jd1923
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Posts posted by jd1923
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We did a drive-through at Dead Horse Ranch State Park a few years ago and it looked like a very nice place to camp! Thinking of exploring the Verde Valley and Sedona areas more closely from this campsite (still on our list, though we've been to Sedona and throughout the Verde Valley dozens of times). The park borders north end of Cottonwood, and the Verde River runs through it, while Jerome is a 10-mile 2000 ft climb SW almost to the top of Mingus Mountain. Sedona does not allow dispersed camping anywhere around their beautiful village (must have a Red Rock Pass to even park at many of the trailheads) and this park is truly the best place to visit everywhere from Sedona to Jerome to Camp Verde, including all the ancient Anasazi Indian sites (Tuzigoot and Montezuma Castle and Well).
Don't miss Cornville where the Oak Creek snakes through this picturesque valley town. Everywhere so green it's truly an oasis, downstream from the majestic Oak Creek Canyon, Slide Rock State Park and Sedona, just before it merges with the Verde. Another item on our list is to take the restored Verde Railroad from Clarkdale up the Verde Canyon to Perkinsville, AZ.
Want a truly cliff-hanging scary drive? Drive the dirt road (FS318) from Perkinsville to Jerome along the northside of Woodchute Mountain (don't take your Ollie)! We did this white-knuckled route once, about 15 years ago but never again! Getting to Perkinsville, to see the headwaters of the Verde River is a drive itself, from either Chino Valley to the west or Williams to the north (easier to get to by rail). We've hit every trail in the area on dirt bikes through the years.
Sierra Vista and points SE of Tucson are certainly on our list. That area is about the only part of Arizona we have not explored. Wish we made it a winter trip priority earlier as every winter we head down to "the Valley" and points beyond. However lately, the locals of Central and Northern Arizona will not travel that direction until they get the US border back in control (our family too). SW AZ, from Quartzite to Yuma is OK, but be truly careful, packed and ready, if you venture to SE AZ at this time.
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On 1/17/2024 at 3:29 PM, Wandering Sagebrush said:
Is that a black and white springer spaniel looking out your door?
Charley is the "Liver & White" Springer, from Texas Springers English Springer Spaniels in Aubrey, TX | TEXAS SPRINGERS He's going to be 10 years old this summer, and we got him as a pup when we lived in the Austin area (past homes in Georgetown and Lakeway, TX).
Honestly, he doesn't care whether Dad does it right or not. Just can't wait to get out, sniff his new surroundings and lay on the camping mat to post guard! Poor guy has gotten older and with a torn left CCL and our new tall mattresses, he now has his own new doggie mattress situated between us on the floor. He whimpers looking up for 5-10 minutes and then lies down for the night. I have no idea how some of you share such little space with your dogs! He's also 65 LBS and were not lifting him anymore!
More on our Burro Creek visit when I collect my thoughts and download a few pictures. Thanks to all who commented!
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On 1/18/2024 at 8:30 AM, Jps190 said:
I ended up taking the rails and nightstand off...
Excellent work John! Would you happen to have a picture of your work before the mattress was added? Rails off, showing your platform and how the nightstand was either cropped or removed. That would be a great addition to your post. Thanks
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1 hour ago, MAX Burner said:
Awesome report @jd1923! Can't wait to get ours connected to the system. About how far is it from your LR to the Dongle?
About 70 ft to the LR couch, 90 ft when i was in the DR on the other side of the fireplace. This morning it would not work behind the stone fireplace, but when I walked beside it, still 90 ft it connected quickly. Is worth it.
Don't challenge my math @mossemi, as an Industrial Engineer, with MSIE and PMP, I've spent a lifetime correcting the math of so many MBA financial types. What I wrote earlier is the purchasing the Dongle at $40 is 30% more than the $130 SmartShunt alone ($130 + $40)/$130 = 1.31 a 31% increase.
The common feeling is the SmartShunt product, advertising Bluetooth from Victron should do the same job as their Bluetooth Dongle, not some half-@ss weak version. Why should the consumer have to pay 30% more for it to work effectively? Not truly inflation, was just a joke re what the gov has been doing to us lately! Both are shameful, the latter much worse. I'll take spending an extra $40 on this vs. the extra $600 we spend on groceries monthly, then the fuel costs, utilities, restaurant... I'll stop now!
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I was able to read battery data while driving all the way back from our trip. It was of greater interest, since the batteries had less charge and this was the first time I ever ran a DC fridge while driving (LP off). We only have lead-acid although a decent 450AH. We ran our inverter most of the time, played DVDs, the TV and soundbar, the furnace overnight, an electric tea kettle the first morning, a little microwave and batteries were down to 79%. The next day was cloudy, only got up to 85%. Next day boiled water with LP instead, down to 75% and back to 85% on a sunny day. The sun is really low during winter, isn't it? Seemed like it hardly came over the deep canyon walls where we camped.
