Overland

If you go back to my oldest posts here, you'll see that the Chaco road was one of our guides in deciding what kind of trailer and tow vehicle we needed. It's one of those roads that pretty much any decently maintained vehicle can do if you don't mind the wear. But if you're unlucky, or not careful, or just go at the wrong time, it's also a road that has multiple ways to take out even the toughest truck. Water crossings, sand, clay, ruts, holes, washboard, soft shoulders, etc. Regardless, it's guaranteed to rattle you around for an hour or so. But worth it if you're a romantic - Chaco has a scale and mystery that are unmatched by any other archeological site in the US. It's a place that will stick in your mind.

No, not Tuzigoot. It’s Chaco. They’re dreadfully understaffed and ripe for vandalism and pilfering - which is one reason why they don’t improve the access. If you go, it’s definitely NOT a place for collecting anything. But there’s at least one Ollie that doesn’t mind the roads, we’ve been twice… It’s been hit and miss the past few years - no access due to tribal Covid rules, washed out roads, and an impending rock slide in the campground that’s keeping half of it closed. I was told that Airstream at the entrance is permanent. Someone drove it in and didn’t want to drive it out so they gave it to the park for camp hosts to use.

Personally I prefer symmetrical numbers, so 1001 is the one to have.

Looks slightly more complicated than the Webb Telescope. Does it take as long to deploy?

My wife drives a plug in hybrid now, and so far it’s been ideal. It runs on electric for her trips to work and back, but the engine is there for the occasional long trip - which we now do in her car since it uses so much less fuel than the truck. For larger vehicles and towing, I guess more torque is always better, but the high output ecoboost in our truck provides ample power for an Elite II, regardless the altitude or incline. I’d appreciate the range of a diesel, not so much the power, and definitely not the fuel or upfront costs. I’d take a hybrid version of my raptor long before I’d buy a diesel.

Nice find. My great uncle was a rock hound. I didn’t inherit his passion, though I did get a few odd rocks. He was a bit of a fossil himself, as I remember.

Congratulations to both of you. Jeez, almost to #1000. If I were you I’d stick around a few days - surely there will be cake.

Yes, filter functions and at the top it will say ‘advanced filters’. Tap that and there’s a whole list of things to add. I don’t know if we have the pro version or not - I assume if you paid for the app, you’ve got it.

We take bottled water to drink, so the onboard tank is for showers and dishes. That helps consumption and eases most concerns over questionable water sources. You’ll find that a lot of owners do the same. Some people connect an inline filter even if they aren’t drinking from the tanks, in an effort to reduce the potential for mineral build up in the lines and faucets. I should probably do that but don’t. As for where to find water - typically, even if the water is shut off in the campgrounds, parks will keep a functioning tap at one of the ranger stations, so that’s our default water source. We carry a couple of large 7 gallon jugs that stay in the truck and we’ll make a few trips if needed. Even if we’re not camping inside a park, we’re usually near one, and have never had problems popping in to get water. We plan ahead and know how long our water lasts, so we’ve never been without. You might download the Allstays app and under the advanced settings you can have it display water and propane availability. It’s not always accurate and definitely not exhaustive, but it’s a start. Truck stops with RV lanes are a good bet. Some tourist areas will have water vending machines (last resort but we’ve used one once). We’ve also gotten water from commercial campgrounds that we pass. If you ask nicely at the desk they’ll usually say no problem. I think we had one charge us a few bucks.

Yeah, I agree. It's a neat tool, but a beaker bar (or a long pipe for that matter) is less expensive and more versatile. And easier to tuck away somewhere.

Perhaps this has been around for a while, but I've never seen it before. It's a geared lug nut tool with an adjustable arm to gain leverage against the opposite lug nut. It would be a bulky single-purpose tool to carry, but it's interesting and I could see it being useful to many. I guess you could use it to install the nuts, too; though you'd probably have to be careful to not over torque them. https://garrettwade.com/product/geared-lug-nut-remover

Like Mossey said, I think we were the first, and at the time, Battleborn (Dragonfly back then) was the only game in town when it came to batteries with a built in BMS. Victron was an extremely expensive option at the time, even more so than today, and then our other choice was to make our own battery pack from individual cells and add a separate BMS. We’re only talking five years ago but even then there was a lot less info and fewer choices out there than today. So Battleborns were definitely the easiest to do. As it turned out I could have gone the DIY route, which had been my first choice, but that’s a longer story. I’ve had a 50% failure rate on the battleborns, fwiw. Maybe that’s just bad luck, or maybe I’m hard on them, or maybe they aren’t as tough as people say. (One thing I’ve learned about the RV community is that they are very reluctant to admit problems with their setups until after they’ve replaced it and can then brag about how smart they are for having done so.) Regardless, 50% of my batteries have met expectations, and 50% did not. Their service on replacing the ones that went bad was less than exemplary, but they did replace them. I still might recommend them, but not enthusiastically, so I’d say weigh your options. It’s a good package and quite possible that their quality or quality control has improved since I bought mine. The risk of being an early adopter perhaps. But were I to do it again, I’d spend for the Victrons. That, or build my own, just because it would be fun to do. I would definitely not buy Oliver’s package - you’ve got to work hard to make Victron gear look cheap, so fair credit to them for doing so. But that’s me, you may find it worth the price to not have to worry about it and to have Oliver’s warranty and service.

