ScubaRx
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Posts posted by ScubaRx
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I designed the solar system installed on the first Elite II built (mine.) I decided I wanted to use Blue Sky Equipment because it looked like the best on the market. It was good looking, had a ton of features and allowed you to really customize the system to best suit the end user. A downside of all this was, with its four levels of menu options, it was and still is complicated to set up and it overwhelmed a lot of the early owners that chose to have the solar option installed. At that time (2013), the most cost effective panels were 100 watts each and I chose to use two with them to be mounted on the roof. I also chose the Blue Sky 2512iX-HV Controller and the Blue Sky IPN PRO Remote Meter with current shunt. In less than a year, 160 watt panels were the same price that we had paid for the 100 watters we originally used so they started installing two of them for a total of 320 watts. This was the equipment that became standard for Oliver’s solar package.
I added a third 100 watt panel to my array so I now have 300 watts and it works perfectly. Having 320 watts could only be better and it is my personal belief that that is sufficient. We have never failed to achieve a full charge the day after using our usual overnight average of about 50-60 amps. Usually we are back up to full by 2 PM. We have the 4x6V Trojan AGM’s. I know other owners with the 320 watt Blue Sky System have had very similar or better results.
I agree with Reed on the Zamp system not being an ideal choice. The decision to switch from Blue Sky equipment to the Zamp equipment was prompted by the service manager a couple of years ago (he is no longer with Oliver.) When I questioned his decision about making the switch he stated to me that the Blue Sky system was "too complicated and the owners did not want or need to know all the information that it provided !" He apparently thought a "simpler" system was in our best interest.
Thanks….I had obviously gotten confused between the Elite and Elite II
how difficult would it be to add your own solar to a unit? I have been reading about this recently but not sure how confident I’d be. A system added after production would not/could not be roof mounted I assume? The solar package can be added after the fact. I am currently assisting another owner in installing a Blue Sky system. Oliver has agreed to add the panels (to the roof) and wire them to the controller and remote meter, that we will install beforehand. Oliver realized early on that customers that did not initially buy the solar package might decide at a later date that they just had to have one. Installation on a completed trailer entails some difficulties. Running the rather large wires, mounting the rooftop panels and fishing the wires from the roof down to the controller are just a few. Their forethought has made the job much easier. There are backing plates molded into the roof so that the panel brackets have something to attach to besides just fiberglass. There is a wire chase molded into the roof to allow you to run wiring between the shells. Some of the solar wiring is already in place for this very scenario.
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Jason I see the sidebar at the very bottom of the page. That's not a bad place for it if you know where to look. It does not take up any real estate down there. We could rename it the bottom bar.
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...Steve: I disagree with you about your statement that Oliver repairs the grounding issue when these trailers come back to the factory...
Horace, you are correct in that not all the trailers were being corrected in a timely manner. I should have stated "They were supposed to be repairing them as they came back into the factory for any work..." I agree that this was/is a problem because ours had been back to the factory at least a half dozen times before it was fixed. I drove 4500 miles on a trip listening to our truck almost constantly beep a warning of a brake disconnect. A half dozen calls to the factory during that trip yielded us no relief. When I took it in, Justin immediately knew what the problem was. It took all of 5 minutes to fix it. Obviously not everybody knows to look for that particular issue.
I spoke with Richie Carroll this morning and he will be addressing this situation with management today. A solution will be worked out quickly.
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Wonder if lead to the Ford trailer disconnected issue?
All the early trailers (say, below hull #100) were wired with the tow vehicle ground not bonded to the trailer. Ours had that problem. The white wire (ground) from the vehicle (thru the umbilical) must be connected to the buss bar in order for the brakes to work properly. They repaired them as they came back into the factory for any work, but most likely there are some still out there that have never been addressed. So, if your trailer is wired this way, it has everything to do with the trailer disconnect (brake) issues. Putting a six inch jumper from the white wire to the buss bar will solve that. As was stated previously, the only ground for the trailer from the vehicle was thru the ball mount and this was the case in those early builds. That worked pretty well when everything was brand new. As the ball was worn down, the connection became intermittent (thus the connect errors.)
