Galileo

Very slick! With Apps - you don’t have to cut new holes! Only one I’m using so far is the LevelMate Pro+ - but it’s a huge timesaver while setting up!

Is that an Oliver-approved modification? Frame/chassis designed (warranted) to carry that increased load? I saw a recall come out a while ago that some LEIIs left the factory with 5,600# Bulldog couplers. (Ours is the correct 7,000# one) I’m assuming the folks who have upgraded their springs and brakes have also upgraded their couplers?

Sure, I could tank up and carry the 632 # ((32+32+15)*8) but that’s 632# less gold bars, guns, and ammo I can carry! (Just trying to avoid tankering around something that I’m unlikely to need. Pilot training) Sure - I -could- get stranded someplace and -wish- I had full water tanks and empty waste tanks, but I could also get a flat tire and have to jack up that much more weight. Anyway, you have to get that additional weight up to speed (fuel efficiency) and stop it (brake wear) so I try to keep everything as light as possible. I even TRY to get my wife to take along 20-30# less in mousse, moisturizer, and various creams and lotions… After all, MUST make sure we reserve some of that useable load for several bottles of wine, Basil Hayden Rye, vermouth, and Luxardo cherries… (Priorities!)

Dunno why the mfrs of RV air conditioners haven’t included the features that even cheapo window units have. Though sometimes I like a fan running all the time just for circulation sake, most of the time I want the fan to shut off. That said, I want the fan to run until the evaporator coils have equalized in temperature before the fan shuts down. I forget what they called that setting on my last window units, but it was nice. If/when the fan and compressor shut down at the same time, you have all that nice cold just wasted there in the housing. May as well blow it out into the area you’re trying to cool, right? I think a lot of folks buy too many BTUs and it’s counterproductive from what I’ve read. If you cool the room (trailer) too quickly, you don’t move enough if the room air across the evaporator coils to adequately dehumidify the air. That’s (more than) half the battle in making interiors comfortable when it’s hot and humid. As I understand it, there’s a new generation of high efficiency a/c’s that use another method of reducing humidity.

This looks pretty slick. Surprised they picked a V6 to run the generator. I guess they figured they needed it. Neat thing that will put a technology like this at a pretty decent advantage is the regenerative braking. That’s even more significant while towing as you have a LOT more inertia to turn back into energy. That’s something even the most efficient ICE powered vehicle can do. Going up a long incline just means you are never getting that energy back in a conventional vehicle. In an EV, you can smile as you regenerate all the way down the hill. The smallish battery may actually limit how much you can store. I had that issue with the Prius. Still - I’ll take a look at it later this year!

I’d like to see the numbers behind that “1%” you quote. Sure, a little Honda generator may only 1/100th of the horsepower of a Tesla - but a Tesla (or any ICE) powered vehicle isn’t putting out its full rated HP at cruise. Likely not even at acceleration to cruise unless you’re really mashing the snot out of it. It may only be putting out 40HP - and that’s a generous guess. Im not debating the laws of conservation of energy. I’ll even concede that in this conversion from one form of energy to another, there are efficiency losses. That said, fossil fuel is a good way to store energy - probably why we keep filling our tanks with it. I can’t speak to the Tesla, but EVs typically are pretty good with rolling resistance, aerodynamics, and minimizing the amount of power required to keep them rolling once gotten up to speed. That’s why driving technique (in any vehicle) can impact the mileage you get by a significant factor.

I used to be a “tech” guy back when Oracle 7 and Windows 7 were state of the art. Listening to you guys banter back and forth is making me feel like the caveman in those insurance commercials…. 😥 Guess I’ll just take my Orbic hotspot and slink off into a corner….

I’ll be watching this thread as well. We have whatever the “default” batteries were being supplied in 2022 (“BriteStar” I think is the name) as well as whatever they were supplying as a charger. No solar here - though may do a “suitcase” down the road.

No, sloshing “water” around in the black tank is probably a good thing. But as I mentioned, we rarely put anything that needs sloshing in our black tank. Just how we roll. I try to baby our systems as much as possible. Aside from not caring to tote around water to get stale and start growing things, my major reason is the 600 plus pounds you’re starting, stopping, and supporting with your RV and TV suspension. The Oliver is heavy enough without having water taking up half the carrying capacity of the trailer. Yeah, I -suppose- if we got to a campground that was supposed to have potable water, but didn’t, we’d be unable to flush the toilet or wash dishes, but we always have drinking water. That, and I keep a lightweight, collapsible 5 gallon water “jug” handy. I was only tempted to use it once. Opted instead for a l-o-n-g potable water hose to squirt a few gallons into the FWT. IF we have full hookups, I dump before leaving the site - because I like the nose of the trailer as high as possible to get good drainage. But we never use the site sewer “real-time”. If no sewer connection, we hit the dump station before hitting the road. (That’s the way turkey vultures do it - vomit before departure to reduce takeoff weight!)

