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Like so many, I have been researching and watching Olivers for many years. I knew it would be my dream retirement trailer if the right one could be found. As someone else said, persistence and effort finally paid off! Hull 550 is now ours after a 6 hour drive and patience!! We are thrilled and already took a short shakedown! While it’s not our first camper we do have much to learn about solar! Looking forward to connecting with other Oliver owners! Jenna and Barry 2019 Elite II Hull 550 ‘King’s Ransom’ 2019 Ram 1500 Big Horn

In my experience with anything Dometic - they need competition. Would be my last choice in all cases. But perhaps they have upped their game, I doubt it. RB

At dhaig's suggestion, I called sptech's 800 number today and asked to speak to a customer service supervisor. The supervisor I spoke with apologized for her subordinate's initial response and agreed to overnight to me the correct size of grease cap, and to email to me a prepaid shipping label. So, I should receive the correct size grease cap this week, and don't have to take the incorrectly shipped part to a UPS store. I can print the return shipping label they promised to email to me, put it on the box in which the incorrect part was shipped, and leave it for our UPS driver. It still saddens me that I had to call a supervisor in the first place to get the right thing done. But, sptech has now agreed to make it right.

Hello everyone, Just an update on our order. Carrie & I decided to put off our Oliver and get a 2023 model, in spite of the cost increase. Our delivery date has been moved form early September to Monday December 5th. We enjoyed seeing the photos that Steph and Dud B posted, thanks! We must be getting one of the first 2023s. We look forward to posting first impressions and review after our 2 week trip to drive "White Dynamite" back to southern Idaho via New Mexico, Arizona, and up through Utah. Take care, Kirk

I agree RB. With competition I believe they can make some good products, it’s just a shame they don’t do it on their own accord. We have a larger ARB Element fridge that we love. We bought a smaller Dometic fridge/freezer to use primarily as a freezer on longer trips. We have had it 3 year, so far it has worked perfectly. It’s hard to imagine why it took so long to work on their AC. The complaints (as well as their air conditioner) have been deafening. Kirk

For a while now I have been wondering how Dometic was going to answer Truma's debut into the American RV market. This may be their answer. The RTX 2000. They say it's quiet. In this video they only run it on high but it's not installed so you hear noise from above and below. (outside and inside if it was installed) It will be interesting to see what becomes of this. Maybe at the least people have another choice to consider for upgrade.

That unit has been around awhile as a no-idle truck cooler, at least in other countries. It's only 6800 btu. But, it's 12v, low wattage, so ... runs on battery. Variable speed compressor. Pretty pricey, for 6800 btu. And, unlike rv acs, it's wider than it is long. Would def not work with my sidemount solar panel configuration. I'd say, probably should keep at least the bed area cool, if you put up a curtain on an expansion rod. Lots of van life youtubes out there to watch from the past year. I don't know why dometic doesn't bring in some of their higher capacity variable speed compressor/inverter technology rv products that they sell in the UK, Europe, and Australia. Those, like the ibis 4, are real competition for the truma, and very efficient.

Happy 4th to everyone! We attended the 4th of July parade in Steamboat Springs, CO this morning. Good small town patriotism!

@Jenna, I know you've been looking for awhile. Congrats on finding the trailer just meant for you!

Congratulations on your new to you Oliver. Welcome to the Oliver Owner's forum. You will have lots of fun in retirement with King’s Ransom. Where is home base?

Congratulations on your Oliver and welcome. Always lots to learn, the more you learn the better it gets! - Patriot

Congratulations! Glad the patience paid off. Hope to see you out on the road - Mike

Have a great and safe July 4th everyone. We may have our "issues" but as far as I'm concerned - this is still the best there is. Bill

Setting #28 on the Xantrex should be the power limit - from 5 to 60 amps. That's the total power level the Xantrex will pull from shore power for both the trailer's 120v appliances and charging, with the appliances getting preference. Set it at 20 if there's nothing else on your 20A household circuit, less if there's other things on that circuit of your house.

