mlb3820

Hi Steve, I think you might be asking about the original post from Overland but you are responding to my post. In any event, we did not order any factory installed table. We ordered the access hatch to the basement instead. Then we used Overland's approach (you might have seen the floor table mount in his pictures above) to mount the lagun table bracket under the driver's side bed. Cheers, Mark

We did essentially the same conversion with the exception of creating the platform also as the lagun table top. I posted this on overland's topic regarding his custom lagun table bracket. The details are posted on our blog here. Cheers, Mark

Thanks Overland. Nope we cut down a twin 3" natural latex foam mattress topper. We added the same foam on top of the standard cushions to create our mattresses. We tried to roll and tie them but that was sloppy, then the "roll and tuck" approach presented itself. Takes a little elbow grease and having not too tiny hands helps.

Well it's time for us to weigh in on this mod. With inspiration from overland we went ahead and made a similar retrofit in our Oliver, with a twist. We now have a table/desk as well as a twin bed bridge. I give the complete details here on our website.

It was pretty cold in Massachusetts in late November, dropping below freezing for nights in a row, while driveway surfing at my parents place and counting down the days to Thanksgiving. To keep the plumbing from freezing in Ollie we were running the gas furnace to keep the living space in the 50s and the space between the hulls warm. On several days I came out and found the interior around 39 degrees and the furnace not running. What?? As I fumbled about with this the first time, I flipped all the AC breakers and pressed all the 12v fuses. The furnace restarted. Huh. I was not paying close enough attention to know which component reset the furnace. Not to worry, it happened again. It turned out it was the furnace fuse, go figure, that when I rocked it under my finger in its receptacle, the furnace would restart after I heard an electrical click. At one point I did this and the furnace restarted but then died again shortly thereafter. That time I discovered we had run out of gas in the open propane tank. I switched to the full tank but the furnace would not start when I expected it to. I rocked the fuse again and got the click (spark? relay reset?) and the furnace started and stayed running. After futzing with this a few times I decided to look closer at the fuse. I pulled it and noticed the two tabs were misaligned, like one tab was making into the receptacle and the other was missing it, instead twisting and just touching the outside of the other receptacle. Under most circumstances this worked fine, until it didn't. Anyway I replaced the fuse and all was well. Upon closer inspection one could see that one of the tabs had a wear mark on only one side where the other tab had marks consistent with full connection in the receptacle, suggesting to me it was not properly seated to begin with. While the fuse issue was resolved, this did highlight an issue/question for me. When the gas runs out while the furnace is running and the furnace shuts down, after resolving the gas issue, how are you supposed to reset it? I imagine having to pull the fuse is not the right way on a closed circuit. Cheers, Mark

And at Overland's suggestion I cancelled the order of the BMV-700 and ordered the BMV-712 instead.

Hi Jeff, I was putting more trust in the recommendation from Zamp. But for this user's complaint I'd have suggested an inexpensive solar trickle charger to offset the parasitic load (caused by forgetting to shut the unit off? Twice?). We used one on our sailboat and had no issues with phantom/parasitic loads draining the house batteries. For our Airstream (no solar) we added a mechanical shutoff to the negative terminal to eliminate the possibility of unwanted battery drain. In our case today, we have 320 watts of solar panels charging the batteries when the sun shines which is often enough in the CONUS, right? If it is being stored inside I'd be sure to have the batteries on a smart trickle charger. As an aside, who puts a "gas gauge" a starting battery? Cheers, Mark

Oh and backcountrysolar is out of stock at the moment. I ordered from Amazon and included the bluetooth dongle for $193.

A Battery Monitor solution (one of many anyway) I consumed all the feedback above, concluded I need a battery monitor for insight into our battery use that I desire and then set out scouring the web for options. Chris's post (technomadia) from 2008, provided some excellent insight and jumping off point for products to find current versions of and consider. I concluded I need a standalone monitor, not an add on to an existing system. In all of the above research I narrowed my choices down to two: the trimetric touted above and the Victron BMV-700 (plus the bluetooth dongle). Being of a mind to always learn from other people's experiences first, I asked Zamp for their recommendation as well. They came back today with ... Good morning Mark, Thank you for your inquiry. We recommend the product from our premier retailer. https://backcountrysolar.com/collections/batteries-and-accessories/products/victron-bmv-700-lifepo4-battery-monitor To purchase, please contact our premier online retailers: Joe with Back Country Solar https://backcountrysolar.com/ 970-245-8046 Thank you, Being a bit of smartphone geek I'll be going with the BMV-700 with the bluetooth interface.

Thanks to all who posted responses. Clearly it is battery monitoring that I am after. I read the linked 2008 article from Chris of Technomadia and saw references to some battery monitors there. I'll look at some more recent reviews of currently available monitors and report back here.

We have, on our 2018 LEII: 4-6v AGM batteries 2 Solar Panels (320w) ZS-30A Charge Controller 2000w Inverter Composting Toilet with 12v dc fan We know the solar panels charge the batteries through the controller. Does anything else help to charge them? On the charging side: When plugged into 30a 110v, does the AC system charge the batteries? When plugged into 15a 110v, does the AC system charge the batteries? (Like when running the generator when boondocking or using friends AC when driveway surfiing.) When plugged into the TV with 7 pin connector, does the TV DC supply help charge the batteries? In times of bad solar charging weather, how do I charge the batteries? Or is just the solar doing all of the battery charging? On the consumption side, what draws power from the batteries when plugged into: 30a 110v? 15a 110v? TV 7 pin with engine running? Today the tank monitor shows the batteries at 13.5v after a full day of bright sunlight. What are we supposed to avoid dropping the level below, in volts, to avoid damaging the batteries? Some part of me thinks the batteries should be charged and most demand be met by whatever external power supply you happen to be using (including solar). Wishful thinking? Cheers, Mark