jd1923

There are a few installs documented. @Galway Girl and @rideadeuce to name a couple. Just search for keyword “Starlink.” These are not the Mini, but installation cannot be much different. I hope to buy one Dec-Jan and will document my installation. @Patriot has a recent thread on the Mini, and he is adamant on its being portable, stating the need to use it when the Oliver is camped where view of the northern sky is blocked. This is an important valid point. Mine will be installed on the tow vehicle, plugged into our Pepwave router, also installed in the TV. The Pepwave would look first to cellular signal, switching to Starlink when needed to minimize Starlink data used saving $$$. I figure that if the Oliver is blocked from the northern sky, which is rare in the SW where we do not have the tall trees of the east, I can park the TV in a better position which could be 100+ FT away and still have Wi-Fi access, broadcasted by the powerful Parsec antenna. I'm trying not to add more portable gear, the setup and tear down. Kinda sorry I invested in suitcase solar vs. another rooftop panel or just a DC-DC charger. It’s great that Starlink now has affordable options. Oh, and we have a monstrosity of a Winegard Dish Sat device, front of ours, yes bug collector, that I will remove soon. What a mess with all the screw holes OTT drilled in the roof (use 3M 4950 VHB tape).

Our TV is also a brighter white, but our TV is 24 years old and the whites are now pretty close. The front fenders and hood of the TV could use some paint too. Sunlight UV rays do take their toll. I’ve got a painter, a retired pro who has a paint booth on his property and does reasonable side jobs at half todays shop rates.

I used to truly dislike paint, like as a teenager when my mom wanted me to paint over the natural pine paneling in the stairwell and lower hallway going to my bedroom. You can never get the wood back, but of course Mom was mom, Yes Ma’am! This thread makes me feel confident in letting our fiberglass sit in the AZ sun another 1-2 years without worry or care, love it! Then when I get some $$$$ saved, I will paint it the Dodge color codes of my truck. Not selling the truck, not selling the Oliver. This would look cool and the upper shell would still be white, but a little brighter white. The picture was taken after sunset, so it’s very dark. The upper portion is bright white. Notice the center rib which looks a lot like the joint on the Oliver between upper and lower shells. This would look awesome, IMHO.

Just pulled into site 71 and noticed 3 Olivers on the way in! Already met neighbors CJ and Maureen from Oklahoma! This is going to be great. Thanks again @Donna and Scott!

PLEASE do not take my following comments personally. In the case of FIRE, always error in caution. Living in a state where fire danger is serious. I have not lit, nor allowed anyone to even light a candle on our property, let alone a fire. Love fireworks, but have not used them in over 20 years. State parks do not declare fire danger conditions nor burn bans. There are Texas state parks in 20+ counties. State counties or the NFS will declare fire conditions. The Prescott National Service governs all fire restrictions in our area. We study their website to see if we can light a fire, go trap or target shooting, or even ride a dirt bike in our forest. Generally, none of this is allowed during our dry summers. Central and west Texas can go through many years of drought. The Hill Country of Central Texas was in drought for 7 years when we lived there years ago. I was a true pyro at heart, loved fires, but have grown up and become responsible. Today I will only light our LP fire ring plumbed to our Oliver LP port. Nineteen (19) Hot Shot firefighters died in Yarnell AZ and our community just mourned the 11th anniversary of this loss: https://azstateparks.com/hotshots/the-hotshots/about-the-hotshots Come visit, hike the trail, and maybe like me, you may never want to start a fire again. We just visited Ruidoso NM and it’s such a shame to witness their loss, and from what I understand, caused by man.

Isn’t it great that many Oliver Owners can forgo hookups for several days! 🤣

luv ya Scotty! 🤣 At times, I have to curb Chris on this issue even with our 2500 Cummins! Gotta see this movie in full, the trailer doesn’t do it justice! Also, what an AMAZING trailer, built over 70 years ago. Also crazy, pulling this beast with what I believe is a 53 Olds (1/2 ton at best). I’ll take one for $1,800, even $18K, likely today worth $18M, but it would not truly make a mountain climb in Arizona, with or without her hidden ROCKS! We’ve got to rent this again!

It’s great to be back in Texas, what a well-run state! Business is key, great schools and sports, very well kept roads and great city/county/state parks. Not all the public lands of the west, but so much more open space than back east. We moved to Georgetown Texas in 2006 and moved out of Texas end of November 2014, so it’s been 10 years. I’ve flown in for business a half dozen times, driven from FL to AZ in 2018, but this is our first real visit to Texas in 10 years and we can’t wait to see old friends and new! Not considered a Boondocking state, though it appears every city or county in West Texas has a park with free camping. Some have free hookups! 🤣 Did groceries today at H-E-B, Big Spring TX. Given all the inflation of the last 3 years, prices considerably less than anywhere in Arizona, or likely most states. Last night we stayed at Yoakum County Park and tonight we are at Foster Creek Park, west of San Angelo. It’s not Yellowstone or Zion, but we have more fun at small quiet places I’m sure you know what I mean. Thanks for reading. Tomorrow we’ll be one of the early birds arriving at Inks Lake SP for the Rally! Come by campsite #71 to say hello if you are attending!

