GraniteStaters

One final post on this issue. We received two brand new Trojan AGM 6 volt batteries last week and I finished the reinstall last Friday. After doing a pretty good checkout and with some cooler dismal days in the forecast for NH, we set up a recreation of our failing scenario. We set the furnace to 50 degrees and the refrigerator to LP. We ran our main cabin lights last night for 5 hours to simulate our normal behavior. We had a very rainy evening Sunday night and Monday morning until late in the day. We have been running for over 41 hours with almost no solar gain and have drawn 58Ah of draw since the last report of fully charged as reported by the VictronConnect software. Our voltage on both 12v pairs was 12.4x this morning. Jason Essary of Oliver service was extremely helpful with Trojan on our behalf. We are both very grateful. David

I am adding a great document from Victron's library that explains the ins and outs of batteries, wiring considerations and monitoring. Very helpful. https://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Wiring-Unlimited-EN.pdf

I have the both the Honda eu2000i and the Champion dual fuel 3400. I purchased the latter to have the TT-30 outlet, the extra power, and to not have to carry gasoline in the back of the TV as it will be run on LP. The Champion has a handle to allow it to be maneuvered in the back of our RAM 1500 TV. I have sufficient hose to allow me to connect to the RV QC outlets. It will meet my needs for power on ECO, but I usually don't need to run the A/C. I did have purchase the low pressure regulator for the Champion, but have the option of using the provided high pressure regulator if I use this at home during a power outage where I would connect it to a propane tank directly. It has a battery starter, but I have started it manually before it it works like it would with gas as the choke is still in play.

Well, testing overnight went very well. We used about 25Ah of power from the last full charge. It stayed about 12.25 volts until the batteries recharged from the Solar panels in spite of the overcast conditions. Using the Aux port on the Victron Smart Shunt, I able to monitor both batteries concurrently. This is very handy. When I receive my replacements and install them as two pairs pairs of batteries, I will reconfigure the Aux to be a midpoint voltage monitor to insure that I have visibility on how each set of 6 volt batteries are behaving.

As it turns out, we have cloudy day today and I will testing the two remaining AGMs to see that they work well under extended use. I have the VictronConnect and Smart shunt to gather stats and monitor easily over the next few days. I will only run the refrigerator on LP, the furnace and turn a few lights after it gets dark and recheck after a few hours a couple or three times tonight and when I wake up tomorrow.

David and I use both the current groups, the FB page and this forum. We have found both to be civil and helpful. I doubt that I will want to add a third place to check for Oliver info. FB, as much as it drives me crazy at times, is the only platform for some important (to me) groups I belong to. I read through the link John Davies provided about MeWe and there wasn't anything that made me want to switch. As far as having a group that is ONLY for Oliver owners I can see the appeal but before we ordered The Swallow we got lots of good info from both the FB group and the forum. I think there is value in being willing to answer questions from prospective buyers. One other thing, on the FB group you often see postings from Oliver employees jumping in to answer questions. OK, diatribe over! 🙂. Paula

Good news on this issue. The Trojan Black AGM 6V batteries were found to be defective after testing by the regional distributor in our area. I had an hour trip to a service location that they service, but it was worth it to identify the issue. They only pick up or deliver the batteries once a week to this service location, but it means that we were without 2 of the 4 batteries for just two weeks. I will be reinstalling next week and doing some testing of the new batteries. Jason Essary, Oliver Service, facilitated this successful outcome to everyone's benefit.

Mainiac, at some point they started using the stainless steel sink in the bathroom instead of fiberglass. Ours is a 2019 and we have ss. Paula

We've had our Ollie for a little over a year and can see some slight scratching on the countertop. My big worry with it was that it would hold stains such as pasta sauce but everything cleans up beautifully so far.

