Overland

I replaced mine. My bypass used screw connectors so I just unscrewed the whole bypass circuit and made a replacement to match. It’s the piece on the bottom left here -

Slide show would be nice, but as a sci fi fan, I’d have to have to turn it into a HAL interface -

From what I’ve read and been told, for panels connected in parallel, the wattage of the panels doesn’t matter, but the voltages need to be the same, since the lowest voltage panel will bring the voltage of the entire array down. But all of Zamp’s panels have the same voltage regardless of their size, at least their standard ones. Not sure if the new line is the same, but I assume that it is. If you’re using a separate charge controller for the oddball panels, then I think anything goes.

That’s an interesting note. There seems to be a lot more subtlety to the interpretations now than there was when I got mine. I wonder how much of that has been driven by actual IRS auditing decisions vs creeping conservatism from accountants.

Looks like a good deal to me, though I think I’d opt for the 200Ah versions personally.

I think that’s the answer, depending on the size of the original hole. Though if I were doing mine today I’d opt for the separate GX unit and touch display rather than the all in one. And that display is smaller and so less likely to cover an existing hole. John, how about a nice two way radio in that spot? Would that work to cover the hole? Maybe a small tablet dedicated to the Victron app?

Looks great. Their new panels certainly have a nicer profile.

4/0 should be fine, unless you mean 4 awg which would probably be too small. I actually use pairs of 1/0 which is what Victron recommends for the Multi 3000. That’s equivalent to a single 4/0 in cross section, but is supposed to stay cooler under load, and also just easier to work with. Interestingly though, while talking to Battleborn earlier this week, they told me that they felt Victron’s recommendation was overkill (agreed), and that they’ve seen it actually cause problems on occasion with their batteries. The reason is that there’s a very brief outrush of current when the inverter is turned on, as the batteries charge the inverter’s capacitor; and apparently 4/0 cable offers so little resistance that the batteries can see that outrush as a short circuit and trip their protection circuit. I’ve never had that problem, but they recommended that I remove one of the 1/0 cables to prevent it from happening.

I’ve been extremely happy with the RVH2O Kwik Link angled quick connects that @rideadeuce recommended here last year. Not only do they angle down to keep your hoses from sticking out, but the resin material makes it super easy to get the hoses on and off. I’ve always found quick connects to be frustrating since they always seem to jam or are just hard to get on or off, but these slip on and off with hardly any effort at all. I also like that each one comes with a piece to screw to the other end of the hose for storage, and they also have a nice rugged cover to keep them clean.

3 years old and Battleborn thinks it’s a problem with the built in BMS and not the cells, but we’ll see when they get them apart to check. @mjrendon yes, unless you make changes in usage to accommodate, which is more difficult with a DC fridge like we have, and winter sun on the solar. But once we figured it out we were able to adjust and keep the remaining 2 batteries in the 60% - 90% range for the remainder of our trip. Fortunately we had full sun most every day. It’s felt subjectively like we had some level of diminished capacity for a while but only had tangential evidence of it like the numbers not adding up in my test above. With 2 out, it was obvious, both in the voltages we were seeing and in the mismatch between what the battery monitor was telling us vs the actual capacity.

My experience is 3 to 3.5 hours with 400Ah of lithium’s. But that’s with a few qualifications - Oliver is using a smaller AC unit now than what I have, which may be a bit more efficient, and I also think they’re using a slightly better insulation. See this thread: But another thing is that I also just discovered that two of my Battleborns are bad. I think it’s entirely possible that one of them was already out when I did that experiment, which would make a huge difference obviously.

My pump has never had any problems pulling water up dry lines. You might try opening both the intake and return valves to the tank, which will let water cycle through without much resistance, and see if that works.

I was told that they will also have some scratch and dent stuff for offer on Monday - batteries with cosmetic blemishes or which fell slightly outside their rated capacity, etc.

If you opt for Oliver’s lithium package or another lithium battery, then you could run off the battery and use the truck to recharge, which would be every three hours or so. The truck also monitors its inverter state and battery charge, and will start its engine automatically to recharge when needed, then cut off when done. So I think that even with lead acid batteries you could plug the trailer into the truck, run the AC, and the truck would supply the extra power from its lithium’s and cut on intermittently to recharge.

Always eat desert first!

That looks like a beautiful spot. Were you on BLM land or is that a primitive campground? How easy is it to get to Arches from there?

We’re taking it easy this year, and ordered a smoked Turkey from our favorite bbq shop. We figured they could use the business, plus it smells fantastic - may become a new Turkey day tradition. We also brought home some Pie Town pies from our recent trip. Gave a few to family and friends that we won’t be seeing, but saved the New Mexico Apple for ourselves. 🌶🍏🌶

We need a moderator to merge them. 😛

Not that I'm aware of. You can check with the sales team to see for sure though.

See my update linked below. I think part of my problem was a circuit board issue that I believe was unique to the Comfort Plus model, and the rest was Oliver installation issues, which again, may have been related to it being the first of that model they installed. It seems to be working great now, though of course only time will tell.

I'm not sure how much advantage you'd get, since you're talking 18v out of the panel vs 14.4 out of the charge controller. Is 3.6 a big enough difference to effect the voltage drop much? Now, if you wire up the two panels in series, then you've definitely got a voltage advantage. But then you'd need a new controller.

It seems like every trip, we're helping someone out of a jam. I figure I'll need the return favor someday, so I'm banking the karma. This trip, we helped a woman who'd locked her keys in her Sprinter, gave someone a spare lighter for their stove since they'd forgotten theirs, and righted a side by side that had been flipped (no injuries). Last time, we pulled a stuck tour company truck out of some ruts (embarrassing for them, I'm sure) and a ride to a pair of hikers who'd miscalculated how long it would take them to get to their planned campsite.

Just to update from my post above, with the fixes installed (removing Oliver's short circuit piping and installing a new control board from Truma, which was a recall item), the unit worked perfectly over our recent three week trip. Nice, consistent hot water, no error lights flashing, no flipping the dial on and off repeatedly to get the unit to turn on. Hopefully, that will remain the case from now on. I also noticed while working on it that on the back of the case, the screws that hold the plumbing tight to the case were missing. Whether Oliver removed them for some reason on install or they weren't installed at the factory, I don't know - but the screws are what prevent the internal piping from vibrating and also prevent you from damaging the internal piping by over torquing the connections on install. I'd recommend checking the rear of the unit to see if those screws are in place and if not, adding some.

FYI, Foy, I just get a Facebook login screen with that link. Do you have a direct link to a website, or are the photos just on your facebook account?

Big Bend - one of the gravel pit campsites down by the Rio Grande