jd1923

We use these speakers on occasion, only when Chris connects music on her phone by Bluetooth. I don't like the speaker right on top of my head in front dinette seat. We use a high quality soundbar for TV and can stream or play DVD/Blu-Ray/CD music there with a player installed in the attic (better than cut into the walls)! The interior hull would be better without the 4 large speaker holes, 16 screw holes. I'd go without the Furrion head too! But there are not many of us who would sell our Oliver to buy a new one for a few features, plus or minus! Heck, if we got a new Oliver I go without any factory options and then I'd have to rework all the mods I've worked over the last 2 years. Life is not long enough! 🤣

That sign was just on a short NF road off AZ Hwy 260 descending into the canyon to Tonto Natural Bridge near Payson. They had a parking lot there for the sole purpose of detaching trailers before descending! Generally 8% is the steepest I’ve seen marked on US Interstates and highways, some state highways are steeper. Good you have a special towing setup. I added 3rd Gen Dodge 2500 front rotors designed for the newer heavier model. Also just now adding oversized rear drum slave cylinders. Trailer brakes from 10” to 12” and these upgrades all help. FedEx Freight just called, axles coming tomorrow! I wanted to add a Pacbrake exhaust brake. Was $1800 two years ago, now $2300 and toooo much money!

You took the words right out of my mouth! 🤣 Our Oliver has been parked in the sun the 2+ years we've owned it and who knows how much in its 10 years. It had a bit of a shine in 2023, not so much today. We hand wash it when we return from trips. It doesn't really get clean and I'm not going to be one that gets up there with power tools! I was also never one to paint over things, always preferring natural vs. painted finishes. But paint may be an answer for our hull at some point. I've got a local auto painter who painted our Lexus GX470 at a reasonable cost. Painting the Oliver might cost about what CGI charges for their work. I had a thought to match the colors to our tow vehicle. They look good together as is, with Oliver logo and pinstriping matching the TV colors, but what if the Oliver was the same light gray on the lower hull and the same bright white on the upper. Dull egg to bright white may be a bit of a shock to the eyes. Bring back the two-tone look of the great cars of the 60s! 🤣

I'm with you on this Rob (thanks for the heads up on Teton Pass)! If doing the Million Dollar Highway, I'd choose the direction to be on the hill side vs. the cliff side of the road! 🤣 CO 145 drops 2500 feet, from Telluride down to Delores. A little rugged before Rico CO, then heading south from there it follows the beautiful Delores River and was mainly a good road. We have a trip planned camping along CO 145 late Sept to mid Oct. Starting at Delores we will get up to Sunshine Campground again close to Telluride, maybe as far north as Ridgway CO. Having 3-4 weeks we should be able to find some good campsites without rushing through there like the end of our last trip. Maybe put AZ Hwy 78 on the same list. Grades are not listed but certainly > 10% in some parts. Not a well known road but this was our story. Months later, I found out our brake controller was going bad. Replaced it for much better braking! We're getting new axles which should arrive this week. Going to the D52 trailer axles with 12" brakes should increase stopping power. Our Ram is an older model when the diesel exhaust brake was not an option in pickup trucks.

Follow-up re this thread. This spring I worked brake service on our Oliver. I wanted to be certain the self-adjusters on the Oliver were dialed in. The front axle was close and the rears were a bit looser. This is likely normal. In doing so, Chris was applying the brake in the tow vehicle. At times there was nothing. I asked, "Are you pushing the brakes?" She said "Yes" but the brakes did not stop the spinning wheels. Increased the gain and tried again, the brakes would stop the wheels but 3-4 seconds later. My next comment was, "We need a new brake controller!" Purchased and installed a Tekonsha P3 Prodigy Brake Controller and ran the same test. On the default 6.0 gain when Chris hit the pedal the brakes (all 4) banged abruptly to a stop when spinning in the air. I now believe that when our brakes were over-heating last October, some of it had to do with the weak controller not applying enough power to the TT brakes which caused the brakes on the TV to overheat!

Very good use of this unused space! @ScubaRx put a disc brake controller up there moving the LP tanks back a bit. One day I’m sure I’ll mount something up there, TBD! 🤣 I’m sure you know this, but recycle this fuel into your gasser TV every time you return home. You can’t count on our regulated fuel today to last much more than 30 days without an additive. I fight this battle constantly with all the many (near 20) gas engines we have on the property!