Ran the fridge on DC today, 3 hours back with a lunch stop, batteries got down to 67%. Plugged into shore power and back to 100% in a little more than an hour. At least that's what Victronconnect reported. It should really take longer, as the charger kept giving lesser amperage all night.
BTW, now that we're back home, Oliver parked behind our shed, the dongle is performing better than ever! Before we left, I had to be near our LR window. Now anywhere in the living room it connects instantly. So as a test, I walked past the LR, behind our double-sided real granite stone fireplace and it connected. It took 3-4 seconds longer to connect but did so without timing out as it had before.
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On 1/18/2024 at 5:05 AM, Ronbrink said:
If you get the VE.Direct Smart Dongle, how would it be wired into your setup? I haven’t installed my Cerbo, but know it has a VE.Direct cable going to the SmartShunt VE.Direct cable port.
I plugged the VE.Direct Smart Dongle directly into my SmartShunt IP65. If you have the Victron Cerbo, it appears it has three (3) VE.Direct ports (see pic), so should not be a problem.
When I purchased my dongle, I was not sure if I was going to end up with 2 male connectors (or 2 female? very hard to see), so I purchase this kit which I did not need. I believe you can daisy-chain as many connections as you want and also make extension cables if needed: Amazon.com: 20 Sets Mini Micro Jst 2.0 Ph 4 Pin Connector Plug Male With 150mm Cable & Female : Electronics
In fact, if you want to mount the dongle up high for better reception, you can cut off micro 4-pin connector, drill only an 1/8" hole through the fiberglass and then solder a new connector after passing the wire. Not a bad deal, 20 connectors for $8!
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Living in Central Arizona we are surrounded by so many great day trips! Less than an hour to Jerome and Cottonwood, 1 1/4 hours to Sedona, 2 to the Grand Canyon. Check out Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Area, even better (2nd largest canyon in Arzona) just 90 minutes, just past Williams. Just to name a few!
We're here for 3 nights, at $14 a night or $7 with the Lifetime Senior pass. Where can you get 3 nights in a most beautiful canyon for $21. No hookups, but a dump station and a separate freshwater station. 85 miles and 2 hours from our home.
Burro Creek Campground | Bureau of Land Management (blm.gov)NO cell service though. Starlink would be great to have here. Also, no TV or even radio reception in the canyon. At just under 2000' elevation, winter is the season here. Low mid 30's last night and at 1:40 PM it's now 62 (a cloudy day today, otherwise it be 70+). It's too hot in the summer here. Half the sites were empty, many of them listed FF on recreation.gov. I'm thinking if you could get service here, this place would be fully booked.
Stopped for lunch at LUCHIA’S RESTAURANT - 136 Photos & 97 Reviews - 15797 S Hwy 93, Wikieup, Arizona - New American - Restaurant Reviews - Phone Number - Yelp Highly recommended on any Phoenix to Vegas trip, quick stop on the Hwy 93 just north of Wikieup, AZ. They have guest Wi-Fi.
Much more re our trip when we get back home this weekend, as we plan to spend our remaining time offline! Note in the first pick Charley is busy watching Dad setup camp.
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Update for those of you with the SmartShunt. On our road trip yesterday, 85 miles from home to Burro Creek Campground, I connected while driving the whole way on the main page showing V and A. When clicking on details for the shunt, no-go the connection timed out. Doing the same with the dongle, it connected quickly every time, full details page after taking another 1-2 seconds to read data. And right now, I only have mine taped to the batteries. I'd say worth the extra $40 + tax.
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On a different vein, another thing to think about is the water valves, HWH bypass, etc. There is also the furnace to think about.
When you cover the walkway to the nightstand, you will be covering the main (first) heater duct and the air return. You may want to close off that duct, pushing more air to the other(s). I'm not remembering now how many there are. By having a heating duct in a semi-closed space with the return you are cycling the furnace. The hot air comes out of that duct, and it has nowhere to go but right back into the return.
@Jps190 If I was to do a king, I would work your original idea!
Drill out those rivets carefully and lose the rails, so you can have the mattress(es) at one common height. This is the best answer, given you want the king bed setup the majority of the time. -
On 1/13/2024 at 6:08 PM, MAX Burner said:
"... Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave..."Love it - thanks Art!
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That would lose a prior Bluetooth connection.
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1 hour ago, Jason Foster said:
Every time she gets out to "push", she finds another pretty rock to add to her collection in the trailer somewhere.
@Jason Foster I believe I'm starting to get your sense of humor!