Our 2019 Ram 1500 keeps track of the mileage for up to 3 trailers. It is very slick and allows me to plan lubricating the Dexter EZ-Flex and wheel bearings at the appropriate intervals.

With the help of a number of good folks on this forum and my great RV Tech, Mathew Gonzales, who has worked on my 2017 Elite II since I brought in home to SE AZ, I finally achieved my goal of being able to run my AC off of my 2000-watt inverter and my new battery bank: 4 100ah Battle Born lithium batteries. After asking for, and getting, advice from folks on the forum about a number of issues that Mat and I ran encountered when attempting this upgrade, I made these decisions and Mat did this work: I first made the decision to purchase the Houghton 9.5K Low Profile Air Conditioner from RecPro--due mainly to how much quieter it runs compared to the Dometic Penguin that came with my Ollie, and to its lower amp draw (10 vs. the 16 for the Dometic). I learned that the Houghton could be run off of the 2000-watt inverter that came with my Ollie, using a transfer switch plugged into it running to the AC. I asked Mat to move the Micro-Air soft start previously installed in the Dometic to the Houghton. We discovered that he needed to reprogram the soft start to coordinate with the new AC. Since, unlike the Dometic set-up that came with my 2017 Ollie, the Houghton did not have a way to control the furnace, Mat installed and wired an Emerson non-programable thermostat--once again using information gleaned from folks on this forum--to control the furnace. I figured it was a good idea to supplement the 320-watt solar panels that came with my Ollie with a 180-watt Zamp solar panel kit. I also purchased a Zamp solar port that Mat installed near the shore power input. When my AGM batteries overheated last fall, I found I had no way to easily disconnect the battery bank. (This, I suspect, is something that is an original defect in the electrical system of my Oliver. Is it for all Olivers still?) So, while Mat was doing all of the other work, I had him install a battery disconnect switch near the inverter. I don't want this to appear as a straightforward process. It took a lot of back and forth between Mat and me trying to come up with solutions to problems encountered along the way. This back-and-forth involved a lot of advice from folks on this forum, some of whom I have not thanked by name. I would like to give special mention and thanks, however, to CnC and Minnesota Oli, who spent a good deal of time with me exchanging private messages. Man, were they patient with this technical novice! The outcome is that I now have a much quieter AC that runs off of my solar, batteries, and 2000-watt inverter. One can read elsewhere about the advantages of the Houghton. Mat told me, before I took my camper home, that he ran the Houghton for about four hours, supplementing the roof-top solar with the Zamp portable kit, and the voltage never dropped below 13 volts. I ran it when I brought the camper home, and verified that the system seemed to run the AC flawlessly AND much more quietly than before. I am delighted, as I have been wanting for a long time to be able to boondock in climes needing cooling of the cabin without having to resort to the hassle and noise of a generator. I will follow up with another post if I run into any issues. Disclaimer: I still have very little technical understanding about how this system functions and how the components and wiring fit together, so I will not be the one to answer many, if any, technical questions, but I know that on this forum, if you ask, you receive. There are some good posts on this forum involving the Houghton AC and related issues, so take a look around, and don't hesitate to submit your questions on this forum. Doing so paid off big time for me! Here is the interior view of my newly installed Houghton 9.5K Low Profile Air Conditioner: Here is an exterior view (birds won't be able to nest in this one!): Here is a photo of how Mat secured and wired the transfer switch and battery disconnect switch: Here is a photo of the Emerson non-programable thermostat to control the furnace (thanks go to John Davies who suggested the purchase): Here is a photo of the Zamp solar port with cord leading to the Zamp 180-watt portable solar panel kit: Here is a photo of the charge controller on my Zamp 180-watt portable solar panel kit, showing the voltage just after I plugged it in. (In less than 10 minutes, this controller and the interior Zamp showed the voltage up to 14.6 before dropping back into the floating voltage range.):

Hull # 98, 2015 Ollie Elite II. Four T-105’s still going strong.

