2020 Overland Explorer Vehicles (OEV) CAMP-X pop-up slide-in pickup camper (renamed "Back Country" as of 2023)

PaulPritchard

ArizonaPaul
Congratulations on a great looking rig, jschuman.

We just got back from four days of camping in southern Arizona and western New Mexico. Temps in the mid-20s (F) overnight in New Mexico. Kept comfortably warm with the Truma and very little condensation. We had all windows and vents closed.

Does OEV recommend keeping a window cracked when using the heater?

We didn't need to use the water heater. Does anyone know if the water pump needs to be on to use the air (cabin) heater? I did not have the pump on. (The sticker in the rear of the camper states that when using the Truma the pump must be on.) The heater worked flawlessly but did throw an error code indicating a blockage (W 27 H), but then the code went away after starting to use the heater. So I am a little confused whether I am using the Truma correctly.

On this trip I did notice a tear in the dark insulation band that covers the extrusion, just above the sink area of the camper. Anyone else have a tear in their insulation? If so, any suggestions for repair?

Like some of you I still have a lot to learn about the Camp-X, but we really like camping with it.


IMG_0428.jpeg
 

victorc

Active member
Does OEV recommend keeping a window cracked when using the heater?

It is recommend to avoid condensation building up in the camper at night with the heater on.

We didn't need to use the water heater. Does anyone know if the water pump needs to be on to use the air (cabin) heater? I did not have the pump on. (The sticker in the rear of the camper states that when using the Truma the pump must be on.) The heater worked flawlessly but did throw an error code indicating a blockage (W 27 H), but then the code went away after starting to use the heater. So I am a little confused whether I am using the Truma correctly.

The water pump must be on only if you are using the water heater. It is not necessary for the air heater.

I do have W 27 H from time to time when I am standing close to the heater while cooking for instance. The Truma seems to be a little sensitive with this error code, I would not be worried.

Enjoy the camper!
 

PaulPritchard

ArizonaPaul
It is recommend to avoid condensation building up in the camper at night with the heater on.



The water pump must be on only if you are using the water heater. It is not necessary for the air heater.

I do have W 27 H from time to time when I am standing close to the heater while cooking for instance. The Truma seems to be a little sensitive with this error code, I would not be worried.

Enjoy the camper!

Thanks for your response, victorc. Much appreciated.
 

PaulPritchard

ArizonaPaul
For those of you like me with 7' high garage opening, I removed my Camp-X and set it on a Reico-Titan 6' long by 15" high dolly, and moved it inside my garage with less than an inch to spare on top. I have two ceiling vents and solar. When I bought my house four years ago I wasn't thinking about a truck camper that I might have to store when not using it. Small garages and HOAs are just two of the many drawbacks to city living.

When measuring your camper for storage make sure to take into account the rubber 'pucks' attached at the base of the camper - they add about an inch to the overall camper height.

I like the Reico-Titan dolly but wish they would make one between 12" and 14" high to give me a bit more wiggle room. They do make a 20" high dolly.
 

DackX

New member
Hi all.. 2021 Camp X serial 0072. Question regarding winter storage and the electrical system. I am storing inside so no (or very limited) solar charge. Should I remove the house battery? Should I plug into shore power and leave the main power on? Or should I simply shut off main power and leave everything as is? I don't want the AGM battery to deplete over the winter and cause damage. I know the only draw will be the redarc display. Temps can reach -30C.
 

Chadx

♫ Off the road again. Just can't wait to get...
My opinions, to go along with any other research you do, are as follows:

AGM (and all lead acid batteries) much prefer to be kept at a steady 100% State of Charge. I recommend you either keep the battery connected as is and leave the camper/REDARC plugged in at all times or you disconnect (can leave in place or move to other location) and keep a smart battery tender on it at all times. NEVER us a smart charger with "desulfation/pulse" tech on an AGM battery. Below freezing storage temperatures don't matter for charged lead acid so store where ever is the easiest. As it relates to specifically to self-discharge, they actually love the cold. It's heat that lead acids hate and the hotter it is, the faster the self-discharge. Only time a lead acid battery will freeze solid is if they are fully discharged and that is dangerous situation. It can swell and split the case and will be a big mess if it thaws. More importantly, if you ever encounter a discharged lead acid that is frozen, NEVER attempt to charge it.
But back to storage in freezing temps; I'll mention that in below freezing temps, lead acid self-discharge at a very slow rate. Much slower than in summer temps. If you completely disconnect, you are probably safe to not leave a charger on it but check it and charge it to 100% at least once a month, but note that all discharge/recharge cycling contributes to sulphation. It is far better to leave all lead acid on a reliable smart charger full time and keep them at 100% SOC.