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A king is nice, but in this application hard to climb into and even more so to get out of! We're not getting any younger! We had a full length (60x80") queen in our old Class-C, instead of the shorter RV queen, and there we had side paths to exit. The Oliver twins are a single, half a short queen with radius corners to boot. Space is at a premium, in this narrow Oliver.
At home we have the best hybrid Cali-King money can buy from Brooklyn Bedding. At 6' 3" and 220 LBS on a good day, I would kill for these little singles to be 80" long, let alone the 84" length of the California King! We did one short trip on the Oliver premium twin mattresses and listed them in the Free Stuff section on Craigs when we got home. Nice to have them out of the way for my other upgrades! Went with BB again at rvmattress.com for new single mattresses available from 6" to 14" deep.
A king mattress will not fit (4" too long), and an RV king will not fit through the Oliver door. Keep the two single beds and add a center cushion? The best you could do for a permanent installation would be to buy two high-quality twin beds allowing each person the 39" width of a twin vs. the 30" width of single. Just some thoughts to consider.
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Good test @MAX Burner and keep in mind the dry air of Quartzite is likely best conditions possible. An overcast day on the coast would impede the signal a little.
We're on the road tomorrow, on way to Burro Creek, so I'll report on what I read from the cab of our TV. Thanks
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I went ahead and purchased the Victron Smart Dongle: Amazon.com: Victron Energy VE.Direct Smart Dongle (Bluetooth) : Electronics
I really need to stop spending on this Oliver, but after $130+tax on the SmartShunt, what's another $40+tax to achieve a decent Bluetooth range? Maybe I've gotten used to the 30% inflation manufactured over the last 3 years. Getting used to it, that's scary, but yep spent another 30%!
So far, I can't say whether the Dongle has truly increased range, though I believe it created a new home page reading in the VictronConnect app (see pic). From the 60' distance to my living room, I cannot connect to either device for the detail page. Click on either device and the connection will time out. However, on the app "My Devices" home page, it now shows battery voltage and amperage flow on both devices. I'm not absolutely positive, but I do not remember seeing these readings prior to installing the Dongle.
The Dongle does plug-in directly to the SmartShunt (at least for the pre-wired IP65 version I had purchased). I have not yet mounted it, as the Dongle right now is just hanging off the outside face of the batteries. Perhaps signal distance could be improved if mounted at Oliver window height. The cables end-to- end add up to close to 10' and they do sell cable extensions (let's spend another 10%). BTW, adding another device, more wiring and more $$ one of the most frequent complaints on several RV forums.
Honestly, battery voltage and +/- amperage readings is all I need and care about. I don't need to % full, if your over 13V you're full enough! Don't often care about charge history and other data. Notice in the pic how the shunt has 5 bars and the dongle one. This is NOT accurate, as these reading will flip back and forth constantly, at least when they are close, but out of range.
And best yet, the Dongle already saved my butt the very first day I installed it! We're leaving on a camping trip tomorrow, so over the weekend we were getting everything ready. Cleaned the interior again (after all my upgrade work), unwrapping new mattresses, new bedding, filling the pantry, and more.
Turns out one of the mattresses, while laying sideways in the hallway, had turned the fridge on, and with shore power disconnect, LP turned off, it was running in the DC position! Late that night, I opened the app again to test, only to see our batteries were down to 12.2V and the other reading was -14.5A! What? How could that be? Got dressed again and went out to see and finally noticed that fridge LED was on.
Like I wrote in an earlier post, you want to check these two readings at least every time you leave your Oliver! If not, I would have gotten up today to lead-acid batteries below 50% for sure. Turned the fridge off (will plug in and fill the fridge today) and amps went down to -0.5A. You can see in the pic below that the OEM solar package already has our batteries pretty full at 13.1V adding net +5.7A at 10:20 AM. I wiped the solar panels with a wet towel yesterday, boy they were dirty!
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OK, so let's call that worn shackle bushing needing replacement vs. the trailer needing an alignment. When these bushings go dry and get bad, after a whole lot of miles, you would hear screeching or some kind of metal on metal noise. The trailer wheels would still drive pretty much straight and could not be the cause of cupping one of 4 trailer tires.
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Make sure your spouse's phone, a laptop or another device is not connected. The message "LINK OKAY" likely means there is a connection, but perhaps not your source. When we've had this connectivity issue, this is generally the cause.
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On 1/12/2024 at 11:11 PM, 2008RN said:
I never thought about mounting at 90 degrees...
When mounting flat, call it "floor-mounting" the heat sink is under the electronics of the charger, and since heat rises, a cooling fan would be necessary. When "wall mounting" the heat can escape naturally as heat rises. Given adequate ventilation space above, though hard to find in the Oliver basement, would eliminate the need for a fan.