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Unless it looks like rain or the weather is cold, we always travel with the windows open about 4 inches and the MaxxFan cover raised to create a cross ventilation. Never had any trouble unless we ran thru some rain and I either forgot and left them open or had to get out in the pouring rain to close them! I don't own a manual so I can't comment on why they would state "that the trailer windows should be closed when the trailer is moving." Ignorance is apparently bliss.
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You can open the valve manually to dump the tank, but probably, the cable only slipped out of the valve, it is secured with a set screw. Be careful trying to remove the roll pins, I broke a handle years ago on the OOI trying to do just that. The cable will slide completely out of the housing if you want to lubricate it.
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Looking good. Welcome to the Club.
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The beds can't be lowered, all the space below is allocated. On one side it's the water heater, water pump and furnace. On the other side it's the inverter and solar charge controller. On both sides you have the wheel wells and rear jacks protruding up into this space.
I suppose you could leave all those things off and just set it up as a tiny house.
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I have observed that Oliver has switched their standard fittings from PEX to Sharkbite, apparently to save time and ease in initial installation and in repairs. I guess the labor saved makes up for the additional cost of the fittings. And no expensive tools to keep up with. I bought a set of PEX tools earlier this year when I replaced the manual valves at the water pump with electric ones to facilitate using the auxiliary water fill system. Now flip a couple of switches and the tank fills easily!
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We were going to do this but the chair kept falling into the hot tub. <grin, sorry>
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Apparently the short caused a back flow of power from your coach batteries. Probably would not happen again but this is a good example of all the strange and weird things that can happen. Sometimes it makes you want to pull what little hair you may still have on your head completely out.
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Brad, I would expect that to be normal since you're dealing with two transmitters. One in the camera and another in the WVRX1 Digital Wireless Receiver Box.
As an aside, I was going to start another thread along this line, so I ask you indulgence in a slight hijack. For those of you that have this two camera setup, I have an extra WVOM713-MO auto pairing 7" monitor like the one you use in your tow vehicle that I would like to sell. As I understand it, some folks move their monitor to the inside of the trailer at night so they can see what's going on in the front of their trailer. PM me if interested.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread....
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My level pops out of a hole, I assumed (ass, you, me, etc) that all the jack heads were all the same. If that were a constant problem, I'd drill a hole under the bubble level.
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...Trying to decide between the Trojan T-105 and the Trojan Reliant AGM batteries. Is the only advantage of the AGM the fact that you don’t have to check water levels regularly? It appears that the T-105s have more AHs, weigh less, last longer if cared for properly, and cost less. Am I missing something? Is checking the water levels so onerous that it justifies the higher cost and lower AHs?...
You are correct about more amp hours, but realistically there are only 25 more usable. This would work out to about one nights use.
You are correct about the weight T-105's weigh 62 lbs, AGM's weigh 65 lbs. That is 12 pounds difference, I doubt you could tell the difference.
You do have to check the water levels in the T-105's. Is it "...so onerous that it justifies the higher cost and lower AHs?..." to me, absolutely!!!
...On one of the forum posts, I read something where someone recommended a “heavy duty greaseable suspension upgrade” and not going with the EZ Flex Suspension System. We traverse some pretty rough dirt roads here in Colorado to get to our campsites and one of the main reasons we chose the Oliver is its “toughness” factor. Are users happy with their EZ Flex systems, or do you not recommend them? This question of the right suspension has been one of the hardest to get my head around...Both of these systems include greasable wet bolts, the difference is the heavy duty compression rubber in the center of the equalizer in the EZ-Flex. Most of us have the EZ-Flex, but some have suggested the other one. I think the choice boils down to personal preference, but you should definitely opt for one of them. I installed the EZ-Flex after delivery (my trailer is the earliest one built-no available options at the time) and having the factory do the work is the way to go.
Sorry I can't help you with your tow vehicle question.
Congratulations on your new Oliver and welcome to the club.
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Scott told Tali that Oliver has contracted with a local vet to keep your dogs free of charge while you are at the factory.
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There are many fine fiberglass trailers on the market. They span the whole budget range from economy to luxury. Try attending a rally or two and you will surly see a brand that suits your needs in functionality and price. The search is a lot of fun. We are here to answer any questions so fire away.
