2008RN

I like that. After living in CO for 48 years, I have shoveled tons of snow in bright sunshine, and several times in shorts and snow boots. In Oregon we usually get only get 1-3 days of snow a year, and 240+ days of gray skies. I kind of forget what the sun looks like or where it is at. So, I don't have to worry at what angle the sun is to the trailer. GO Buffs

We have a pretty big problem with winter condensation with humidity often in the high 80s and 90s. We usually do not get below freezing much (except for last week). We crack the bathroom fan open, and turn on the Maxair to it's lowest setting. We also keep the heater around 68 during the day and 60 at night. We do end up wiping the inside window a couple of times a day.

I never thought about mounting at 90 degrees. The was a great idea for mounting the charger using that little space. I also like hearing about the real world experience. I am hoping that my test for an hour in a closed compartment, will be relevant in the real world. If I do have problems with heat, I could try opening the deck plate to see if I could get little air flow in there.

My project was little more expensive. with Victron dual chargers, wire, alternator, shunt and miscellaneous like Anderson connecters, buss bars, breakers, fuses, wire sheathing, battery shut off, and lugs, heat shrink, crimper... I think my total cost approximated $1900. I pulled the fuel tank to properly run the wire in the frame rail something RV solar installer probably would not have done. I Ran wire sheathing on all cable except the actual board with the chargers. Anything that had any rub potential was covered. I ran a jumper cable between the truck and Oliver so that If I didn't need to charge while traveling I just wouldn't hook it up. Also makes it clean when parking. The Official Anderson connectors are not cheap, (knock offs are available). My cost would have been a lot less if I knew ahead of time the new Victron 50Amp charger was coming out. I could have lived with the 50Amp efficient DC-DC charger. I planned on a max of 100 amps input from the truck to run the amps, with my testing I maxed out at 88-89 Amps. With the new 50Amp charger I would bet 60Amp max input would be need, and I would wire for 70 Amps. That would have cut down on all cost of virtually every item and probably cut cost by about $500. Just an FYI I bought 47' (x2) of wire to run from the front of my F250 extended cab with 8' bed to just aft of the of the Oli battery bank. I had about 2' extra of each red, and black wire. Also as a side note, I bought wire from battery cables usa. I got the extreme battery cable. Very fine wire like welding cable. double sheathing (hard intercore and flexible outercore. Also the inside Copper wire OD was larger than spec. I like the extra safety margin with slightly lower Ohms and more carrying capacity. I only thing is that on 1/0 to 4/0 wires it was almost a press fit( it takes force to put the wire in the lug. I just couldn't strip the sheathing back and put the lug on. I had to use a 2 step process.

Very Cool, Unfortunately I'm a day late and a dollar short. I had everything built a week ago besides the chargers added. I purchased the chargers last Friday, installed them Saturday and tested today. It would have simplified my whole design. Smaller wires, no fans, and simplified and smaller foot print. Here is what my install looked like. I epoxied a 1/2" marine white board to the wheel well. Attached everything to a piece of 3/4" marine board and then attached the 3/4" board to the 1/2" board. Space was definitely at a premium. My test showed each charger at 38Amps before warm up. After one hour one charger was 34Amps at 96degrees F, and the orther 32.5 amps @ 100degrees F. Victron rates the 12-12/30 at 104 degrees F. Anything over 104F the Amps decrease below 30 F. I have heard as low as 25 degrees F each pair of fans positive lines are connected to the Optifuse breaker. So I can turn off either of the chargers and associated fans from the other charger. This is the 1/2 base.

On my Oli I used the top of the wheel well under the street side bed. It was a nice large platform, I had to move the cable for the back dump valve a little. Main I un-taped the cable and pulled it out from the wall. it was a win-win the cable now has a larger arc and pulls/pushes much easier. I was disappointed in the mighty F250 alternator. It is suppose to be a 110A alternator. Max amps I could every reach was 75Amps. That was on a cold morning after the glow plugs had been on for 2 minutes (210 Amp) draw, and a 10 seconds on the starter at 850Amps. I only tested the new alternator once, but on a cold startup it jumped up to around 130 Amps, then dropped down to about 85 Amps for a while then started to slowly drop down. I found my Oli used, it was 9 months old. The nice thing, was If I was going to order it from the factory, it had almost everything I needed. Thanks for the heads up, Ours are just over 3 years old. knock on wood, they seem to all be working fine right now and do not seem to have any swelling yet. I have looked at some batteries, but haven't made my mind up yet, I had figured that I still had time. The Lithionics batteries seem really nice, the Cadillac of batteries. Boy are they expensive, As of about 6 months ago, I was reading about failures with battle born.

