Overland

I'll second Sherry's advice to take a look at Technomadia's website. The system that we're retrofitting is largely influenced by their recommendations. Computer aside, it sounds like your usage is fairly normal. I would get a watt meter like this one and measure your laptop's consumption over the course of a week or two. Then add that number to the 70-80Ah average and see where that puts you. 200W is 16.7 amps on 12 volts (V x A = W). That seems very high, so its normal draw is probably well below that. Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you said. I have written in my notes that a typical laptop will take ~10Ah to recharge from zero, though I don't remember where I got that info. edit: even that number is high - I just checked and a new 15" MacBook Pro would need 6.3Ah to recharge from zero. AC is out of the question without a generator except for short periods, and even then not that often unless you get some lithium batteries. Lead acid batteries don't like heavy draws like that. You can do it on occasion, but when you do you will get far fewer Ah out of them for that charge cycle, and if you do it often you will shorten the life of the batteries. Like Bill said, if you're planning on borrowing electricity from a friend's house, don't plan on anything more than a 15A circuit. That's 1800W so you will have to keep your usage below that point - probably well below that, since there will surely be things inside the house running off that circuit as well. You would definitely need to buy the soft-start option for your AC unit, and you'd probably be on the verge of tripping their breaker anyway. The ultimate solution to that is to get a hybrid inverter/charger that has a power assist feature, allowing it to draw both from batteries and shore power at the same time. With that, you can limit the amps that the charger is allowed to draw from your shore connection. You'll find a good discussion of that at Technomadia. BTW, to connect at your friend's house, you just use a simple adapter on your trailer outlet that will plug into a standard extension cord. I know that it all seems confusing at first, but there's really nothing that's inherently difficult about it. Over time, you'll learn the lingo and the basic principals, and after that it's all pretty simple.

Terry, did you install a compressor fridge? I've always been told that the absorption fridges really eat power when run on DC.

Justin take a look at this post, which has a brief discussion on how we determined our battery and solar needs. If the 70-80Ah number I mentioned there for average use doesn't seem to apply to you, then you'll need to calculate for yourself your battery and solar needs. To do that, you should start with an idea of how much electricity you think you need per day, in amp hours (Ah). You can research power requirements for what you'll be using, or purchase an inexpensive watt meter off of Amazon to see exactly what you use. Double that number to account for cloudy days, miscalculation, heavy use days, etc. Then size the battery bank to give you that much useable Ah, which as Bill said is 50% of the total Ah for standard batteries, or 80% for lithium (LiFePo). Then size your solar array to the battery bank per the rules of thumb given in that post. Of course, you can work backwards to decide if the standard Oliver kit works for you. Keep in mind that the larger array that's discussed in that thread isn't being offered at this time by Oliver, but you could add the extra panels yourself. And there are always generators...

Grrr. I assume that's the RVIA certification once again?

A good battery monitor will of course measure voltage, but will also keep track of actual amp hours used as well as taking into account temperature, charge efficiency, and rate of discharge. Does the Zamp controller have the ability to track any of that info? I don't have access to the manual but I'll guess no. What about the Blue Sky? One of the issues with using my Zamp portable panel is that the charge controller on the panel doesn't communicate with the victron battery monitor, so I don't think that it will be as accurate as it could be. An option would be to bypass the built in monitor and wire the panels through the on board charge controller, or get a separate on board charge controller just for the portables.

500W should be easy with standard Zamp panels. If you're going with lithium, check out Dragonfly batteries. They are unique in that they have the BMS built directly into each battery. Because of that they aren't the cheapest LiFePo on the market (mine were $400 more in total than the cheapest I could find), but once you factor in getting an external BMS they are about the same if not cheaper. The advantage is that you can use them with Oliver's standard charger and solar charge controller right out of the box. The disadvantage is that because of the built in BMS they aren't nearly as compact as other LiFePo batteries. They're a little longer in fact than the T-105s which means that you'd have to mount them on end if you want to use Oliver's battery tray. No big deal, but it also limits you to 400Ah if you use the tray since that's all that will fit. Other LiFePo batteries will allow you to get 600Ah in there. But even at 400Ah you've added at least 120 useable amp hours and have shed 160 lbs.

I think the answer to that is really in how much power you consume. I agree that for most Oliver owners the standard solar package is perfectly adequate, even overkill. But if you're a large consumer of electricity, then I think that the weaknesses in Oliver's system will show themselves quickly. That's conjecture on my part, since I don't yet have my trailer, but I think Reed and Karen's experience provides some support. I would never recommend the system that I'm putting in my trailer for the average owner, simply because at the end of the day I will have spent right at $2000 more than I would have otherwise. But what I get for that money includes 640W solar, 400Ah of lithium, and a 3000W hybrid inverter/charger - so for me it's money well spent. MPPT increases the amount of power you get from your panels under cloudy or shaded conditions. The same can be said for adding a portable panel to the mix since you can position the panel in the sunlight, as well as change its angle to the sun.

Oh I like that. I'd probably have to invent a use for it but I want one anyway.

I can't disagree. I asked if they would just run the wiring but they wouldn't, nor would they install the Victron equipment. But I didn't really fancy installing my own panels, nor running the wiring and I think that's where any money would have been saved since the installed charger and charge controller themselves aren't particularly expensive.

Kimberley does what they call a 'tropical roof' which is essentially what you're talking about. They add a layer of insulation under the fiberglass. It's not a terrible idea and something Oliver could do with their fiberglass experience. It would certainly put them a step ahead in both function and aesthetics. I question whether the flexible panels are really there yet though. I've read about too many problems with failing panels over time.