Delayed again… https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/13/22881646/tesla-cybertruck-production-date-2022-removed-website

Another route, as an alternative to electrical tape which I don’t like to use for anything exposed to the elements, is self sealing silicone tape, like this. It’s great stuff to have on hand regardless. Personally, electrical tape to me is sort of like a pair of pliers: versatile, but there’s nothing you can use it for that another tool can’t do better. Of course, I have a drawer full of pliers that I use all the time. I also have a few rolls of electrical tape, but I can’t remember when I last used any.

I can't tell from the photo if the insulation is split or if it was just cut short at the factory and has pulled out. If it's split, then it looks like a job for Sugru - I'd use trainman's advice for the fix and then use sugru to reinforce the joint so that it doesn't split again. If it's not split, then just do what trainman said, though I'd take the opportunity to seal around the joint to make it waterproof - will save you from potential issues later down the road.

I’d start with the thread below, which has a link to a larger thread where @SeaDawg discusses their Truck Fridge install.

I think that's Zamp's way of saying that their way is better than everyone else's. They can nitpick the meaning of reverse polarity, but at the end of the day their connectors are still wired the opposite of other connectors.

Yes, I'm in the east. One of the guys at Ferguson here didn't even know what it was. I assume that Oliver uses it because of some RVA requirement. That, or it's just a preference of theirs for some reason. It does seem more flexible, which may be the reason. Ah, well, I always try to do my projects at least twice, so next time maybe I'll be patient enough to order the ABS.

Thanks, and I agree on the PVC. It was a debate when I was doing it (can't remember if it was here or with the guy at the Fergusons counter - possibly both), but ABS wasn't available and the advice I got was to not worry about it. And of course I had it inspected. Electrical, too. Promise.

Oliver uses a Zamp connector on the trailer - which is proprietary, if I recall correctly; though I believe that it is a standard connector with reversed polarity. You can buy a Zamp to MC4 pigtail though, as well as polarity reversing adapters. I think that at 600 watts, "portable" is debatable. I have a 200 watt pair, and frankly, for me they're too cumbersome and heavy to deal with. Three of those and I wouldn't have any room in the truck bed for anything else. Though I also have 200 watts mounted on my truck, which I could attach to the trailer if needed. That would be my advised route for anything more than say a 100 watt suitcase, which I think is the sweet spot for portables. Portable pros are more watts, of course, and you can position them where you want, move them about, etc. Cons are that they take up valuable storage space, are a pain to set up, and are easy and very attractive to steal. Given all that, my personal advice is: a) Determine what you need and resist buying more just because it's more. You can always buy another set later, and it's almost guaranteed that it will be cheaper when you do. b) For anything larger than 100 watts, buy a separate charge controller and convert the panels to 24 volt. That will allow you to run longer and thinner wiring while keeping the voltage high enough to get a full charge. Which means, to get back to your original question, if you're buying a charge controller, get whatever connector fits your new controller.

Two things come to mind about this. One, I really wish that people would post about failures like you did. I realize that not every owner is on the forum (of course, they should be); but if someone who had this failure is on the forum, shame on them for not posting about it. Two - more importantly, if this has happened more than once and Oliver knows about it, then every owner with a Truma should know about it.

Thanks for the update. Are those supports able to be inspected at all from the front of the unit? I haven’t looked on mine but it seems like the burner is pretty well hidden. We bang our trailer around enough that if those are something that are prone to break then I’d want to regularly check them if possible.

Yikes I can't get your videos to load but the photo looks pretty scary. Glad you noticed quickly and got it shut off. Did just turning off the unit close the valve or did you have to turn off the gas? It would have been reassuring if the unit had detected the problem and shut itself down on it's own. Maybe with a little more time it would have? It does look like the flame was contained within the box so that's something I suppose. I may have to remount my little Atom smoke detector back in that compartment. To answer your question, I don't think anyone here has posted about mechanical failures on the Truma - could be wrong, just don't remember. But nothing like this for sure. They had a software issue a few years back on some units that required swapping out the control board. And mine I managed to break on our first outing, but that was almost certainly an installation issue and Oliver dealt with it. And there was another plumbing error that made me think the Truma wasn't working right (again not really a Truma issue) but once I fixed that, I've had nothing bad to say about it. That's a pretty serious failure, and I definitely want to hear Truma's response. I'd let Oliver know also - not that I think it's any of their fault, but I think they'd want to know and maybe they can help you with Truma. On the videos, I don't know if others can see them, but the most reliable way to post them I've found is to upload them to YouTube and then just paste the YouTube link into the post.