jd1923

Oliver Travel Trailers (OTT) has installed a lot of odd designs in electrical, plumbing and other mechanical systems. For example, why should we remove the curbside bed to drain the Fresh Water Tank (FWT) or change the valves when adding fresh water while boondocking or winterizing with RV with antifreeze, if you must?! Blow a fuse on one of your stabilizer jacks, yep pull the streetside bed. My wife Chris spends time making nice beds with clean sheets and she's says - What?!!! Why are there 4/0 cables in the battery bay connected to the inverter and then they have to add separate 6 AWG wires for the interior 12VDC system and a similar set of wires for the solar charger. It's certainly unnecessary. Almost EVERY Oliver owner that replaces house batteries makes one simple fix, like what @Derek B has done, good work! We purchased comfortable yet heavy 10" mattresses and I'm not lifting one, if at all possible, while camping to add water to the Fresh Water Tank (we refill the FWT tank often when boondocking) and if we blow a fuse or have to reset the breaker for the solar charger, I'm NOT lifting the Streetside bed for these reasons either! It does take a lot of work to do all this for yourself. I enjoy the work!🤣

Is it a coincidence that @johnwen and I are the only two installations that grounded to frame vs. another 20 ft cable to reach the battery B- terminal? 🤣 I got 30A when set to 30 and 40A at idle when set to 50. We'll see later how much of 50A I get when we pull out again and get to highway speeds.

I believe I will purchase the $50 plan for local trips, a week or less. Understand we have an unlimited T-Mobile Business data plan 4-5G cell with Pepwave router and Parsec Husky antenna that works well by itself on most days, not at the bottom of a canyon! 🤣 We watch news channels and YouTube videos. We're not the download the 2-hr 4K high-rez movie types. Twice a year we go on trips 3-4 weeks. This May-June we're going for 5-6 weeks. Then the unlimited plan makes the best sense for sure. Ordered our Mini from The Depot yesterday and it will be here tomorrow. Ordered the cabling I need coming by Friday. I will go with the company @Patriot suggested - TYA, the Striker Mount with polycarbonate shield, magnet mounts, carry handle and the front rock/bug deflector, since mainly we will have our mounted top of tow vehicle. I have my shopping cart full. They sent me a reminder but I'm waiting a few days in hope they send me a promo code. This cart adds up to a bit of $$$! They say Starlink works up to 100 MPH on the road (cool, but we'll keep it under 70). It's going to be fun!

They are lighter but larger AH LiFePO4 batteries are still heavy enough. One reason why I purchased the 300AH Epoch at 57 lbs each vs the 460AH at 84 lbs! Do you have a neighbor, a young man in the neighborhood? I grab my son for two minutes when he gets home from work for many lifting jobs, that just a few years I never gave a second thought doing it myself.

You may get some takers! I would, but I have a conflict and cannot make the Rally. 🙁 And btw, you don't have to reconfigure both chargers on day 1 of your new battery installation. You will want to to optimize charging to the manufacture's spec, but charging on LA or AGM specs will not hurt LiFePO4 batteries in the short-term.

Back in 2020 Battleborn was a favored alternative. They have good product quality and many loyal followers. Over the last few years, they market their quality position hard but have not reduced prices relative to other manufacturers. Want an inexpensive solution, what Ron showed above is great (nice installation also)! The 460AH of LiTime batteries should cost about $900 about the list price of only one 100AH Battleborn. If I remember correctly, Bill @topgun2 did a similar install more recently. A 300AH Epoch Essential battery lists for $999 (sorry last week it pwas 15% OFF). On sale, you'd need to spend $2,250 in Battleborn batteries (and a lot more space) to get the same 300AH. https://battlebornbatteries.com/shop/applications/towable-rv/

Is this an exaggeration, or did you literally use 50GB by day 2? I would think on 50 GB you could stream YouTube or whatever 3 hours a day for 5-6 days. Perhaps your wife's business use is extensive (e.g. Zoom meetings). I found this related article: https://www.starlink.com/support/article/b3de8ce8-3123-38ab-6061-4f477106a7b4