I don't have the exact dimensions, but I did some layouts for our system that you can find here. If I had to guess, I'd say that there's about 12"-15" on each side between the awning and the raised roof. And the raised roof itself is probably 34" or so. The Penguin AC unit is 29" wide so you can guesstimate from that. Anyway, the Zamp 100's are 21.5" wide so that leaves you not enough room between the awning and raised roof for anything, and only enough room on the raised roof for panels running lengthways, netting you only 2 panels running down the middle between the Maxx Fan and the bathroom vent. To get more than that you'd have to build a platform which would have to be pretty thin and lightweight to give any advantage over rigid panels. But if you did, then I'd think that you could easily go 3 wide and remain between the awnings, so 6 panels total.

I'm installing a Victron 150/60. The only option Oliver would do is the same as what you've got, so I'm swapping it out on my own after delivery. I understand why Oliver would want to offer a simple, single source package and since Zamp supplies the Airstream packages, it makes sense from a competitive standpoint as well. But I do wish that they'd offer an upgraded unit for those of us who want better equipment and more control. I would have been fine with Blue Sky, but I chose Victron since I wanted their MultiPlus Charger/Inverter and figured since I had the choice it would be best to keep the whole system from one manufacturer. You can either run the Victron controller blind, with a choice of preset charging algorithms, add a bluetooth dongle and program it via their iPhone app, or hardwire in a remote, which is what we're doing. It's not a cheap unit, so I hope that I find that it's worth the extra. Once I have it running and get some experience with it, I'll post up a review and will try to make an honest analysis of whether it's worth the trouble and expense.

The 60 amp Victron that I have here lists its self consumption as 'less than 10 mA'. I don't see that info listed in the Zamp manual, but if you can find it then you have something to compare to. I can tell you that relative to Zamp's 60 A controller, this Victron is over four times as large and six times as heavy if that tells you anything.

John, did you install your camera down low? I think Oliver's standard one goes up top, so that rack wouldn't be in the way for most owners.

I think that the Zamp junction box on the roof has three inputs, so there should be a third one free for adding another panel. You'd have to check the rating of the installed charge controller, but adding a third panel could be as simple as mounting and plugging in. A 160W panel will fit in front of the existing two so long as you don't have any antennas in the way. That would give you 480 on the roof, plus your portable, which would make for a nice system. I agree that an MPPT controller should be standard. In fact I have one sitting here on my desk just waiting to be swapped in on day 1. It claims a 30% improvement over PWM in partial shading conditions. I've also asked Jason about the wiring from the panels to the controller as I suspect there's some improvement to be had there as well.

There shouldn't be any exterior vents. I've thought about a fan, but isotherm doesn't require one per their installation instructions.

It looks awesome and I'm glad it's performing well. We ended up going with the Isotherm so I will be curious how it stacks up compared to the nova cool. Is the venting part of the install kit or is that just to fill the gaps? On ours, Oliver is planning to give us a 4" round vent at the bottom rear, by the trailer door, and another in the bottom right of the microwave cabinet. That should give us diagonal venting across the back of the unit.

If the Renology kit has it's own charge controller, then it shouldn't interfere with the Zamp system. The problem comes if you try to run unregulated panels through the Zamp charge controller, since you may exceed the amperage limit of the controller. Eventually, we're going to add a Victron BMV-700 battery monitor along with our other kit. It's only $145 and should work as a stand alone monitor with the Zamp system, so you might check it out.

I thought it would be good to have a topic specific to portable panels and getting them connected to our Olivers. Oliver offers as an option a Zamp-specific port that is installed next to the 30 amp port on the street side of the trailer. This is the route that we decided to take, but we've run across a few limitations that potential buyers should note. First, Zamp tells me that the port itself is limited to 200 watts. That should be fine for most people but if you do want more solar than that, the solution is to ask Oliver to install an additional port. And you might want to have a second port installed anyway, because... Secondly, Zamp doesn't provide any way to daisy chain their portable kits. If you want to use more than one set of panels, you must have a separate port on the trailer for each one. Even if you don't want more than 200 watts of portable solar, you might consider getting the extra port anyway, since the larger panels, particularly their 200 watt panels, can get pretty heavy and difficult to store. So two sets of 120 watt panels may be a better route to take than one set of 200's. Just something to consider when doing your planning. I can tell you that the Zamp panels are solidly built, with stiff frames and legs, and come with a very sturdy semi-rigid case. They come with an attached charge controller that looks like it has very similar options and interface as the controller for the rooftop solar, just sized for the wattage of the panels. They come with a 15' cord (you can get a 15' extension) and come with an adapter for clamping directly to a battery.

It's not something that Oliver offers, but a few people here have gotten them and seem pleased. We decided to go with them since Oliver cut their mattress choices down to just the two foam options. They're a good bit less expensive also.

Just curious if anyone else is going to be ordering their mattresses from Southern Mattress between now and October and having them shipped to Oliver. They told me that the shipping would be considerably less if they can combine multiple shipments. Thanks!

I asked Heather about them this morning and she confirmed that they will be standard from now on.

Wow, that looks so much better. We've complained about the off white blinds from day one, well over a year ago, and I've always been told that the company they source from wouldn't make them in white. Maybe Oliver is ordering enough of them these days that they're able to get the color they want.

Nice job!

We've used a Zodi Extreme for the past few years and we only fill it to 2 gallons - its plenty. More than that takes too long to heat up anyway. Solar showers are great so long as it's sunny, but the clouds tend to follow us along which is why we went with the zodi.