mountainoliver

The existing wiring is adequate just as long as you don’t try to use all 600 amp/hrs at once! 🌋

Over the years I have found that more amp/hrs would be of benefit. I initially felt that the 300 amp/hrs of the BB batteries were enough but with the compressor fridge on 24/7 during winter traveling and a few cloudy days here and there, my batteries would draw down to less than I am comfortable with. Anyway, two of the 300 amp/hr batteries seem to be the wave of the future. Having two still gives me the redundancy that I like. As built, Oliver used 4/0 welding cable for the main battery connections to the inverter. These are large enough for the 2,000 watt inverter and are protected by a 250 amp fuse. The wire used for all other dc circuits is #6 welding cable and is adequate for the existing dc circuits in the trailer. I did not install a larger Progressive Dynamics charger or a larger inverter so I didn’t feel it necessary to upsize any wiring. I do have the air conditioner wired so that I can run it through the inverter but it only draws about 90 dc amps. The microwave by comparison draws about 120-130 dc amps. Really the only thing I did when I initially installed the lithium batteries six years ago was to clean up some of the wiring by moving all of the #6 wiring out of the battery box and I added a circuit breaker. Not too involved.

Yes, I saw all of the glowing reviews six years ago when I did my upgrade to lithium batteries. Back then Oliver had just introduced their lithium trailer and there weren’t many choices for lithium batteries. Battle Born was the gold standard then. This goes to show that lab testing has little resemblance to real world life testing day in and day out over the years. Even now and with most things we buy, we do our homework and research the best we can and select the best option. I’m not too upset with the way this has turned out. These batteries have traveled many miles in six years and have been well used all without any maintenance. We on average spend four months out of the year in our trailer every year, in 2025 it was six months. We are ready for the next chapter!

The second test of the “bad” battery just finished. That battery started out fully charged this morning and only lasted for 6 1/2 hours. It again shut down with so little voltage that the charger will not recognize a voltage and start charging. The other two batteries took the load for over 12 hours, the inverter shut down at 10 volts as it should. The charger was able to begin charging immediately. This second test confirms that this one battery is defective in some way and can only handle a load for a short period of time. No telling how quickly it discharges under a much heavier load. My Battle Born testing is done! Two good batteries and one bad battery. Now I’ve got to find something to do with these two batteries.

I forgot to mention that my initial high amp test tested all of the batteries at once. Since we were in the midst of a two month trip I didn’t want to shut down my 12 volt system to individually test each battery. I didn’t even check the individual amp draw at each battery. I simply applied a 122 amp draw to the entire battery pack via the inverter for a half hour and kept checking the terminals for a temperature change.

During my initial high amp test while camping I specifically was looking for high terminal temperature. I did not see any temperature problems. During my long term low amp test at home (only 8.5 amps) I did not see any terminal heating. I believe the bad battery has an internal issue or several bad cells. No I am not going to pursue any warranty claims. I’ve already replaced the batteries so I don’t need them for the trailer. Besides BB charges about $150 to test the battery and I would have to pay for shipping. If they don’t replace the battery under warranty I would be responsible for their charge and all shipping. Not worth it to me at this point.

After I had heard about the issues that Battle Born was having, I initially tested my three batteries. I installed my batteries about six years ago and at least initially didn’t have any issues with them. We were in the midst of a two month trip so my testing was very rudimentary. I just ran a 1500 watt electric heater on my inverter for about a half hour. That loaded the batteries to 122 amps which only put about 41 amps on each battery. With this test I was only checking for hot positive terminals. No issues there. After we got back home I decided to replace all of the Battle Born batteries with two Epoch 300 ah batteries at the wise counsel of another Oliver owner. Anyway, I decided to perform a more detailed test on the three old batteries. I had an old 400 watt inverter that I connected with a 100 watt incandescent light bulb (remember those) and connected the input to each battery one at a time. This would put approximately 8 amps load on the battery. I first charged each battery to make sure they were fully charged. I finished my initial battery test today. First and third batteries lasted about 12 hours each. The inverter will turn itself off at 10 volts which is the voltage that a lithium battery is considered dead. The 12 hour time frame seems about right, 100 amp/hr (battery) divided by 8 amps (load) is about 12.5 hours so I think my actual test is fairly accurate. The second battery only lasted a few hours and died to the point that the charger would not recognize any voltage so wouldn’t start charging. I had to jumper a good battery in parallel with the dead one so that the charger would start then after just a couple of minutes I removed the good battery and charging continued. Anyway, I’m going to re test the bad one tomorrow. My original 300 ah had turned into 200 ah! Over the past couple of years I had noticed that the battery pack seemed to draw down quicker than before and that I had to recharge them more frequently. We do all sorts of camping typically, a mixture of boondocking and various stages of campgrounds. We typically camp not just a few days boondocking which is easy for any trailer but we’ll boondock for maybe two weeks at a time. This past year we were in our camper for a total of six months. Four months in the west and two months in the south east. During that time we spent a week here and there boondocking and sometimes in campgrounds with no hook ups. Anyway, it had become more difficult to boondock in the last couple of years. We have a compressor fridge that of course runs 24/7 and then other typical loads. I didn’t know it but we had one third of our battery capacity gone! I’m glad I changed these out for the Epoch batteries! My takeaway and suggestion for others (not just Battle Born owners) is to periodically fully test your lithium batteries. There are load testers sold on Amazon specifically designed to test them and they are a little more elegant than the inverter/light bulb arrangement that I used. The Epoch Essentials 300ah batteries have Bluetooth and can be electronically controlled. The output or charge input can be turned off and on through the app so in a multi battery setup each battery can be isolated. I have not experimented with this feature yet but could potentially make it easier to test one battery at a time in place without having to remove them. Anyway, fellow Battle Born owners test your batteries!

