DC-DC Charger Installation - Oliver LE2 and RAM 1500

[Grizz000]

As others have done, I recently completed a Victron Orion XS DC-DC charger installation between my 2023 Ram 1500 and 2019 Oliver Legacy Elite II, Hull 514.

 

The attached write-up covers the truck and trailer wiring, Anderson SB120 connection, cable routing, fuse locations, Victron settings, parts list, photos, and lessons learned. I thought I'd share in case it helps anyone considering a similar project.

 

Happy camping!

Oliver and RAM DC-DC Charger Installation FB pdf.pdf

[jd1923]

4 hours ago, Grizz000 said:

As others have done, I recently completed a Victron Orion XS DC-DC charger installation

Excellent work, Jeff! And happy to see a new Forum Member share such a great project providing such detail.

I installed ours March 2025 and we love this mod more than most! The Orion XS 50A DC-DC charger is the best possible upgrade for charging LI batteries. You need a whole lot of solar capacity and a lot of time sitting around the campsite, fussing with panels, and you won't get anywhere near the average 40 Ah per hour towing this installation will provide.

If interested, read my comment re running our A/C all day, towing just 2 hours, using only 20 Ah because the Orion provided most of the power needed. If I towed another 30 minutes SOC would have been 100%! We do have 320W rooftop solar but it was a cloudy/rainy day. https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/11177-furrion-chill-cube-–-product-review-and-installation/page/3/#comment-126555

Those of us who boondock 1-3 nights at a time, moving often, don't need much else. Add an efficient A/C and Orion DC-DC charging will allow you to stay cool anywhere/anytime! We added 400W suitcase solar and wish I had saved the money since we rarely use it. We connect our Orion DC-DC charger every time we hitch the Oliver!

You love your Orion installation now. You'll love it even more after you benefit from it on the road! 😎

 

Edited Sunday at 06:35 PM by jd1923

[Grizz000]

8 hours ago, jd1923 said:

The Orion XS 50A DC-DC charger is the best possible upgrade for charging LI batteries. You need a whole lot of solar capacity and a lot of time sitting around the campsite, fussing with panels, and you won't get anywhere near the average 40 Ah per hour towing this installation will provide.

If interested, read my comment re running our A/C all day, towing just 2 hours, using only 20 Ah because the Orion provided most of the power needed. If I towed another 30 minutes SOC would have been 100%! We do have 320W rooftop solar but it was a cloudy/rainy day. https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/11177-furrion-chill-cube-–-product-review-and-installation/page/3/#comment-126555

Those of us who boondock 1-3 nights at a time, moving often, don't need much else. Add an efficient A/C and Orion DC-DC charging will allow you to stay cool anywhere/anytime! We added 400W suitcase solar and wish I had saved the money since we rarely use it. We connect our Orion DC-DC charger every time we hitch the Oliver!

You love your Orion installation now. You'll love it even more after you benefit from it on the road! 😎

 

Thanks for your kind words. Your comments about the DC-DC charger are great and my thinking as well. The 40A just keeps coming as long as you are hooked up and running. We boondock multiple days at a time quite often and I'm thinking I could even hook up in camp and charge via DC-DC if solar is inadequate and if for some reason I don't want to (or can't) run my generator to recharge. 

I still haven't totally ruled out adding roof solar at some point, but I'm on the fence about it since the vast majority of our camping is in areas with lots of shade. Our hull is prewired for it and has the embedded mounting plates. So far, our suitcase panels are good for accessing the sunny spots.

Thanks for the link. I love reading the AC posts and your data is impressive. I figure our AC will need to be replaced at some point (already 7 years old) and I'd love to have a high efficiency AC that could run from the battery bank for an extended time. We are in the humid south, so this can be a taller order at peak summer temps, but we could expand our current 400Ah battery bank as well. 

 

[Ronbrink]

21 hours ago, Grizz000 said:

I thought I'd share in case it helps anyone considering a similar project.

Thanks for sharing, vital information for owners considering such an install. Here’s a couple of pics on cable management:

 

[jd1923]

On 8/2/2026 at 8:31 PM, Grizz000 said:

Thanks for your kind words. Your comments about the DC-DC charger are great and my thinking as well. The 40A just keeps coming as long as you are hooked up and running. We boondock multiple days at a time quite often and I'm thinking I could even hook up in camp and charge via DC-DC if solar is inadequate and if for some reason I don't want to (or can't) run my generator to recharge. 

I still haven't totally ruled out adding roof solar at some point, but I'm on the fence about it since the vast majority of our camping is in areas with lots of shade. Our hull is prewired for it and has the embedded mounting plates. So far, our suitcase panels are good for accessing the sunny spots.

Thanks for the link. I love reading the AC posts and your data is impressive. I figure our AC will need to be replaced at some point (already 7 years old) and I'd love to have a high efficiency AC that could run from the battery bank for an extended time. We are in the humid south, so this can be a taller order at peak summer temps, but we could expand our current 400Ah battery bank as well. 

You're welcome! Your work and supporting documentation is a positive addition!

With the DC-DC charger, and an increase in Ah storage, you can make running your TV sitting at a campsite or running a generator quite unnecessary. Nobody likes hearing a generator anyway, so just give it away to some poor soul still running lead acid batteries! 🤣

Rooftop solar; it's nice having them up there. When parked outside the rooftop solar runs our day-to-day needs. Perhaps a good addition for the future to-do list. When you do so, please do not drill mounting holes! You only need 1-2 holes for the wiring with a dab of Dicor to seal them. The standard 1x3” Renogy solar panel mounting brackets can be mounted to fiberglass using only a 3” strip of 3M VHB tape (2x stronger than screws in fiberglass).

Smart to replace your A/C ASAP if you've been listening to that ROCK CONCERT known as the Dometic Penguin II A/C! 🤣 If you're camping in the hot & humid SE, even in the shoulder seasons, you will need to up your 400 Ah storage to run an efficient inverter or variable speed A/C unplugged.

Yesterday was 98F up here at 5400 ft and was 116F in the desert valley below. I have a Ruuvi sensor on the roof of our Oliver, under the solar panels, which reported 115F with 16% RH at 1PM. It’s a “dry heat” but only in the shade, LOL! You could cook eggs on top of the solar panels! We don't go to The Valley in the summer months! Up here after dinner it will be in the 70s, high of 98F, low of 68F. Of course at low altitude where it's humid it doesn't cool down as much at night.

The Chill Cube cooled our cabin down to 76F all day long, got to its set temp of 74F once the sun set, and for 24 hours we used only 220 Ah in battery storage. Extremely bright sun supplied another +/- 160 Ah by solar charger all day long. Think that the Orion XS 50A can add equal Ahs in 4 hours towing vs. all day long with 320W rooftop solar.

I could not imagine all this 2 years ago when I started working our mods! Now that you have a proper DC-DC charger, my suggestion is more Ah storage capacity. You should have room to add more of the same batteries and if you need to, remove the tray. 😎

Edited 12 hours ago by jd1923
Added pic

[Todd B]

I am posting this as educational only, not to start a debate on it. I like it more just to understand what was happening with the alternator when doing DC/DC charging. So, given this thread, I thought others might find the insight useful. Again, not getting into the debate of if it is good or bad but just education on what your alternator is doing. 

 

[rideandfly]

2 hours ago, Todd B said:

I am posting this as educational only, not to start a debate on it. I like it more just to understand what was happening with the alternator when doing DC/DC charging. So, given this thread, I thought others might find the insight useful. Again, not getting into the debate of if it is good or bad but just education on what your alternator is doing. 

Thanks for posting, educational for me, too.