Thanks for this Steve! Our Hull 113 built 9 years ago, having lived a lot of outdoors in the SW sun, is pretty dull. Some shine on the curbside, which is nice since it is the side where live when we camp. Ours will be the flat one at the Texas Rally! For CGI’s service, their website states price “Starting at $3,000” and thinking they’d want more given the condition of our hull. Also, they suggest re-servicing on a regular basis. They’re also too far away for us. Though I’d be worried about paint chipping on the front and paint can turn into a nightmare if removal is needed. BTW, the colors above are not the best of choices, can I say awful? IMHO. I do like the Casita two-tone, if it was an exact match to the two-tone white-gray of our truck. Thanks @MAX Burner!

And the origin of Smokey the Bear started on Capitan Mountain, Lincoln County, just north of Riudoso. Also the stomping grounds of Billy the Kid. https://smokeybear.com/en/smokeys-history/story-of-smokey

We spent 3 days and nights in Wonderful Ruidoso NM! They had bad fires and floods early summer and the village is still working cleanup efforts. Still an amazing beautiful place, wildlife walking around feeding on grass in town. Ruidoso is one of the true gems of New Mexico! We wrote earlier re the “White Mountains.” The area surrounding Ruidoso also uses this name: https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/lincoln/recarea/?recid=78583 Last March we met a fun couple at a public Pickleball court while camping at Casa Grande AZ. They invited us and we took them up on this visit. Great hosts showed us around town, made us dinner, bought us dinner out (we tried to pay)! New BFFs and we played PBall all 3 days with a great group of locals and Texans that frequent this resort town. We stayed Midtown Mountain RV Park right in the village. We are often Boondocking and there’s good campsites everywhere but for 3 days wanted to be close to everything! https://midtownmountaincampground.com/ They had some sort of LED lighting system that made all the light speckles in the photo. Nice quiet place for being in town, good bathrooms, friendly owner. Elk and wild/feral horses in town, bear a mountain lions in the surrounding hills! We will come back often! IMG_3822.mov

Yes you can, but it will not charge correctly and fully unless it has a LiFePO4 setting. Yes, for now do it, being careful to connect positive to +tive cables, negative to… The other concern is how many amps is your charger rated. Many are only 10A. To fully charge 640 AH Lithionics that are at 50% SOC with a 10A charger will take 32 hours. Leave it connected overnight. An OK short-term fix until you get your Xantrex 3000 working!

Think it was February of about the same year. By myself in ONLY a ‘76 Malibu, left Chicago late morning and got to a friend's house in Portland the next afternoon. Just looked it up on my phone map and that was over 2100 miles non-stop. Oh, the adrenaline of youth! About 10 years ago, drove my truck 1100 miles, Prescott to Austin nonstop. That was the last time for me! We left Prescott a full week ago and so far we’ve just entered west Texas, left Ruidoso this morning and spending tonight, free camping at Yoakum County Park. Our longest day driving on this trip will be 4.5 hours, average 3 hours a day. The beauty of a relaxing Oliver trip!

just noticed this wording in the other thread cited here, "the router is built into the dish." Are all the Starlink Minis built this way? When I installed our Pepwave system, January of this year, they were asking $2,500 for Starlink HW and to my knowledge no mini was available. I want to add Starlink soon, but I do not want another router. The Pepwave has a WAN RJ45 input port, and it has the smarts to choose between the WAN source and cellular. I also want to install ours on our tow vehicle like I did the cellular antenna. Maybe I need another Starlink product vs. the Mini?

After our Oliver has been parked for a long, hotter than average, summer, we are finally on a trip. Of course there has been a lot of worry re this subject. I noticed while driving a simple way to know whether your leaf springs are OK. Check your rear view mirror and note the horizontal line of the tailgate is parallel to the line on the Oliver where the hulls are attached. When a leaf breaks you will see one side lower, an angle instead of parallel lines! If a street side leaf had broken, you could not easily tell from the entry steps.