I boon dock, a lot more than I stay in a park with utilities . So being able to charge the batteries when traveling is nice luxury. Once I retire we plan being out for at least a couple of months once or twice a year. It is great staying a 2-3 days in once spot and then move down the road and being able to make a big dent in getting the batteries charged. I have been planning/researching this upgrade for over a year, and have spent 4 months methodically upgrading the truck and camper. I upgraded my alternator on my F250 Super duty diesel to handle the load. I have updated wiring in the truck; The alternator to one battery with 4/0 wire. The positive wire between batteries was upgraded to 2/0. I also upgrade grounds from battery to engine, frame and body to 2/0 wire. I ran 2/0 wiring to the Oli. In the Oli, I put in both Positive and negative buss bars and ran 4/0 wires from the batteries to the buss bars cleaning up the battery compartment and getting all connection in the bay. Long term I would like to move to lithium batteries. It sounds like a few of you think I'm crazy doing this. I could never afford to pay someone to do this type of endeavor. Fortunately some people have done this and were successful. I also have to thank Victron technical support for helping pave the way. @jd1923: I will try to get a hold of the manufacture for the specs on charging.

I am setting up two Victron 12/12-30AMP DC-DC chargers in parallel. I have a 2020 Oli with Zamp solar charger and Brightway AGM 6volt batteries in parallel series from the factory. I have look for specs on the Zamp charger, and the AGM for trying to setting up the the Victrons with the proper charging characteristics. From Docs on the Zamp I know the following: Absorption: 14.4V for 4 hours. Nothing appears to be to be configurable. The Victron sets the folowing for AGM batteries. Absorption 14.7V for 6 hours limit. float voltage 13.8. All values appear to be configurable. I have not been able to find any charging specs on the AGM brightway batteries. Any input on setting up the charging characteristics on the Victron? Maybe, I'am over thinking this, but I just want it setup as correctly as possible.

We will be staying home also. We have a 20 lbs bird. I will start at 1130PM Wednesday and doing a Citrus Smoked turkey. Happy Thanksgiving and May both your joy and stomach be full!

I was looking on line at the Rotozip spiral saw online. The internet came up with several cut-out tools and Dremel type tools. Are they all the same, or does one have better features that make it more suited to our application?

1. Taped off the whole area with painter's tape. 2. Drew circles with a compass. be very careful where you place the holes so you don't damage any thing behind it. 3. Drilled 4 2" holes at all of the cardinal points along the edge of the diameter. 4. Used a jig saw with a metal cutting blade to cut the diameter of the deck plate holes doing 1/4 circle at a time. Note, I cut the 2 deck plate holes and the Access door to the storage bay. I fried one whole blade, and dulled another. I wore an N95 mask and googles, and used shop vac to help suck up the fiber glass while cutting.

rich.dev thank you so much for the diagram. Better than the one that is on basement cover. jd1923, here is a picture of the deck plates on the Curb side. The forward deck plate is a 6" and the aft deck plate is a 8" which replaced a 4" deck plate that I had a hard time getting my arm any farther than my elbow. I bought the deck plates from West Marine. I like the lift handle. You lift the handle and twist the 90 degrees, and the deck plate comes right off. The deck plate are not water proof, but it really doesn't matter inside the the cabin. The only thing I didn't like was the color was off white. They said it was "white", but as you see they are not pure white. I can reach all 4 configuration valves from the forward deck plate. From the aft deck plate I can reach the hot water shutoff, the fresh water drain, and 2 of the configuration valves. Note that you have to change all of the valves by feel, but I have no problems reaching, finding and turning the valves.

There is a valve configuration sheet attached to the underside of the curb side access panel. I would like to get an electronic copy of this. I added two deck plates to the side of the bed so I can reach all of the valves under the bed without lifting the mattress. anybody have or know where an electronic copy is?

THanks everyonefor your help!

I have been searching the forums for a couple of hours trying to figure out were to get the white material the Oliver uses to mount electronic equipment in the bays. Any help? Thanks

ScubaRX, I love the idea of wiring to the Rear camera switch. My Oli wasn't purchased with a camera. So I put in a camera year ago. My 2020 Oli fortunately was pre-wired with a camera Positive wire from where the switches are at to the rear upper section of the Oli. All I had to do was put in a switch in the panel and hook up wires. I think from the rear camera wire, I could end up placing a repeater either in the rear, in the pantry, or in the vanity. I already have a sender for the camera in the vanity, I don't know if having 2 senders in the vanity would interfere with each other. I have though about buying a TST system in the past, but I just figured on doing stuff the old fashion way. Now with this thread, I now think it is something that is more of a must instead of nice to have option.