Thanks Zodd. It appears you can pause but each activation costs at least $50 for one month service. This makes more sense than what I had written which would be too good a deal! I found this on Starlink.com: https://www.starlink.com/support/article/37bb3b47-9525-7224-5f0a-6d016ce26975

Gary, I have not heard of anybody buying this brand on this forum. Epoch and LiTime are go-to brands. LiTime is also on Amazon. Found these listed on Amazon and these are LiFePO4 batteries. Besides battery replacement, you may need batteries cables or new ends/lugs. You would also need to reprogram your solar charger and perhaps replace the main charger connected to shore power, given age of hull could be an inexpensive Progressive Dynamics charger. If instead your Xantrex is an inverter/charger then program that instead. it is a bit of Work. OTT would charge a lot for this. Given your FL location you likely have many solar companies in the neighborhood who could do this work. Easy would be to replace with same size and quantity AGM batteries, nothing else required, but we are all moving to liFePO4 batteries!

Pete, I believe it must be outside. The technology does not use radio waves that follow the curvature of the earth, etc.. Instead, think of microwaves that are directional, "line-of-sight." This is why trees are an issue, like the upper shells of the Oliver would be.

The "windy season" is starting soon! 🤣 Yes, it can be windy out west anytime and often, but you can count on it Q2 of the year (Apr-Jun). The wind makes things dry out and by June there are usually fires somewhere. Late July through early Sept is monsoon season, some break in the winds, patchy rains and you hope a monsoon or two hits your property to water the trees! We moved out here from VA leaving end of June 2005 (20th anniversary)! We thought New Mexico was the worst as far as being WINDY. We had all our family belongings packed tight in a 26' "race car trailer" purchased just for the move, pulled by a brand-new Ram 2500 HD. The trailer had an awning. The NM winds in the open valleys, known for their dust storms, blew the awning wide open. It was like we had a sail attached to the trailer, pushing us down the highway! I had to tie it up to finish the trip, then rewound it when we got here in Arizona. Thanks @Patriot for first starting this thread, bringing the Mini with the $50 plan to our attention. I had remembered that you purchased a carry case. I did not realize it had an aluminum frame, made in the USA, add-on features like magnet mounts, etc. I need to look at this seriously vs. the Trio product I mentioned. Has anybody purchased the "Polycarbonate Shield" (both companies offer one)? Instead of storing the mini in a case, I want ours magnet-mounted to the roof of our tow vehicle when driving (then you don't need room somewhere else to store it and you could hook up to Wi-Fi when needed while driving). The shield may help with the pine sap too. Thanks again. JD

Certainly do these things. You may also find lifting the front helps at the dump station! When you blow out the drain (30-50 PSI is good), ALSO blow out the overflow which is under the fridge (only do this when the drain is open). A restricted overflow will impede draining, even if the drain is wide open! Learned this in high school chemistry class. 🤣 And you could use that compressed air to blow out the lines and forget about using antifreeze at all. If OTT in a video actually said to leave the fresh tank half full over winter!?! Please ignore that odd comment! Your manual drain valve has a 3/8” opening in a 1/2” PEX plumbing system. I replaced this valve with an electric motorized valve with a 12mm opening (near 1/2”). My tank now drains twice as fast! I often open the drain while on the road driving home, but don’t do this in prissy locations and those with an abundance of police officers! 🤣

How did I miss this one? Don't watch the one either about lubin' the stabilizer jacks! 🤣

Yes John, you and Susan, and your wonderful, infamous Jolli Olli, please come see us on your 2025 western trip! We have power and water hook-ups for those who are off-grid challenged 🤣, and a dump station just down the steet! It would make our day, no, it would make my year to see Y’all in Prescott Arizona! God bless

Where you live Derek, you need something good and cold to travel during summer and some of the shoulder seasons! We’ll make it through our June trip and next plan is north rim of the Canyon Sept-Oct, no A/C required.