Final step on rewiring the basement electric. I had left room for the DC-2-DC charger and having everything conveniently rewired to the rear dinette seat made everything close and easy! 😂 I have another thread on the charger installation => https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/10757-the-victron-orion-xs-1212-50a-dc-dc-charger-complete-installation-and-testing/#comment-115374

And thank you for saying so! More info here =>

Install heavier gauge wire output of the MPPT SC to the batteries. According to wire gauge charts 10 AWG is good for 50A up to 5ft, #8 to 10ft and #6 for 15ft. Perhaps your 12VDC wires output are longer than 5ft but regardless if they're getting hot, increase the gauge! Or you can double-up the B+ and B- #10 wires if you have more #10 wire on hand (2x #10 = 7 AWG). https://www.wirebarn.com/combined-wire-gauge-calculator_ep_42.html# I installed 6 AWG harvested from the OEM wiring where OTT had extra wires going to the batteries that I shortened now attached to buses. With the SC mounted very close to the buses, I only needed 2 ft of wire on the red B+ with the breaker and another 2 ft on the green B- wire to the -bus. 10-12 AWG wire is good for the high voltage from the solar panels to the input side of the SC. I ran #10 wire from a new rear terminal where the cable TV terminal used to be. This would be similar to your Zamp outlet, as our hull did not have one. I used another 30 ft of 10/2 to make an extension cord for the panels. Two #10 wires are inside the 1/2" black plastic wire loom in the picture below the SmartSolar charge controller, and you can clearly see the #6 red and green wires. The camera angle makes the wiring look like they're attached further right than they're actually connected.

@Mike and Carol Mike wrote he towed the Million Dollar Highway with a half ton truck (when in another thread I wrote I was too chicken for that route)! We went to Ouray then back out to Ridgway, south to Telluride and took CO 145 down through Rico and to Delores. We're heading back up there for a few weeks late Sept to mid Oct. Love the area! If you're ever in Delores go to the Delores Market. It's an amazing market with onsite butcher, fresh local produce and amazing baked goods! It will be our first stop on the way up and last stop on the way back! 😂

Likely the electric lift motor is fried. You can unplug it and supply 12V to test it. This should be the motor but check the part number on yours to be certain: https://www.etrailer.com/Accessories-and-Parts/MAXXAIR/MA10-20270.html https://www.amazon.com/Maxx-Air-1020270-Maxxair-Motor/dp/B01MTUWAMK/

Wow! Can’t do this basic task? He shouldn’t be responsible for towing anything! 😲

That's what I said last year! 🤣 But you are correct. Just hope the Greenland, $1275 now with sale price and promo code, is priced as good or better next year. Or maybe an improved version 2 of these inverter A/C models gets released! We don't travel much in summer temps, but had more heat than expected in northern MN, SD, WY and CO this June where we had to put up with our Dometic A/C. Our next trip is SW Colorado late-Sept through mid-Oct. Starting at Delores CO at 7K ft elevation, to points north, 9500 ft at Sunshine Campground near Telluride, so I'm hoping to run our Atwood furnace for a couple hours before dawn vs. needing the Dometic A/C at all in the afternoons!

My Dometic Penguin 2 will see your bet of 685 watts and easily raise you another 1100 watts! And it must also be at least 10 dB LOUDER too! Maybe I should take advantage of the Turbro sale. It's a tough call. Just spent over $3K on D52 axles and Alcan springs that I hear shipped today. That's going to be a bunch of hours installation and a A/C unit would have to sit in the box for awhile! 🤣

The Pioneer and Turbro Greenland A/C units are remote or phone controlled. The OEM Dometic thermostat shows set temp but not actual temp, so I often have my phone open to the Ruuvi Sensors App to check cabin temp and fridge/freezer and basement temps. Also, I need my phone to level the trailer and check propane tank levels. I'm happy for these Bluetooth apps for so many things. I check battery stats and all Victron devices via the VictronConnect App. Many Oliver owners have installed Victron BMV-712 or Cerbo GX displays, not me! I can see all the same specs, turn our inverter off when needed and all from my phone. Why spend the extra money for a display that can only be used when standing in front of it? Why cut openings in fiberglass walls and complicate the simple interior design of the Oliver? What happens when technology advances and the installed display is no longer usable? I would not purchase the Cielo Breez Max until after a new A/C installation, determine whether we truly need another device. Take another look at the Cielo Breez Max. It appears it can be operated by touch controls on the device itself or by phone app. Likely control by the phone app is not needed on a daily basis after initial configuration setup.