Did you wire it up right by the switch up front, or in the rear where the canera is?

I totally agree. Using the front hitch I can get the Oli within a couple of inches most times on first try.

Plus it doesn't show every finger print.

First of all, I was looking at the file system on my USB drive. I put it back in my Jensen and it started to play and locked up all button. I could not stop it. I have never had the deck lock up before. So I went back to my 2020 Oliver manual for the Jensen manual to see how reset the the deck. I noticed when I found the manual the part number was JWM40. My deck is a JWM41. So I download the manual for the JWM41. Food for Thought, the manuals that Oliver includes may not be the exact model that you have. What I found in the new manual was some info of some filesystem specs. Note these limits mayor may not work on differing models. I was going to contact directly to get the specs on my model, but now I do not have to. Maximum number of file folders: 512 Maximum of file folder levels: 12 Maximum number of MP3 files: 999 Maximum file name characters: 32 Maximum ID3 tag characters: 32 I have setup 2 USB drives. One with less than 999 MP3 files. The other with file names and ID3 tags larger than 32 characters. I am going to test this over the next 8 days of camping. I want to see what type of problems I run into with larger names. The other just to make sure it does not lock up. I am not going to do random on either drive. I just what it to play from beginning to end with it's own sorting pattern.

Topgun, How are you storing the MP3 files. In multiple directory structures, or all files just put on the USB drive without any directory structures? Every stereo (car or home) I have purchased in the last 13 years, told you how many total gigs that you can use, also how many directories/ files the stereo could handle. This seems like the Jensen technology is from around 2010-2013 the way it acts,and they tell you nothing of the parameters for the files systems. I have stereos that could only have 256 files or 512 files in a single directory, but might allow 64 directory structures with a total of 8 or 16 Gigs. The last stereo I bought in 2021 will do what ever a NTFS file system will handle on a SD card. with the limitation of 128gig, I believe. I am not sure, but I think I put around 500 files per directory structure and filled up a 16gb USB drive with a fat32 files system. On the Jensen I do playback in random mode. I'm going out next week for 8 days. I thing I will try to play around with some file parameters and start by stay under 6gb and see what happens.

Topgun, I like the Idea of the small USB drives. Great work around. I will give it a try. It is really weird when the Jensen hits its limit and just makes weird digital noise and is just stuck their. I have a strange thing that happened a couple of times. We always listen to music from the USB. The Oliver has been in the RV port (in storage) and the Jensen has turned on a few times by itself and playing music from the USB.

I saw a Oliver going southbound on I-5 just North of Eugene around 3:15 in the afternoon. The TV was a Van. I didn't see a number on the back. I got so excited seeing a Oliver on the road, that wasn't following me in the rear view mirror. I waved as I passed, but I'm sure the guy thought I was another strange Oregonian

When you get it fixed, please post the results. I think it would of benifit to the community.

For my self, I am not fearful of propane, just have a respect for it. My father was a serviceman for propane installs and service of propane appliance. I grew up with a respect of propane, and being cautious with propane. I'm always making sure line connections are good and lines are in good condition, and try to be cautious with everything I do . I am more worried about the propane lines running under the trailer that they could be nicked by rocks/road debris , or rubbing and wear of the lines in a moving vehicle/TT. I don't like cooking right next to the trailer, because of the grease splatter. That is what picnic tables are for. I also carry a small table to set the grill/stove on if a picnic table is not available. I am just as respectful of the 2 burner propane stove in the camper. With all of the electrical things in the trailer, a leak anywhere could be dangerous. ( always makesure you have good ventilation when cooking inside. When I was is my mid 20's. I came home one night and smelled Natural gas outside of the house (1953 home). I was unable to determine where the leak was at, and I didn't enter the house. I contacted public service from the neighbors, within 20 minutes a technician arrived. About 1.5 hours later they were tearing up the street with large equipment. They had a 20 foot section of the street torn up to replace a section of main line pipe. They then ran a new feed line from the street to the house and meter. It was an older subdivision, and they checked the rest of the subdivision and found no other leaks. We had multiple leaks in the street and across the yard. They started digging at 10PM and finish by 7AM the next morning. I was the talk of the neighborhood that week. Safety first.