Steph and Dud B

So, you have interior lights when the generator is connected, but no lights without the generator? If that's the case, I agree with @jd1923 that it sounds like your batteries are disconnected somehow. Could be a cable, cutoff switch, or 12v circuit breaker. More details needed.

This is how the cables are connected to the Vizio TV in our 2022. TV audio through the Furrion stereo is by selecting the ARC input on the Furrion. We have to turn the Furrion volume up quite a bit to hear the TV audio.

We have a Weigh Safe hitch which usually registers between 500 and 600#, similar to what you're seeing, when we're loaded and wet. And, yes, that puts us at 10% or less hitch weight. We do have a small cargo basket on the back. Nothing heavy in it, maybe 35-40# total. My tools are on the floor of the closet, as a counterbalance. No sway control, but we haven't had any sensation at all of the tail wagging the dog when towing. Maybe it's because our TV is a long wheelbase dually with the bed fully loaded with camping gear. I would be more concerned if our TV was a lighter vehicle with a short wheelbase, even though I've never heard anyone speak/post of their Oliver swaying.

105 degrees actually sounds pretty good right now... 🥶

20 years ago we could travel at will, making reservations as we went, usually the night before. We hit a lot of the big national parks, no problem getting sites. Times have changed. Last winter I planned our trip to the Oliver spring rally and beyond in great detail, making all the reservations well in advance to be sure we had places to stay. Then, life happened and we had to cancel it all, with a lot of deposit money lost. Won't do that again. This year, with any luck, we hope to go back to our old ways and wing it for a trip to TN, AR, KS, and MO. We'll look for state/local parks and have Harvest Hosts as a backup. Commercial campgrounds will be the last choice. As for KOAs, we have used the KOA Rewards program before and it has worked OK. Don't forget, there are 3 levels of KOA parks: Journey, Holiday, and Resort. We've found some (not all) of the Journeys to be kind of rough around the edges, while the Resorts can be too crowded and expensive for our tastes. I do miss the old days.

My wife won't let me get a hoe.

Things have a bad habit of sliding to the front of our truck bed, under the hard tonneau cover and out of reach. This hook works great. scottchen PRO RV Awning Rod Opener Easy Reach Telescopic Puller 13-3/4" to 44-3/4" Stainless Steel Silver & Black - 1pack https://a.co/d/aQmHp1H

For reference: Our 2022 has 340W of solar and 630Ah of lithium (I mixed that up in the earlier post). We have the 3-way fridge instead of the compressor electric and we have the Dometic A/C with soft start. We run the fridge on 12v while driving. We camp on the east coast, usually without hookups, 3 seasons, up to 3 weeks at a time. We've never come close to depleting our batteries. I don't think we've even gotten down to 50%. The lowest I recall was 63% after a week in full shade with mostly rainy weather. With normal use - coffee maker, toaster oven, lights, fan, water pump, TV, furnace, charging devices, etc. - the solar usually gets us back to 100% SOC every day. The only caveat is air conditioner use. If we wanted to run the A/C for multiple hours we'd need to use our generator. In practice, in the summer we might run it for an hour or so before bed while watching TV. That might consume 10% SOC. If it's sunny the next day the solar tops us off. We carry a 2kW Honda generator but never use it. Probably should stop lugging it around...

Units with the factory installed composting toilet come with the black tank installed but not connected to anything but I wouldn't use it for fresh water, even if it was never used. The black tank material is not potable water rated like the fresh tank. OTOH, others with composting toilets have converted the black tank for either additional gray water capacity or even urine disposal. If you get the Platinum Lithium package with 640Ah of batteries I think you'll find you have plenty of power. It's actually been overkill for us.

Just in case, before you install an electric valve: If you disconnect the cable from the existing valve does the cable pull out of its sheath easily? If so, the resistance might be in the valve itself. That happened to us. Valve lubricant worked for a while but the valve eventually leaked and had to be replaced. Still cheaper than an electric valve and less to go wrong in the future. (Electric gate valves add a motor and wiring to a previously simple system.)

Has anyone installed an automatic fire extinguisher in their fridge compartment? I've seen a few types advertised.

OK, so knives... I have a few rescue knives and a couple of pocket knives but my EDC knife is very different. I've been carrying one of these little Victorinox pocket knives in my pocket for probably 20 years and I use it virtually every day. (This is my second one, after the pen holder in my first one finally broke.) It has: blade, file/screwdriver, scissors, pen, toothpick (was tweezers, but I replaced), and a 16G USB A/C flash drive. Love this thing.

