Another Around the World Tacoma

Yah, I was very surprised that Dan Grec is still pushing Renogy on his most recent video. The "all in one" sounds good, until one part breaks, now ALL the parts are broken and you have to replace while thing, and it's hard to find.

Will does have a few early videos with renogy too.

For a bit cheaper than Victron, I have seen Kisae recommended, and I recently looked at their specs, really good. They do have a new combined (dcdc and mppt and ac charger) coming out in a few months. But I will probably just buy Victron, endless reports of it Just Working, it all works together, you can see exactly what is going on for all parts on phone, and non-combo parts are easily trouble shot and replaced.

For your Tacoma, they have a new 50A Orion dcdc charger that is smaller, 98% efficient instead of 87% on 30A, lower heat, settable Amp draw. I think this is the one for me, letting me pull from the 130A Tacoma OffRoad alternator without worry of overtemping it.

That house battery, go post symptoms at diysolar forum of Will Prowse, there are constantly folks with same thing, where a cell gets out of balance amd BMS turns off, there are tricks to get them to wake up again, I bet someone can help get it working for you!

 

Awesome, thank you for that recommendation. I will head over there now and start troubleshooting.

 

For the first time since we moved into the truck, we are finally having a visitor!

My great friend Will is heading down today after work to swap out our faulty Renogy battery with an extra Renogy battery that he has. I can't get the faulty one to function, and I haven't found any help online yet, so we will do this swap to regain the battery redundancy that I want. He will take the battery home and put it on a trickle charger to see if he can get it to come back to life.

We had out first recent problem with Starlink just yesterday. We had spent a few days over the weekend moving from the desert up into the pines, as we traveled up the Mogollon Rim and transitioned environments.

The first couple of days we had no issues with Starlink, even though we were surrounded by tall trees. However, on Monday, we were in an open-ish area and we started to have really bad connection issues, like complete disconnects every few minutes.

I start investigating and I see that we have like 1% obstruction from a single tree that just barely gets in the way on a small corner of the dishes 'eyesight'.

We have been in way more clustered situations without issue. I am unsure of what is going on, because it seems pretty dumb to get disconnected when 99% of the air above the dish is very clear.

Long story short, we were camped right on the AZT, but we had to move near a nearby lake to drop out of the tall trees and remove that 1% obstruction. Even with a crystal clear sky above, we still had one connection issue this morning.

Definitely something I will keep an eye on. Still 200 mbps down and 25 up, so speeds are still phenomenal.

Anyways, we hiked more this weekend. We went to Tonto Natural Bridge State Park on the way up the rim and it was a very cool little side experience.

Mid April AZT Photos by Michael Rickerd, on Flickr

In the middle of the woods, parked right next to the trail.

Mid April AZT Photos by Michael Rickerd, on Flickr

Hikers have been talking to each other about our truck, as it has been randomly popping up week after week, in weird places (the photo above is not at a TH or anything, just a place where the trail crosses a dirt road). It's hilarious to come across another hiker and then start talking to them and then hear about 'some silver and black truck'. After explaining what's going on it's always a good laugh.

A one night campsite.

Yeah, the hood gets popped a lot nowadays. I expect more photos in the future will feature the popped hood look. Hopefully a trend doesn't get started. Lol

Mid April AZT Photos by Michael Rickerd, on Flickr

Same campsite, after a long hike, the truck is gone, and it's time to suit up and ride away from the trail on the GSA.

Mid April AZT Photos by Michael Rickerd, on Flickr

On the side of a road as I was investigating another campsite along the AZT, before we had to ditch that idea and stick to wide open places during the work week.

Mid April AZT Photos by Michael Rickerd, on Flickr

Plenty of wind, and some rain this upcoming weekend, but we shall persevere. The temps are very pleasant up here at ~6500 ft.

I'm not too pleased to have to break away from the trail each week to get out of the trees, but it's alright I guess. Lol. It's what has to be done to get the thing done.

