GarryandKristi

and much easier to “fabricate”.

Agreed. We actually exhausted our nearly 6 year old agms with 2 days of dry camping and to get the front jack lifted I had to plug in the 7 pin cable. That did the trick and was easier than dragging out the generator. It certainly offsets the refrigerator drain on DC setting while traveling between sites. Very glad we have the 3-way fridge to operate on propane while Dry camping. Also glad we have a separate inverter and not the new inverter/charger in which everything has to be run through the inverter. Ours is a 2018 model.

I had the same issue with the remote not working about 2 years ago. I removed the control board and thoroughly cleaned it (I believe with isopropyl alcohol and or vinegar as a mild acid). Reinstalled and it resumed working. Wish I had coated the board at that time. Issue has just reappeared after I entered the traIler and the fan was spontaneously running at max speed and the operator was in a dozen pieces. Original operator appeared to be cheap pot metal and replacement from etrailer doesn’t appear to be a whole lot better. Fan still works using the button board. Am thinking about pulling the control board again and cleaning and coating. May also install a voltage regulator. By the way, our fan fuse is in the sub-panel in the attic (7.5 amp). Hull number is 372 (2018).

The resistance of the factory 7-pin small gage wire would limit current draw so shouldn’t damage your alternator. Don’t know how much the wire would heat up due to line loss.

I agree with your thoughts. Short cycling is the most likely problem. We get this in our dometic penguin that came with the elite II in 2018. Air conditioners are by nature dehumidifiers (they why they have condensate lines). Having to run a dehumidifier seems like poor design when you have AC so it must be a sizing and/or fan speed issue. We’ve lived in the south for many years and never have had issues with humidity in our house even with outside dew points in the upper 70s. And that is even with a whole house ventilation system with some outside air being pulled in. Of course house hvac systems are far better than rv systems in design, etc.

Relative humidity is a pretty worthless measure of moisture in the air as it changes with ambient temperature (rh is the amount of moisture, or vapor pressure to the amount of moisture or vapor pressure at saturation) and warm air can hold more moisture than cold air. I am a big fan of dewpoint (temperature at which moisture condenses in the air) which doesn’t change unless you get a different air mass. I suspect the issue is running the fan constantly versus on auto so unconditioned air is being pulled in. We run our dometic on low (not auto) so the startup of fan/compressor isn’t so alarming. I do notice an immediate change in humidity with our domestic when the compressor turns off (but fan still runs). With a quiet AC it would be better to run it on auto so that the fan is not running when the compressor is off. So I am thinking it is not so much to do with the manufacturer/unit as it is the mode of operation.

We love these gutters as it has solved the perpetual battle to clean (with nominal success in the battle to prevent water ingress) the weep/drainage holes and channels for the windows. I applied in summer so the temps were warm/hot and adhesion was good. Also, as John mentioned, having a decent length of straight run beyond the curved section helps anchor things.

Other thoughts ..... cavitation - is the suction side fully primed? Maybe could tell by water in the filter bowl. Have you tried connecting city water and running it for a short period? Although the pump should be self -priming I think. Could be a bad diaphragm. Although the sound on the video sure sounds like an electrical (switch) issue. When ours primes it sounds a bit like a rumble.

I guess it depends on what you expect and actually do when camping. We have the 4 6v AGMs and over 3 years they have served us well. We can dry camp for 3 nights (we have no solar) and just plug the trailer in when storing. Camping on the East - and mostly mid south to southeast means a lot of trees for us and so the advantages of solar would be minimal. When the AGMs bite the dust I would considers lithium, but honestly I’d rather spend the extra money on a quieter air conditioner.

I can confirm that our Elite 2 has the “new” configuration of pump suction. We have hull no. 372 with a pickup date of August 2018. There is a fitting on the top of the tank about 1 foot from the aft end with apparently a suction tube extending into the tank. This is in addition to the 2 tubes on the side at aft end for fill and drain functions. The line at the top routes to the suction side of the pump so is obviously the suction tube. On a recent dry camping trip, we experienced cavitation at about 10% indicated on the level meter. I think 13% was the last good reading and at at about 8% could not draw anything (from memory and don’t exactly remember resolution increments of level meter). When draining (and raising front end) it seemed like a substantial amount of water drained, but I did not measure. Probably no more than 5 gallons.

Another thing to look at assuming that you have about equal lengths of awning extended is adjusting the pitch of the awning. I just did that with ours and it helped with retracting the awning flush on both ends. I made sure the trailer was level front to back, then checked level on the extended lead rail. I raised the low end by turning the 5 mm Allen screw on the attachment hardware at the top of the arm clockwise until nearly level then finished with lowering the other end a bit by turning that one counter-clockwise (didn’t want to put too much tension on the low arm). That pretty much fixed it. Will check extended length on both ends now that others have mentioned that. See Page 8 of the attached. We have had an arm slide over on the lead rail so make sure those Allen bolts are tight at the lead rail. We’ve also had to replace the manual retractor gear as it would not retract all the way without slipping (like a bad ratchet drive). These things are not carefree over time. Freedom-WM-Service-Manual.pdf

I put an hdmi switch (auto) in our attic too. We have the furrion tv and dvd/radio that has hdmi out to the tv. With splitter can use Roku stick (seldom due to lack of speedy cell phone service even with booster) or lightning to hdmi with phone and play downloaded Netflix stuff. The furrion tv was rigged with rca outs to DVD/radio av in. But, have to say just watching air TV with Andy Griffith and grit Tv westerns is kind of fun for a simple change of pace.

Definitely try tractor supply first. When recently having our Ollie serviced in Hohenwald, the women at the service desk said that she had worked at Walmart in Hohenwald and they didn’t have much of an RV section although hitches would be in automotive. Hard to beat Walmart prices in any event.

We have a 2015 RAM 1500 eco diesel and I love it. Pulls the Ollie great. Get about 16 mpg overall with the trailer. I have gotten as high as 27 mpg on long highways trips without pulling. But I think the 2 re-flashes of tranny and EGR system for an emissions settlement may have dinged the mileage a tad. With a diesel, it just feels like you are not straining too much.

It all depends on what scenarios you will actually be in. We have the 4 6v (2 pairs in series, then pairs in parallel) 400 AH AGMs. Got our elite 2 in August 2018. We chose not to get solar because most of the campsites we anticipated and do use are here in the east and shaded. We have done several dry camping trips (with a few 3 nights). Always had enough power but do switch the fridge (absorption) to gas and normally don’t use microwave much. We do run the max air all night most of these trips with no problem. Did get a bit low on voltage when we used the microwave more than normal. If we need ac when drycamping - so far we haven’t been in the situation- we would run our inverter generator (we did get the soft-start on the AC. So for us this works fine and upgrading for us would probably be more for re-sale. When the AGMs go - I suspect we will seriously consider the lithiums, but not an inverter upgrade as the only reason for that that I can see would be to run AC and that would require rewiring - plus you we wouldn’t be able to run the ac very long on batteries anyway. So, I guess we are one of the few without solar but for us it has been perfectly fine. Just another (lower end) perspective.