out west, you can pickup this Turbro for spare parts if you like! In the new year, I’m back to considering other A/C options. It’s good I have our furnace working on a simple Honeywell heat-only thermostat. Turbro AC Noise Recording.MOV

As I recall, many complain about the exact same issue with the Dometic Penguin ll.