Chad Heiser

Every TV lift in an RV I have ever seen has been 12 volt powered. This means the circuit will be a fuse in the 12 volt power panel, not a circuit breaker in the 120 volt power panel. Check the fuses, then check the wiring at the switch and the motor for the lift.

With a short wheelbase HDT and the hitch behind the rear axle you will be much more maneuverable than with your 250. I had the same worries as you. I bought a Kenworth T2000 singled short. It is only about 18 inches longer than my crew cab dually was. However, with the 5th wheel hitch at the back of the frame, my overall length with the same 5th wheel increased by almost 8 feet. The increased wheel cut of the HDT and having the pivot point behind the rear axle increased my maneuverability though. Our first trip out with the new set up was to a tight campground and a tight spot in that campground. It had narrow roads which limited truck maneuverability. We had been in the spot with the dually and 5th wheel previously so I was familiar with it and a bit worried. It used to take multiple ins and outs to get the trailer into the spot with the dually. When we arrived with the HDT and 5th wheel, I lined things up and started to back in. I was able to get the trailer in on the first try pretty easily. I was amazed how much difference the increased wheel cut and having the pivot point further back made even with 8 feet more length. Since that time, I bought an even longer 5th wheel and can still get into that sight with no issues. I have fit my rig into sites that others couldn’t get shorter trailers (with pick ups) into. A long wheelbase HDT will be less maneuverable, but probably at least as good as a pick up. It becomes a trade off of what you want to carry vs. how long(or short) your truck can be.

Thanks Rick. You guys were missed. I have updated the website with the pictures I have received so far. I know Suite Travels and JonesN2Travel will be coming out with videos on the rally. Once they publish those videos, I will update those links. Here is the page on the HDTWCR website for the 2021 Rally.

I just got home this evening after a great trip. I will be updating th WCR website with pictures from the rally when I get some time in the next day or so.

Glad you are back up and running. I hope you enjoy your trip. Try to stay cool. It was good to see you at your stop in at the rally. The beer was very good by the way. Thank you.

Glad everything worked and you were able to keep your refrigerator cold for the trip home. I will let TahoeShark know his inverter did its job.

We left Hemingway OHV today and are staying the night in Winnemucca. We will be home tomorrow. It was a great trip and we had a great time at the rally and our "after" rally at Hemingway. There were as many rigs at Hemingway this year as there were at the very first WCR back in 2015. 😀

It was sad to see the rally come to an end. We had a great time and wish we had more time with everyone. I need a bit of a vacation to “recuperate” from all the fun. 😇

We are overnighting in Winnemucca and will hit the road around 10:00 am tomorrow. We should arrive at Ambassador between 3:00 and 4:00 local time.

Congratulations on finding your issue and resolving it and thank you for the kind words.

I am not familiar with that specific unit.

Air conditioners surge (draw high power for short periods) upon start up to allow the unit to run. Once the surge is completed, it will run at a lower power draw as it cycles on and off. The initial surge is what overpowered your inverter. A larger AC unit will have a higher initial surge and will also over power your inverter and put it into fault mode. You will not be able to run an RV rooftop AC from your inverter without some type of easy start module installed. The easy start modules draw lower power over a duration of time upon start up and store that power until there is enough to overcome the initial start up surge of the AC compressor. They then use this stored power for the start up rather than drawing all that power at once from the power source (like you are experiencing now). I have experimented with starting AC's with the same inverter you have and I have not been able to get one started without an easy start module installed.

Dave, I got a registration card, but no sticker. Did the sticker come separately for you?

You could also install an easy start on your AC. That should let the Honda run it without overwhelming it.

The rally is just over a week away. It will be our biggest one yet. We have 50 (possibly 51) registrations, with almost an even split of first timers and returning attendees. The weather looks like it should be great for the week. We are really looking forward to it. I still have a lot to get packed and ready, but I can't wait. 😁

I don't know if I could have made those turn with an Idaho Tote or similar extension. I'm pretty sure the tot would have taken out the 2 stop signs in the driveways based on how I had to maneuver around them. I have considered an Idaho Tote before, but with the long extensions past the rear axle on most large 5ers (so LGT's can tow them and not get buried by pin weight), I think they would limit my maneuverability too much in tight situations (I have seen Watts on Wheels video when they had an issue with their tote and tail swing). It would be nice to be able to back up though.