I want to thank my friend @Derek B again for making us aware of this new A/C technology. I'm also hoping for more action on this thread, others here finding additional inverter A/C product offerings! Maybe I should custom install a mini-split in the Oliver! 🤣 I really wanted the sound level of the Turbro Greenland to be better. Both video reviews mentioned noise while Turbro writes, "as low as 45 dB" (likely at lowest fan and compressor settings). Though I love how the inverter compressor is always-on variable-speed and manages power so efficiently. I contacted Kevin at SDG last week to ask a few questions. The Atmos with SoftStart, LTL shipping is required this year at $150 (UPS was damaging units, go figure) and they do charge for out-of-state sales tax! I was not expecting all this which comes to near $2,000 total. I have decided to wait on the Atmos (even though @rideadeuce just posted a rave review) and any A/C purchase, at least for now, in hopes that a new inverter model will become available. The Greenland is a first production model and should get better soon. I wanted it for a summer trip though we leave late May and will be home by the 4th of July, heading to Minnesota and coming back through the Dakotas and Wyoming. We'll hope for the Jet Stream flying low early summer of this year!

I believe I will be next. I've read the $100 sale may end for awhile after Mar 31st. I found out that Home Depot is a reseller for Starlink and I have a 10% coupon also ending 3/31. These Mini's should get cheap at some point, but net $450 may be the best price for 2025, at least until Black Friday sales late in the year. I'm thinking the Trio Mini Speedmount with magnet mounts for doing a fixed installation on the roof of our tow vehicle, integrated to the Pepwave router. And for the case where we need to get out from under trees, etc. I will get a battery setup and not use a power cord. This way, we would use the Starlink vs. the Pepwave Wi-Fi. I found several $20 kits that use the 20V DeWalt tool batteries. We always bring 3-4 DeWalt batteries with us, for a flashlight, an impact tool, a vacuum and leaf blower, and we have an extra charger permanently in the attic. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DM1T6VX2/?th=1

Last test for now... What if when boondocking, far from hook-ups and other campers, you're needing A/C on a HOT afternoon, and your batteries getting low? You could start and connect the tow vehicle to the DC-DC charger. Diesels can idle forever using little fuel. The truck alternator via the Orion charger could supplement inverted power to the A/C for some period of time. The approx. +40A noted before at idle should offset the AH used by the A/C system. These readings (pic1) show this to be true, +39A were being supplemented by the charger at this point in time - nice! Also notice, the Time Remaining stat increased from 2 1/2 hours to 4 hours given the lower AH usage. I will eventually install an A/C that uses much less power than the Dometic PII. That's all folks.

I needed to verify numbers showing for the Orion Charger are relative to what the Victron Smart Shunt was reading at the batteries. The screenprints (Orion vs. Shunt) were as follows (pic1). Why does the Smart Shunt showing 10A more? Because the Blue Sky solar (pic2) was adding +12A and the remainder -2.3A is used for inverter standby overhead, exterior Courtesy Lights (always on) and some parasitic. These numbers add up nicely!

At start of the performance test, the 600AH Epoch Essentials LiFePO4 batteries were at 100%, rooftop solar sitting in the midday Arizona sun. So, I started the A/C on inverter. It was a mild day low 60s. I set the thermostat down to 55F, opened the windows so no cold air would collect inside and just 34 minutes later SOC was down to 86%, with the old compressor of the noisy Dometic PII running continuously. I also warmed up the tow vehicle and after 25 minutes idling the gauges looked like this (pic1). Engine Coolant Temp (ECT) was up to 160F (190F is fully warmed up). The idle engine speed at 800 RPM and battery voltage held steady at 14.1V. I did not take a second picture but when the truck was connected to the DC-DC charger, voltage read 13.8V on this gauge. At first I had configured MAX charge to 30A and took a reading and quickly reconfigured it to the default 50A max charge. Below are the two screenprints, shown left to right (pic2). Set at 30A MAX, 30A was received and 30A also in output. Set at 50A max, the charger output was 40A. This must be due to the 800 RPM idle speed. At highway speeds, the Cummins is generally about +/- 1900 RPM so the HD alternator should produce both higher voltage and amperage. Again, voltage measured at the truck was 13.8V and when the charger was set for a 30A it read incoming voltage at 13.6V, a -0.2V voltage drop. When producing 40A, the Orion read 13.2V, a -0.6V drop. Is this voltage drop along the wiring? And I do not understand the lower voltages produced on the output side, as I would think the Orion charger would output higher voltage in the range of 13.6V to 14.2V to the batteries. Maybe Geoff @Snackchaser knows, how does this makes sense? The 30A charge looks fully efficient. Set at 50A I got 40A idling at 800 RPM. The final test, I will run start of your next trip, will be to test the 50A charge setting at highway speeds. All this was done sitting at idle in my driveway. More to come…