Paula and I were camping in NY state campgrounds this fall and we had several sites that didn't have power and ran into some cloudy rainy weather in our next to last campsite. We were running our refrigerator on LP and did have the furnace on, but other than that we only had a few USB devices plugged in. It had been cloudy and rainy all day. I woke up during the night and discovered we were running below 11 volts. I installed a VictronConnect Battery Smart Shunt in early August and have visibility into how many Ah draw we were using. It was a bit over 1Ah per hour except when the furnace was running. I rushed out to plug our RAM which has a very powerful generator installed as opposed to running the generator in the middle of the night. We turned off the furnace immediately and limped until the early morning when I ran our propane generator to recharge the batteries to sufficient charge. We also charged for several more hours later that evening after experiencing another cloudy overcast day. We didn't get to full charge, but we thought we were okay. We didn't run the furnace at all that night and experienced the low voltage again in the early AM. I checked the batteries and 2 AGMs were fine at 6.4 volts, but 2 AGMs were running 4.48 volts as I recollect. I opened a ticket with Oliver to discuss. Eventually was advised to discuss the issue with Trojan. We are still working through this issue, but I wanted to get your thoughts about what I have since discovered. First the batteries are 6 volt with each of the 2 wired in series to get the combined requirement for 12 volts. Each of the 12 volt strings are wired to be parallel too for more Ah depth. My assumption was that I was seeing the issue on one set of the 6 volt batteries wired in series, but now that I have examined the pictures and the documentation I see that the first battery in each parallel series is experiencing the unusual draw down after just a small drain and only a few hours of use, but only on cloudy days when there is insufficient solar gain to recharge. We had the problem 4 nights before we gave up and headed home. We have reproduced the unusual discharge at home after just 4 hours on a cloudy day. When we have sufficient sun or use shore power at home, the batteries always come back to fully charged status per VictronConnect. We haven't seen full charge indication on the Zamp but once since onset of the problem although we have been plugged in for several days in a row now. What I am wondering is why I would see the first battery on the negative side of each series be low voltage? Wouldn't the draw down occur from both strings equally? If the batteries are truly okay, why wouldn't we see one of the parallel strings still provide sufficient voltage, but for a shorter duration? I am sure there is a lot I don't know about this setup, but figured that some of you more experienced owners might have some valuable insight. I am continuing to work with Oliver/Trojan to resolve this issue and expect to have at least the two suspicious batteries tested by Trojan very soon.

In reply to Fritz - I bought some heavy duty frosted vinyl, cut it to the size of the screen door area I wanted to protect, attached velcro dots to the vinyl and the door frame, then stuck the vinyl in place. Some day I'd like to do a plexiglass panel but the vinyl has worked for a year.

Be prepared for a little road noise and light pollution if you are in the ground floor room just down the street from the main lobby. David

JD, I accept your point and will call it a generator in this forum from now on. DRC

I am sorry for the confusion. I am not talking about the Progressive Inverter in the Ollie. The inverter is what many people refer to as a generator so to ease confusion I use the generator/inverter nomenclature.

One final post about my issue or non issue. It was all my fault. I forgot to reinstall the neutral bonding plug back on the generator/inverter that I removed while we were in transit to our first campsite on this fall trip to NY. I give credit to my wife, Paula, for asking a few questions that triggered thought about removing it. It was over a year ago that I experienced it after trying my Honda eu2000i inverter to see if it would power the A/C with the ezStart capacitor and I simply forgot the symptom. David

Did that and disconnected too. Latest update is when power returned and was confirmed, I plugged in and all was well. Will check generator/inverter again sometime down the road. I inspected transfer switch while power was off/disconnected and it looked perfect to the eye.