Prior to delivery of our 2022 LEII in mid-February, I posed a question on the OTTO forum asking how many owners had installed odometers on their trailers, and if they had, what brand they had selected. I was surprised to learn almost no one had installed a hub odometer, with most relying on manual logs for mileage tracking I did not want to be bothered with keeping a manual log, knowing I would inevitably forget to enter tow vehicle mileage when towing our LEII. Undaunted, I began to search for a suitable hub odometer. I found few offerings for travel trailers, but did come across the TrailerLife Odometer line. On their website is a Ratio Selection Guide for determining which model odometer best matches the outside circumference of the tires on the trailer. I checked with Oliver Travel Trailers to confirm the tires to be installed on our LEII were 225/75R16 Cooper Discoverer HT3. On the Cooper Tire website I found these tires have a diameter of 29.21", a width of 8.5", mount on a 16" rim and make 710 revolutions per mile. The calculated rolling circumference= 29.21" x 3.1416= 91.73" I contacted Veeder-Root, the manufacturer of the TrailerLife odometer product line, where their tech support recommended using Model 714. They also recommended using one of their wheel center caps for a 4.25" wheel center hole for a 6 lug wheel. Otherwise, a hole must be drilled in the center of the standard Oliver hub cap to accept the mounting stud of the odometer, I placed an order for the Model 714 odometer, $84.99, and the wheel center cap, $15.99. The total was $104.56, including $3.58 for shipping. Front View Profile View The TrailerLife odometer and wheel center cap were delivered one month after I placed the order. A week or 10 days after placing the order, I called to inquire of the expected delivery date. Only then was I told the item was backordered and could be six weeks for delivery. Fortunately, I received the odometer and hubcap in time to take it with us for the LEII delivery date. On our LEII delivery date, the weather in Hohenwald was miserable, with pouring rain and cold, with temperatures in the low 20s at night. I asked Oliver to install the hub odometer, which they did during the delivery process for $20. I thought this was reasonable and was glad to have the odometer installed at the time of delivery. I asked to have the odometer installed on the street side rear wheel, since this is closest to the primary service connections and storage.. I don't believe it matters which wheel the odometer is installed on. The hub odometer now shows we have covered over 3,000 miles since delivery. I am sure the miles reported by the hub odometer are far more accurate than I would have manually recorded. Being a first time RV owner, I was (and still am) focused on learning the systems on our trailer and the procedures for using it safely. Manually recording the mileage traveled was not high on my list of priorities. I am keeping a log of our travel destinations, maintenance, modifications, etc. Don

Congratulations! Good luck on many adventures in your new Oliver! Kirk

Congratulations on your new Oliver! Welcome!

Glad you are part of the Family now - WELCOME! Bill

@Jenna King’s Ransom How very apropos! Mossey

PM sent

Lots of good info! Happy to report that the AC has been running all afternoon in upper 90's heat with no further issues on the power side. Next time I will try setting 28. On my XC PRO 3000 it runs 5-50A. Attached is a screenshot of the Xantrex app with only the Dometic AC and the float charge running. Looks like plenty of margin to put setting 28 at 5A, but probably not as high as 10A. I don't plan on running anything else on AC power. By the way, my home circuit has no other loads. I'm running the Oliver-supplied 25 ft shore power cable directly from the outlet using a 20-30 pigtail. Voltage has been between 115-120. So I think I'm good on the shore side, but thanks for the good words on wiring safety.

@Chukarhunter, the additional wattage may be other 120v appliances running in the Ollie. The max current charger limit setting they're adjusting only applies to the charger function of the Xantrex. It's still passing through any other 120v loads they have in the trailer. It's much more elegant to change setting #28 and let the Xantrex adjust charging current automatically, but that requires going into the manual settings through the wall mounted control panel instead of the app.