I was heading into a campground late at night several years ago for a quick overnite stop. The campground was along a service road off the highway, but the entrance was hidden behind some industrial buildings and I missed it. The service road was a two lane road with nowhere in sight to turn around and I was well past were I needed to be and was pulling my RZR on a utility trailer behind the 5er, so no chance of backing up to get there. I kept going forward because it was my only choice. I finally came to a spot that had wide opposing driveways along both sides of the road. Neither driveway led to anything big enough for me to get turned around in. I decided to see if I could make a u turn. I veered into the driveway on the right a bit and then hung a hard left, just getting back into the roadway before I hit the stop sign at the far edge of the driveway. I kept it hard left and veered into the opposing driveway long enough to get the nose of the truck back into the road going back the other direction before I hit the stop sign on the far side of that driveway. The 5er was cutting hard and the utility trailer was cutting even harder due to the tail swing of the 5er. The utility trailer ended up 90 degrees to the rear of the 5er and the front rail on the small trailer just kissed the inside (driver side) rear of the 5er. It left a small mark, but you have to look for it to see it. I was thankful I was able to get turned around, but if it had been any tighter, I wouldn’t have made it. If I didn’t have the utility trailer attached, it would have made it no problem. My truck is a short wheelbase at 195” (maybe 185” - it’s late and I can’t remember right now). When I got back to the campground, the layout was not favorable for the site we had to get into. I needed to make another u turn at the end of the park to get facing the right direction to get into the site. It wasn’t quite as tight as the one on the road, but it was close. I came close to kissing the side of the 5er with the utility trailer again. All of this was going on at about 11:00 pm after a very long travel day. I was very happy to get to bed that night with no major damage. Towing doubles can be an adventure sometimes, especially when making TIGHT turns late at night. 😱

Still prepping for the rally. Have some install work this weekend and will hit the road next weekend. Hopefully I can fit everything in our rig for the trip 😉.

The light indicator in the RV that shows battery level is a poor indicator of the batteries' state of charge. It will show full charge when a charge is being applied to the batteries (like when your generator is running or the engine is running) because it sees the charge going in the same as a charge coming from the batteries. From your description of leaving the RV sit for a month and nothing working until you start the generator or run the engine, I would say the batteries are dead. Even with nothing turned on in the RV, there are always things drawing from the battery (typically referred to as phantom draws). Batteries will also self discharge over time if no charge is applied to them. It sounds like the combination of phantom draws and self discharge has run your house batteries down in your RV. If you are placing your RV in storage and want to avoid phantom draws, you need to have a battery disconnect switch near the batteries that completely isolates the batteries from the RV. This will stop phantom draws, but they will still self discharge over time. Depending on how deeply discharged the batteries have become, you may or may not be able to bring them back by recharging them. Lead acid and AGM batteries need to be brought to fully charged on a regular basis or they will develop a memory and will not be able to be fully charged again.

I am slowly getting things ready to head to the rally. I was out of town last week at a very relaxing family reunion. Now it is back to the grind and rally prep until we hit the road at the end of next week. Rick, you and Carrie will be missed. Hopefully you guys can make the fall trip 😉.

It appears the PWM controller has adjustable charge algorithms which would allow you to use it with the battle born batteries. With that knowledge, I would probably start with just the batteries and the battery monitor and only upgrade the charge controller later if it didn’t do the job properly with the lithium batteries. As for the battery monitor, stay with either the BMV 712 or the Victron Smart Shunt. Take the 702 off the list. The 712 and the Smart Shunt do exactly the same thing. They both have the same wireless connectivity through Bluetooth. This allows you to connect your smart phone to them through an app to get all the information you would ever want to know about your batteries. The 712 also comes with a remote display you can mount somewhere to view your battery status. The 702 does not have Bluetooth or a wireless option.

I also have a gen 1 Eaton auto shift. I have never engaged the clutch to start the truck. It goes into neutral before the engine is shut off and then when it gets restarted, it is just a turn of the key. I often do it from the ground standing next to the truck to let it warm up and air up while I finish prepping the trailer for hook up. I will say there is a switch on my go pedal - throttle position sensor - (but I have a Kenworth). Mine went bad and it would periodically quit working. It caused issues with cruise control, Jake brake and driving, but not starting.

It really comes down to how you are willing to live. Personally, I would prefer an inverter/battery/solar set up for dry camping, but you can do it with a generator. Having experience dry camping and knowing how we live when dry camping, I would say my wife and I could comfortably stay a week with the tank capacities you list. Without an inverter, our lifestyle would dictate running the generator in the mornings for my wife's coffee and the evenings during dinner for a little TV and to top the batteries off before going into the night. The gray capacity is a little small and would probably be our limiting factor in that week. There are some dry camping areas that allow you to dump gray water on vegetation, so that could help.

Good luck with the process. If you can, you should try to get to one of the HDT rallies with your wife. It often helps if an unconvinced wife can talk to others who have been through the process. The rallies are also a great place to see many different rigs and how they are set up as well as learn what has/has not worked for others in their conversion process.

Congratulations Dave. I’m glad you were able to get it done.