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Overland

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Everything posted by Overland

  1. So you've got 320 watts of solar panels, but what does that really mean out in the real world? Let's find out. Say you're headed to Sedona in October. Like me, you like to punish your trailer by taking it down long washboard gravel roads in the middle nowhere, so you've picked out a nice spot in the Red Rock Wilderness to set up camp for a few days. You don't want to take a generator, and none of the rocks have outlets, but you'd like to keep your batteries topped up. So in order to know how far down you can take your batteries, you need to know what to reasonably expect out of your solar panels. Here's how you do it - Step 1 - go to this website: US Solar Radiation Resource Maps Step 2 - Select the following options: Data Type = Average; Month = October; Instrument Type = Horizontal Flat Plate Step 3 - Click "View the Map" You'll be presented with a map that looks remarkably like this: Step 4 - Locate Sedona and read the key to find the average daily solar radiation for a flat panel in that location in October. About 4.5 kWh or so. Step 5 - Do some easy math. Take the number from the chart (4.5) then multiply it by the wattage of your panels (320). That gives you the Watt Hours that you can expect from your panels. Well, not really. That's under ideal conditions without accounting for dusty panels, wiring and charger losses, etc. Most people assume a 30% loss for that stuff, so to make your number real you need to multiply it by 0.7. Then to convert Watt Hours into Amp Hours, which is all we care about, divide your answer by 12 volts (volts x amps = watts). So, 4.5 x 320 x 0.7 ÷ 12 = 84 amp hours And if you have 400 Ah of battery capacity, that's 21%, so you now know that for your time there you can run your batteries down to around 80% and still reasonably expect to recoup that the next day. Of course, that's a monthly average. On a sunny day you'll get more and on a rainy day you'll get much less. And if you found a tree out there and parked under it you'll get even less. But for planning purposes, that's a pretty good number to work with and if you plan to be there a week then you'll probably be close to that, on average. Arguably, you could use the "maximum" numbers, rather than average, since that will be closer to what you'd expect on a sunny day, so it might be worth taking a look at that as well. It really depends on if you'd expect rain or clouds where you're going. In general I've found that the average values are pretty close to what we've seen, but as time goes on I'll know better and maybe will be able to adjust the fudge factor for our system. If you have a portable panel that you like to put out, then go through the same process, but choose "Flat Plate Tilted at Latitude" instead of "Horizontal Flat Plate", assuming that you're not just going to lay your panels flat on the ground. I made a little chart that I put in the notes on my phone that has the expected amp hours for the general areas we like to visit in the month we travel, which is usually May and October for us. It's a nice little reference for us to know that we aren't overdoing the power usage.
  2. If you're going to troubleshoot it yourself, I guess that's a decent place to start then. You can search youtube for start capacitor and you'll get a million and a half videos on diagnosing and replacing them. If you think that's the issue and it's nothing you want to deal with, it should be something that most any service center can fix and I can't imagine that it would cost too much to get replaced. I'm sure it's covered under warranty regardless. Also, if it is the capacitor, this would be a good opportunity to upgrade to an easy start.
  3. What did it sound like before? If it sounded like the compressor was having trouble kicking in then it’s possible that the start capacitor has blown. I’d also check the campsite voltage just to rule that out.
  4. Time will have to be the judge on that. So far, they've worked well for us.
  5. Thanks. I have it on our list to check ours. On our last trip I felt like our first tank didn't last as long as it should and thought once that I smelled gas but couldn't find anything. Could be that I've got an intermittent leak at the same location as yours. Since they don't seem to last long, it might be a good idea to carry a spare for emergencies. Minimum, I think everyone should carry a roll of silicone tape for repairs. I wonder if the steel braided pigtails are a worthwhile upgrade.
  6. You can also buy a pair of these, which do the same job, are far cheaper, and don't require duct tape.
  7. That's good info - thanks. We're definitely headed back that direction since we ended up skipping the Dakotas because of the heat wave. Not sure when - I think the boss said our next trip will be back to southern Utah and Colorado to try and catch all the places we've skipped on our last few visits.
  8. I wouldn’t worry too much about the drone of a generator. With the AC on you could have a diesel locomotive idling next to you and you wouldn’t hear it.
  9. Looking at your earlier photo, your freezer looks a bit larger than mine and mine doesn’t have that plastic shroud around it. I wonder if that makes a difference in cooling. I get 3.5a starting and 2.5a running, but the difference may be in our battery monitors rather than the fridges. Or they might be using a higher RPM on the compressor. I think the Danfoss has three speeds. I’m surprised you said it took 8 hours to get to temp. My experience has been a couple of hours, maybe 4 at the most. But then that’s been in the spring and fall with trailer and starting fridge temps in the 60’s-70’s which I’m sure makes a huge difference. It might be worth plugging in and running the AC while you do the initial cool down if possible. I wouldn’t worry about the glass - we’ve abused ours and it hasn’t seen a scratch. Tempered glass is tough. I agree about the door storage. We still haven’t figured out how to stock it efficiently.
  10. My delivery experience shouldn’t be seen as typical in any way, for a myriad of reasons. And I know they’ll make it right. I haven’t heard back from Jason but I think I’ll just ask them to send me the unit to install myself. Not that it’s anything I want to do but it will be a good learning experience and I don’t really want to take the trailer over there.