Sounds like your issue is solved. Charging batteries at 14 volts at a 60A rate means you are putting 840 watts into your batteries (volts x amps = watts). If you are seeing 9A current at your 20 amp wall outlet, and assuming the utility company is delivering 120 volt power,that means that the inverter/charger is pulling 1,080 watts from the grid (9A x 120 volts = 1080 watts). This means that your energy losses between the house outlet and the batteries is 240 watts lost, or about 22%. This seems unusually high and cannot be easily explained by losses through the inverter/charger alone. There are two very possible causes for this: low voltage (below 120 volts) at the 20 amp outlet and/or an undersized extension cord. You can't do anything about voltage at the outlet, although if it is too low into your house, you should complain to your power company. Even when nominal voltage in hours of low area power consumption is 120 volts, this voltage can drop noticeably in the afternoon when everyone in the neighborhood is running their air conditioner. You can also get significant voltage drop between the breaker and the outlet if the circuit distance between the breaker and outlet is more than 50 feet which of course the power company can't do anything about. A 20 amp breaker doesn't know how many watts it is passing; it only sees amperage. If voltage at the outlet is 120 volts, then the breaker will trip if it is passing more than 2400 watts (120 volts x 20 amps = 2400 watts). If the outlet is only seeing 110 volts, then the breaker will trip if it is passing more than 2200 watts (110 volts x 20 amps = 2200 watts). The size of the extension cord is very important. Using an extension cord no smaller than 12 AWG should allow a 50 foot extension cord with no more than 3% voltage drop. Never use a smaller 14 AWG extension cord as it will result in greater than 3% voltage drop even if it is only a 25 foot extension cord. If you must go longer than 50 feet, spend the money on a 10 AWG extension cord or heavier. Voltage drop increases exponentially as the length of an extension cord increases. (see table below) Low voltage into the trailer shouldn't be a problem with charging the batteries through the inverter other than maybe having to reduce the rate of charge. On the other hand, low voltage is not good for the air conditioner and can cause premature failure of the compressor.

Happy 4th to all! And safe travels to those on the road.

I thank my lucky stars to have been born in the USA (and Texas)

Thanks, John! That seems to do the trick. I found there is an easy to use setting for max current on the Xantrex app on the phone. I haven't quite figured the mapping to the actual shore power current. The app can set it from 0-150A. By trial and error I ended up at 60A on the app, which resulted in about 9A from shore power. That's good enough for me.

There have been a few threads about this, you can turn down the charge rate in your charger settings so that it doesn't draw so much power. I am sure somebody will provide a link, or you can just go look at your setup menu. Here are a couple of pages from the manual. I personally would initially reduce the charge rate by 50% when at home with your 20A circuit, and you can go further than that if your AC is still making an overload condition when it kicks on. Record the original setting so you can go back to it. Though it may not have been set correctly by Oliver. If not, file a Service ticket to alert them. Keep in mind a 10 amp charge current will work just as well as a 100 amp current, it just takes 10 times longer. 😬 At home there is NO need at all to charge your lithiums at a full rate, but that is fine if you are connected to a 30 amp circuit while traveling. One other possibility is a faulty breaker in your house, if you continue to have issues, go look there, and replace it if needed. the newer AFCI (arc fault circuit interrupters) are cr@p and they will trip if you look at them sideways. My washer is in one, it works fine for months, then it will trip the AFCI three times in a row, before returning to normal. Loose electrical connections in an outlet can also cause that, rewire any “back stabbed” outlets so the wires go onto the screw terminals You can also replace a AFCI with a traditional circuit breaker, but that is against code most places.. I wouldn’t do anything in this last paragraph unless turning down the charge rate is unsuccessful! If you don’t have one already, buy a 20 AMP watt meter like this one to see what is actually coming OUT of your outlet. … P3 International P4460 Kill A Watt Ez Energy Monitor … FYI most of these units only read to 15 amps! John Davies Spokane WA

Congratulations! Nice set up with the garage, we would love to have something like that. Enjoy! Mike

Happy 4th of July and our American flag flies high!! We admire and have a deep utmost respect for ALL those that served and fought and have sacrificed and guarded this country in its history to keep it free. 🇺🇸 “Freedom is not Free” -Patriot

I couldn’t have said better myself! Mossey

Welcome back, @Sofaman!