Next is the tow vehicle side installation. The Ram Cummins and most diesels have dual batteries. I chose to connect to the RHS battery since there are less connections, because its proximity to the alternator, and because I wanted a straight run down the frame to the RHS of the rear bumper. Looking ahead, last year I installed a custom Nations 180A HD alternator. OEM rating on our truck is 130A, thus gaining 50A for charging ampacity! Starting at the battery, I ran the B+ cable along the fender rail to keep it away from the heat of the exhaust manifold and entered the main frame member just behind the engine. Conveniently, there are two holes in the frame just behind the front wheel (pic1). The RH opening is where it comes from the engine and the LH is where it continues all the way to the rear wheel. I had 100’ of 1/2" automotive loom from a past project which made for a clean installation! I removed the RR wheel for ease of access in running the cable. It took a couple of wire ties to get up and over the rear wheel-well but mostly the 4 AWG cable just lies nicely inside the frame beam, very well protected. I decided it should come out below the rear bumper yet above the trailer hitch. The Anderson SB175 connectors are huge (pic2). A full inch or more of bare wire is required inside each pole connector, so I crimped each in two places. There are a series of holes across the bottom of the rear bumper. I used the two holes closest to the center, fabricated and simple bracket to hold the heavy environmental boot in place (pic3). This worked out great as you can push in and pull out the trailer side connection with one hand and it does not budge! So, I have the trailer harness connection on the left and the DC-DC cables on the right (pic4). It looks clean, nice and balanced. Many on this forum and elsewhere believe you need both B+ and B- 4 AWG (minimum) wire running all the way end-to-end! This is certainly true for the B+ cable. For the B- cable, I merely ran a 2 ft length from the Anderson coupler grounded to the rear frame. I believe an 8” section of steel frame will produce less electrical resistance than 4 AWG copper and testing showed this to be either true or “good enough!” I ran another short 4 AWG ground wire from the B- battery terminal to the front of the same frame member. Last step was to connect the B+ charger cable and reconnect the battery terminals. I used another 60A MRBF for the main run (pic5). I also ran short cable from the B+ terminal to the alternator (for redundancy, this connects the charger B+ to both the alternator and batteries with new 4 AWG copper). I’ve never seen anybody take these extra steps, but I believe it will provide better charging performance. You’re running 4 AWG everywhere else, but OEM cables from battery to alternator are usually only 6 or 8 AWG and solid grounds are often an automotive issue. BTW, OTT only installs one 6 AWG ground wire for everything running on DC! I added a second 6 AWG ground cable from the negative bus in line to the batteries in a previous upgrade. This should work great, I really liked how it turned out. I measured carefully and purchased only 65 ft of black 4 AWG wire (not bad for wiring an extended cab long bed pickup truck tow vehicle)! I used all of it, and every run has slack on both ends and the trailer side connector is 6” longer than the standard hitch coupler cable. I ran thorough testing today and I'm getting 40A charging output with the Cummins diesel running at idle! Yes, engine running at idle. I captured pictures of all the Victron Connect screens showing Orion and Smart Shunt data. I'm getting rather tired tonight, so to do this reporting justice I'll get all my data together and add another post tomorrow. As I opened my thread above, "this charger setup is awesome!"

