jd1923

I didn’t comment earlier, since I don’t follow new tech and models. But I’m with @FloraFauna 100%. I used to buy used Cadillacs (one Lincoln Mark VII LSC) for my drivers back in the 90s, like the Seville STS, nice car to commute Chicago traffic! They’d come off a 2-year lease, with under 30K miles, and always with a dealer add-on 70K powertrain warranty! I’d keep them another 2 years and trade for another beauty for very little money. I’d spend 28K OTD, for what new would be 60K plus dealer fees and taxes! In AZ if I buy from a private owner, there are NO sales taxes. From a dealer, the plus 8.6%! Think about total cost of ownership. For what you’d be spending for new, you could get the same model but the HD 2500 series, low mileage 2-3 years old, for same or less $$$! Our TV is 26 years old and pulls the Oliver NP! I’ve purchased about 60 vehicles in my life. Only 4 of them were new. I have a little brother who won’t buy anything used to save his life! Maybe because when young he got all the used hand-me-down clothes I grew out of. He’s paid through the teeth and I’ve always had far better rides, way too many to park in our 3-car garage! 🤣

Not bad for $12/night! I think going forward, besides boondocking we'll focus on National Forest Service or Army Corps of Engineers sites that give half off with the senior pass. But kind of a bummer that now on recreation.gov the next 4 nights cannot be reserved online. But you can go online to see what is reserved or FF (first come-first serve). Our campsite #7 is shown, all sites no hookups, some pit toilets, water spigots in 5 spots around the campgrounds but without hose connections. All the campsites inside of the loop are setup in the wrong direction (curbside away from picnic table). A little road noise being right off US Hwy-160 but always quiet in an Oliver! Just east of Mancos CO, Target Tree is within a half hour of Cortez to the west and Durango to the east, with Dolores nearby and Mesa Verde NP. Beautiful roads with beautiful mountain views, forest service access trails everywhere! 🤠

When concerned, replace your DC circuit breakers with ANL or MRBF fuses. You simply know when a fuse burns and there is always a reason behind it. Fuses protect overloads in both directions on the circuit. Simple DC breakers are directional, will protect power to ground faults on one side of the breaker. An issue on the other side of a DC breaker is not covered. I've kept two DC breakers that OTT installed (30A rooftop solar and 40A for jacks, etc.) When I rework something or add a new accessory, I prefer to add a fuse holder over a breaker (only in 12VDC systems). Just keep those breakers/fuses and switches out from under your spouse's bed! 🤣

Yeah but... Given the pics above, we see 11.2V, then 11.1V, then 11.2V which average with great precision in the range of a dead lead acid battery. The OP posted both 11.7V and 12.7V numbers without supporting pics, no mention of the voltage numbers displayed in the pictures. Lead Acid batteries will go to zero, more load-more quickly. In my understanding, given 3 independent readings from 3 independent hardware vendors, Zamp, Xantrex, and SeeLevel; they're all displaying the exact same voltage reading? (within 0.1V deviation on one device). Not likely at all. The batteries are reading near dead but not too low to recharge. Check the multimeter again as wired and check it again with battery cables all detached. It cannot correctly read 12.7V when 3 simple BMS systems are agreeing to 11.2V. Likelihood is the11.2V is correct. Connect to shore power and charge your batteries for 24-48 hours asap. And perhaps it's a blessing, time to scrap the AGMs! In another OTT Forum thread there is a link to well-featured 300 Ah LiFePO4 sale priced at $600. It's a good time to buy lithium. Just one of these batteries will provide 50% more Ah capacity than 4 brand new AGMs. They will last 3x as long and at deliver full capacity in their lifetime. Most who install the LiFePO4 upgrade today go with 600 Ah which will deliver 3x the power!

We have an older hull and have 320W total in two OEM rooftop panels with an old SC not Bluetooth connected. You may have 400W rooftop. Regardless, these numbers are rated capacity, perfect world numbers. We have our Renogy 400W suitcase solar running right now. I took this screenshot for you! We’re near Mancos CO at 7760 ft, with pure blue skies. Suitcase panels setup, picture taken at 4:44 PM with a good angle to the sun, input wattage is now 231W. The highest number I’ve ever seen is 367W midday for merely a few seconds then down closer to 330W midday. Light clouds will cut these numbers in half. Heavy humidity less 20%! On average our 320W rooftop solar nets only half what the 400W suitcase pushes since the rooftop is flat/stationery. Of course the NE and SW are polar opposites, given altitude and humidity, so getting 200 of 400 watts with rooftop stationery panels seems the right number, likely your high number. If you travel more than you sit for weeks at campsites, the Victron Orion 50A DC-DC charger will charge 2x more per hour than 400W solar in the best of conditions. Numbers I count on are 40 Ah/hour towing with the Orion DC-DC Charger, 20 Ah/hour on the 400W suitcase for about 8 hours per day, a little more if your anal about moving the panels, and about 12Ah for the rooftop solar. +100 Ah all day is the best we get from rooftop solar. With 400W you could add 25% but given your NE climate +100 Ah may be your best. Sorry to be the engineer! 🤣

IMHO, when in storage pumping tire pressure up to the max limit will help to eliminate flat spots but your PSI numbers are correct for towing. On classic cars I had, I’d put them up on jack stands. For the Oliver, just use your leveler jacks to take most the weight off the tires. If you visit your storage monthly, get your tires off the ground with the leveler jacks and give the tires 1/4 turn.