  11. Having the ability to run the AC off batteries isn't a total waste of effort though. You might not be able to run it all day and night (unless you fill your closet with batteries), but being able to run it for 15-30 minutes can be really useful for cooling the trailer off at a lunch stop or before bedtime if the outside temp hasn't fallen enough yet to sleep comfortably.
  12. Thanks - that’s exactly where I was expecting it to be, but I guess that Oliver forgot to install it. I’ll give them a call tomorrow to get it straightened out. I hate to have to drive over there again but it is what it is.
  13. Thanks Bill. I guess that explains why mine doesn’t seem to work as well as it should. kwrjrpe, I believe that trumpetguy said that with the easy start he could run his AC off battery for short periods. Even if you can though, you won’t get much run time off of it.
  14. Quick question - can someone tell me where Oliver installs the Micro Air Easy Start module? i.e., it's supposed to be somewhere in this photo, right? Thanks
  15. Even with the easy start there’s still a moment of high load. As you know I have a 3000w inverter in our Ollie and while the AC doesn’t struggle at all to come on (it has the easy start), the inverter will give a brief overload warning every so often. But then it actually gives a warning more often when we’re plugged in than when on battery so I’m not really sure what’s going on there. I wonder if there’s some feedback from the easy start that’s causing it. Occasionally the warning is for a ripple current rather than overload so perhaps that’s a clue to the problem.
  16. Raspy, I recently added a second battery to my truck, along with a battery monitor that allows me to check the charge current. I've noticed that when I first start up the truck, the alternator will send as much power to the second battery as it will accept, ~45 amps or so, but after a while it will reduce it's charge appreciably, sometimes down to ~4 amps. I don't know exactly why it does that, but probably it's seeing the voltage from the starter battery and reducing output accordingly. That may be particular to my setup, or it may be particular to newer Fords - who knows, but it's something that anyone considering charging via their vehicle should look into. The first person to teach me anything about dual battery systems was a fan of doing his bulk charging via his truck and letting the solar take care of the float. He had a diesel with dual alternators though.
  17. I wouldn't trust the sensor though, since it will read 100% before you're full. Mine will say 100% with ~28 gallons in the tank, and says zero when I still have ~2 gallons left - probably because the sensor is slightly smaller than the tank so it doesn't register the amount above or below it's sensors.
  18. I thought the same thing when I read the title - I've seen a few medium duty trucks in campgrounds before.
  19. It seems like the general consensus here is that compact trucks are borderline capable of towing the Elite II. Most people, including me I guess, will recommend a full size pickup. In my admittedly brief experience here, it seems like people are fine with whatever they're using to tow, but eventually gravitate toward full size pickups sooner or later. Having said that, these threads about tow vehicles remind me of George Carlin's routine about driving, where everyone going slower than you is an idiot and everyone going faster is a maniac. Same's true with tow vehicles - if you want something smaller than what whomever you're asking drives, you're obviously risking your life; and if you want something bigger, you're wasting your money.
  20. I've set mine off when cleaning some excess floor glue under the dinette with acetone (goof off).
  21. I don't have one, but I've done a bit of research on them. I had zeroed in on this system from Ambient Weather, but then got sidetracked thinking about replacing the thermostat with a smart one that would also send temp data. Either the Ambient Weather system or smart thermostat would require both a wifi network in the trailer and a cellular internet connection for remote monitoring (assuming that a campsite wifi connection would be down in a power outage). And of course you'd have to have cell service wherever you are.
  22. How is the battery life on the Mopeka?
  23. I think water splashing out isn’t as much of an issue as making sure that you’re level when you fill the tank. When you fill angled towards the curb, air gets trapped in the tank since the overflow is on the curb side and there’s no where else for air to escape. So the water starts to overflow once that bubble gets sealed off. As shallow as our tanks are, the volume lost can be substantial, as you found out. When possible, I tilt the trailer a bit to the street side when filling just to make sure. When traveling, you’d have to be at an angle that allows water to flow over the top of the drain line before it comes out, which would be pretty steep. Going up or down steeper inclines would be more of an issue than side to side because of the shape of the tank. What I don’t know is how much can come out when making left hand turns and all the water sloshes to the right side. It seems to me that the volume of water in a full tank could push a good bit out of the overflow. On the other hand, air would have to come in at the same time so it would be like trying to pour fuel from one of those new EPA fuel cans. I’ve thought about getting some sort of stopper for the opening but it probably isn’t necessary and I think a good point was made in the other thread about needing to keep the vent open for pressure changes. I still think a screen might be a good addition but that hasn’t made it on my to do list yet. For what it’s worth, I’ve never noticed that we’ve lost water while traveling, but then I’ve never made it a point to check. Plus I’d have to lose 2-3 gallons before our gauge read anything other than 100%. Maybe I should start paying more attention.
  24. When I redid my sink I also moved the weight to inside the cabinet, but I found that it was getting caught on the sink drain and the top edge of the cabinet cut out. And sometimes it would flop over to the back side again. I ended up making a sleeve out of some thick plastic shelf liner material I had lying around - I rolled it into a tube and taped it, then slid it over the hose and weight. So far it's worked perfectly.
  25. If you unscrew the small panel behind the drawers under the sink, you'll see the outlet behind the cabinet at the bottom left.
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