The truck is coming up on 30,000 miles, and I purchased it 37 months ago, so we are sub-10,000 miles per year as of now.

The bike however is already coming up on 4,000 miles and we bought it just 3 months ago. Haha. On Saturday we took a ~110 mile round trip just to get a late lunch. Riding down the Mogollon Rim, surrounded by trees, on winding roads, was simply too much to resist.

We will make it to Flagstaff this weekend as we continue to hike north.

Until next time!

 

@MR E30
Another good post. 100f yesterday in Phx!
I may hit Flagstaff myself this weekend in my Tune. Prob Sun night.
great to hear you are getting the battery replacement, sorry it isn't working. I'm using Redodo 12v 100Ah, they are smaller than a group24, and just 21.4 lbs. I'm actually using it to extend my 1536 Watt-hrs Pecron power station by another 1280 Watt-hrs when needed.

 

Will @Sixthelement drove by last night and we got to getting the battery swapped out.

No, he wasn't avoiding any mice issues, he had to pop his hood to disconnect his electrical system so that we could take his Renogy battery out of his system.

Will to the Rescue by Michael Rickerd, on Flickr

All went well, and we are now back to 200ah of capacity.

What was interesting was that the moment we disassembled my system, the non-functioning battery immediately popped up in the DC Home App, sitting at 61%. This happened around 5:30 pm. The functioning battery had been at 100% since about 1:30 in the afternoon, so this again confirms that the BMS inside of the non-functioning battery will not allow a charge to be put into the battery if it cannot communicate with the outside world.

He took my old battery to his house and he is going to top it off and test it a bit to see if it works well enough to maybe reinstall. I am not sure on this though, but who knows.

We also discussed his recent acquisition of an all-in-one battery, that can both start your truck and power devices at the same time. It is a 135ah Dakota Lithium battery. My current starter battery is off gassing through the positive terminal, so I'll need to replace it soon. Instead of going to a regular lead acid I may instead upgrade to this better battery, as it would take no extra space and actually save weight, while adding some more capacity to the system. I am going to let him run his for a while and see how it performs.

Will also gave me a backup inner tie rod to keep just in case something happens to mine. Many thanks my friend. It was good to see him and just chat about trucks and an upcoming trip we have planned together.

 

Always a good time. Oh yea going to test this all in one

 

@MR E30
Here is a great writeup on that dakota as sole battery, these guys switched fom a dual battery system. Great blog and writeup, best on the topic.

https://www.takethetruck.com/blog/overlanding-battery

 

That’s the article the convinced me to try it. Definitely will be over this summer before the bigger trip later this year

 

They have the basics of it well laid out.

I need to start scheming on how to incorporate it into my existing setup, as I don't want to remove my current 200ah and go to just this battery.

I don't mind if it does a lot of sitting around, but I want to wire it in in a way that makes it easy to tie it into the (2) existing batteries.

Maybe one of those three position switches with the 'Remove before Flight' tags like we talked about. Flip it to tie all three into parallel while sitting still. Flip it back to disconnect it when it's time to drive again.

I need to do more thinking and researching.

 

I'm thinking something like a NC relay. Similar to the one I wired up for the winch thats NO until 12v hits it.
Have it on a ignition trigger source, that would open it so when you start the truck. It opens, disconnects the truck from the system.
Or a BlueSea may make a battery management switch already.

 

@MR E30
More please Are you guys going to Overland expo west?

 

Alright, here is what I can share as of late:

Renogy CS Issues

To start off, Renogy once again is a severe disappointment. I have yet to find a customer service experience that is as terrible as Renogy's. I am now 100% convinced that it is purposefully handled very poorly so that you simply give up and say 'screw it'.

It is so frustratingly slow. It is so convoluted and clunky, for absolutely no reason. Thousands of other companies have figured out pain-free return/warranty processes. But not Renogy. They are in the literal stone age of customer service.

