DanielBoondock

Got a quote from Alcan, here's some answers to questions I had So Oliver is being cautious and going 4 leaf

Doing a search I only found this thread which sputtered out .. One of the few things I’m disappointed in with the Oliver is the outdoor shower (the other being the Bluetooth speaker). It’s annoying to use and is limited as just a basic shower head. On our last big trip, out in Arizona at a carwash giving the car and Ollie a bath I had an Airstream couple ahead of me with a neat and useful mod. They had replaced the outside shower with an plug in style unit they used to wash the trailer. So you could plug in (via water hose quick connects or the like) a garden hose, a shower head or whatever. Also our storage lot doesn’t have water. I can bring 10g of pressurized on my truck, but a full 30+ gallon tank onboard would be useful. If I could just get to the water … I’d like to modify the Oliver as little as possible. Ideally not drilling holes Wouldn’t mind getting rid of the old shower and putting a new one in the same spot, probably the best solution. Has to have quick disconnects and can add new attachments, so the fittings should be standard Would like some kind of high end or marine solution ideally One option is this Empire RV faucet from eTrailer Cons, would need a case to be set back far enough. Also kind of typical plastic solution. But works otherwise Another solution I like better is this - could have separate hot/cold or just cold. I don’t see needing a hot line. Cons, it’s just ABS plastic. No temp connection, but which might be OK Now for marine application are washdown connections Here’s one, nice stainless with easy twist. No temp control but I can attach my favorite garden hose quick connects Again needs a deeply recessed box to contain this. Any other ideas?

I believe the electrical code is that live feeds have to terminate in a grounded electrical box. I think just a simple twist connector cap is fine, as long as it’s in a box and not flapping in the breeze. RV/automotive code might be different, if there is one.

Note about phantom voltage drops. As mentioned it can be due to active/passive devices in the signal path, but it can also be resistance/impedance in the circuit. Case in point, the composting fan my two month old Oliver stopped working. The odd thing was my DVM measured around 3VDC at the terminal - not enough to run the computer case style fan - indicating a circuit issue. Jerry at support gave me a great troubleshooting list, the first of course was to check the fuse, which is fine. I didn’t suspect that as it was getting a low voltage, it’s an inline glass fuse and was unbroken. But I put the fuse back and voila - it works. There must have been a poor connection in the fuse housing which gave enough resistance for a voltage droop, so reseating it fixed the problem. So general advice is to check every leg of the power rail, a little corrosion or a loose connection can/will introduce resistance.

I’m sure you know about that but make sure to only use freshly boiled/disinfected water. It’s not uncommon that somebody picks up a nasty pathogen doing this, because the sinuses are right on the border between inside and outside. I’m talking nice things like that brain eating worm and other such friendlies. Also of course do a serious disinfection of the container after/before every use. Anyhow One of the justifications for doing this is for when we have to bugout. We got hit some years ago with back to back wildfires, made the national news. Lightning strike up a valley complex, the fire traveled down the valley gathering steam and then blew out near us and completely wiped out everything in its path. There’s so much heat capacity by that point you can’t fight it, all the first responders can do it get people evacuated. Literally turns the place into a moonscape. Anyhow our house avoided getting hit being right at the edge but the National Guard doesn’t let anybody in or out, so we car camped for a couple weeks. My wife’s got PTSD about it so every fire season (late summer) she’s on edge watching the weather - the Santa Ana wind complex is prone to cause these (it goes up to N Ca too). This year if its looking bad we’ll just take a trip and take the stress off. Also yes while we’re still setting up the goal is to always have it fully ready to go literally at a moments notice. The main consideration is access to the storage lot. It’s 10 minutes from the house - good - but if you wait too long you might not be able to get to it, or leave. The people running the lot said during the fires they came out after hours and it was a madhouse of people hitching up and leaving. But that only works if they haven’t closed the roads yet. So we plan that if the wind forcast look bad we’ll just pre-emptively go camping. I don’t mind 😅

Here's the direct link Bulldog HD Shock Absorber Replaces 555001 For Trailer Leaf Spring Retro Kit Oh my goodness $39.38, something cheap for a change (yeah need four - or eight? Four I think)

From another thread about the X23 2027 model, the offroad version includes (drumroll) 😊 Four or five leaf? Five I'll guess. Good for Alcan this is a regular business for them. Well that's good enough for me, I'll order my set before too long. I went through most of the thread but don't recall a link or specs for the bulldogs, can anybody provide a link?