Complete Victron, yeah! 😎

Chris, I wrote about this in my install thread. You can keep the tray if you remove it first and machine cut the steel back wall off the tray and reinstall. The inside battery would hang an inch off but I believe Steve told me they added a longer base sheet inside the tray. Either way 3 in line will just barely fit inside. Notice the change in direction of the straps to hold three together on the tray. Too bad they didn’t show this part of the installation in the video. I was going this route but after removing my old tray, the sliders were crusty and the tray itself weighs 30 LBS. I prefer it without the tray which allows for 2-3” extra height too. I can check/tighten the bolts and remove the main ground as they sit on 3/4” rubber and foam insulation surround. With the tray, it has to be rolled out for battery post inspection or disconnect.

It’s easy to test for voltage on either side of the awning switch. Your LevelMatePRO has been working, so it should be wired to the right side. Where is the LevelMatePRO grounded? You have an odd set of lights out, others working. I don’t believe they’re wired like Christmas lights! See if a ground came loose common to all dead circuits. A ground that’s open will not blow fuses and your fuses are good. Good luck with it and let us know.

Yes, and they just look better in white!

Welcome to the Big Boy club! 🤣 Three (3) Forum members now have 900 Ah Epoch (one with 920). 🤠

Pulled the truck up for Starlink to be centered between the trees! 😎

🤣😎🤣😂

Dan, we disagree half the time and you always come back with something good.

Why should there be? My flatbed trailer which we use to haul dirt bikes has one (no house batteries on board). Have you touched one on your Oliver? Something starts your 9K LB sled of batteries! 🤣 You’re going to have to realize 99% of us have “starter batteries.” When you go off in EV-land, like what the F is a Frunk? 🤣 Please translate to those of us who turn the key to start a combustion engine, gas or diesel. We have “starter batteries” and we all have “house batteries.” Pics if your EV fuses, hence my confusion. Thank you. And we have many posts here on disconnecting the AUX wire on the 7-blade connector. This winter, please come to Quartzsite! I’d love to meet you! Spend some time with us, including Steve @ScubaRx. He’s The OTT elder, the guru of everything OTT. Me, I’ve rebuilt everything I’ve ever put my hands on, after 3 years with Hull #113, there’s honestly no better Oliver out there, IMHO of course! 😎

I'm not getting this. Do Oliver TTs have something new in late model units? And I don't recognize the fuses in the picture above. Not familiar with Brightway either. On our Oliver I'm pretty sure the breakaway switch uses power from the house batteries applied to the brakes when the pin is pulled. I often pull that pin manually to test for amperage at the trailer brakes. I have a breakaway battery on a flatbed trailer we own. It needs one since it doesn't have house batteries. Is this not disconnected by design? (so that truck starter batteries and house batteries are isolated.)

We have the same model RM2454, and we've done the same thing! Chris says I hit the switch with my butt when making a drink. 🤣 I use the shelf above the fridge as a bar top. I've gotten up in the middle of the night and it's dark up that way with no lights on! If all the lights are off, then it got turned off accidently. Our fridge has been holding today on AC power, after it needed LP to cool it down at first. I also realized it was nowhere near level. Checked the LevelMate this morning and the front was almost 6" low! That's the way it is in my driveway, hitched with the truck parked in the garage. I raised the front about 3" this morning but can't get it higher because it has to stay hitched. Richard, I'm glad you are working on getting yours to perform again! I was looking at replacement fridges and they're either too small or too big and too much money. Thanks for the heads up on Dinosaur boards. Yeah, if the Xantrex is keeping Marianna up at night, just shut it down. I sleep above our Victron and if it's charging when I want to go to sleep, I'll turn it off. Lucky I can switch it off by the phone app. At some point I'll figure out how the AC/DC circuits work on our model and how to test them myself. This guy may be worth following.