I am trying to get my battery with the faulty BMS module into their hands for a warranty repair or replacement. The battery is sub-3 years old, and their LifePO4 batteries come with a 7-year warranty.

The first step is to reach out to their CS chatbot, which is a bad experience right off of the bat. A lot of repetitive info needs to be entered. Banal requests, like photos, descriptions of setup, etc. are in there too.

They then direct you to their own online portal, after providing you with a Case Number, where the same info has to be re-entered. Nothing transfers over from the chatbot. Super frustrating. Their first line of defense is to take your specific problem, and then find a pre-prepared template to send to you. 8 pages of homework basically.

My problem was a lack of charge/discharge while the battery is not in communication with the charge controller via BT, not the generic 'Battery wont charge or discharge" problem that the homework was trying (poorly) to address.

Just another sign that it's all low effort on their part. No effort to actually take into account my specific problem.

After messaging back and forth with what I am calling their Level 2 support, I finally get told that I will be transferred over to their Level 3 support, the actual warranty department. A process which itself takes 2-3 business days for some reason.

I have to provide a bunch of personal info to them, and they make sure to stress to me that if they go through this entire warranty/troubleshooting process and find nothing wrong, that I am then personally responsible for all shipping and troubleshooting costs, which is just absolute bat**** to me. This is the exact reason why I gave up on getting my latest 1000w inverter checked out by them. It was not old at all (less than a month IIRC, maybe even a few days), but it had intermittent issues where it wouldn't even power a 65W laptop charger. It would sometimes, but then not others. I didn't want them to test it lightly/not thoroughly, find nothing wrong, and then hit me with two way shipping costs and testing costs, probably costing me the same as the inverter itself.

Before I forget, all of this goes on through their private online portal, email style. No person to call. No options to see what is going on. You can send additional messages, but you can't see if anyone has read it or anything.

Oh, and they only respond ONCE PER DAY! What in the hell? This slowness, paired with their unnecessary questions, makes the process take a very long time. Incredibly frustrating, again, I think by design. It's 2024. There is no reason why I am only getting responses once per day.

It has been 8 days since this started and all I have managed to accomplish this far is the receipt of a promise that my case will be passed on to their Level 3 support team. That was last Thursday, mid-morning. I still have to deal with the Level 3 team and their questions, await a scheduled pickup of the battery itself, shipping, diagnosis, the determination of the testing, and then either the shipping of a new battery or my 'problem-free' old battery. At this rate it could very well be July before this is resolved, which is just asinine in my opinion.

Not even including how poorly their products have been performing (I have personally been paying ~$233/year just to 'rent' their crappy products), their customer service ideology is enough to convince everyone to avoid them at any and all costs. Yes, their products are cheaper than the competitors, but you get what you pay for. I feel like I let myself down by taking the cheaper route and going with Renogy.

I am so very close to starting our stacyandmike_plus2 YT channel with a detailed video describing my unsavory interaction with Renogy. Not how I wanted to kick it off, but damn is this frustrating.

Alright, rant over. For now. Muahahaha

Battery Charge/Discharge Differences

On the theme of batteries, here is what I have noticed with the use of this backup battery from Will:

The two batteries are of identical compositions and capacities (LifePO4 and 100ah), but mine is the BT version, whereas Wills is the Self-Heating (SH) version. My battery directly links to the Renogy DC Home App on its own, whereas the SH battery goes through a communication module (connect via ethernet cables to battery and charge controller, and provide it with its own 12v power) to the app. The BT battery cannot warm itself, whereas the SH battery will warm itself, as long as it is cold enough and senses a 1A input.

I am not sure why all of their batteries don't just have everything, as the SH battery has this self-heating capacity and it is noticeably smaller than the BT battery, but I digress. This is Renogy we are talking about anyways.