Will get that for you. Here's a Victron Bluetooth Shunt video in the meantime:

We had an infestation of tiny bugs this spring while camping near a creek…seemed like millions of these tiny critters. I grabbed my hand held vacuum and sucked them up, it worked like a charm. I did empty it outside. My husband came in later and let another batch of them in, his solution was to smear them to death with his dirty t-shirt. The next morning our trailer looked like a crime scene with bloody bug guts smeared all over our white interior. Needless to say, he is no longer in charge of pest control… unless it’s a snake!

@Rivernerd, I am sorry to hear or your poor experience with Specialty Products Technologies (https://www.specialtyproducttechnologies.com) (sptech.com), the vendor for the TrailerLife odometer, manufactured by Veeder Root. IMHO, their customer service response is entirely unreasonable. I suggest you phone them at (910) 862-2511 and ask for someone in a managerial capacity to whom you can express your dissatisfaction. Regards, Don

We took our 2015 LE2 Ollie in for a non-electrical issue at Oliver a few years ago and they automatically added a ground strap to Ollie's frame (for free) because of electrical ground through ball issues with other trailers. We used to charge through Ollie's 7 pin connector with a 100W Renogy suitcase panel. On our last outing during June I checked Ollie's battery charge rate with TV idling connected to the trailer's 7 pin connection and saw about +3.5 amps. Current 100W solar suitcase installation that happened over a couple years.

Made me wanna throw up watching all that. Approx 1 mile/Kw, Over an hour to get enough juice to go another 100 plus miles, having to unhook in most cases. I'll stick with our big boy diesel. I'm not really concerned about the price of fuel, I planned for this lifestyle for nearly 20 years and calculated fuel at $5.00/gal into those plans. Load up....

Definitely a small world! Thank you for a great product! That Fluke meter is built like a tank. I firmly believe my son will still be using it another 40 years from now.

Thanks FrankC for the description of your setup, it helped. I've uploaded a photo I took of using the multi meter to test the 7pin readout. I know I'm going to get the terminology wrong here but hopeful you can still follow my description, especially with the picture. I used the top left 7pin contact as the positive and the bottom right contact as the ground, to take the meter reading. I believe that is the number 4 and number 1 positions on a 7 pin diagram I saw on another thread (sorry, can't locate immediately). The meter reading fluctuated around 460-470 mV (see photo below). I don't know what a correct reading should be. We have 4 (210Ah) AGM 6 volt batteries that are connected in parallel (two on the left in parallel and the two on the right in parallel) and then those two sets of parallels are connected in series. Which should be 12 volt battery with 420Ah. So....I said all of this battery description case it's useful for saying what the correct 7pin reading should be on the multi meter. Based on my burgeoning knowledge of electrical stuff - I'm thinking the solar panel troubleshooting guide is telling me that the battery voltage is < 3 volts and based on the multi meter reading that is a true statement. But I don't understand why that would be. Or what it should be. I don't know what or how to check the 20V amp breaker. There are three 2 amp breakers. One of them is labeled "Charger". Not sure what that is for. Is there a meter reading I can do there also? Thanks, Alberta

I use a similar setup that you describe on our Oliver. I use a 140 watt Zamp portable panel that has a charge controller built in, and connect to the 7 pin harness with an adapter I made. It’s worked well with no problems. The positive 12v charge wire on the 7 pin harness connects directly to the batteries. If you have an electrical multi-meter, you may want to check to make sure you are using the proper pins on the 7 pin connector, and that there is continuity between the 7 pin 12v charge wire contact and the battery positive terminal. There is a 20 amp breaker on the 12v charge wire (see wiring diagram) so you may want to check that. Ours is a 2019, so I can’t guarantee that your wire color codes are the same.