Ah just noticed the spec sheet link above Why in the heck is this CHEAPER than the Platinum Pro I got? Probably because the base battery is 400Ah and it doesn't include extra goodies. Fully specced it'll be up there Power is now the EcoFlow. I like the control box. Not super fond of fancy displays They listened to the peanut gallery "Bulldog HD Shocks & Alcan Leaf Springs" 😊 Four or five leaf springs? 48V Houghton AC Flex solar is cool. Problem is getting to use it, I'm usually either in shade or there's too much wind How in the heck does the Pro have a 1,360W solar? It must come standard with the solar Girard On the 2027 they made a bunch of changes I like the stainless sink - kind of wish mine had that instead of molded in. I might do that mod Why is the bluetooth speaker back by the stove? On my recommendation they moved to the TV - you don't want a speaker in the heat. This was probably in proto before that mod, or maybe they did that just for me? This goes back to the framed in window shades. I love my roller shades fwiw, the trim color valances add a lot of nice design. Looks like a 2026 model only, too bad I think its an improvement I think @jd1923 made this mod? Unfortunately the dinette isn't really that comfortable any way you cut it Well anyhow glad to see them adding models. Fortunately I don't have buyers remorse, I'm upgrading to Alcan/Bulldog myself, and in theory I could upgrade to Girard solar too. But with 220 kWh on the truck with 10kW available to the trailer I don't need any extra solar. Before somebody asks - no a 1.3 kW panel won't charge the truck worth beans.

They dropped a video this morning, mainly just advertising splash FWIW my opinion so far Color scheme: Not my taste. The black trim will take more sun damage and takes away from the elegance of the design language. It's a hard black and white which is way to constrasty, if they could have gone with a softer black it would work but I think the windows set it to a hard black. Also black shows up scratches and dirt like nobody's business. That black AC will absorb heat and age faster Fully opening window: From a 2026 owner; a step backwards. I can't tell you how easy and convenient it is to crack the bedside window at night. The sliders would be more challenging I think, and this one, you'd have to get your hand around the window shade and push it somehow, assuming the levers are open. I really don't understand why people want a fully opening window, it doesn't offer anything new 48V system Been in a lot of discussions of this because the Cybertruck went 48V. My engineering opinion; it doesn't offer you anything. The only technical improvements are thinner battery cables and better power/torque delivery for motors. But they will still have to supply 12V as not every device will support 24V, and for the 12V cig ports. So it'll be a stacked/split system, mostly likely they'll just also have a series 24v connection to the battery, and split 12V rails for those. I could see the power jacks benefiting, assuming a 48V system. Oh maybe the inverter too - that would be more efficient. Who knows, maybe 48V lets them get to a 4k inverter which honestly would be nice (Xantrex doesn't have one AFAIK though) Offgrid tires Look cool, but probably lower efficiency, harder to replace (?), and since they don't provide motor traction of limited use. Cost: Probably $$$, I kind of doubt they'll have all those parts in black from the supplier

I mean make it a little longer. The glass body is what, only 18’ on a 24’ 6” body? I don’t understand the exceptionally long tongue except stability, but then why not move the wheels back a bit instead? I don’t know the details but would love to, but just another 6” or foot of interior length would go a long way. Weights a consideration but going to 8k isn’t that bad I think Anyhow the only history I know is they hired some guys from a nearby house boat catamaran company initially. That’s where they probably got the marine hidden gasket idea, and the fitting out with electrical and such. I wonder how the chassis was designed?

Actually these blocks are perfect, not sure about brackets but the first problem is keeping the sitting room. It’s too tight as is, either I tuck the piano away on edge between use (a bother) or extend the seat a bit. Here’s an idea (notice the aisle Hue lights) This is the twin bed extension, I could see if Oliver will sell me a pair and adapt them to likewise extend the dinette seats into the aisle. That would be perfect, except that the bulkhead seat can’t extend as that interferes with the bathroom door. WIP …