With this in mind, when I had two of the exact same battery (both BT versions) the batteries would discharge/charge basically evenly, never diverging more than 5-8% in charge level, and they would charge or discharge within 2% of each other all of the time.

However, I am now seeing the SH battery taking more of the load/work. The charge level can differ by 25%. And the charge/discharge rate can vary by 10A at a time. The SH battery will drain faster, but will also be charged faster too. It hasn't been a problem yet, as we aren't dipping below even 65% due to the length of days and sunny weather, but it would be a concern in the winter I think. I will have this resolved before next winter for sure.

The batteries are wired in parallel, with the positive coming off of one battery and the negative coming off of the other, theoretically keeping everything even. But again, Renogy.

Alright, enough of the battery stuff.

Starlink Issue

We had an issue with Starlink two weeks ago. We started to see Obstructions out the wazoo, out of nowhere. Obstructions in SL speak is just that, things that block the dishes ability to see the satellites. The app tells you how obstructed the dish is, and tells you when it loses connection and associated info (time offline, classification of disconnect, etc.). The strange thing was that our obstruction diagram was showing that the roof of the tent was now obstructing the view of the dish, which was rather surprising, as our setup has changed 0% since installing this flat-mounted dish.

Our work is Priority Number One, so we left the AZT (we will finish the AZT this fall, traveling south from UT back to this area of AZ to officially wrap it up) and dropped a bit of elevation and tried again near Stoneman Lake. No dice, still the same problem.

We had to tuck our tails and head towards our trusty backup spot, good old Cornville, AZ. Stacy's job just became undoable with the frequent (every 15 minutes max) disconnects (30-90 seconds typically), as her software logs her out after losing connection for more than a few seconds, and her video calls were cutting off as well.

I start to mentally prepare the process for handling this change, when SL suddenly resolved the issue on its own.

The morning after we get to Cornville the dish downloads a large update and the problem goes away. Apparently Roam subscribers (the service you pay for when you want your dish to work everywhere, not just at a single address, which is $30/month cheaper and called 'Residential') got some updated features, one of which is the ability to tell SL itself that your dish is flat mounted, so it can stop worrying about the positioning motors that no longer exist.

Since then we have been golden, but we need to once again build up our trust in the system. Time will accomplish that soon enough.

Current Location and Work in C-Ville

Once here, we decided to simply stay put until after our upcoming family get together in early June. The weather here is pleasant thus far (it is so nice to simply sit outside after the sun sets in just shorts and a t-shirt, man I missed that) and there is a lot of work to be done here, something that Stacy and I enjoy partaking in. This is just a chunk of dirt that has two sheds, 4 solar panels, ~180ah of batteries, a fire-pit, Starlink, a 55-gallon water drum, and a dirt path from the paved road. Lots of stuff to do to it to make it nicer, so that is what we have been doing for part of the weekend and the weeknights.

We have been taking a lot of rides on the GSA lately too. This area is full of great roads to ride (89A primarily) and we have been riding all over the place. We bought it just ~4 months ago and we are coming up on 4,000 miles already. Hopefully these things are as reliable as everyone says, because this one is on schedule to travel quite the distance. We have been clocking an average of 45.5 mpg over those miles, at least half of those miles being 2-up.

We have our first really long ride coming up in 4 weeks, out to LA, coming in at a little over 7 hours ride time, but realistically ~9 hours of travel time. Many folks recommend a 15 min stop every 60-75 mins in the saddle. We have done several 2 hour stints already, and I always feel fine, apart from some soreness on my bottom, but then again we didn't have another 5 hours of riding to go, so we will pace ourselves and give ourselves the extra time that people recommend.

Also, I found the tires I will upgrade to after these Michelin Anakee Adventures get to the end of their lives. I will be going with the Heidenau K60 Scout's, in OEM sizing. That probably won't be until the fall though, so no rush in ordering them.

Here's a photo of the truck pulling a 12' trailer to the local Home Depot for supply acquisition. It doesn't always just do house stuff. It can still get some work done!

