The E-trek Blog

[obgraham]

I get a kick out of that brochure, Markopolo.

"Biodiesel-capable"! Except that if you put higher than B5 into your Sprinter, Mercedes-Benz gets all yakkety about the warranty, etc!

Certainly not going to be out there camping on french-fry oil!

[gregmchugh]

Almost every Roadtrek brochure in recent years has either wrong or confusing info in battery capacity. I suppose you could claim it is intentionally misleading but my guess Is that the people who do the brochures simply are ignorant about batteries and spout what the battery brochures say, it has 8 x 200 amp hour batteries so it must be 1600 amp hours, the Zion Battery is named an AGM 400 so it must be 400 amp hours when the 400 is the reserve minutes. Intentionally misleading or simply no review of the brochures by people who know the details?
And they sure over promised and under delivered on the initial eTrek, that was a cluster ****. Has that methanol fuel cell been a success??? If you are waiting for me to gloss over Roadtrek's many screw ups then that is not something that will come from me.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

Almost every Roadtrek brochure in recent years has either wrong or confusing info in battery capacity. I suppose you could claim it is intentionally misleading but my guess Is that the people who do the brochures simply are ignorant about batteries and spout what the battery brochures say, it has 8 x 200 amp hour batteries so it must be 1600 amp hours, the Zion Battery is named an AGM 400 so it must be 400 amp hours when the 400 is the cold cranking amps. Intentionally misleading or simply no review of the brochures by people who know the details?
And they sure over promised and under delivered on the initial eTrek, that was a cluster ****. Has that methanol fuel cell been a success??? If you are waiting for me to gloss over Roadtrek's many screw ups then that is not something that will come from me.

zion battery is reserve capacity in minutes

also e-treks original listing is 6 volt amps. jim once said an amp is an amp

[gregmchugh]

Correct gerry, I had that wrong, but the point is that the brochure would have it seem to be a 400 amp hour battery when it is really a 185.8 amp hour battery...

And the other crazy thing is they now specify batteries in watts and when I mentioned that it should be watt hours I got s**t from them that I was being too technical and it was simpler to just refer to the capacity in watts.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

Correct gerry, I had that wrong, but the point is that the brochure would have it seem to be a 400 amp hour battery when it is really a 185.8 amp hour battery...

And the other crazy thing is they now specify batteries in watts and when I mentioned that it should be watt hours I got s**t from them that I was being too technical and it was simpler to just refer to the capacity in watts.

since i have the battery-i know i've told this before-

it's a thin plate pure lead battery. it's reserve capacity in minutes is actually

about the same as a 220 amp standard agm. it recharges very quckly

[markopolo]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

............ If you are waiting for me to gloss over Roadtrek's many screw ups then that is not something that will come from me............

You just did.

You glossed over it by blaming the people who do the brochures.

I don't want to offend anyone, anywhere, anytime, but I get really pissed off when someone doesn't get what they are promised. I take it personally. It's a fault, I know.

[gregmchugh]

Give me a break, I simply stated that I did not feel that anyone was intentionally trying to mislead anyone, I never said it was fine or good or acceptable that it happened...

They also screwed up on water tank capacity in a brochure and promised to get every owner upgraded with larger tanks very quickly and they would notify all the customers affected when they discovered that people were reporting that there tanks only held 18 gal instead of the advertised 30 gal. 5 1/2 months later some owners are still waiting to be informed and others are in line to get the upgrade.

If you are pissed off, I understand that, but don't direct at me. I will probably do what I keep meaning to do, stop trying to have any civil dialogue on this forum, too many people can't seem to handle the simple niceties needed for civil discourse...

[markopolo]

Stay where you are comfortable. Life is too short to sweat the small stuff like RV's.

[gregmchugh]

Very good, I will return to the comfort of lurkering rather than participating

[markopolo]

I just have to add that we're all going to get annoyed or pissed off at someone on forums.

Who hasn't been annoyed by Davydd?

Who haven't I annoyed?

What separates this forum from others is that the basis of any rant is usually the truth. If there's no truth to the complaint then it quickly fades into oblivion.

