jd1923

The Life is Good collection is available at Ouray Emporium. A few doors down the street is Mouse Chocolates. We had to go there both days in town! Get some Scrap Cookies 😂 at a deal and a morsel of chocolate at the going price.

Ollie #113 is on way to meet new friends tomorrow! We were here just 2 weeks ago. Was our last stop on the way home, and this time our first stop on the way out, 3 1/2 hours from home. Great place! Last time we bought two nice samples of finished Pertrifed Wood. Wonderful Mother & Daughter running the shop! Free Parking on the east side of the park road. $25 for electric on the other side. And if your comin’ here, don’t take my corner spot! 🤣 Nice pics, huh?

You would have a good margin of safety with that (450 / 12 = 37.5A) and you would not hit the 100V limit either. I went with the Victron MPPT 100|30 for our Renogy 400W suitcase. Thinking 30 x 12 = 360W and this number is the highest I've seen (for a few seconds), most often getting between 200-300W from 400W panels. https://cleversolarpower.com/what-size-mppt-controller/

We were just there 3 weeks ago! It’s been drought out West for a couple years now. We got our first rain this week since last fall!

Got the router, new in box, thanks Geoff - Leaving tomorrow on a short trip and we will try it out soon. First try, I'll just use the provided power supply plugged into the 110V outlet. Our TV is 1080p and 4K and I did not set it lower, although YouTube and other services often downgrade the res when download speeds are slow. Your TV will buffer and get ahead when the signal is good to make up for the brief off-line periods. We had little to no interruptions when this occurred! I'll get to the proper "Where's Ollie" subject in two days when I post "three Ollies camping in the Arizona White Mountains!"

Yes Bill, this will work, but our experience shows the connection may pulse on and off. Starlink runs a series of satellites in an orbit. As one is in a small opening between the trees and moving off to the east, the next satellite coming from the west must take over. At one campsite with a small opening the Starlink would read “On-line” then “Off-line” for a few seconds, and it repeated this pattern continuously. Because of buffering we could still stream TV. I had some photo uploads fail and determined that happened when I clicked to upload just when the Starlink was “Off-line” for a few seconds!

Tony, I clean most grimy auto parts with Go-Jo hand soap (not the pumice kind). It cleans grease and oil off the mechanics hands and does well with cleaning most parts safely without abrasives or solvents. I worked it in with very fine steel wool, that's it. I detailed this and a complete and thorough maintenance of the Stabilizer Jacks on page two of this old Forum post.

First thing I noticed is the jack feet on your Oliver are much different from our Hull #113. Ours are round and flat vs. oblong and dished. I rebuilt our front jack to properly service and grease it. The first photo shows the jack stand with shaft brushed clean to metal and the foot was cleaned, but NOT painted (jack stand in mid air when pictured). I'm generally against paint, especially for the bottom where pressure will just make the paint peel. But our Oliver has mostly been in warm dry climates. The second picture is one I took when we had a steep uphill dump station. Pictured here to show the Andersen Hitches Trailer Jack Blocks. We use one of these always for the rear levelers (the two shown) and the stackable 1" blocks for the front. I don't believe the feet on our jacks will ever need anything but soap and water to clean. I would replaced the feet on yours with the round kind pictured and get a set of these Andersen products! https://www.amazon.com/ANDERSEN-Accessories-Stabilizers-Jackstand-Quickjack/dp/B0754NWJGR/?th=1

Tested and corrected this today. I had 12V+ at the Dometic Fridge DC plug which proves the wiring was installed as planned. Searched the User Manual re DC wiring and it had nothing technical to add. In no illustration did it show which side was +/-. All it stated is do NOT cut off the fused cigarette lighter plug (first thing I did)! The DC positive and ground tested good today, so what's up? My next thought was that maybe I had the DC polarity crossed. I made the wrong assumption that in the bonded power cable the positive should be the 'ribbed' side of the cable. True in AC wiring, check any lamp you have on your desk or in the house, the AC hot is ribbed in a bonded lamp cable, the neutral being smooth. Not true here where Dometic wired it the other way around! I had purchased a HD hardwire kit from Amazon for a later permanent installation and after looking at the kit, wires are clearly colored in Red and Black. I had the wires crossed! A few cuts and splices and all was good. Now running our Dometic CFX5 on 12VDC. Turns out you can have both AC and DC cables plugged in and it will prefer the AC connection and revert to DC when AC is disconnected. That's what I was hoping for, so not to change cable connections at the rear of the fridge. Before I connect the fridge to 12VDC, I measured our dual AGM tow vehicle batteries at 12.53V. When I turned on the Dometic, the display stated battery input voltage at 12.5V without having .01V precision. The reading looked to be accurate and it's nice not to have to measure this often manually. I will check voltage on the display and manually later tonight and in the morning 12 hours later to measure the decrease in battery SOC over time. The Dometic system also has shut-off protection when the batteries read less than 12V. Later plans are to add a dedicated battery, connection to the onboard DC-DC charger (already working today), a 100W Renogy flexible solar panel and Victron 15A MPPT SC... It should soon be GREAT! Love grabbing cold water while working on the truck and Oliver. A good mod for use in while traveling and camping! 🤣

Just searched for "truck wash" and got lucky. We had no idea! I imagine these are only available in good size cities in warehousing areas along Interstates.

