routlaw

Thats great you have gone all solar, home and RV. Understand too I'm not knocking what the Technomadia folks did, most likely when they were looking into it Handy Bob didn't have his blog going and as he so aptly points out time and again in this blog the vast majority if not all RV solar installers are not getting it right. Its often been said that the Solar industry is the bad boy of alternative energy and I think this especially holds true in RV solar. If you've already started digging through his blog you'll already know what I am talking about perhaps, if not you are in for some very big surprises. Understand its not just about new technologies, rather its about how what is available, and how it is implemented. He started writing this blog back in '10 I think, but has been living on solar only for some 13 years both with his 5th wheel and also his cabin in the boonies. He has never owned a generator either, yet runs all sorts of power tools including but not limited to table saws. At any rate if you decide to plow through it, hopefully you will find as much useful info as I have.

Interesting! I will likewise crawl under again sometime today and grab a quick photo with my iPhone and see if I can upload it. You could be correct this is something that has been implemented within the last few years for safety reasons or what ever and was not on earlier vehicles. You're right something of this importance should be well documented. I spent a good portion of my Saturday reading through my owners manual too, and did not find anything regarding this there. Will definitely keep you posted. rob

Sherry, I would still encourage you to read through his articles. I promise you will learn something including how to take better care of your aging batteries. He addresses all of this stuff. It is worth noting the guy has a degree in electrical engineering and also worked in sales for the same industry for years. IOW's he is not a shade tree mechanic, the boy knows what he is talking about and proves it explicitly through his blog. As Steve says, regardless of whether you like his writing style he has me convinced hook, line and sinker. Any good controller will step down the voltage as the charge goes up, the critical part on behalf of your batteries is WHEN that happens. Its my understanding that when a charge controller steps down at too early of a stage it does more to harm your batteries then preserver them, and again he has much anecdotal evidence to back this up. Hope this helps. rob

Sherry, absolutely there is a printed tag on the bottom of your hitch. You will have to crawl underneath your truck, usually feet toward the front, look up and you will see a tag with this info. Suffice it to say its very well hidden, why I'm not sure. I will be heading to the local Ford dealer sometime during the week to see what they make of it and get their opinion. Regardless, glad you're getting a good tow with your Oliver. rob Is that stamped on your hitch? I've never seen that on our three vehicles (Dodge Ram 4x4, Silverado, Volvo xc90), all of which have towed our Oliver admirably. Sherry

Hoping to inspire another conversation on WDH, tongue weights etc for the Oliver's, especially the Elite II's. Its my understanding that thus far no one uses them due to the unique way the Ollies are built with the FG surrounding the tongue etc. However just recently while perusing yet another RV forum one very knowledgeable person informed me that ALL towing capacities and tongue weight limitations are halved when not using a WDH! I had never heard this before but as instructed I looked under my F150 Eco Boost, which has a Class IV hitch with a 1050 Lb capacity, and 10500 lb towing capacity, and sure enough right there in B&W a printed stamp on the bottom of my hitch receiver stated those numbers are reduced by 50% without weight distribution, down to 500 lbs and 5000 lbs respectively. Every tow vehicle with hitch receiver should have this plate or stamped information from the manufacturer apparently. Given that the Elite II has a dry weight of 4200 lbs with a 10% tongue weight of 420 lbs it doesn't take much to figure out even with my well equipped truck I would be pushing the envelop. Ad cargo, propane, and gear in the truck bed and I am most likely going to be over the legal limit. But on more than one occasion I have read where people tow with the Elite II's without a WDH better than they have had experience with other trailers using one. Suffice it to say this is all confusing and contradictory. Suggestions point to the holding tanks and battery being right over the tandem axels, which surely helps, but can that be the only reason why the Ollies appear to tow so well. There has to be more to it than this, surely. Would like to hear your thoughts on the subject, especially those with the Elite II's. Thanks Rob

