Steph and Dud B

This thread has been informative. We were considering upgrading to a Truma A/C if/when Oliver offered them. However, our Dometic A/C runs just fine on our old Honda eu2000i generator. It would have been expensive enough to buy the Truma. Needing to spend another $1200 on a slightly bigger generator, too, is a deal breaker.

Now I'll correct myself after reviewing the manual. The Xantrex can indeed function like a UPS, switching back and forth between shore power and battery automatically. Pretty nifty trick. (Note that setting 11 should be on APL if you're running the A/C.) The only downside I can see now would be forgetting to turn it off when not connected to shore power and draining your batteries by accident (or having the shore power fail without you knowing it, with the same result). Interesting.

That is true but the charger/converter section of the Xantrex will still charge the batteries and pass 120v AC to the outlets when the inverter is turned off at the control panel and you're connected to shore power. We usually only power up the inverter section when we need to run 120v appliances off the batteries. I had never considered leaving the inverter section on while connected to shore power. I can see that could be useful if you have some sort of critical 120v equipment that you would want to ensure constant power to. OTOH, running the inverter when you do have shore power adds inefficiency and heat. You're basically taking 120v AC, converting it to 12v DC to charge the batteries, then inverting it back to 120v AC to feed the outlets. In special circumstances I can see value in that. Maybe you're running the air conditioner for a pet while you're gone and don't want it to stop if the shoreline power failed. Leaving the inverter on would be an elegant solution (provided you return before the batteries are exhausted). The downside, however, is increased runtime for your inverter - which might lead to its failure earlier than if you only ran it while boondocking. Just another way of looking at it.

Just had a little unplanned fiberglass rally in CT. The Sunday campers rolled in and there's now a Escape 21 in our row to our left and a Northern Lite truck camper to our right. The Escape owners said they passed an Ollie heading north while they were headed here.

Actually, the opposite on the Xantrex. Priority is given to the AC loads. Any excess supply after that goes to charging the batteries, up to the max amperage draw you specify in setting #28. Your batteries charge faster if you have minimal AC loads. As your AC loads go up, battery charging current goes down.

Yeah, I hate the Dexter "auto adjust" brakes. One assembly disintegrated on our last trailer. Not a fan.

These are brand new NeverLube bearings. It seems highly unlikely I'd get 2 bad bearing cartridges, on different axles, on the same side if the trailer, out of the factory. I'm guessing brakes.

They were serviced immediately after we got home from delivery. I didn't have my thermometer for that trip, so I don't know. I just did a short 1 hour tow and checked the temps immediately after stopping. There was a 60 degree difference! 130 on both lefts,190 on both rights, give or take a couple degrees. There was also an odd moment when I went to back up and the trailer brakes seemed to be on for a second. The trailer didn't budge, then suddenly it did. My wife heard a distinct click when the trailer started to move, like brakes releasing. I'm starting to really suspect this is a brake wiring problem, maybe an intermittent short on the wire feeding the left pair of brakes, causing the right brakes to work harder. Or vice versa, the right brakes coming on randomly. Service ticket created and I'm making an appointment with my local shop ASAP. Also going to see if I can inspect that wiring. Getting tired of chasing problems on this brand new Oliver...

So, @Jim and Frances, you leave your inverter (not just the charger/converter) on when you're hooked up to campground power via the shoreline? The power button on the Xantrex is pushed in?

Sounds to me like your stabilizers aren't down far enough.

Bearings were serviced last month by a mobile tech due to a recall on the bearing washers (NeverLube axles). I watched him do the entire job. He was competent and everything was done by the book. Nuts torqued correctly and the wheels spun freely when he was done. No issues noted with the brakes while he had the drums off.

Yes it does. Almost exactly in line with those wheels, in fact. And I noticed today that those 2 tires run a few degrees hotter than the others. Still hard to believe the hot exhaust would reach that far back and have so much effect on brake temps...???