Our home finished in 1980 has the original A/C with natural gas furnace, an all-in-one meaning the evaporator is also outside in one housing. As far as maintenance, I open up the panels every few years, remove nests, dead squirrels and such, hose the condenser coils clean and that's about that. Five years ago the condenser fan went out and I replaced it. That's it in 20 years ownership of our Prescott home. It has lasted 45 years! But the required 6 lbs of system freon was down to 2 from micro leaks on the coil (was repaired with a fix-a-flat kind of sealant). The service tech was amazed at the condition, so rebuilding the system to newer (legal) freon was possible. A $2300 retrofit including all new valves and seals vs. $16,000 for a new system, I was relieved! It's on our southern exposure where the siding and window mouldings take great abuse, needing frequent painting, from the relentless Arizona sun. Our summer Monsoons and winter storms also come from that direction! Now you can see why our Oliver, also out in the elements, doesn't have that CGI shine! 🤣

True that!

Perhaps we can bump into you along the way! We're thinking 9/22 start to about 10/15. We loved the areas south of Grand Junction (after my Alcan visit), from Ridgway CO down, Sunshine Campground near Telluride, then south along the Delores River ending in Delores CO. Endless boondocking opportunities along the way. During our recent trip we only had a few days in the area, so we want to go back and camp along that route for 3+ weeks! 😂

Thank you for this notification! We were thinking of going to the North Rim this Sept-Oct. Looks like our alternative of SW Colorado will be it. Wonder what will the National Parks Service do about rebuilding the lodge? (We would boondock in the area anyway.)

Use two 7/16" or 11mm open-ended wrenches. Or do what we do. Scrap the old idea of cable, "400 stations and nothing to watch!" 🤣 And who knows what any particular "RV Park" will supply, or if the feed at their post has interference or even works. Stream TV via cellular router or Starlink Mini when cell signals are weak! I removed the cable port on the rear of our Oliver and replaced it with a more useful suitcase solar input!

I get it and it's a compromise. I guess somebody could steal our new fridge, though its quite a lift to get it out of there. My suitcase solar is padlocked to the toolbox and since we love our new Napoleon Grill it is chained and locked. We have two mounted toolboxes for all the important small stuff. If we had a cap, I could not access a front-mounted toolbox. There are some caps with side reach-in openings, but one rear door is a pain. It's more of a carefree philosophy we like to have when camping. Chris and I say often we need to loose the old feelings, those from our Chicago city backgrounds, , crime-ridden environments where you worry and lock down everything. Most of our stuff can get dirty and wet. When it rains we put our lawn chairs in the Oliver when towing or at night in the front passenger floor of the truck, so they stay dry for use. If we lived east, the criteria would be different. We've camped 110 nights and have had more dirt road dust than rain. I only remember about a half dozen rainy days in our travels. Also, even when towing in the rain, the truck bed stays dryer than you'd think! I will need something appropriate to cover the new fridge from sun and rain, TBD!

I want it in the truck bed arms reach from the passenger door vs. behind me in the truck. The fridge produces a hum and quite a bit of heat that we wouldn't want interior to the truck cab. Our A/C is stressed enough on sunny Arizona days. I'm not ever again going to have a truck with a cap, making it near impossible to get to half the stuff in the bed! Did that for years when we had two Labs and was so relieved to remove the cap from the bed. Love our open long bed, so convenient and easy! I'm giving some thought to some kind of cover, mainly to keep the sun off of it and to protect it from rain. The manual states, "The cooling device shall not be exposed to rain" and nothing else. I need some kind of partial cover, still allowing the lower rear of the unit to be open to the air flow it requires. There will be some risk in the truck bed location I've chosen. Good thing is rain is the rare case where we live and usually travel.

The EMS is between your Shore Power Outlet and your 120VAC power panel that holds the half dozen breakers for your A/C, Microwave, 110V outlets, etc. It has nothing to do with the trailer wiring, harness connected to the tow vehicle. The EMS (Electrical Management System) protects against shore power that is wired incorrectly, does not have ground or is at a voltage outside of the proper range. One can be added by cutting the interior shore power cable in two and wiring the device in between. See the attached picture. The device on the left is the ATS (Automatic Transfer Switch) which switches between inputs of shore power from the bodyside outlet or the secondary front outlet used to connect a generator in the front basket. The device on the right is the PI EMS that I installed. Some here believe in this redundancy. I believe it's like paying two insurance companies when only one of them will pay the claim. And if the one at the pole reads with good numbers, there's no need to check the one in the Attic. Having one EMS is sufficient. If you do not have one, and do not want to install one, the pole EMS is fine. But I would move the EMS display in a usable location before adding another at the pole, that's just me. I do not want any devices out at the pole like EMS or water filters, etc. I like mine integrated internal to the Oliver which makes for quick and easy camp setup and tear down. The expensive EMS device at the pole have been known to disappear or get lost! 🤣