Hello Trumpteguy I don't own an Oliver at least yet, but they are high on my list. But have been studying extensively solar power and batteries in general for the last few months anticipating our RV upgrade from our 2006 T@b. I am posting a link below which I believe to be the absolute definitive information source about dealing with this technology. Even if you decide not to go solar you will learn lots about batteries and how to properly charge them. Now make no mistake HandyBob has an attitude and for what ever reason seems to always be angry in his writings, but I would encourage you to look past this in order to plumb this deep well of information he presents here. Its unlikely you'll get through it in one reading due to the depth, but it is worthwhile. It is also worth pointing out that probably no manufacturer of TT gets this right either. Once you read through this it will become patently clear why. To that I will ad that the converter/charger Oliver uses is probably better than the vast majority of other manufacturers yet still this charger does NOT completely fill up a battery to 100%. For that you will need a charge controller that outputs a full 14.8 Volts especially if you decide to go with the Trojan batteries which state they need this much juice for a 100% charge (i.e. 7.4 volts per 6 V battery). Go to Trojans website and you will see their specs require this much juice, yet almost no charge controllers on the market today charge at this level. Here is the link: http://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/the- ... -puzzle-2/ I hope this helps. Rob

Stan, technology has come a long way in recent years with large vehicles especially. Last April we bought an F150 Eco Boost truck that replaced our Tundra Double Cab with a 4.7 L V8. Suffice it to say the Tundra was a gutless wonder when it came to towing with subsequent gas mileage to match. By comparison last month my wife and I took a 1 week trip to the Flathead Valley in NW MT, then down to the Tetons for another week. We racked up just less than 2000 miles total for the trip averaging 15.5 MPG all intermountain driving, often with rain and wind. And with two 14 ft kayaks mounted onto a Thule side rail rack system for the truck. IOW's those kayaks were a wind drag. We had our bikes mounted to the truck bed as previously described in another post. Our last tank of gas heading home gave us about 16.5 MPG. Granted this was towing a T@b, not the much heavier Oliver but make no mistake we never ever came this close to this sort of gas mileage with the Tundra. To put icing on the cake the F150 EB tows effortlessly compared to the older V8 Tundra, the difference is on an order of magnitude. Our son in law bought the Ram 1500 with 5.7 Hemi about half a year ago and his gas mileage is rivaling ours if not better in some circumstances. Dodge has really done some extreme forward thinking and engineering on these trucks and their new tiny diesel as you've heard about takes it up another notch still. I doubt we have seen the end of this either. Steve It's odd that you would get better gas mileage with the bigger engine Sierra then with the Tahoe. Of course it's 7 years newer with newer technology. My POS 97 F150 is lucky to get 14 empty and with a pop up camper with no trailer could only get 10 mph. I'm still trying to decide for a replacement for either the F150 or the CRV. Tend to want to get a SUV of some sort to also use as a daily driver. Stan

Stan I don't have an opinion or option for your window over the kitchen area, though I think Sherry makes a good point. However allow me to add what we have done for bikes. We currently own a T@b and thus there is not even an option for a bumper mounted bike rack. What we did instead was buy two sets of Yakima quick release locking front fork clamps. Effectively if you have quick release front wheels all you have to do is unmount those, put the front fork in the Yakima clamps, then lock in place. This was done on the truck bed of our F150 using a redwood 2x4, but alternatively you could permanently mount these right onto the truck bed. Yet another reason for using a truck as your TV among many others. My next door neighbor liked my idea so well he devised a way to implement this inside his stick built TT. You can either run a cable through both bike frames to the internal bed tie downs to secure them from theft or devise a way to lock the 2x4 or what ever material you use for the platform where the Yakima clamps mounted to. Its quick easy and not too expensive, but the best part is the bikes are out of the wind from catching bugs and being a drag on the TV. Hope this helps.

Hello Oliver owners, My wife and I have been seriously considering the new Oliver Elite II which in so many ways seems to be in a class of its own. However as you know they are not exactly what one would call a Micro-Lite trailer either. This had me wondering what sort of gas mileage you all were getting during tow especially with the Elite II. By all means if you have the original 17 footer thats good info as well. For those that do respond, it would also be helpful to know your tow vehicle and the speed you're cruising at on average. It seems some folks plod along at 55 mph while others aren't satisfied if they aren't going 75. Obviously this makes a big difference with gas mileage. Thanks Rob ps, we have a F150 Eco-Boost.