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You do know you don't have to remove the jack cover to use the manual handle.
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Tali likes an Oasis of Olivers
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OK boys, play nicely or there'll be a smackin'...
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If your trailer has been sitting for “a few months” with no power input your batteries were probably dead.
Steve with all due respect this is not exactly correct. We have been storing our Oliver every winter since picking it up in a RV storage faculty with no electricity to plug in. The solar is turned off, and the master switch next to the Blu Sky is also off so that there is NO parasitic drain....
Thanks Rob. You are correct, of course, and I was not very clear the way I worded that sentence. What I should have said was: If your trailer has been sitting for “a few months” with no power input to your batteries and they are still connected to the trailer, due to all the parasitic draws, they were probably dead.
Short of disconnecting them, I have no way to isolate our batteries. In our trailer, with all the miscellaneous idiot LED's that are always on, CO detector, refrigerator board, etc. I have a phantom draw of 0.4 amps/hour. That's a little over 9 amps/24 hours. Left alone with no voltage input, I would be at 50% battery in less than 3 weeks.
Of course, with you wisely removing your parasitic draws, you avoid that plight.
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Hi, My trailer has been unplugged and under cover for a few months. Went to check it out recently and the Blue Sky monitor numbers were all blank. So just plugged in the trailer for a few days and went back today. The Blue Sky monitor still registers blank. The tank monitor registers battery at 13.0 (unplugged) and 13.2 (plugged in). Previously they did appear normal as far as I could tell as it did have numbers registering. Is my battery charged?? Any idea what’s going on? This thing is completely beyond me. I read through some posts but I can’t get a comprehension of this thing. Here are some pictures of the monit0rs today.
If your trailer has been sitting for "a few months" with no power input your batteries were probably dead. You state you plugged it in and is now reading 13.x volts so apparently you lucked out and they came back to life. Just the normal parasitic drains in the trailer would draw over 5 amps a day from your batteries. You don't say which batteries you have but they also have an additional monthly self discharge rate of up to 12%. Every time the batteries get depleted they loose some ability to recover. Several depletions will ruin them so you should never leave the trailer without a power source be it plugged in or out in the sun. If you have to store it covered and without access to 110VAC you should unhook the batteries to prevent them from draining so fast, though they will still go flat over time - NOT GOOD.
The IPN-Pro is only reporting what it knows. In order for it to accurately report amps going into the batteries from your converter, the negative wire coming out of the converter MUST go directly to the shunt and then from the shunt back to the grounding bus bar located under the rear most dinette seat. If you look inside that area you will see that the negative (yellow) wire coming out of the back of the converter is connected directly to the bus bar thus bypassing the shunt. The converter in your trailer was not wired correctly to be able to interact with the IPN-Pro (all of the trailers at that time were wired this way.) So all the amps going into your battery via the converter after you plugged it in were not registered by the IPN-Pro and it thinks they are dead.
There is nothing wrong with the IPN-Pro, so pull the trailer into full sun and the meter will reset itself in no more than a day, probably just a few hours since your batteries are back up to charge.
I can help you fix the wiring issue if you wish.
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Thank you John, that's exactly what I expected to see. Although it would not remedy your hardware connection issues, for those of you that have this type of drawer you could make it structurally twice as strong. Remove each drawer and place it upside down as shown in John's photo. Use any good type of wood glue and run a bead around the perimeter where the bottom goes into the side pieces. Leave the drawers sitting upside down overnight to allow the glue to set. This will dramatically strengthen the drawer. If you would like to, you can do the same thing on the inside of the drawer.
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How about giving a nod to our close proximity to fiberglass maritime design with the use of Flotilla or an altogether new words like Towtilla or Olitilla????
Very good, also Fleet, Armada, I like this theme.
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I kinda like:
Pack (as in Wolves)
Pod (as in Whales)
how difficult would it be to add your own solar to a unit? I have been reading about this recently but not sure how confident I’d be. A system added after production would not/could not be roof mounted I assume?
How difficult is it to communicate effectively with Oliver Service?
in General Discussion
Posted
Accents?
We don't have no stinkin' accents!