Merry Christmas to all the family of Oliver owners!

Another thing that is most likely the cause for a hot battery lug and has not been mentioned yet……a loose connection to the outside world. Installer error. It’s easy to get a loose connection. We should check all of the 12 volt connections periodically, especially the high amperage ones. When I first installed my lithium batteries and put them under a heavy load I checked all of the welding cable crimped on lugs. Only one factory crimp got hot so I removed it and crimped it again. I have not had a problem with any of the connections getting warm under heavy loads since. Yet something else we need to check, oh goody!

A follow up to my previous post. FWIW. This issue is exactly why I choose three separate batteries instead of using only one. If one fails or even two fail during a trip, I can easily switch to the remaining good one(s) in the field and not have to make a faulty quick decision in order to provide heat or to keep my compressor fridge running. Anyway something to think about when in this case choosing batteries.

I (unfortunately) have three Battle Born batteries that are now six years old. At this point considering the possibility of having to cover shipping costs basically from coast to coast and BB charging me a troubleshooting fee, I’d probably just dump these and go with a different brand. At the time I bought my batteries, BB were the gold standard in lithium batteries. Who knew! I did extensive research and chose them. So for now I’m going to watch them closely and so far I haven’t had the slightest issue with them. The other day I performed a load test with no issues with loading them to 122 amps for about 20 minutes and absolutely no heating issues at the posts. We’ll see.

“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.” I also had read about this issue with the Maxxfan control board around the time I changed my batteries to lithium about four years ago. I added the Drok buck/boost circuit to run both the bath fan and the Maxxfan and suggested using the Drok circuit for anyone with lithium batteries as a safety precaution. To my knowledge all other “12 volt” appliances are designed to withstand over the typical lithium battery voltage without any issues.

I may be wrong but, at some point someone’s brother in law or cousin had a graphic design shop in town and were the ones making the vinyl decals for Oliver. They very well may still have the original design programs. If you google vinyl decal companies in Hohenwald you might come up with something. Contact them and ask. Couldn’t hurt.

For the thermostat: my original Dometic thermostat requires 12 volts to work and operates through a relay arrangement located at the air conditioner. I didn’t use any of that and had SDG folks dispose of the relay box and just bundle the unused wires at the air conditioner. The only wires now used at the air conditioner are the 120 volt hot, neutral and ground. My original thermostat was mounted to the right of the pantry above the rear dinette seat so your installation may be different, Oliver has mounted the thermostat in several different locations over the years. I ran new wires for the thermostat behind the pantry and into the left rear corner area and connected to the two wires (blue and blue/white striped wires) that go directly to the Suburban furnace. The original telephone type thermostat wire was abandoned and bundled in the wiring space to the right of the pantry. The simple thermostat is fully manual/mechanical and mounts in the same location as the old one. Now the air conditioner and the furnace are totally separate and operate independently from each other. I did have to fabricate a mounting plate for the new thermostat to cover the holes from the old thermostat.

I’m probably wrong but I think the Atmos and Tosot units are both made by Gree and are essentially identical. Country of origin may be different though.

When we were there having SDG install our Tosot air conditioner we drove over to Shipshewana. Interesting German type town with shopping and a dinner show facility. I think that there is only one (correct me if I’m wrong) aftermarket air conditioner that will utilize the internal drain system. I think it’s the Dometic Freshjet unit. I saw one installation and was not overly impressed with the unit itself. The installation was good but the unit didn’t impress me. If you decide to use SDG for the installation please contact me first for a couple of suggestions on the installation. SDG did a great job of installing the new unit.