Looking at the Cielo website, they have several models. https://cielowigle.com/products/ Is it only the "Max" model that has the functionality to turn the fan off with the compressor? They also have Pro, Eco and Lite models.

We have 600 Ah Epoch LiFePO4 and the 3KVA Victron Multiplus II inverter which can run the A/C for a few hours. When we replace the awful 13.5 Dometic Penguin 2 with an inverter A/C we should be near double runtime on the A/C. If you have the Truma, it is a bit more efficient than the Dometic. When we truly need A/C, like we did almost 10 overnights on our last 36-day trip we booked sites with electrical hookup. Was not expecting so much hot weather up north but we certainly had a heat wave in most parts of the country this June. I won't carry a generator and extra fuel. Soon with an A/C upgrade we can run it longer. I would add another 300 Ah Epoch battery before adding a generator. But that's just me. Best wishes to you and your new DC-to-DC installation!

Excellent Dave, good to hear! CLEAN installation! From just a couple of pics I can see you found a quality service company, as you mentioned. For a guy who at first did not want an inverter!!!!! You've come a long way. Your rig, your little E1 has come a long way in off-grid excellence! 🤣 We have found that we can run the fridge AND electric to the hot water heater (HWH) on DC while towing and the Orion XS 50A still adds good charge to the batteries while doing so. Or run the A/C in the last hour or two driving to a campsite with hookups and the DC2DC charger carries a good portion of the load and you arrive cool and calm...

Hello Bob, our DC-to-DC charger installation has been very beneficial. For every hour we tow the Oliver on average we add 35 Ah to the LiFePO4 batteries in SOC. If you travel every few days, the DC-DC charger is very helpful. Say we tow 4 1/2 hours in a day, SOC will increase 26% on our 600 Ah battery bank. However, if you prefer to stay at one boondocking site for 1-2 weeks at a time then additional solar is the way to go. We have both upgrades and with the DC-DC charger I have not pulled out the suitcase solar in months! We have not had the time to stay at one campsite for more than a few consecutive days. On the road again, charging again! Definitely purchase the 50A Victron Orion XS vs. the older technology 30A version or other brands for that matter. We run Victron everything. There are so many install threads. I have listed some below. the last one is my installation with a lot of use case test results. The thread you linked above was about the sale OTT had including older 30A model wiring only the trailer side of the install at a very high price. Read through these to see if it's something you could do yourself, as Art, Geoff and I did in these posts: https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/9733-dc-dc-charger-install/ https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/9972-more-dc-to-dc-charger-installation-tidbits/ https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/10757-the-victron-orion-xs-1212-50a-dc-dc-charger-complete-installation-and-testing/

Nice work Geoff! Not sure I would like all those night lights! No blue LEDs on switches in this old hull! @Snackchaser, as an answer to this, could the yellow wires be disconnected at the ground to kill the blue LEDs? This could be the simple answer for @Boudicca908.

After looking at several options, I thought to buy this simple item to think through the possibilities! Hope to use it soon! I would not screw down the cover as designed. Instead, I would think of a simple way to clamshell the two halves together while being waterproof. You need to change batteries every half day. Therefore, the container must open and close simply! Rain is rare where we live and camp, so I could build a waterproof box, redundant wiring, $50 total as an option, to use on rainy weather days. Use the simple harness I've built 80% of the time... when it's just another sunny day in Arizona! Our 10 Ah DeWalt batteries, measuring 5.5x3.5x3.5", should fit nicely in this case and soon we shall have a simple waterproof casing. 😂 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DHKW6DH3/?th=1

Thanks for the question David, and the reminder to source a waterproof casing! 😂 Dewalt batteries are water resistant, not waterproof nor IP rated. Purchase of two (2) waterproof 24v LI batteries would be a good solution if you need something solely for this purpose. I went with DeWalt because I had them for other tools. We don't travel much in rain but had several rainy days on our June trip to Minnesota. One overnight we left the DeWalt battery out, Starlink running. and in the morning it was discharged and drenched! I shook it out, wiped it dry, and let it sit in the sun for a couple hours. Later it charged without issue. I try to place the battery under the dish or somewhere covered, or you could merely wrap in a heavy plastic bag or purchase an IP-rated case. Something like these products might work well as a waterproof casing: https://a.co/d/5I9YH3M https://a.co/d/9JbWYwV