Truck and Trailer by Michael Rickerd, on Flickr

G310GS in Fall

On a related note, I determined what motorcycle we will be purchasing for Stacy to learn on this fall. It will be a new or used (2018+) BMW G310GS, their 'Baby GS' as it is affectionately called online. This one is a lot lower, and a lot lighter. Given the fact that she can handle the big GSA, stepping down to this smaller bike will make it a lot easier for her to build her confidence on two wheels before she starts taking the GSA out on the big roads. Thankfully the baby GS is a lot cheaper to purchase, insure, and register as well. I will also use it to improve my offroad riding skills even more, as when I inevitably drop it I can more easily stand it back up and continue on. I'll also feel a lot better about dropping a 6,000 dollar bike as opposed to a 30,000 dollar bike.

Summer Plans

This summer, mid-June, we are going to transition to northern Utah for a few months, where we will explore that area, seeing what it has to offer, primarily the National Parks up there. We foresee a lot of motorcycle rides. Stacy has a brother up there that will host us as well, which is very nice. We will stay up there until it's time to join our friends for our yearly trip, this time to The Swell in Utah in September. After that we will finish the AZT before hunkering down for the winter in Cornville. I don't have the desire to deal with winter again, when we will be so close to being able to quit working full-time, so we are choosing to take the easy route this upcoming winter. The truck is still our lifeline, but it is so nice for me to be able to sit inside of this shed, crank up a diesel heater, and do my work while not freezing my butt off.

I have some ideas for next summers plans, but they aren't concrete enough to type out in detail. Thinking of a complete motorcycle ride of the Pacific Coast Highway, and then Canada and Alaska with the truck and bike.

Big 30,000 Miles Soon

The truck is finally coming up on the 30,000 mile mark, at 3 years and two months old.

They grow up so fast! *sheds tear*

Day One, just 7 days off of the assembly line:

Brand New by Michael Rickerd, on Flickr

Many hours and dollars later:

(2025 TW Calendar Contender??)

Tacoma in CNF by Michael Rickerd, on Flickr

Here's to 30,000 more (many, many times over!)

Retirement Progress

We have officially begun the second to last phase of our plan that leads us to full-time work retirement. That moment felt pretty good actually. Still two large mountains to climb, but together we can get it done.

Upcoming Purchases

I have been getting consistent updates on how Will's 135ah Dakota all-in-one battery has been performing, and I am impressed thus far. It is doing a great job powering his setup and starting his truck. I am set on buying one for myself to replace our OEM main battery.

BlueSea makes an automatic charging relay that will accomplish what I want (truck off, Dakota battery tied into the charge controller and two house batteries, truck on, battery is separated from everything except the alternator), I just need to draw up the wiring diagram and do a bit more research to make sure I pick the correct device. I'll also upgrade the wiring setup up there near the main battery at the same time. I have a couple of things tied into the main battery, and a single stud terminating a lot of negative wires, so I will add a bus-bar or two to clean that up and make it nicer.

One final thing I recently learned about, that I want badly, is called a Karnage Welder. It is straight up a standalone 'suitcase' welder inside of a Pelican case. 20 minutes of arc time on a single charge. Convenient, portable, small size to boot. Being able to stick metal together is such a handy thing to be able to do, especially where we plan on traveling, that I am totally on-board with this thing. I mean, with the permanent internet access, and all of the other tools/items I have tucked away in the truck, being able to weld metal together is the final piece of the puzzle. Not sure when I am going to purchase it, but definitely in the near future. I already have a spot in the truck picked out for it and everything.

Alright, you asked, did my best to deliver.

More work and riding this weekend. I'll try to get some photos to share.

Oh, one final thing to share! Will had visited us two weekends ago and camped out for a night, and Stacy graciously prepared a dump cake for us in a cast iron pan, cooked over a fire.