I believe the sold blue wire heads to your relay board on the furnace. I believe the blue with the white stripe is 12 volts hot. Check with a voltmeter to verify with fuse for furnace in place. If you touch those two wires together it will start the furnace, you will have to let the furnace time out before it will shut back down. If that checks out then you will splice one unused thermostat wire to blue and another unused thermostat wire to the blue with white stripe. Then back at where the thermostat wires come out of the wall you will use those two newly allocated thermostat wires to hook up the new single mode thermostat. Hope that helps. Paul

@Jps190 My trailer is a 2018. I could not find the spliced wires under the heater that you show in your picture. I am going to post a picture of the wires that were cut from the AC and the current thermostat wiring. @Minnesota Oli or anyone else can you confirm which wires to splice together to eliminate the LCD control and wire the simple Emerson Thermostat. Thanks. The wires shown here pretty much the picture from Minnesota Oli with the exception the red connected to the white/red. Also he describes doubling up the wires from the thermostat but my thermostat only has three wires (yellow, red, green). It looks like only the green and yellow Tstat wires are in the wiring harness that is at my AC end.

What year is your trailer? Mine is a 2021 and the wire colors were different than Minnesota Oil’s. the green and blue wires on the left of the control box go to the heater. These wires were spliced to the wires coming out of the heater. You can find the splices right below the heater to identify which wires they correspond to. See pic below. John

wolfdds-- As I wrote about my upgrade, my RV tech did all of the work, but I DID pass along this information from Minnesota Oli, who apparently got it from katanapilot. I hope it helps. Here's a paragraph from Got Earplugs by katanapilot from My version of the Houghton AC install posted May 27. As a sidenote halfway through the install I thought of a different way of doing the wiring for the thermostat. If a person replaced the LCD thermostat with a older manual style you could do away with the LCD relay board. If you look at the first picture that shows a group of wires that are in a black sheath, these are the control side of the wiring for the AC. In that group of wires there are two blue wires one with a white stripe. The one with the white stripe is hot 12 volts DC and the solid blue is the wire that goes to the furnace relay board. So re-allocate the existing thermostat wires by doubling them up ,two of them hooked to the solid blue and the other two hook to the blue with the white stripe. Then at the wall hook the two thermostat wires that are hooked to blue with white stripe to the power in on the new manual thermostat and the other two to the power out. The reason I would double them up is because of they're small gauge. This would do away with having to pull wires and using the LCD relay board. Also save you having to toggle through the unusable modes (heat strip, cool) on the LCD thermostat to get to the furnace mode. By re-allocate the existing thermostat wires and doubling them up ,two of them hooked to the solid blue and the other two hook to the blue with the white stripe. Now you are able to utilize wires that are already there saving you having to run new ones. Simply switch out the thermostat with one that does not need a control board.

This may be of interest: I just estimated the weight reduction by replacing my 4 6-volt AGM batteries with the Battle Borns, and replacing the Dometic AC with the Houghton. Our Ollie may have lost about 300 lbs (along with about 1 inch of height).

My RV tech, Mat, did the install, but I think that it was no sweat for him. Other aspects of the upgrade did pose some bigger challenges. As I stated in my original post, "I still have very little technical understanding about how this system functions and how the components and wiring fit together, so I will not be the one to answer many, if any, technical questions, but I know that on this forum, if you ask, you receive. There are some good posts on this forum involving the Houghton AC and related issues, so take a look around, and don't hesitate to submit your questions on this forum. Doing so paid off big time for me!"

That looks like a great system. How much trouble was involved in installing the Zamp portable hookup plug, or was that already wired into your system?

Keep us posted on how it performs! Mike