Stan, Carol No doubt you were the folks in town doing the plant tour when I called the Oliver plant the other day. Congrats on bellying up to the bar for the Oliver. We are still working on our decision, but in the meantime I will throw in my two cents worth on your TV situation. Understand I am of the persuasion that you can never have too much TV so with that in mind personally I would not encourage you to go as light as you suggest. Understand the dry weight of the Oliver is 4700 lbs and while you may never fully load it up to the 7000lbs weight limit, hitting that additional 300 lbs will be very easy in a trailer like this. We have a 2013 F150 Eco Boost and if we do decide to go with Oliver this will be our tug. Remember you have to be able to stop the thing too, and what if you are in some less than desirable driving conditions, i.e. snow, ice, heavy rains you sure don't want the tail wagging the dog. Or what if you have to make an emergency stop such as someone pulling right out in front of you. Well there are all sorts of scenarios that can wreak havoc with too light of a TV for the trailer you are towing. So all that said I really wouldn't want anything much, if any lighter duty than my F150, which BTW does NOT drive like a truck in the traditional sense. I would encourage you to think bigger and think you will be happier in the long run if you do. Last year while camping in the UT deserts we ran across a couple towing a 25 foot Airstream (full timers no less) with a Tacoma. Very nice people but man were they pushing the envelop big time IMHO. I would never have done this. That trailer loaded had to be at least close to twice the weight of the truck. So in summary its my hard held believe scrimping on the TV while going deluxe on the trailer doesn't make sense. Hope this helps. Rob We made the trip down to Hohenwald, last Thursday, got a tour of the plant, got the "hard sell" from Robert and Alicia and placed our order. They could not have been nicer, they put up with all our questions and looking at things multiple times, a whole lot better then dealing with most car dealerships. Thanks Larry and Steve for the chats we had going into this process. Steve, we got the solar package, and Robert said you would be the expert, so we may be looking to you for advice. Now comes the hard part, waiting for it to be built, and oh yes, paying for it. Now we have another issue to deal with. Getting another tow vehicle. We have a 97 F150, but really don't want to use it for extended trips, so our plan is to trade in the CRV for a mid sized SUV for a TV. I built a spreadsheet with all the vehicles in that class (V6 3.5L 5000 lbs towing). Now the job of narrowing the list down and looking. Any ideas on how a TV in this size handles the Elite II? We want to be able to get in the "back country" and not just run the big roads. Stan and Carol

Nice steps there Pete and good maneuvering in the tight campground spot. Thanks for all the info and feedback. rob

Stan You know for years I had the worst jones for an Airstream too, but glad I waited it out. The more I learned about them the less I appreciated. The following are a few details: they are hot in the summer and cold in the winter due to very little insulation, they sweat profusely under the right conditions, they pop rivets on a regular basis, obviously they are very expensive at least 2-3 times more than the Oliver or Escape for that matter. Aluminum panels are easily subject to dents that are very expensive to repair. Have you ever seen one without dents? Its rare unless they are new. They are very heavy, foot for foot. On the more positive side, they look really cool especially the inside. This doesn't appeal to everyone though. And I hear their chassis/frame is second to none. Thats about it IMHO. IOW's if you have the budget I think you are currently looking in the right place. Just my unsolicited two cents worth but hope it helps. rob

Sounds great Steve, be looking forward to it. And how did we end up with the same last name, very unusual. rob

Thanks Pete Took a look at your blog, enjoyed your trip to Big Bend, truly a special place. Been there only once myself with a buddy who lives down the DFW area. Terlingua is quite the trip of a little town indeed. Just curious did you ever try to get your rig into the Chisos Basin campground up by the lodge? I here its a tight fit around the curves on the decent but certainly nothing we aren't used to in my neck of the woods. I'm am encouraged you're able to get into tight spots with your Oliver which appears to be the 17footer from the previous run of campers. I wonder how well the new Elite II's do in this regard? This part has me somewhat concerned @ 23.5 feet. routlaw

Anyone heading up this way with an Oliver trailer and wouldn't mind showing your rig for a few minutes would be greatly appreciated. I'm more than willing to drive some distance if you're not exactly in my neck of the woods… its a big state! Thanks and PM me if interested. routlaw

Howdy Jus checking in with my first post and intro. Currently own a T@b but have been looking for the last 2-3 years at all of the FG for a slightly larger and more accommodating camper. The Oliver and Escapes are at the top of the list, but its the floor plan on the Oliver among other things that just about seal it. Anyway trying to learn as much as i can in the meantime. routlaw