MIssion Overland Trailer Owners page

jareda80

Member
Picked up my MO Summit from B&B on Saturday. Overall I love the trailer but have a few bugs to work out. Below are my thoughts/questions:

1.Electrical System: I tried plugging my trailer into my garage to charge the battery and it immediately trips the GFCI in the garage outlet. If I flip off the breakers on the WFCO and flip either on separately it’s fine. But as soon as both breakers are flipped on it immediately trips the house GFCI. If I plug into a non-GFCI it works fine. Any ideas? Hopefully it’s not a deep electrical gremlin. I’m using a regular battery tender for now.

Now with this issue, I’m debating on whether or not to just add a solar controller as planned or scrap the whole WFCO system and go with a REDARC or similar that will charge from all sources and give me a nice readout. Or do I add a NOCO and solar controller and basically just not use the WFCO for anything other than the fuses. Has anyone else scrapped the WFCO in favor of a better option? How accessible is everything needed to redo everything if I go that route? I will have to fab up a mounting surface where the WFCO is if I go that route but it would be nice to have all the electrical fuses and battery readout in one spot.

Also, one of my reading lights won’t fully turn on so hopefully it’s just a bad light and an easy swap.

2.Solar: I’m planning to add two 100W Renogy flexible panels to the roof and mount a solar controller (or REDARC) and inverter in the battery side of the front box or possibly in the kitchen slide box. Also need to add another battery so probably scrap the single lead acid that came with the trailer for two Renogy 100ah AGMs. I also have a 100W Renogy suitcase I can use if ever needed.

3. Roof Rack: After seeing the roof I think it will be pretty easy to do four fixed mount Rhino Rack feet and crossbars spaced evenly along the roof. The pockets around the perimeter of the roof are perfect for drilling and mounting without penetrating the living space at all. This would allow me to carry my Flycraft and clear the fan and any sharp bolts, as well as throw on a few bike racks when not carrying the raft. It will also allow me to affix two thin flexible Renogy 100W panels between the crossbars and get full sun. Ito head to Rack n Road this week to size everything and order parts.

4. Gas: I camped at about 7,000 feet last night and my Dometic burners would not turn on. They were getting gas to the unit but no gas coming through the burners. When I got home (5,700 ft.) I tried again and they worked fine. Has anyone had an issue with the cooktop at high elevation? Hopefully it was just air locked. I’m almost always camping above 6,000 ft.

Looking forward to figuring out more about the trailer and setting it up to work well for us.B9A1DC9D-3E8B-4A6C-A060-94AA619ED68F.jpeg
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mep1811

Gentleman Adventurer
I'd call WFCO and ask them about the tripping the GFI. The same thing happened to my friend with a new trailer . It should not trip the GFI as it is only a battery charger .

A RedArc Manager 30 is over $1200.00. A WFCO about $100.00

I'd just add a solar controller on the battery side of the solar plug and into the batteries. Just plug in the panels and you are good to go. Always be careful with the polarity with those SAE plugs.

Get a computer monitor extension cord and tap into the A/C plug to be able to power your fridge on A/C.

Did the burners work before you tried them at altitude? Maybe they were airlocked like you said.

As for the reading light , perhaps a bad connection at the light.

How are you charging the trailer battery when driving?
 

jareda80

Member
I'd call WFCO and ask them about the tripping the GFI. The same thing happened to my friend with a new trailer . It should not trip the GFI as it is only a battery charger .

A RedArc Manager 30 is over $1200.00. A WFCO about $100.00

I'd just add a solar controller on the battery side of the solar plug and into the batteries. Just plug in the panels and you are good to go. Always be careful with the polarity with those SAE plugs.

Get a computer monitor extension cord and tap into the A/C plug to be able to power your fridge on A/C.

Did the burners work before you tried them at altitude? Maybe they were airlocked like you said.

As for the reading light , perhaps a bad connection at the light.

How are you charging the trailer battery when driving?

I sent WFCO a note but also asked Mark as I also needed a replacement reading light. He said this issue is common when plugging the 30A shore power into a house GFCI when using the WFCO controller. He also had some good input on the REDARC and some challenges with it I wasn’t aware of. So I may just change one bank of outlets to non-GFCI in my garage or just wire in a NOCO dual battery charger to work around the issue, along with a separate solar controller.

I’m building a Renogy system with 200W flex panels for the roof and keeping the exterior Zamp plug for my 100W Renogy suitcase as I’ve already build the wiring in the suitcase to work with the Zamp plug. I’m thinking an MPPT controller as well, just need to validate the set up with Renogy. I’m aware of the reverse polarity issue as I had this with my Renogy panel and Zamp controller in my Xventure so have a few extra polarity adapters lying around if needed.

The fridge has an A/C cable with it but I won’t ever really be using the trailer where there is A/C power so keeping the trailer system to be full D/C and adding a 1000W pure sine inverter for computer or e-bike charging as required.

The battery charges (slowly) from the truck while driving through the WFCO. Once I add my panels I will also get solar continuously during the day while driving.

I didn’t try the burners at the dealer, just assumed they had made sure they were working. They are still firing at the house so will see next high altitude trip if it was just an air lock.

Thanks for the input! I will share pics once I get all the solar and custom roof rack sorted.
 
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mep1811

Gentleman Adventurer
I converted my trailer to operate off 110V shore power. I've used my trailer fridge, at home at times , as a freezer while plugged in. I also use shore power when we stay at a RV park in between wilderness camping.
I have 250 watts of solar but charging an AGM battery with a battery charger is better to fully charge the battery.
 

jareda80

Member
I customized some Front Runner tracks and installed some load bars for my Flycraft. I can also use them for extra bike racks, kayaks, etc. I maximized the free space between the mount points for the struts and scissor lift for adjustability and kept all the bolts in the gap around the edge of the roof so no penetrations into the sleeping area. I went with 58” cross bars and 6” high feet to keep the raft above the awning and side plates.

It took me all of 7 hours and 6 beers to modify the tracks, measure three times, drill and install. I’m really stoked with how it turned out and it will make the trailer fully functional for us as we almost always have our raft with us when we camp. Next up is the solar system.

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loup407

Adventurer
That looks really good. FWIW, ours came with the Redarc manager 30 installed. I really like it, despite some of the design features that led to its demise as OEM for Mission. I replaced the battery with a 100ah lithium battery, and added 2 120w SunPower flexible panels to the roof. That setup has worked super well for us.
 

loup407

Adventurer
My latest published article is about driving the Magruder Corridor trail (A long Time Gone). This trail is over 115 miles of a rough off-road trail. The article has some pictures of the trailer.


I really enjoyed that article. Thanks for sharing!
 

mep1811

Gentleman Adventurer
Added some mud flaps. The last set was torn off by getting pulled into the tires so I added some tethers to prevent that.


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mep1811

Gentleman Adventurer
Planning for some cold weather this summer when we head out. I think redirecting the vents to get hot air into the cabin could be a good idea.
heater hose.jpg
 

Bubblegoose1

@PNWINFERNOPRO
Extended our shower hose and added a nicer shower head with centered enclosure mount and water shut-off valve.
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