Ooooh, flashlights! Steph will tell you this is my impulse buy weak spot. Everything from no-name Amazon lights to some nice Streamlight and Olight units with my fire/SAR gear. When I was working, this little Streamlight Microstream was my EDC. The blue one was special because the default power-on setting was Low, while the other colors defaulted to High. Not sure if that's still true, but it was important because I used it to check pupils and didn't want to blind my patients. Don't have an EDC now but I added a Wuben H1 headlamp and a second Infinity X1 (Costco) to my assortment of lights over the holidays. And I still have my very first Maglite from the 1980s, with the LED upgrade kit from the original incandescent.

We just replaced our black valve due to leaking. Had a repair shop do the work.

Our Norcold fan is temperature driven so you can't necessarily rely on it as an indicator that the fridge is operating. It only runs when the fridge compartment reaches a set temperature.

Smart. Nothing heavy in our back seats except the impact wrench and torque limiting extensions, which are under the front seats to contain them in an impact. I once saw a guy killed by the small red steel toolbox in the bed of his pickup. He went head on with a tri-axle dump truck at about 50 MPH and his toolbox flew through the truck cap window and rear truck window, hit him in the head, then kept going through his windshield and dented the hood of the dump truck just below its windshield. The pickup driver was killed instantly. The truck driver was lucky it didn't get him, too. (The cause of the accident was an impatient small car that passed the dump truck in the fog, then cut in front of him and braked hard when she saw the oncoming pickup. This caused the rear tires of the empty dump truck to skid out and the dump truck crossed the center line into the pickup. The car driver kept going but called 911 to say she had witnessed an accident. She was charged with vehicular homicide.)

I understand the idea of prioritizing your parks for your residents, especially when campgrounds were all filling up in the COVID boom. And I don't. Out-of-staters will probably spend more at restaurants, tourist destinations, etc., than locals and I think the COVID bubble is bursting, so this might end up hurting states overall. I don't agree with fire departments charging out-of-towners for car crashes, either (same concept). Just like out-of-state campers, those people pay taxes to support a fire department (and parks) somewhere. I think it should just all be reciprocal: same price for everyone. It all equals out eventually. (The only exception that makes sense to me would be visitors from other countries who don't pay taxes to support anything in the U.S. I can see charging them extra.)

The only time I ever have a tank in a vehicle is on the way to/from a filling station. Cracking windows won't help much because propane is heavier than air.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

This happened to someone else a while back. I remember seeing the post with very similar photos.

Glad you fixed it!

I assume you are not plugged into shore power and are running on batteries? Is the silver button on the Xantrex wall panel in the In position or Out? Are there any green LEDs lit on the panel?

Just some rough math out of curiosity: Diesel is about 13% more expensive than gas right now. However, my diesel truck was approx. 35% more fuel efficient when towing, so there are savings there, maybe $81 per thousand miles driven towing. Based on that, diesel would have saved us $264 in fuel costs this year (we towed 3260 miles). However, with the higher initial cost of a diesel truck, more expensive maintenance, DEF, etc. we would have lost money overall (assuming a 15 year lifespan for the truck). I estimate we'd have to tow approx. 3X as many miles per year to break even. Diesel might be worth it for a full timer who puts on a lot of miles though, especially if they do a lot of mountain towing.

This has been discussed in other threads but the advantage of the pedestal surge protector is that it's disposable if it takes a hit whereas the onboard unit will need to be repaired. Also, having one on the pedestal means you'll never be without protection. After a surge you'll still have the onboard unit to protect you while you wait for your replacement pedestal unit.

My 2 cents: We've done fine with just the Norcold 3-way trailer fridge. It holds more than we expected. Harbor Freight has inexpensive multimeters. We have the Progressive Industries 30 amp surge protector. It's an outlet tester, too. https://a.co/d/7r1GfAS We have the Fort Knox hitch lock. A bit cheaper. https://a.co/d/2mTY5Z7 Trash can that hangs on pantry door: https://a.co/d/c1gUm5B Agree on Magma pots, TPMS, and rubber chocks. Especially TPMS! I'm too tall for a shower floor cover. We have a small mat that fits the shower floor. During the day it keeps dirt, etc. off the shower floor. In the morning, it becomes the bath mat. The are other products reviewed on our blog. Have fun shopping.