[markopolo]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

Very good, I will return to the comfort of lurkering rather than participating

You most definitely fit in here. I just can't imagine you putting up with deleting posts etc.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

Very good, I will return to the comfort of lurkering rather than participating

engineers-lol

[B Eventually]

Originally Posted by markopolo

Who hasn't been annoyed by Davydd?

I haven't been yet, but that might be because I suspect we think alike. Come to think of it, I am a little annoyed that he didn't write a tome on my garage thread. I was looking forward to reading the architect's thoughts.

[booster]

Originally Posted by gerrym51

engineers-lol

Wait--I resemble that remark

I hope gregmchughkeeps posting, and I have to say most of his observations are things I have said for quite a while, although I may not be as charitable when it comes to whether or not the "errors" are intentional, or at least intentionally left even after they have been notified.

I also agree the original etrek release, design, and quality were bad, and they are repeating the issue now with the new stuff. They attacked the folks (who proved out correct) that questioned the original specs on etreks, and now they are complaining again about people questioning what is going on, even though nothing is getting fixed.

I mentioned a while ago that Roadtrek was showing the signs of a company that is staring to spin out of control, and it is looking more like it every day.

Stick around Greg, this is a great place to get to say what you really think, and to get information you won't see elsewhere.

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by Transit

I haven't been yet, but that might be because I suspect we think alike. Come to think of it, I am a little annoyed that he didn't write a tome on my garage thread. I was looking forward to reading the architect's thoughts.

I could write a tome alright but am extremely jealous of everyone with an RV garage no matter what kind.

[wincrasher]

Originally Posted by markopolo

Stay where you are comfortable. Life is too short to sweat the small stuff like RV's.

Amen. I hope he stays. Most of us are royal a-holes. The more the merrier.

Anyways, one person may see something as misleading, another may see it as fraud.

So far, I haven't seen much volunteering to fix things until they are called out on it.

Me, as someone who came really close to cutting a check for a fully eco-trekked out 210, I feel like I dodged a bullet. Would I ever consider a Roadtrek again? Not with JH at the helm. I don't trust them at all.

[obgraham]

This is the Internet: we are all free to take offense at anything.

I never take anyone's comments here or elsewhere as anything personal. No matter how nasty!

[markopolo]

TRIP #9--BOSTON AND OUR E-TREK | The Etrek Blog

I think these folks are well on their way having any problems with the unit solved.

The 26 volts comment is interesting.

We confirmed that the battery does need to be “fully charged” at 26 Volts for the inverter to produce enough power to start our Keurig coffee maker, which needs 1,500 watts to heat up the water.

26 volts is not an "at rest" voltage. The 6 volt batteries when fully charged and at rest would measure 6.35 to 6.4 volts. Multiply that by 4 and you get 25.4 to 25.6 volts.

To get to 26 volts or above the batteries would have to be being charged by the alternator, solar or plugged in.

I think that if and when they see 25 volts and the Keurig will make coffee then the issue has been solved. To put it another way, you shouldn't have to be charging the batteries to get the inverter to work well within its rated capacity.

It will be fun to see the blog change from the talk of some problems to the fun of using a Class B van.

[obgraham]

I dunno, Marko. I've run the Keurig often on the morning of the second or third boondock day. My batteries have shown as low as 72%, though I can't recall paying attention to the voltage indicated.

Besides, Aren't Watts just Watts? If the inverter is rated 5000 watts why is there a problem cranking out perhaps 1800 watts to run the Keurig?

[markopolo]

I agree 100% - the inverter should be able to run the Keurig even with the batteries at 70%. You should not have to run the engine or plug into grid power.

I made up a SOC chart for my van and posted it here: http://www.classbforum.com/forums/f5...html#post31906

It was based on BobB's chart with temperature compensation here: http://www.classbforum.com/forums/f5...html#post31904

The chart for my van indicates 12.5v (double it to 25v for the E-trek) would be approx 70% state of charge.

I didn't explain it very well in the post above yours. Needing to see 26 volts to run the keurig means something is still not quite right. They should be able to run the Keurig even when they see 25 volts.