For others that have Lithium chemistry, it, on the other hand, should not be stored long term at 100%. It is best stored at about 50% State of charge. They should not be left on a charge full time and should be disconnected from the camper to ensure nothing draws them down. Check the voltage once a month to ensure it's ballpark 50% SOC. Note that when you charge, it's best to use a lithium-specific battery charger (or at least be mindful of the charge voltage). When charging lithium, it must be above freezing so you'll either need to move the battery to an above freezing environment or warm it to above freezing in it's current location. For the cautious individuals, best practice is to monitor Lithium while on a charger and do so in a safe area (detached garage is better than in your house, for example). Will also point out that different lithium chemistries are much safer than others. Luckily, most 12v RV appropriate lithium batteries are Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFEPO4) which is the most stable chemistry compared to Lithium Ion for example. And best that your battery has a built in Battery Management System (BMS). Most do but check if you are sourcing a lithium battery from questionable manufacturer/sources.
 
Last edited:

john61ct

Adventurer
Bit of a nitpick

AGM (and all lead acid batteries) much prefer to be kept at a steady 100% State of Charge.
Way too gently worded,

this is in no way a "preference" .

It is absolutely essential to keep all lead batteries at 100% Full, as much of their lifespan as possible

get to that point as defined by the data sheet at least most charging cycles

if longevity is important.

Firefly Oasis is the only exception, but best you can say is they **tolerate** PSOC abuse "better" than any others.
 

Dunzee

New member
Thanks ChadX for your help with storage. I’m in Eastern Ontario and will store my CampX inside my garage on a dolly. I don’t heat my garage unless I’m working in it so I called the crew at OEV because I wanted guidance for my Relion RB100LT LiFeP04 100Ah incl BMS and built in heater. They told me to leave it in with the Redarc Manager 30 on storage, main breaker off and the battery will manage fine with this setup. I don’t question them but my original thought was to remove the battery for the winter since I did not want to accelerate its lifespan. I do plan on heading south in February so it will be in “storage” mode for only 3 months. Does this setup make sense?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:

Chadx

♫ Off the road again. Just can't wait to get...
To avoid misinterpretation, I'll mention up front that the following is discussing LiFePO4 (lithium) batteries and, as several have mentioned, is very different than recommended care for AGM lead acid. And I'm also basing it on the research I've read. Very interested in hearing about any research/papers that have counterpoints to any of the below.

It seems its best to store LiFeP04 between 40% to 60% SOC; not at 100% SOC. Turning off the main load breaker should keep all draws off the battery. Best to confirm with a multimeter.
But, if you keep the REDARC connected to the battery and plugged into shore power, you'll be maintaining the battery at 100% SOC no matter if you are in Touring Mode or Storage Mode. Doing so will impact battery longevity. There are too many factors to say exactly how much of an impact, but in an off-season storage scenario, it is completely unnecessary to store at 100% since you'll not suddenly decide to take a trip like one might in-season. Storage in extreme heat (summer temps) is when storing at 100% is the hardest on lithium, but it should also be avoided in winter temps. Also very hard on Lithium to sit 100% discharged so one must be mindful of that. Their happy place is medium state of charge. Everything impacts longevity. The number of times you cycle them and how fast you charge and discharge them are also factors. But we buy them to use them and their useful life will already be very, very long for typical recreational-camper use case so babying them may not be worth it to most users. I just enjoy going that extra mile and some may not.

Per the REDARC owner's manual, on Lithium setting, both Storage Mode and Touring mode charge up to 14.5v then float at 13.6v. 13.6v is roughly 100% SOC for lithium, so too high for long term storage in my opinion. Best to have a LiFeP04 sitting at 13.1v to 13.2v when at rest ('At rest' means tested with no load and no charge for at least 30 minutes before the test. You can't use the voltage to infer SOC if there is a load or charge at the time). If you test them while in storage and they drop below 13.1v, use a little lithium battery tender to trickle a bit of juice into them to get them between 13.1v and 13.2v again or just figure you need to push about 10% or your batteries amperage into them. Easy to calculate how long to leave it on, too. If you want to add about 10% charge, look at your battery capacity (100amp in your case), take 10% (10amp in your case), then determine the amperage of you charger to get a rough idea of how many amps it push per hour. A 1amp charger will take you roughly 10 hours to raise your battery 10 amps for example which should be plenty to get you back in the middle of the happy zone of 13.1v - 13.2v. Test it later, at rest, to confirm. And again, this is being a bit picky and perhaps a bit over the top for most. If someone wants to take the simple route, at least get the SOC down to below 90% (70% to 90% for example) then disconnect cables from the terminals for storage season and let it sit there all winter. It is very unlikely it will need any charging the entire storage period. One will still do the occasional check with the multimeter, but no need to charge unless the resting voltage drops below 13.1v (or whatever the recommended minimum storage voltage is given by your lithium battery manufacturer).