Eh, this thread was still active just 5 months ago, so maybe it’s not dead yet. When selecting our new TV, we did consider an EV for about a microsecond. That was before we knew the range was SO much less while towing. Anyway, previous to the Ollie and towing - aside from an hauling occasional farm trailer a few miles with a 2000 Ford Ranger (with 340,000 on the clock) our daily driver was a 2017 Prius. I really liked that car. The rural mileage was phenomenal - 60 mpg - and even highway (not a hybrid’s forte) was almost 50 mpg. The tech in an eight year old car was better than in my 2025 GMC. I always thought the typical hybrid drive system is overly complicated - driving the wheels with the ICE and/or electric. But was also very impressed with how simple the electronic CVT is. No clutches in there like a conventional ICE trans. The motor/generator working with/against the ICE provides all the ratios needed. That said, I think a much more efficient “hybrid” system would be one like the diesel/electric locomotives use. One where the diesel engines run at a constant (efficient) speed and serves solely to spin generators. That would leave the drivetrain very simple as it is in a full EV. I would think a dedicated shade tree mechanic with just enough knowledge to make him dangerous could concoct something like this with an F150 lightening, Rivian, or (yuck) a Cyberttuck. Slap a Honda 2200EUi or two in the bed and see what kind of mileage increase can be obtained. Generators could be charging the HV battery at stop lights, and -may- even be able to supply all the power needed at cruise when power demands of accelerating to cruising speed drops off. The battery is still there to do the heavy lifting (hailing) of getting the truck and trailer up to cruising speed.

I think you’ve got a handle on that. We generally don’t go more than 4 hours between camping stops.Its just our model. We don’t get fatigued or arrive after dark. So though we -have- had to stop for a toilet break once in a while - we try for highway rest stops - or the good old gas stations. To save weight, we don’t tanker water or waste around in any tanks. We always dump tanks before leaving a campground. That, and we use the facilities at the campground for everything except midnight trips. That said, there’s generally a gallon or two sloshing around in the FWT to flush the toilet if need be. If there’s not, urine still goes down. I think we’ve only put “solids” into the holding tank once or twice in three years. Never any paper. With an R/O system with a tank, there’s always a tankful available for a drink of water or to make coffee or tea even between city water hookups. The few times we camp without a city water hookup, I put a few gallons in the FWT before setting up. Haven’t been to a campground yet that doesn’t have a potable water tap. We're not -really- “full time”. We do crash every couple of months with friends and relatives. That, and we store away our camper for 3-4 months a year for European travel and spending Christmas with family. I don’t especially enjoy spending the $20 or $30 for the pink anti-freeze, but it’s cheaper than buying a pump, accumulator, or valves. Certainly less work than finding split pipes and fixing them. My dad used to “blow out” the lines on the old ‘73 mini motorhome - but it had a LOT simpler water system. I guess you’d need to make sure your air pressure stays below 50psi to avoid blowing out a line or damaging something. You just reminded me of one MORE line I neglected to winterize. Then again, if I’m sucking antifreeze in through the boondocking port, I did it without realizing it. 😋

Will prolly just set it up so that it tees into the “city water” line with a shut/off so the whole she/bang can be pulled out and taken indoors. If one doesn’t look at ALL the information on winterizing, they wouldn’t know about flushing the city water and fresh water tank fill lines, nor the San-T-flush lines. I hadn’t been doing that. -Luckily- where our camper lives during the winter rately freezes. Like I said - lucky.

One of our cats - “Mascot” didn’t appreciate being left inside while my wife and I cooked and sat by the campfire outside. He launched himself at the screen door and managed to unlatch it. His momentum carried him out onto the ground. He looked around, freaked, and then took off into the woods. Lake Vermilion Underground SP - Northers Minnesota. After two hours of me crashing through the underbrush - being able to SEE him but not get a hand on him, we had to face the fact that we weren’t getting him back - and had to leave in the morning to leave the state. Just on a whim, I left the tailgate open on the truck. I didn’t really think that he’d go in there. Luckily, at some point he calmed down and realized he was in the great outdoors without his food bowl. Early the next morning I checked the back of the truck and sure enough, he was tucked w-a-y up at the front of the truck bed. I closed the tailgate on him and fished him out 20 minutes later. He’s escaped at least two more times - but opted to hide under the truck and climb up onto the exhaust system. Luckily, he hasn’t fried himself yet. We’re trying to get him acclimated to a harness, but as most any cat owner can tell you, they turn into meatloafs and refuse to move when you harness them. I guess they get used to it eventually.

I guess I was thinking some kind of durable plastic material (HDPE, LDPE?) cut or milled to shape and “glued” to the room with RTV or some other sealant would be required. “Foam” is a kind of vague term. Could be squishy, compressible foam, or could be rigid. (I’d assume rigid would make more sense.)

The GMC system has “hiccupped” a few times as well. Once, it went totally dark - no display, no sound, no OnStar. Zippo. Three hours and Two restarts later it was back to normal. That was the day after I had a 45 minute OnStar discussion with them. I think they “pushed” a reset or update and didn’t tell me. That’s not to say that GM or Ford have the market cornered in buggy systems. I had a rental car in Scotland or Ireland that decided to go out to lunch and do a complete reboot as I was driving. Luckily, it wasn’t controlling anything critical at the time.