Some of the cake burnt to the bottom (the rest was delicious), so we soaked the pan and set it outside on some railroad tie steps we installed last summer. The sun evaporated all of the water out of the pan and we were woken up in the middle of the night by this weird scratching noise. Momentarily concerned, I quickly deduced what was going on and we went back to bed.

We decided to leave the pan out for one more night, to see what animal had paid it a late night visit. Before we even fell asleep we got our answer. We heard the scrapping again and I fired up the Camper Area Lighting via the SP9100, and lo and behold, a tiny field mouse was sitting in the pan working away at scrapping out some of the burnt, blackened goodness. He was hopping around, in and out, doing what mice do it seems.

Just another subtle experience that is atypical that I wanted to share.

I had the hood on the truck popped, of course. No more mouse issues for me. *knocks on wood*

Also, we are unsure if we will attend the Expo this year. We've both been before, and the idea of dealing with all of the logistics and pain of simply accessing Fort Tuthill park, a place I frequented a lot when I lived in Flagstaff, is just weird to us. We were just there last Friday even on a motorcycle ride. We still may attend though.

Alright, really done this time.

 

@MR E30 great update, you totally delivered!
Nice area you're at. I used to camp off 525 there where it leaves 89A, but that whole area is closed now on 525 except for 4 it 5 super crowded "dispersed" sites. Was up near Cottonwood in Feb, seemed every place I'd been was now closed... drove across I17 towards Camp Verde and Nat Forest to find a spot. I can totally see how having a dirt plot up in that area would be great.

 

I hope my renogy charger and inverter hold up.
But when it comes time to replace my old agm or lead acid batteries, I won't be going with renogy.

 

For some reason Will and I feel confident in the charge controller, but who knows.

I finally received a reply from Renogy's Level 3 support team, and the hilarity continues.

Their first step? More time wasting. They simply took the 8 page document from before, and just put the questions in text form in the message in their online portal. The same exact verbiage, just not in a PDF, but rather typed out.

SMH.

The funniest (or saddest) part is that within the conversation with the Level 2 support member, which the Level 3 representative can see, as I can still see it, you can clearly see the document having already been sent to me, and my typed out responses. It's right there, just a few scroll wheel rotations down the page.

At least I am finally in conversation with the individual who hopefully can schedule a pickup of the battery.

I do have to ask Will to take a picture of the Serial Number, as they did request that. They also want me to film a video of me actually following all of their testing steps in real time, which I told them I would not be doing. I'll report back if this lack of willingness to comply with their uncommon request stalls the process in any way.

Let's see how many more hoops there are.

 

Good luck

 

@MR E30 Thanks for this amazing thread. I went through all 23 pages over 1 hour. Could not read everything, but it was super interesting. I have a few questions if you don’t mind!

1) We are looking at a similar setup (built out truck camper) to upgrade the current RTT setup. For trips that range from weekends to 2+ weeks but with a small kid (maybe a 2nd kid in the next 2Y), would you recommend a full size truck instead or still a mid size?

2) Curious also what do you think of the Lone Peak and Tune M1 option? Lone Peak being a cheaper alternative to Alucab, and Tune being full pop up instead of wedge (can use the bed space as a “room” for example for the kid to hang out, or to put bags and stuff while you occupy the truck bed), and the bed width is King Size which again could make sense to sleep with kids. We are trying to decide on the best option.

3) Do you happen to spend much time in the camper? The Tune allows an interior build with kitchen, etc, while the Lone Peak and Alucab width favor a build that is “exterior/outside” oriented. The answer to this question influences point number 2.
Obviously, with the RTT we can’t spend time inside and so we are used to cook and do everything outside. The idea of having a livable inside space seems nice for bad weather but I am not sure if it’s worth it, because an “interior” oriented build then makes your outside living (kitchen access…) harder.

 

@tacowoverland
I agree, this thread is great. One of my favorites, and they have more real world usage experience than most anyone. His opinions are very valuable.