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Along the theme of "Inexpensive Helpful Modifications" thank you @Wandering Sagebrush I had shown this in my water pressure upgrade topic, but it certainly belongs here. How about a real outdoor shower?
Buy a pair of these (or you can purchase one). Hang one high above head height and hang the second one lower to wash your dog(s). Only the clear plastic mount stays taped to the Oliver and the bracket fits in the shower cabinet! They come in white. Still an inexpensive mod, even though with the crazy inflation seen over the last 3 years, the single now costs what I paid for a 2-pack just 3 months ago! JONKEAN 2 Pack Handheld Shower Head Holder with 2 Hanger Hooks, Strong Adhesive Shower Head Holder, Adjustable Shower Wand Holder Wall Mount, Bathroom Waterproof Shower Handle Holder No Drill Need - Amazon.com
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I'm with @Mike and Carol for under $20 each, never liked parts painted over! Spend half that amount on paint anyway. And thanks Mike, I just added these to my wish list!
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@Mike and Carol today I thought of a 4th item to check. However, probability on this item being the cause is also lower than bearings and spindle.
This would be the RR shock. If the shock absorber at that position failed drastically it could affect tire wear. To test, remove the shock and push it down to full compression on a workbench. Release it and look closely to see that it gradually returns to full length without hiccups or hesitation. Run it up and down 2-3 times in this manner.
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An unbalanced tire causes vibration. It would have to be extreme to create this kind of cupping, and less likely than other causes. Checking the balance doesn't matter anymore, since after this cupping it is certainly out of balance.
You must determine cause, though bottom-line Mike, before a major trip you need to but a pair of new tires for that axle. Save the good one in case you do not find cause and have another single tire worn upon your return.
I read some comments here suggesting alignment, but there are no alignment mechanisms in trailers like in an automobile or truck. You cannot adjust camber, caster or toe-in on trailer wheels. Looking at the picture, you can see that the axles are attached and float on the leaf springs, which bolted to the frame at 3 fixed points. The leaf springs generally have a centering hole that would not shift and again, not adjustable. Also, it is highly unlikely that a damaged axle would affect one side and NOT the other!
Likely possibilities: a 1) damaged rim, 2) the bearings or spindle, or perhaps 3) the leaf spring for that wheel. When your trailer is sitting level, before you jack it up, inspect the leaf spring thoroughly and compare its height and shape to the good side. When you get the affected wheel up in the air, check for free play by pushing it in the 3 to 9 o'clock and 6 to 12 positions. Remove the wheel and check the backside of the rim for any cracks or bends. Now look again at the leaf spring thoroughly and check for bangs, bends or cracks.
Lastly, it is most likely the bearings or a worn spindle on which they sit. It appears the cupping is more so on the outer edges of the tire, which again looks like bearings. See what the grease looks like. Clean inner and outer bearings with old fuel or kerosene, blow dry and see if they spin freely and quickly when sitting on a workbench. Check the axle to see if it is out-of-round, has any discoloration, bad spots or anything that does not look like clean hardened factory steel.
Of course, correct anything found to be damaged. If you cannot find anything, just repack your bearings, mount those new tires and try to enjoy your trip!
Once you get underway check the temp of each hub each time you stop. I just read this in another thread here. You can get the fancy infrared digital thermometer, or just use the palm of your hand to feel the heat. Feel if one hub seems hotter than the rest. And of course, keep a closer eye on this RR position that had the issue. Good news is you found this prior to leaving, tire cupping is not life threatening immediately, as it likely took tens of 1000s of highway miles for this tire to get this amount of cupping. I understand you put a lot of miles on your Oliver annually. Best wishes
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29 minutes ago, Galway Girl said:
Maybe this... We use one of these Hasko cup holders in our Bathroom for toothbrushes.
Thank you, these look well made. And sorry, @Mountainman198 for adding a tangent to your thread.
Question, does the pearl white cup come out of the chrome frame easily? This way you could likely fit a thermos style cup in the holder. Thanks again to both of you.
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What is your preferred sleeping position in your Oliver? (given the twin bed option) And please comment with any pros & cons you see.
Quartzite: JAN2024?
in Events & Rallies
Posted
Anybody going to be in Quartzite or anywhere southwest Arizona the week of Feb 5th? It would be great to run into some Oliver Owners!
We're meeting an old friend at White Tank Mountain Regional Park (west valley of Phoenix), checking in on Feb 8th for 3 nights. BTW, they still have some sites on the 8th and 10th. Since I have that week off work, I thought we could leave a couple of days earlier if something was going on that week in Quartzite. We'd be lost in Quartzite without someone to meet up with and would likely camp near Wickenburg or somewhere that direction.
Art @MAX Burner will likely be leaving before too long. Would love to meet up. Anyway, let us know. Thanks