Regarding REDARC Storage mode, it is important to ensure all loads are removed since Storage mode doesn't cycle like Touring mode. It runs the cycle and then sits at Float/maintenance and if you have a load drawing it down, it won't kick back on like in touring and so can drain the battery. For example, you change REDARC to Storage mode but don't disconnect all loads, come out and use the overhead LED lights and forget them on, Storage mode may not keep up (I don't recall the exact amperage of Storage Modes trickle). If it won't, your batteries will slowly drain until the BMS trips. I can see a use case for Storage Mode with AGM batteries, but I don't see a use case for Storage mode with Lithium. Well, only possible one might be if someone is storing camper and will be unable to check on it for 6 months, but I submit that it would be better for a lithium battery for the owner to get it to 90% SOC, disconnect it completely, and let sit that entire 6 months disconnected with no draw and no charge. LiFePO4 have a self discharge rate of only about 5% per month. So a 90% SOC battery will self discharge to about 60% SOC over a 6 month period and with less wear and tear than if it sat at 100% that entire time. (Again, AGM are lead acid and so the opposite is true for them. They should always be connected to a smart charger at maintained at 100% SOC all off-season).

I just pulled my CAMP-X off and am storing it in my unheated shop. We used it the night before. Before our trip I had charged to 100% SOC and let it sit there for a bit to allow for any equalization, etc. the BMS might want to do. We then used down to about 75% SOC during the trip. I did not let it recharge on the way home (flipped my under hood disconnect) and did not recharge once home. Then, run the battery down to 40% - 60% SOC and disconnect the battery cable, but left battery sitting in camper battery box. I'll check the voltage with a multimeter once a month to ensure it's still within that 13.1v - 13.2v range. If voltage falls too low, I'll add current directly to the battery with a small, lithium battery tender. I'll not charge up to 100%; I'll only charge for long enough to get back within 13.1v to 13.2 v range when at rest.
 

Dunzee

New member
Wow, ChadX I’m so glad I asked you. I was afraid I might be doing it wrong. I did read both the battery and Redarc manuals and kinda got overwhelmed. I appreciate you taking the time to explain it this way. I’m going to save this post for reference. Again thank you!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

pk22

New member
Can anyone tell me how you remove the freezer compartment from the fridge? Do I have to remove the whole fridge as the flange around it blocks the door from fully opening, hoping there’s an easier way?

thx
 

Chadx

♫ Off the road again. Just can't wait to get...
Wish I'd documented that when I did it a couple seasons ago. Now I can't remember! I did pull the fridge out about 8 inches when I first received the camper because the Truma temp sensor wires were never plugged in, but I don't think I pulled out the freezer compartment at that time. And even if you slide it out, that same flange is there. Seems to me there was a way to angle it to get it our or there was a slick way to make it clear, but I might have pulled it out again and took one of the door hinge brackets off to allow it to clear. Loosening the bolts around the front and sliding the fridge out 6 or 8" is a fairly small job, so maybe it was so unmemorable that I don't recall doing it since I'd already done it for the Truma sensor fix. When you figure it out, please document so that info isn't lost as I imagine many, like us, do remove the freezer compartment. Sorry not much help.
 
Last edited:

Crux

Member
I was able to remove the freezer by opening the fridge door as wide as possible, pulling the freezer compartment out, and angling it down to the left. Took a bit of wiggling, but eventually was able to slide it out
 

pk22

New member
Thank You that did the trick! The one secret was I had to keep the freezer door closed while taking it out, duh!
cheers[
I was able to remove the freezer by opening the fridge door as wide as possible, pulling the freezer compartment out, and angling it down to the left. Took a bit of wiggling, but eventually was able to slide it out
QUOTE="Crux, post: 2977529, member: 8946"]
I was able to remove the freezer by opening the fridge door as wide as possible, pulling the freezer compartment out, and angling it down to the left. Took a bit of wiggling, but eventually was able to slide it out
[/QUOTE]
I was able to remove the freezer by opening the fridge door as wide as possible, pulling the freezer compartment out, and angling it down to the left. Took a bit of wiggling, but eventually was able to slide it out
 
Last edited:

Forum statistics

Threads
185,536
Messages
2,875,638
Members
224,922
Latest member
Randy Towles
Top