Yes, that's all you need to get started! Later you can add features to make usage easier. I purchased the Mini Router after @Snackchaser proved its effectiveness in allowing for good access speeds at greater distance. I truly purchased it hoping I can interface the Mini Router to our Pepwave router. This would allow one Wi-Fi login and the Pepwave would link the Mini when cell signal is weak. The Mini Router may not be capable of that, but I thought for $40 I'd take a chance. I have not taken the time to use it yet or see if WAN interface to the Pepwave is feasible. We had it onboard for our recent 5-week trip to Minnesota and back and did not need it, did not use it. I thought if distance was an issue somewhere I would break it out of the box, plug it with supplied wiring and give it a try. I'm not comfortable with the Mini being more than, let alone, 50 ft away from the Oliver for reasons of damage to the unit or theft. Most of our trip, being in the Midwest, we did not need Starlink as our T-Mobile and cell router had good signal. In WY and CO we used Starlink quite a bit, but we never needed it to be more than 20-30 ft away from the Oliver, so the Mini Router sat in the box. I prefer when I can place the Mini in the Oliver front basket or the bed of our pickup truck to keep it out of the wind and out of site to other campers. We only had 2-3 days where I had to placed it away from the truck. Minimal setup, just buy the Mini and use the provided power cord and adapter plugged into your 110V outlet, inverter ON. Want to invest more, get a battery setup to move the Mini at will without wires getting in the way. Later, think you need greater distance? Then buy the Mini Router. Wire it to your TT or TV with provided power supply or something custom. This is independent of wiring the Mini dish. The Mini can be wired to the Mini Router by Ethernet cable but they also communicate over air and Geoff proved they're still quite efficient in over-air communication. Now that we are battery-powered cord-free with our Starlink Mini, I would never entertain a wired solution. We just swap and charge batteries twice a day. No winding and storage of power cords!

I also had issues with a first batch of Mopeka sensors, however upon complaint the company sent me a new set that has worked well over our last 60 days of travel. A physical/visual pressure gauge means opening the doghouse to check. A weight scale means opening the doghouse, removing the LP tank hold-done bracket (ours is padlocked) and then having the strength to lift the tank to measure, make LB to % full calculation, and finally remount tank and doghouse! I do like the scale approach better than the visual gauge (also often not accurate), but... How often do you want to do this? When camping, every day we leave the trailer and every night before bed (also when in storage) we check all of our readings by Bluetooth apps. We check the Epoch batteries and all Victron devices to see that batteries are good SOC and amp usage is as expected. Then I check the Ruuvi app for temperatures of 6 sensors (fridge, freezer, truck fridge, basement, cabin, etc.) and we read the Mopeka app for % fill data on both tanks. Want to make sure there is no LP leak (though I would smell it) and I've found when a tank reads 10% or low teens, it's time to switch tanks and then I know we have one to refill. And my favorite device and app is the LevelMate PRO. I would never want to back into a campsite w/o this great tool and app again! With Chris' help, positioning the Andersen Levelers, we get level without me even getting out of the driver's seat! These are getting more expensive, but if I had to open the doghouse I just wouldn't bother, then we'd wake up one cold night, furnace cold, to realize one tank has emptied, time to switch (manually) to the other tank. Love app view of important trailer data! https://www.amazon.com/Mopeka-Pro-Check-Bundle-Wireless/dp/B0BX1CQ6JQ/

@johnwen if you go with the Mini, I strongly suggest forget about all the wiring schemes and just get a battery for it! You can use the power adapter included 50 ft cord, 30V output plugged into a your 110V outlet with your inverter running. You can do what Geoff did adding a DC converter to up 12V to 24-30V so you can run the longer cable. OR you can just wiring it to any DC battery from 12V to 30V. For us it made perfect sense to go with the DeWalt batteries we already have several Dewalt power tools and batteries we bring with us. They run at 20V which is a good voltage for the Mini. It seems that we get close to 1 hour of runtime for each Ah of battery. I purchased two 10Ah batteries and each runs the mini for 8+ hours. Connect one in the morning. Swap the other before dinner and its will run way past when we fall asleep. We move the Mini anywhere required without untangling and tripping over wiring. I mounted a Dewalt battery charger in the Oliver Attic! This part will connect to any battery terminal: https://www.amazon.com/CERRXIAN-DC5521-Power-Pigtails-Cable/dp/B0F8Q4V9FC/ This part works for DeWalt and there are so many other battery choices: https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Battery-Converter-Terminals-Robotics/dp/B0CDGR4Y8K/?th=1 BTW, Starlink is offering factory refurbished Minis for $299 now. Sure wish they offered this earlier this year when we made our purchase at 10% off $499.