Jps190

Here is the battery and charge controller in the milk crate. I need to secure some wires but it works great!

Here is a pic of the TPMS display in the cab. Can't figure out why it keeps posting sideways. Here are a couple other pics of the trailering software in the cab.

I installed a Victron 100/30 solar charge controller in the Oliver and connected it to the zamp outlet to test the truck bed solar. The panels on the truck bed are wired in series so it is only around 5 amps which allows for using cheap 12 gauge landscape wire. Panels were flat until around 2 pm when I raised them up. The truck was facing southwest and I am located just south of Atlanta. Total yield for the day from just the truck panels was 1.77 KWH. This will be plenty to run the iceco fridge and add additional power to the Oliver batteries.

Looks like they fixed that issue on my 2021.

I would advise calling a couple days before making the trip to pick up your Oliver. When we arrived to pick up hull 887 we were apparently double booked and our trailer was still sitting on the side of the facility unwashed with no graphics on it. Our delivery experience was less than stellar considering we are paying a premium price for a premium product. While growing pains and the whole Covid debacle could understandably affect things I felt that our delivery experience was an afterthought. YMMV... John

The Girard awnings have the same type of seal. I removed mine today. It left some residue behind that I removed with an auto trim removal tool.

My 2500 AT4 is just over 3000. John

Excellent advice. I have some spar urethane left over from a project that now will be finding a home on all plywood under the sink. john

Yes. It will support up to 6 tires. I just need to buy a another sensor. One more thing on the todo list.... John

You would have gotten 4 pressure sensors for the trailer when you took delivery of your truck. You will need to take your trailer to a tire shop or take the tires off the trailer and take them to a shop and have the sensors installed. I took both tires off on one side and installed the spare as a safety for the jack while I took them to a tire shop. Took a couple hours but the system works great. John

The inverter for that outlet is mostly worthless. I tried using a 15 amp Victron smart charger with the “400watt” outlet in my truck (2021 GMC 2500) and it kept turning off. That outlet is good for charging a cell phone or running a small light, anything else and you will be wasting your time. John

The cable passes behind the spare cover and just comes out through the top. It works well as a backup camera as long as you go slow and steady. I still like to get out and check things if I don't have a spotter. The big benefit is not having to have another screen in the vehicle. Not sure what trim level you have but my truck also came with TPMS sensors for the trailer that link right to the trucks infotainment screen which also make for one less device. John, There is no disconnect on the camera but there is plenty of spare cable to set the cover aside. John

I was thinking that when I initially planned this but I think the cab would cause shading issues in many situations. John

I'm gonna mount the battery and solar controller in a milk crate or something similar. It will be secured in the truck bed when in use. Panels and battery will be removed when we are not out camping. Wires will just be run under the side of the cover. I don't want anymore holes in the top. John

I just finished getting the Solar panels put together and attached to the bed cover. Panels are attached together with 1/8 inch aluminum angle and 304 stainless bolts. After much research I decided to just build some mounts out of aluminum. Every time I got on the 8020 site I ended up with a 500-600 dollar rack and this is really the only thing that will travel on the bed cover. I bought an SOK 100 AH battery that will be fed by these panels to run my ICECO fridge/freezer in the truck bed. The battery has bluetooth and a built in heater and is very well made. $630 direct from SOK. The panels are 100 watt 9BB panels from BougeRV. Testing them in the driveway here south of Atlanta I was getting some pretty impressive yields. They are wired in series and feed a Victron 100/30 MPPT SCC. I am going to connect the panels to the charge controller through some Anderson Powerpole connectors. By doing this it will be easy to disconnect from the victron in the truck and connect these to soon to be installed victron MPPT in the Oliver. Since they are run in series and put out plenty of voltage and I can park the truck in the sun and not need a large gauge wire on the run to the trailer. John

Here is a picture of mine. Oliver installed it for me at pickup. Ran the cable from the tongue, under the trailer the up through the top of the spare tire cover. The have the cable come through a little chrome piece. The excess cable is in the bumper compartment. John

I would not want to have thousands of dollars worth of lithium batteries sitting on the tongue of the trailer. IMHO...

I have one and I love it. Makes the truck bed like a vault. If I have to haul something large I can remove the whole thing in about 5 minutes. I'm currently working out a plan to install a mount for a removable solar panel on the back panel to charge a battery in the truck bed to power my iceco fridge/freezer. Only con is the price...

Chris, What is your source for those parts? John

So I was washing my truck the other day and while I was standing on the bed cover washing the roof I started thinking about what a good platform it might be for some sort of rack that I could mount 1 or more solar panels on. I could use it to charge a battery for my truckbed fridge as well as set up a switch with a second output wire so I could also plug it into the Ollie to charge the battery bank. The nice thing about it would be that I can tilt the panels to any degree needed and face the truck in the proper direction very easily. This is just an idea at present but would be interested in any thoughts or perspectives that the group might have. I'm guessing I would build the rack out of aluminum. Possible have layered panels that I could slide out when parked. Like I said, I am open to ideas. Fire away. John

We keep it on the floor of the closet or in the truck. Do t use it very often.

Sure you can. We have a small one from Walmart that we bought for around 60 bucks. Amazon has a bunch of smaller ones as well. I think our is 700 watts. The less power draw the better. John

Question for those who have taken this credit. Turbotax asks for the address of the home where you made these improvements. Did you just your your "main home" address? Thanks, John

Thanks for your thoughts guys. I have been mulling this over for the past few days and have come to the conclusion that I am just going to run some large cables and go all in. I also have a dual zone fridge/freezer that I want to be self sufficient in the truck bed so there might be a second DC to DC charger installed there. I have a 400 watt AC plug in the truck bed so this is still up in the air. I am thinking of something similar to what Galway Girl did on his rig. Geronimo John, Did you ever get answers to the questions you posted on Galway Girls thread? I would be interested in the answers. As far as wire size you are planning on running 2 AWG? Are you going to use welding cable or a marine grade cable with tinned copper? Is there an advantage to running a return all the way back to the battery as opposed to using the frame? As far as the trailer wiring have you determined where you are going to enter the trailer. I would like to go through the front of the hull down behind the propane tanks but I have't checked for what access is available. Is there access under the vanity to that area? Have you sourced all your parts yet? I would be interested in what you have and where you got it. Are you going to clean up and move your battery box wiring? I am planning on moving all wires into the hull through some busbars/lynx distributer. Probably going to swap out the charge controller as well. John Davies, have you decided if you are going to switch over to series wiring for your panels? My list of things to do keeps getting bigger so I guess I need to just start with the truck wiring!!! ;-))))) Thanks, John

Hey guys, I am considering doing a DC to DC charger and was wondering if you could evaluate my thoughts. I have a 2021 GMC 2500 duramax. The charge wire on the trucks 7 pin is fused at 30 amps so I am assuming it is a 10AWG wire ( will verify this). At idle with no load I am showing 14.7 volts at the 7 pin connector on the bumper. My Oliver has a 10AWG ground and charge wire (black and white) running all the way back through the trailer. I am considering the Victron Orion 12/12-18 DC to DC charger. If I mount the charger under the front dinette seat I could minimize the run of 10AWG wire to between 30-35 feet which would have a voltage drop to about 12% to 12.9 volts assuming a load of 20.5 amps due to the 87% efficiency of the charger. This is within the input range for this charger. I could then run larger 6 AWG from the charger to the batteries to avoid any more losses. I have the 3 lithionics batteries in my trailer. Thanks for your thoughts, John