Actually the owners didn’t sell it for me, Escape and Bigfoot owners are equally passionate. In the end what did it was a tallying of positives and negatives. For me, I figured that whatever undiscovered problems the Oliver will have will be less than the known negatives of the others. I was worried about the bed length in particular. Fortunately nothing came to pass, and I found more positives IRL. Having said that, couldn’t they have made the bathroom just a little bit bigger? 🙂 Anyhow OT the greasing went just fine with a right angle fitting (not right angle zircs). Question: a couple of the outrigger ones - the ones on spring ends, would not take grease at all. Clogged? I’m going to try again after I move it, figuring that the position it’s in is preventing ingress

Been a member for four or five years 🙂 took me that long to make my choice. Oliver was the first choice but then Bigfoot seduced me with that cool BIG FOOT front storage. Got a tour, meh, and noticed the seams and conventional RV hardware everywhere, so came back into the fold. Pretty brave, or stupid too as it was sight unseen, they’re rare out on the West Coast

There are electronic drum kits as I’m sure you know, takes set up but would work, and won’t bother the wildlife My son got a Donner travel guitar for our inaugural trip which is pretty much ideal, nice and small. It’s basically electric with no spruce soundboard and uses pickups, but you can get a nylon string version and the internal DSP sounds great. He loves it and thinks the action is good Z brackets is a good idea I’ll check out, looking for easy DIY

if you’re a serious musician you’ll know my dilemma; ya can’t leave it at home. This is a Doepfer stage piano I used before I got my grand. Weighs a ton and is bulletproof with reasonably weighted keys and has a decent action. I’ve been sweating whether this could work but thankfully it will! Being able to fit a keyboard was a selection criteria. I think neither Escape nor Bigfoot would comfortably accommodate it and Oliver was a maybe or “I hope” Yes it looks silly but OH WELL, your instrument is the girlfriend you can’t ignore Those are Anderson blocks and actually work perfectly. Having it there is pretty fine, that side is awkward anyhow because of the sloping wall, this provides an arm rest so if you don’t have a big butt it works. And best of all the table fits on top so no fooling around setting up. I just need custom cushions and most importantly a good chair that stows. The seat has to be good or it’s too hard to play Anyhow interested in ideas if ya got ‘em

I’ve got a fancy German manual gun with a locking head that I like but that’s the problem, can’t get it in there. Ordered those 45s, hope that works. Also I found a local trailer suspension shop that’s been here for decades so should be good. I’ll order the Alcans before too long and do it locally. Probably going with four unless they manage to convince me otherwise 😅 Still feeling it out and need to find the time to read the other half of this thread

Fair point, retract the 1750s from what I said, except perhaps for people who lightly use their trailer It was a reasonable starting point but charging now comes with risk aversion to change probably. Maybe they’ll do it sometime as an update. 2027 looks like they’ll be adding a DC-DC converter, it’s already labeled in on the electrical panel. I don’t need it but useful for ICE TVs 3k miles and I’m hearing the suspension squeak now, doing my first grease. What a pain, getting a right angle grease gun fitting

Also OTT seems to have changed their insulation scheme. From factory walkthroughs it used to be outer bottom and inner upper. This was probably for ease of installation. My trailer is reflective outer bottom as before, but on top Nice thick outer insulation, no air gap as far as I know. So now maybe it seems to be a combo of infrared reflective and usual dead air insulation, all on the outer

The person who picked up their factory trailer after me was from Alaska, if they join the forum would be interesting to hear their experience. Regarding four season I think no TT will measure up to your home. Emperial claim almost 3” thick walls though so an inch or two of insulation maybe, it does look good. OTOH Eskimos camp in an ice igloo and nobody would tell them it’s not four season 🙂 Point being there is no definition, but I think that if you can be comfortable in your TT in year round conditions then sure, it’s year round. Some TTs might require less energy to be comfortable but otherwise it doesn’t matter, does it? I think the biggest issue is moisture management. I’ll give the prize to the 4 season prize to the one that manages condensation the best, and damn the heating bill

The battery is rated to 131 which is pretty usual for lithium so that’s ok, I just don’t like it. It was a warm March with a heat wave (another 100 year event) and the battery was getting plenty of solar charging so I think it was just conditions. Back coastal it’s normal temps again. Anyhow I’ll try the temp activated fan and do a write up

Great solution - I love the Blutech stuff. We’ve got the filter unit with UV, and the softener and iron tank. For inside the camper I’ve thought about adding that but don’t like drilling holes. But now they’ve got a new solution for hooking into your existing faucet. When the Black Friday deals come around this year I’ll probably pick this up.