7/8 for both the U bolts and the shackle bolts. Both U bolts and shackle bolts are 9/16 diameter so the wrench size for this standard nut size is 7/8. You will need a deep well socket for the U bolt nuts. I have a deep well 7/8 socket for my truck wheels so this worked perfectly.

Several years ago another Oliver owner had some vinyl track material left over from a project he was doing and gave me the left over material. I have not looked, but I imagine that the material can be found on amazon. Along with the track material he gave me the plastic pieces that run in the track. I carefully heated the one piece of track that is attached to the curved area and bent the track to match the curve. Both track pieces are attached to the ceiling with 3M double sided tape. The curtain is a standard shower curtain with one upper end cut and hemmed in a radius to match the curved ceiling area. Half of the curtain covers the doorway and the other half covers the toilet area.

Yes that was an in process photo. In fact, the aluminum plate closing off the rear end of the trailer was never sealed so I removed the plate and put butyl tape all around and reattached it. As far as the soil pipe, there is a rubber grommet that tightly seals between the pipe and the aluminum plate.

My basement area collapsed a couple of years ago in a very similar way as yours. On mine the rails that supported the basement floor was held to the wall sections with screws that penetrated the wall by only 1/4 inch. As shown in the photos I made a framework to support the floor out of vinyl 3/4 x 5 1/2 material. I would recommend not using wood anywhere in the trailer. Vinyl board and stainless screws. The actual basement floor rests on the framework and is attached to the framework with stainless screws. I also reinforced and sealed the aluminum plate that closes off the rear of the trailer. About half of the sub basement was uninsulated so I also added complete insulation in the area.

To add to the braking and bearing conversation: About the difference in braking ability: A couple of weeks ago when John received his new axles from Dexter he disassembled one spindle in order to make some bearing, drum, brake measurements. I measured one of my old 3500 pound axle 10 inch x 2 1/4 inch brake assemblies and John measured one of his new 5200 pound axle 12 inch x 2 inch brake assemblies. In comparing the square inch surfaces between the two assemblies, there is about 5 more square inches of brake lining surface area per wheel. Also the 12 inch drums are heavier (34 pounds vs 24 pounds) and the 12 inch drums have deeper cooling fins around the outside so should be able to absorb and radiate more heat, which will aid in braking performance. Once the brakes are fully seated we should see better performance and I imagine that it will take quite a few miles of actual braking to fully seat the brakes. Also concerning the bearings: I went to my go to auto parts store and purchased a couple new wheel bearings to have on hand spares while traveling. They are standard front wheel bearings for the 2010 Chrysler PT Cruiser and apparently several other vehicles as well. The actual brand that my auto parts store carries is the exact NTN (ET-CRI-0846) bearing that John found in his Dexter axle! The Timken Set 49 bearing is also the same. The NTN (made in Japan) bearings were less than $50 each and can be purchased from any auto parts store and are much, much, much less expensive than the exact same brand from Dexter! With the Harbor Freight (or similar bearing press kits from many other sources) and spare bearings, the Nev-R-Lube hubs can easily be repaired on the road. Please use this information for reference and do your own research and bearing cross references.

Concerning the difference between cool mode and dry mode. I have run the unit in dry mode for days on end with the trailer in my driveway. We’ve had multiple 90 degree days with high humidity and by setting the temperature a little bit higher than in cool mode the trailer was kept very comfortable. The only difference (according to the Tosot customer service folks) between cool mode and dry mode is that in dry mode the fan only runs on low. Maybe the on cycle is a little bit longer, I’ve not been able to tell the difference. Everything else is the same. Since we tend to run the fan on low 99% of the time anyway, dry mode really works great for keeping the trailer cool and dry. I probably will only use cool mode to initially get a hot trailer cool using high or turbo fan mode and then switch to dry mode for the rest of the time. It’s interesting to note that the specific temperature settings for any particular mode are remembered as you cycle through the different modes. Anyway, learning as we go.

I just called Automotion shade company in Canada for information about replacement cord for the Oliver window shades. The “kind” receptionist informed me that Vick (our go to guy for window shade questions) no longer works there and that they do not send out replacement parts for the shades. She said that their products are proprietary and they don’t repair them only replace them. If other owners have recently repaired their window shades and have had different results in talking with the Automotion folks please let us know.

Thanks John this takes the mystery out of the “new” Nev-R-Lube type axle that Oliver is now using.

The one axle that has the bent brake backing plate must have really been hit hard! The backing plate on mine is at least 1/8 inch thick steel. With the strengthening ribs and flange it would take a lot to bend it which means the drum must have taken a heavy hit as well. The drum being cast iron could be cracked I wouldn’t use it and if the brake backing plate is tweaked at its mounting flange the shoes will never contact the drum squarely and you’ll always have braking issues with that assembly. You’re doing the right thing to send the entire mess back and get all new assemblies.