Perhaps start your own post, to get more Oliver member feedback! To me Yavapai County to Coconino County to the north are the best of Arizona, and our family has ridden 100s of roads and dirt trails up here. We found this part of the world in the early 90s and bought our home in 2005. (Yeah, the White Mountains, central eastern AZ may even be better for camping!) The saguaro cactus is the iconic cactus of the Sonoran Desert. That would be the total 1/3 of SW AZ. Every time we leave the Phoenix Valley to drive home to Prescott, at 2-3K elevation, we drive past thousands! They flourish at this elevation! Picture is near Black Canyon City, an hour north of Phoenix off I-17 at near 3,000 FT elevation. Start by looking here, Tucson parks have 1000s of them: https://www.nps.gov/sagu/planyourvisit/maps.htm From what I’ve read @Mike and Carol has a lot of experience from Tucson to Bisbee and on this forum there is a wealth of postings on camping trips in the SW. South of Tucson to Nogales, and literally 200 miles east or west along the border, has not been safe over last 3 years. DON’T go there until .gov fixes this, be safe. Quartzite to Yuma and the AZ/CA border there is all good.

Yeah, and you’re close to the annual OTT National Rally! Pulling the Oliver, heavy decline grade on winding roads, a rest stop, it will be 3 1/2 hours. When I was young driving a sports car, I would always beat these estimated times. Not these days. This year, let’s communicate on your Quartzsite thread when Oliver Owners will be there and we will drive down to meet you!

I suggest the direct route in dark blue except when getting near Prescott take the west loop. A couple of hairpin turns before Yarnell but NP with our short trailers. US Hwy 60, then US Hwy 89 are the main roads. The Q is at 900 FT, Wickenburg at 2000 and Prescott at 5400 FT. The final stretch is a climb up the Prescott NF. Love to see you! Excellent Boondocking at Wickenburg along the way and another great AZ town to visit with history, good shops and restaurants. Vulture Mountain, Vulture Mine Rd west of town is the camping spot. The mountain really looks the shape of a vulture, neck down feeding.

Yes, do this. The shackles (correct term?) can flip over on the Oliver leaf springs and when that occurs you’ll have to run over another curb to straighten them out! Happened to me once when testing an EZ-Jack and there is a thread here about reversing it. Just measured ours at just over 12”. Be careful to stop the electric lift prior to topping out so not to damage the jack gears.

Not good advice, especially for a new Oliver. You will be supplied with brand new tanks with warranty, date coded for 10 years of use. The swap tanks are often abused/damaged. I got one once where the O-ring was missing and the LP would leak. Also, it’s expensive. I just got one 30# and one 20# we use at home filled from empty for $29.80 which is the price of a swap tank at our local big box stores! Our local Ford dealer charges $2.50 per gallon Keep your original tanks for cost savings and your safety. We’re on a 3 1/2 week trip and will likely only use one 30# for furnace, cooking and we love our LP fire ring. Years ago we ran out on a trip in a Class-C and best price nearby in the Phoenix valley was $5/gal. We have enough batteries/inverter/solar to keep us fine and can run A/C for 3-4 hours when needed. If I was going to run a generator for A/C, I’d have more than enough LP, would look to fill one 30 when starting the second. If the E1 can only hold 20s, I’d buy a 3rd tank at a local HW store and have it filled up ready in the truck bed.

Same here, that’s the model to get. Glad the closet location worked out for you and the rooftop junction box is a good size considering the antenna. It all looks great. I get black-n-blue all over my arms, old man’s skin, every time I work an install, just where long sleeves for a few days. 🤣 And if your Arizona trip brings you by Prescott, we have a spot for you with electric and water and can show you amazing dispersed camping locations all over the county!

Do you have other grounds connected to your batteries? If so disconnect them from your batteries and connect them to source side of the SmartShunt. Between the shunt and batteries should only be the single 4/0 battery cable. In fact, I see a 6 AWG Yellow wire, from the ground/neutral bus heading to the rear of your trailer. This is likely connected to the batteries ground. ALL trailer grounds must go through the SmartShunt. The way it looks as wired, your SmartShunt will only monitor DC current used by the inverter, only when the inverter is running.

Overkill and as stated already, would be too many LBS for LE1 (or LE2).The 20A+ models mentioned are enough and I would only carry gasoline from the station to home for yard tools. Get the 30 gallon LP tank upgrade and mod a connection LP line. Our old Dometic Penguin II runs on 15A. The new Atmos A/C runs on 10. If Truma requires more than 15, I would look at other choices. Get SoftStart on your A/C regardless of model choice as start-up amps can kick over 30.

@Gliddenwoods I agree with Skipster. The inverter should understand that 12.7V is nowhere near 100% SOC. It’s logic is off and needs to reboot, power down for some period of time.

The photo shows, by the old stain on the leaf, that it has always bled this way. The grease will come out the path of less resistance. Just as long as you know a few pumps of grease were pumped, you should be good. This pic looks like as soon as grease is pumped, the same amount comes out immediately.