Checking the BMS temps the problem with my Lithionics was more of too much heat, easily getting up to the high 90’s in early March. The batteries produce heat too from the BMS board and just from charge/discharge. The battery has a built in heater so if it gets cold no problem, that’ll take care of that. On my list is to add a automated fan to a top vent, I won’t otherwise insulate it. When we got to camp I’d open up the door to get it to cool down faster as the sun went down.

Looks to me like what you’d expect, just a temporal lag and smoothing. I think you don’t see the same minima/maxima because of the time lag - outside is already turned around before the inside reaches the min/max. fwiw tl/dr I spent a lot of stupid time (meaning I could have been doing something more useful 😅) thinking about the insulation on this thing. It’s really interesting, it’s basically all reflective/infrared. But for the most part air gapped everywhere except the belly band, which is what you need for that to be effective. Fiberglass bat This primarily slows down the rate of heat transfer. If the trailer had that we’d see a larger delta in the charts above. So it doesn’t stop the heat transfer, just slows it Reflective with air gap (Protex) This primarily works by actually reflecting the infrared heat, not the thermal brownian heat in the air its in contact with. So it does stop heat transfer - look at the moon landers with gold foil, or the James Web infrared telescope with its many laters of foil. Both effectively eliminate heat transfer from the sun Bits and pieces Rule of thumb I heard from an engineer in this field; reflective works better the greater the differential (outside to inside). Fiberglass shells are horrible insulators However, we have a double hull. Air gaps of 1/2” or under is as good as insulation bats (not a big enough space for convection currents. Note that seems to be about as much of the gap as we have. So the double hulls act as a buffering system, both giving the Protex the air gap it needs to work, and that enclosed air gap acting generally as dead air space. Putting it all together, in extreme conditions (hot or cold) the trailer should perform great due to the large delta between outside and in and the dual insulation, which is what I hear from owners. But due to the .5-1” air gaps you won’t see a large time lag in an idle trailer.

Intuitively that feels like a good solution. With your years you’ll know there’s few or no hard rules here. Every design outside of Aerospace comes with a lot of windage - ‘yes but …’ Anyhow I think all of these - 1750, 2400 and Alcan are likely just fine and there’s little to fear with any. But I do want to see power spectral density charts with each of them, easy to get with our phones.

Good to know To be fair - says the forum (Disclaimer: see blow). The manufacturer says differently. Handwaving arguments about Oliver having been wrong before, went overboard initially with 80 psi, this and that are not evidence that their recommendation today is wrong. I spent an hour looking for current documentation from Goodyear and couldn’t find it - have a link? There’s an old 2017 pdf, and a couple tables of indeterminant provenance that get reposted. I suspect Goodyear is not posting this information anymore and leaving to OEM’s. So having some tables isn’t convincing to me. I did find a lot of engineering common practice information which warns against too low a pressure for safety reasons, not too high. Low pressures are commonly used for low speed offroad traction use cases. I’m not seeing it done to avoid jounce. Does anybody here lower their TV pressures? Why not? I don’t understand why it’s OK for our trucks to be at specified pressures, but not our trailers. Or our cars. If your wife complained about a bumpy ride would you drop her pressures in half? Think about that for a second, now it becomes a safety issue. But this is me handwaving now. As it happens, today I’m mooch camping for a family thing (poor me writing from my Ollie tonight 😅). I didn’t take measurements because I needed my phone on the way out. One the way back I’ll definately be taking measurements and analyzing. Specifically doing a spectral power density and comparing it to some example charts. This won’t be definitive - nothing is definitive. But it will be a demonstration of how much of the road rumble makes it past the suspension. Little point discussing it more until we have data - that’s for sticking with me *********** Disclaimer: I’m an engineer and for 40 years have been arguing technical points with others as a part of the job, just business as usual and no feelings involved. Take this discussion in that spirit - a search for best practices and not a keyboard warrior food fight. I’m happy when others disagree, I don’t claim to be always right, but through a healthy discussion can perhaps get somewhere. Reality is the final arbiter as my EV 6k trip proved, and I’m planning on doing the same here and will be delighted to find if I’m dead wrong. With the springs discussion for example you saw me switch sides (pending data) ***********