Didn't have time to figure out the wiring today. Later on that... Kept it plugged in on AC to test cooling water. After 90 min, the CFX5 set to 35F thought it had gotten to that temp, but was far from it, and it shut down the compressor when reading 35F on its display. At the same time the Ruuvi sensor read 61F which was more accurate given the water bottles still felt warm to the touch. The thermostat likely will only read correctly when foods inside come to temp steady state. I removed the full gallon and kept 15 water bottles inside and nothing else. I set the thermostat to 20F. All day long the CFX5 display read 21-23F and the compressor was running every time I looked. In an 8-hour day it cooled down 15 water bottles from 82F to 36F, per the Ruuvi. Not bad cooling since cooling 2 gallons of water bottles is not an easy task starting at 82F. Wish the thermostat was better, but we'll see with foods inside vs. just water bottles. We often buy cold shrink-wrapped or frozen meats at a butcher shop. twill be great have this extra space which can be turned down to freezer temps when needed.

When not using the Anderson WDH, make sure you are also not using the Anderson hitch at all, meaning specifically the ball on the cone. Without the WDH boomerang piece bolted through the bottom, the ball is merely held in place by a snap ring which could fail allowing the cone and ball to come up and off. With a standard ball it is common practice to grease it. Get a rubber cover for when detached before it soils your pant leg! Use any thick grease so it stays put. I use red wheel bearing grease since I have several tubes of it on hand.

Yes Tony, I like the term Oliver Trunk! And you have all the length you need in the connector cable to move the display anywhere in the Oliver! This is how I did mine. I used 3M VHB 4950 to tape the display to a 3" wide L-bracket that could be screwed down to the base. The small bracket in front is there to somewhat protect the display from getting hit by the shore power cord, hoses and other stuff during transit. You could also mount it on the top of the wall, left in the picture. But for me, I have an exhaust fan and control panel mounted up there to keep our inverter/charger cooled. I picked this location because after I remove the shore power cord, I can see it leaning down a little without craning my neck. I check all readings and possible error messages immediately after plugging in, hoping to see about 125V, at 60Hz and "E0" (no errors).

Wow, wax! until now, I could not imagine the panels being dirty enough to reduce power output 5x~! I only use water and a professional window cleaning brush on a 5 ft handle to clean ours, rinse-brush-rinse, no cleaning products used ever. This was the question on my mind. Good explanation, thanks Geoff.

I've made both AC and DC connections to the CFX5. I just tried to turn it on powered by 12VDC and nothing happened like it did not see the connection. Perhaps something is very wrong with my installation, bad ground, bad switch or fuse, will test soon. Wondering how they prioritize the AC over DC connection? Do they sense for voltage at the two inputs? Or is it something like when you physically plug in the AC cord it knows to use that connection. I hope not, but will soon find out! Later today, I will get behind the fridge, which is not easy as I have it installed. I have to climb into the truck bed and pull my solar suitcase back to get to the rear ports of the fridge. I will test for 12VDC at the fridge plug and then disconnect the AC cord to see if the DC will run the fridge given it tests positive. So I plugged it in today by household extension cord to power it up. She has a nice light hum! I have a full gallon and 15 water bottles inside to cool (total 3 gallons water). That's much more water than we would ever have but it is a good mass of water to test its cooling. Default temp setting is 39F and I set it down to 35F. The CFX5 readout started at 82F and the readout after 20 minutes read 39F on the panel, same on the Dometic Bluetooth app. My Ruuvi sensor inside, sitting on the wire cage not touching the walls, read 82F the whole time. Looks like the CFX5 is reading the wall temp somewhere and not the temp of the contents. Hope it doesn't cycle the compressor off too early. We'll see. We will have a Ruuvi sensor inside always, like the two sensors in our Dometic absorption fridge in the Oliver, fridge and freezer, that always show good readings, fridge in the 30s and freezer in the single digits.

Trying to see how these two statements jive? The data shows only a 2A charge. Why? On a sunny day I get at least 12A via the Blue Sky SC regularly from our our 320W rooftop solar panels. The 150-175W expectation seems correct to me. So your roof panels are connected to a Victron MPPT SC? (not hardware OTT installed) and you have Victron batteries or a Victron SmartShunt on the batteries?

When I bring up the VictronConnect app, the first menu shows the many Victron devices we have. Then I click on the SmartShunt, MPPT solar charger, Orion XS DC-DC charge, the inverter/charger, etc. Which Victron device is displaying the data above and showing it's "OFF?" Do you have one or more Victron devices? What kind(s) total?