I am contributing to this thread on an issue we are experiencing, but can add a separate thread if required. We are camping in NY and there was a major power outage last night due to heavy winds just before sunset. We reduced power to the minimum and were very good overnight on batteries, but power is still out and I wanted to do some testing so I hooked up my inverter and powered it up. When I returned to the Ollie, my wife, Paula, asked about the clunking she was hearing. I recognized it Immediately as the transfer switch. I spot checked the Surge protector attic monitor and it had OFF on the LED. I quickly returned to the inverter thinking that it might be that the inverter was in Eco mode and changed to normal mode. I rechecked and had same symptom. Later I tested again after confirming the voltage was okay at the inverter and used the other courtesy connection. Same result. I will wait for power to be restored, but expect that I will still have the same problem. Thoughts?

We are relative newbies, only 80 nights the first year due to COVID-19, but one of the first things we do after setup as is scope out the dump stations. We have airlift to increase the angle, but we still like to consider how we approach the dump station too as we like to take advantage of the natural incline. We have only camped at campgrounds that have no waiting at the dump stations so we haven’t felt too much peer pressure, but it is good to know what others expectations are so as not to offend.

Can you use the Zamp 30 amp controller with Lithium? We are a long way from replacing, but it is good to plan for the future.

JD, I appreciate your feedback. Safety is important. I will review the cable runs to insure they have the proper clearance before we head out on a 3 or 4 week trip early in October. I really appreciate the help that you and Overland provided. I used a fiberglass snake when I pulled the Solar controller negative cable back to the basement just in case I had to pull it back to the battery box and reconnect it if I had too. As soon as I hooked it to the bus bar the b01/601 disappeared. Until I cabled the bus bar to the chassis ground, the voltage measure dropped and I was alerted by the VictronConnect application. I finished the connection of the bus bar to the chassis ground screw and it immediately read correctly. When I powered on the main circuit breaker, I was so pleased to see all the draws as I cycled a few switches including the Xantrex inverter. I know we will find it so helpful to know how we are doing when we have campsites where we are relying only on Solar. Thanks again to both of you. I hope to meet you both someday.

Thanks, JD. Here is the detail of my initial try using a copy of the AGM 6V in the manual. As both you suggested I have pulled back the Solar controller cable and connected to the bus bar and completed the change over to the bus bar and grounding it at the chassis. All appears well and I receive the stats I was looking for from the VictronConnect software via Bluetooth on my iPhone, iPad, and my MacBook Pro. Thanks for all your help. I have attached a final picture of the bus bar and Smart Battery Shunt.

Gary & Esther, I am sure you will be very pleased with your LEII. Paula and I certainly are for Hull #509. You will find everyone on the forum very helpful. We may be camping in PA in just a few weeks as we work our way down from NY from NH. We have pretty much the same trailer. We do have the additional propane connections and the 30 amp convenience hookup. They don't make much of the 30 amp convenience hookup, but it is comes with a transfer switch to prevent using both hookups at the same time.

Overland, The Yellow wire I referenced was connected from the negative terminal on the battery and connected to the screw attached to the chassis. This wasn't connected on either end during my first attempt at migration to the bus bar. I haven't moved either the Solar port negative or the Solar controller negative. I don't know why either of those would cause the b01/601 error if they are still connected to the battery negative, but I agree that at least the Solar controller negative should be moved so that I can see the charging detail from the Solar controller. The Solar controller negative cable run to a block on the bed side of the pantry wall below our twin bed. Originally didn't see the Solar controller negative wire and I will need to either purchase for manufacture a cable to connect to my bus bar. BTW, the bus bar has been installed for a week and has been working as I would expect. This step is simply to move all negative flows to the bus bar and through the Victron Smart Battery Shunt. I will measure the distance today from the Solar controller block under the twin bed to the new bus bar and give it a second try today even if I have to use a temporary cable to see if it eliminates the b01/601 error. Even if I can't connect the Solar controller negative today, I will spend some time testing to see if I see the other negative flows through the Victron. I didn't take time to do this yesterday, so I should at least confirm the only issue I have is with the Solar controller.

I have attached a drawing that shows the wiring completed before failure of the Zamp Solar Controller b01/601 was observed. Hope this helps.Shunt wiring.docx

Will do