I'll throw in some Tune M1 info, since I have one, and my alternatives were the Alu-Cab, the OVRLND, Proj M, and LonePeak.

Tune is by far the largest interior usable space. The overcab bed is queen size without the extension, allowing full use of the downstairs area and full use of bed at same time. If I had to do camping with a kid, having raised 3 with all the play pens etc, I'd get the Tune. With the endless t track, you can easily make a safe pen area up top for a kid, still lay up there yourself, and use downstairs.

Kitchen...
The side of Tune angles out, giving you a huge area to build a side cabinet without taking up interior living space. My solution is a side kitchen, accessible from outside when opening side door, or inside by opening inside face doors of cabinet. I am not done yet with pictures, but you can look at the following youtube guys for video and use examples.
1. Donald at Softroading the West. Side kitchen and cabinet, cooks all meals at side of truck.
2. Andrew st pierre white at 4xoverland, he is a famous Africa and Australia overlander. Always a side kitchen now, plenty of vids of his wife cooking at side.
3. Ronny Dahl. Australian. Older videos had him using side kitchens, bit he has a new truck now, landrovee, so cooks out of back since no side doors.

Will post some pics later.
Edit. Posted this unlisted video for you showing Tune side cooking. Where I reach inside for fruit cocktail, and have a green side bed bench, is where I will build a cabinet accessible from both in and out for best of both worlds.
https://youtu.be/AVnk6mabVmY

Donald's side kitchen build, found it for you:
https://youtu.be/-kPKsaRleSs?si=aEzREhe9p37n8xn9

 

@MR E30
I'm wondering if you might post a bit of thoughts on your cooking setup? Living full time in the Alu-Cab, you probably have a lot of good thoughts. If you felt like talking on this, here are things I've wondered:

1. How often, many times a day, do you cook with heat?
2. Stove of choice now? I have a 5lb propane and 2 burner coleman, as well as a coleman dual fuel sportster, haven't decided one vs other yet.
3. Table. You have the AluCab table I think, that stores under the overhang? I tried to buy one at Expo last week, no one had, OK guys didn't even have a demo one on their 3 trucks...
4. Clean up regimen from cooking? Wash dishes, or paper plates?
5. Any standard meals you always do?

I use carbon steel wok nonstop at home, just ordered a 10" cs pan for the truck. Pretty non stick when seasoned which I do all the time, tall enough sides for soup... I actually also got a 12" wok-pan, it's carbon steel with taller sides, gonna try it as single pan. Wipe clean.

I just go out 2-4 days, so I premake and vacpack meals, toss frozen in fridge at 33f. I can sous vide heat them in my 1gal cooler, using elec kettle and battery, or heat in pan using propane or white gas.

Breakfast, I have gatorade bottle of premixed eggs for scramble, sausage, and do flavored oatmeal and coffee from elec kettle.

Been using paper plates etc, easy for 4 days, but have a new plate/utensil kit from wife from Expo, gonna try. Hate using water for cleanup though.

Hope all is well, just looking to listen to some of your experience. Thx!

 

Hey, thank you for the compliment!

Happy to answer and share my thoughts.

