Recent content by llamalander

Worth remembering that your mileage will drop significantly once you start down crappy roads or crawling up things that were carved by some uranium-mad bulldozer driver--Having an extra 20L has let me take the "road-even-less-traveled" when I wanted to see where it ended. If your object is to...

The D40 Frontier happens to have the same weight rating (#) in Oz as America... except that in Oz they use Kilograms. Yes the breaks are a weak point, but durability doesn't seem to be. I'm rolling over 200K and replacing things like sensors and solenoids with my break pads, rubber parts and not...

👆Without seeing the truck, there's a good chance that an aluminum skid-plate thick enough to be worth installing will be the cross-brace. If you're using aluminum, you're paying extra to get something with a similar strength to steel that weighs less. Removing the existing steel braces will help...

Any of them! Nissans have old-school 4x4, durable, capable and reliable. Pack an air compressor and a shovel...and a can of gas! Old-school is thirsty in 4-lo

Think about how much "nimble" is needed in NZ-- not so much outback like Oz or the Americas, more developed campgrounds and graded roads than old stream-beds and wild camping. If you can get out of mud, you can go nearly anywhere on the islands... but a good turning radius helps.

I have some experience with compressors and specifically with the ARB (brushed) single. Today I looked into why my second ARB compressor can't hold air for more than 5 (actual) seconds, it's because it's leaking from the end seam, just like the first one. Not repairable, just trash now. Is this...

Yes, compared to AGM, Lithium is a different order of magnitude of functionality. 70% Lighter makes a difference every day, consistent output voltage is really nice and 90% useable capacity is huge compared to lead batteries. Add to that more than 3 times the number of cycles in it's lifetime...

These are good fridges, well-built with a strong compressor, the cover and remote are a nice bonus-- That said, the electronics are the weak point . I replaced my control module once and might have to do that again 7 years later.... but Snomaster walked away from the international market in '22...

Get a different controller, why be responsible for keeping yours alive? I've been using a single Victron controller for the last 9 years with a few different panels and batteries, spends most of its life parked under streetlights, no loss of function on the controller or charge on the...

x2 for Explorist.life, great site & company. Worth knowing is that Victron routs support and warrantee issues through the vendor you bought from, so if that's Amazon, you're probably s.o.l., but if it's Explorist, the service will be top notch.

I think you'll be happy with the cleaner install and easier upgrades-- Breakers for switches are a good call, but fuses are much cheaper. If you design your system well, you won't really use either very often, so quick-to-check and out-of-the-way become chief virtues.

Excited to see the start of this! I think you'll love the pop-top, even a little space out of the weather and bugs is a huge change for the better--you won't miss that little bit of being outside all the time. Keep us posted, this looks like a fun project & plan-

Helium is expensive as :poop:, might as well pay an uber driver to get it out of your sight-

Bigger brakes have pushed up wheel sizes, so folks with slow-to-stop Nissans have fewer choices! I still run OEM 16" on my frontier and put skinny tires on them, but there are not so many choices. Nokian makes great snow tires in 32" and the Cooper ST Maxx and some Mikey Thompsons are available...

You might consider the Blue Sea 7748 fuse panel; rated for 200-amps (which should work with your battery) and is essentially a fused buss-bar. The larger MIDI fuses work well for larger inputs like the solar and DC-DC (not sure what the convertor on your diagram is, AC input?), the smaller...