Pulled our Oliver into the driveway yesterday, since we're leaving for SW Colorado tomorrow. Like Dewdev, I started our Dometic 3-way fridge on DC. It did not seem to work. On the Epoch and Victron apps you could see it was only pulling -4A total and our system pulls -2.5A with almost nothing ON! I think I had the Maxxfan on too, so the fridge switched on DC was not actually pulling any DC power from the batteries! Switched it to AC and the readings changed to -16A which is a good number showing the fridge is drawing amperage so should be running. Two hours later the freezer had cooled down to 26F, the fridge at 62F, ambient cabin temp was 79F. This was going nowhere fast! Later last night, I switched the cooling to LP and started the Beech Lane fan at 50%. I sat at the dinette for 5 minutes to hear the LP ignite. It took two tries because on the first try I had forgotten to first light a cooktop burner to bleed the LP lines. After the bleed, I could hear it go through the click pattern twice to ignite and then I could hear it burning, a soft smooth sound. This should be working now. Got up this morning to read the freezer at 8F and the fridge at 36F (Ruuvi sensors and app). We always keep the fridge cooling setting at #4 out of 5. So our fridge is hardly a 3-way anymore! I will try running on A/C (Victron inverter always ON) while we are towing. Maybe now that it's cool it can sustain running on electric. Last trip we were at 7600 ft elevation north of Flagstaff and the fridge had issues staying lit overnight at altitude. This trip we will always be above 7K+ ft. After all I've done to our Oliver, I'd hate to think fridge upgrade now, but it looks like it's coming soon. At least we have the 45L CFX5 fridge in the truck if all else fails. We're packing light on food with good local markets on the route!

We get 100s of hummingbirds in Prescott, with the peak season during August. It just cooled off and the hot summer temps are gone 'til next season, thank goodness. They all know Chris as the bird lady. She puts out seed, water in the bird bath and gallons of sugar water in 4 feeders. She even had a couple hummers drink from a hand feeder! The hummers will start to migrate south in the next few days/weeks. We do have some winter hummers, but only a few. We spend an hour or so on the deck each evening. Soon we'll be wearing winter clothes and have the fire ring going! 😆 Hummers in Prescott v2.MOV

"Well thought out?" Any need to move beds and bedding is not a good design. @ScubaRx was first to install motorized ball valves! I believe Steve has his switches outside somewhere. I installed them right under the bed, so Chris throws the switches after I run the hose (the third switch/valve is used to drain the fresh tank). Our 12" mattresses are quite heavy and Chris is particular about the sheets/bedding. I don't touch the beds when made, only when home for mods when the sheets are in the laundry! Notice the underbed duct delete too and the addition of a return duct air filter! 😎 @Dennis and Melissa recently blew the fuse for their front jack. Seeing the (extra) fuse at the front jack, he didn't think about three fuses under the streetside bed. Who would? Honestly, only some book-smart engineer in China, that never in his life traveled in an RV, could find a more illogical place for these fuses! We have yet to have to move our beds while camping. See my mod post below. It's worth the work, at least it has been for us! 😎 Some hand carry water jugs. But we always have an extra 35 gallons in the truck bed and we fill via the "boondocking" valve configuration about every other week when camping. I thought I was the only one who added this extra FWT, but recently @FloraFauna wrote, "wish I had opted for 40 or 45 gallons." I bring 25' and 10' hoses and together 35 ft will get from the truck bed to the Oliver rear while hitched. I could not see hand-carrying water (or moving the bed), for something we use so often when boondocking. As soon as one of us hears the water pump gurgle, start to take air, we'll pump in about 20 gallons, saving the remainder for a couple days later. Double your fresh water supply, will allow you to double your stay! 😍

😍 Love it! The Dog House is certainly getting high-tech. Love to see your take on this one with all of your great Mods! Mike/Mossey, I hope to meet you at The Rally! (Your hull graphic should be easy to find.)

Chris, didn't I just read you have 122 days left. Yeah do it now, get all of your "IT" work done before you retire! 🤣 Many of my installations are complex. One thing about me, is I'm not afraid of work. I like to work extra in preparation so that we have less work while traveling and when camping. I design systems to minimize the need for campsite setup/tear-down, maximizing time away enjoying our travels! We've been fortunate that in 3 years and 188 overnights to date, my Maintenance & Repair and Mod efforts have all been done at home where I have the time and tools (again, knocking on that large chunk of wood, my forehead)! We add to the to-do list but do not work the list while camping! 😎 This Wi-Fi setup is complete and never again will we need to change the Wi-Fi source on our phones, laptops, TV screens or anything else while traveling or at home. We are connected while towing, at any rest stop and when we first get to the campsite while others are connecting to slow campground Wi-Fi, asking about and entering passwords, setting up their poles, running wires to boot their Minis, we're not even thinking about it. Our systems are always ready, up and running! Should we rush to plug-in? No, first we lay out the camping carpet, get out two camp chairs and make a drink! 😎 Already leveled with the LevelMatePRO, we have 900 Ah power, 35-gal extra water, Inverter and Internet always running, the A/C running has the cabin cooled while towing, and all is ready even before we arrive. No hurry, I may not plug in until the day we're leaving if we need a charge that the DC-DC charger will not handle on the road. Refill the fresh tank, dump waste tanks and we're ready for another week away. Easy on the road only stems from good planning and prework. I love Pareto's Law, the 80/20 rule! I'd say 80% of the time our 5G setup will suffice for campsite Internet connection and 20% of the time when cell coverage is weak, it will take 2 minutes to add the Starlink Mini. Either way, all Internet sources feed the Wi-Fi devices already set to our Home Network. I believe it's worth the trouble and now we're saving lots of money not needing home Internet service.