1) Hm, that's a great question. To give a better answer let's ask some questions (and my personal thoughts about each question as well):
a) How many weekend trips per year? (If this is the majority, then a mid-size could be beneficial).
b) How many 1 week+ trips per year?
c) Do you already own either a mid-size or full-size? (This could steer you one way completely. For me I chose the Tacoma, partly, because I already owned it when the time came to build a world traveling vehicle.)
d) Where are you from, i.e. how is the weather typically? (We reside currently in the southwestern US. That means it's mostly dry. It hardly rains, and if it does it is not constant hour after hour. It also doesn't get too cold. It does get too hot, but unless you have an AC unit in your setup there isn't much you can do about that.)
e) What are your priorities when it comes to things like level of comfort, expediency of setup/teardown, camping activities, etc. (I used a DCLB Tacoma, thankfully, as I was able to incorporate a lot into the camper. Using a DCSB would have been tough for my desires.)
f) Are you and the family willing to 'tough it out' if the weather turns bad, or would you rather just pack up and head back home?
g) What kind of person are you when it comes to modifications? Are you like me, with that inner desire to modify all sorts of things, or is it more simplistic, like some AT's and airbags (for weight) on an otherwise OEM vehicle? (If you don't have a crazy mod bug within you, a full size would definitely be more appealing.)
h) Where are you trying to take this thing? (If it is just here in the US, then that's another point for a full-size, as our roadways are large enough to accommodate such a vehicle.)
i) Is this a dedicated adventuring vehicle? Or does it pull double duty as a DD or home maintenance truck? (A full-size may be more beneficial if this has to pull double duty.)

If I had to do it again, and if I didn't love the Tacoma platform like I do, I would be more inclined to choose a full-size. I am not certain, but it feels like I could. If I had kids to take along, I would definitely have a full-size.

2) Lone Peak is one of the new kids on the block, and Kyle has been sticking to his word about handling any issues with his new product, on his dime, very quickly. I admire that big time. However, the overall design of the campers structure is remarkably subpar in my professional experience. Using a Bolted Braced Moment Frame, out of aluminum, to handle the dynamic forces created when driving down bumpy roads is something that would never pass across my desk, or any of my colleagues desks, with a seal of approval. If used often, and for more than just going to the grocery store, it will not last. It is a terrible design that misses out on many first engineering principles. Other new-ish campers have this same fault, so keep an eye out for it. I personally do not recommend LP to anyone at this time.

I have done a lot less research into the M1, but it does have a loyal fanbase. I don't personally care about maximizing interior volume, as I always knew that I would be 'living outside' doing something like this. Our truck gives us a comfortable place to sleep, and carries everything we need to survive, but we reside outdoors. I also prefer a camper that is no wider than the truck itself.

3) In the winter, Stacy was spending roughly 23 hours per day, 4 days a week, inside of the camper. That has to be some sort of record, to be in or on a Tacoma for that length of time. So yes, we spend a lot of time in there when the weather is less than favorable. Many a night has been spent with Stacy laying down on the bed on her stomach while I stand in the open space at the end of the bed. We read, watch TV, play games, build puzzles, all in that space. I certainly wouldn't mind another 6 inches of space in that opening, but I fit in there just fine.

Try and create something that lets you do both. We can do a weeks worth of meal prep entirely inside of the camper. It's not as pleasant as doing it half inside half outside, but it did get done while it was windy and snowing outside.

Don't underestimate the efficiency associated with ditching the tailgate and having a full door instead. A tailgate and upward opening upper hatch absolutely murders the usability of that space, as each of those two things has to be both vertical and horizontal during normal use. I was able to fit so many things on the backdoor of the Alu-Cab, and make excellent use of that space, simply because the door is always vertical.

Watching the second video linked below, by softroading the west, and seeing his setup made me realize how effective the backdoor of my camper is. I wanted all of the things I need to use on the day-to-day to be as similar to what you find in a house as possible. That meant I didn't want to have to tip a jug over and spin a plastic nozzle to get some water. To get water I simply push down on the lever on the spigot and water just flows out. It's that simple. To cook or heat up food? I simply undo the latch and lower the stove base, turn the burner on, and press the ignitor button. No hoses to connect, no table to set up. I don't even have to retrieve the stove from a bin or anything. It is simply always there. This one aspect has made the food portion of our lifestyle so much better. It is just too convenient to not use. That means we actually use it, even when we are on the move or in a time crunch, to eat real food, instead of getting fast food, or skipping eating all together. These are the little things that are difficult or impossible to foresee before you are actively living it.

Hope that helps.

- Mike