Had a great Technical session at the Fall 2018 Compact Coach Rally/Get together.
Lee, Mike, and Anthony from the Winnebago Team answered a bunch of questions for the group and Chris from the Travato line answered a bunch of questions on Lithium batteries. I am not doing them justice but here is what I captured.
On Lithium batteries. In the Travato line, the lithium battery setup is 8.7 kilowatt hours of storage. It is a 48volt system that includes a 3.6Kilowat inverter (30 amps 110v), a DC-DC converter to convert from 48v to 12v and a second alternator on the Travato engine. Winnebago is trying to determine the demand for a setup like this in the Fuse. Question is how many people would buy this given the price in the Travato is $20,000. They are thinking on drop in replacement replacements for the existing 12v batteries that would greatly increase the storage capacity of the batteries, but would only cost $2,000. They did say that the second alternator on the Travato can charge that huge battery bank in 1 hour and 20min.
Air Conditioner - They have found a much quieter Air Conditioner for the Fuse. A RVP 13.5 ductless unit. It should be starting to be used in new units in the next couple of months. It will come equipped with the chill grill functionality and with this unit it will be possible to put the thermostat on a wall plate though they have not decided it they are going to do this. It is a new unit and should be able to be retrofitted to older Fuses.
Generator - Onan is working on a new generator. Probably available in the next year or so. Winnebago has added isolators and a new bracket to the later Fuses that helps with vibration noise some. I got to see the installation on the factory line and it seems much better that the original installations.
Compressor refrigerator - They have shifted to the Danby 110v units on the latest fuses. They used Novacool and NorCold units in a few 2018.5 units but moved to the Danby since it was less expensive an gave similar performance. Downside is that you need the inverter on for it to work. Winnebago did test this configuration on the Fuse and the Danby ran almost 48 hours on just battery.
Stabalizers vs levelers. There was a question about did anyone know of a source for levelers for the Fuse. No one has found one that works on the Transit. Some discussion about the rear levelers came into play. The comment was that the stabilizers took play out of the springs when deployed which seemed to equal maybe an inch of movement.
Bike rack on the hitch. How much weight could the hitch safely hold given the cantilever forces when you put a bike rack on the hitch. No real answer since some real engineering would be required. One of the folks who was present has done something similar for a storage container but they added some braces from the bumper attachments to add strength/take part of the load.
There was a request for the bedroom TV bracket to be able to move so change the TV orientation.
There was some discussion about making the bathroom sink more usable. Maybe with a larger sink or a different fixture. A user has done a mod accomplishing this. Says it made a huge difference with just a little help.
We asked about the improving the mattresses .
We brought to Winnebagos attention the continuing problems with the ATS, break lights with bad LEDs, water in the backup lights, water getting into the outside compartments. We also brought up some of the window and roof leaks.
The last thing we brought up with Winnebago was the front table in the A not being usable when the slide is in. Winnebago showed us a concept that seems would fix the problem. A very unique idea. (Basically the table bracket would attach to the front of the sofa.)
We then got a tour of the new 23F View they had been brought over to the site to show us. Next to it was a cut away transit straight from Ford.
Thanks Don
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