Just returned from another trip on a cloudy day. Drum temps when we got home were 125 on the driver's side, 180 on the passenger. Again, both wheels on each side consistent. Steph did not hear any brake dragging on either side but I will jack up and check as soon as possible. From what I've read, those temps are acceptable for normal brake operations, just odd they're so different. BTW, where is the fresh water tank? We were traveling with that 1/2 full and the other tanks empty. Weight distribution???

We were lightly loaded on the last trip.

This is odd. I lost my little IR thermometer when we picked up our Ollie and recently replaced it. I'm in the habit of checking the brake drum temps when we reach our destinations. On the last 2 trips my passenger side brake drums were registering 20-30 degrees higher than the driver's side drums (as measured through the wheel spoke openings). Here's the weird part. The driver's side and passenger side drums are different from each other, but consistent with their partner on the other axle on that side - within just a few degrees. For example, the driver's side drums might be 120 and 124 degrees, while the passenger side are 149 and 146. The first time I thought it was because the passenger side was in the sun for most of the trip, but that wasn't the case last time. TPMS reports all tires running about the same temp. We just had axle service due to a recall and I watched the tech do it. No inconsistencies there. The brakes are auto-adjusting Dexter. Steph has walked alongside the trailer while I'm moving it, listening for odd sounds, but nothing. The only thing I can think of, and this is a real reach: the passenger side airflow might be affected by the step box and those drums cool slower???? On our last trailer there was one drum that always ran a bit hotter than the other 3. Figured that one brake adjusted itself a little tighter than the others, but I've never seen this happen in pairs on different axles before. Very strange.

Good eye! Thank you. I've been looking for something like this. It would have to be accurate, though, not dropping below 66 degrees. We've found that the lowest right kitchen drawer is the most thermally stable part of the trailer. It warms and cools the slowest, so we can usually keep meds in there until mid/late afternoon before firing up the A/C and putting the meds in the main cabin.

I always wondered the same thing. Now my wife is on medications that need to be stored strictly between 66-77 degrees F. The A/C is on for the meds, not for us. Suddenly found myself in somebody else's moccasins.

In practice, that is correct.

We like our Tochtas, although we rarely sit on them.

Here are our recent experiences with this. For reference, we have the larger lithium package (630 Ah) with the soft-start Dometic A/C and an older Honda EU2000i (2000W surge, 1600W continuous): Dry camping. Weather: low-80s, humid. Trailer solar panels in full sun. Thermostat set to 70 degrees. Started generator at 11:30 AM daily and ran the A/C off the generator until 1:30. This also provided a very small charge to the batteries, enough to replace what we had used overnight. (We limited Xantrex setting #28 to 15A.) Shut the generator off at 1:30 and ran the A/C off the battery bank/solar until 4:30. This depleted it to 70-80% SOC. Shut A/C off at 4:30 and restarted generator. Used microwave, etc. for dinner and batteries were fully charged by 6:30. Our reason to use the A/C on batteries was to spare our neighbors the generator noise during midday. (Most people around us were running their generators around lunch and dinner, too.) So, in those conditions we were able to run A/C on batteries for 3 hours and replenish that in 2 hours with the generator. We used approx. 1 gallon of gas daily in this mode. (Because lithiums take a charge so well, the little generator ran full out while recharging). Our little 2000W Honda did fine running the A/C or charging the batteries, so the original poster's Yamaha should do just as well. However, if we wanted to bulk charge our batteries and run the A/C simultaneously we'd probably need a bigger generator. Hope this helps.

That's what happened to me. After I passed Technician they asked if I wanted to try the General test. I figured, "why not," and passed.

We were out in our Clam during a protracted downpour last week. There were a few drops leaking from a couple of the seams on the outer edge of the roof, and a few more snuck around our side panels, but we stayed dry in the middle.

No way I'd attach a sun shade to our Girard awning. Seems way too flimsy. And I wouldn't disable the automatic retraction, either. But you could. Each awning has a separate power switch on the main control panel.

The Sport model of the Clam has "windows" - one section of screen on each wall can be zipped open and rolled up for more airflow. That helps.

Another vote for a dedicated weather radio and another ham here (K1PDB). Not active with ham right now but might pick it up again after retirement.