I’ve had the parts forever and between work and some travel, a list of injuries (that made it extremely difficult to kneel in the basement or crawl under the truck) I finally have this done, fully installed and performance tested! The bottom line is, “this charger is awesome!” A month ago, I was working on waste valves under the front dinette seat when it occurred to me to run the charger cabling in the Oliver since I had everything opened. I always drill the smallest hole possible, no fancy cable glands for me. Two 3/8” holes would been enough, but I had grommets in a parts box 1/2" OD and 3/8” ID which were the perfect size. I glued them in place and afterwards caulked all of the cable openings front of hull (no pics taken). It makes sense to wire the charger before mounting the board (pic1). The wiring is rather simple but the 4 AWG wire barely fits into the terminals. The 4 AWG wire will not fit into the Oliver ground/neutral bus, so I crimped on a lug and cut it to fit the opening. I installed the two grounds side-by-side (the other coming from the tow vehicle) (pic2). When I worked my earlier inverter upgrade and rewiring projects, I had saved room for the new Orion DC-to-DC charger (pic3 close-up and pic4). The main + bus (in red) is protected by a 90A Marine Rated Battery Fuse (MRBF) that connects by 4/0 cable directly to the Victron Inverter-Charger bus and then through a 400A ANL fuse connected to the batteries (400A Victron Mulitplus spec). All major circuits are connected to the main bus; the 40A breaker OTT installed for all the Oliver 12VDC circuits, two solar chargers (OEM Blue Sky for rooftop panels and a Victron 30A MPPT charger for a Renogy 400W suitcase) and the new DC-DC charger circuit which is connected through a 60A MRBF (see center of pic3). The secondary +bus (in black because I purchased a set) is protected by the OEM 40A breaker which connects to the 12VDC panel, the 3 jack fuses, etc. These are 8mm thick solid copper buses for minimal resistance. A considerable upgrade compared to the original OEM installation. I attached the Anderson connection, front of trailer, and then got under it to see all the many zip ties that OTT installed. OMG, they should have better cable management! I replaced a lot of these because of age, but I did not want to merely zip tie this new heavy dual cable harness! Instead, I used the u-bolts that hold the front basket and cut brackets to support the cables including the trailer harness in two places, in front and rear of the basket. The picture shows the front bracket (pic5). And after taking this picture I hammered both ends of the bracket to curve them up almost touching the upper bracket to create a D-shape. I could have purchased pretty brackets, but these were on hand, fully functional and can only be seen while lying on the ground! The trailer side installation was then done! When I finished and reconnected the house batteries, the blue light on the Orion started blinking and it was listed as a device on the Victron Connect app. So before even working on the tow vehicle installation, I was able to update the firmware and configure the Orion charger. I reduced the output charge to 30A for safety concerns and initial testing. The battery settings were close enough, within 0.1V of the specs for Epoch LiFePO4 batteries.

We love Elon Musk in our family and before this year, I was never interested in an EV or even wanting a Starlink connection. TOTAL respect of this great American! His products are the most forward-thinking products of the 21st Century (Tesla, SpaceX, AI, his work in healthcare, etc.) OMG! Besides, who else do you know, on planet Earth or Mars, who measures 99.999% right-of-bell-curve in intelligence, with engineering and business sense? He's also good person, soft-spoken and humble. He who just rescued two NASA astronauts, left stranded by .gov! Those who protest, speak to the contrary, are very wrong. He's respectful of others at all levels and wanting the American dream he achieved for all Americans.

I'm thinking I may have this wrong, the "too good to be true" kind-a-thing. To me the $50 for 50 GB plan is good enough with $1/GB when over 50Gb. Then I read where you can pause the 50GB plan, use it for a few days or weeks, pause your access and then use it later. Can any current Starlink Roam plan user confirm if this is indeed true? I likely have this wrong. But if so, there would be no reason to buy 10 MB plus $2/MB when you can pay for 50GB and use it only when needed. If it cannot be paused, I would buy 10GB to get the Starlink installed, configured to our router, test access and then buy the $10 plan for a few days on the road, or pay $50 for a longer camp! 🤣

Wow, $55 or more! I have more tools than most, except for @ScubaRx of course! Two issues I see with this tool. First, you're not understanding the underlying cause, i.e. why is the Zerk stuck? Like Steve noted, the wet bolts are likely misaligned. Second, I would say half of the Zerks in the Oliver and ALL the other vehicles we have, there is no way in the world you have a straight-line shot to the Zerk where you could get this device and a hammer behind it. It just will not fit in too many cases. I did buy the suggested DeWalt power grease gun though, and it has been a blessing to the old body!