HELP for a first-time potential Fuse 23A Buyer PLEASE

[AJMike]

Originally Posted by Ret.LEO

From what I am seeing from video's and pics it looks like the AC is non vented? Just blows cold air from one location? Does it keep the rear and front area's cool?
Thanks!

Our 23T does not have ducted AC, and I wish it did. It is, in fact, the single thing about the Fuse that I don't love.

The problem with non-ducted AC is that the noise level is much higher than it would be if the AC ran through ceiling ducts, given that the unit is placed lower than with ducted AC, and the fan noise is considerable and annoying.

The single saving grace in my opinion is that the AC noise is much, much lower in the bedroom slide and almost non-existent when I am trying to sleep, due to the 90 degree angle of the bedroom slide from the main part of the RV. As far as coverage from the blowing air, the unit in our 2018.5 23T has both front and rear closable vents and if we close the front vent the AC blows so much cool air into the bedroom that we need good blankets. It is not good enough to keep you really cold when it is very hot outside (we live in southern Arizona and it is not enough to "freeze you" when the outside temperature is 110, but it is pretty good, and better than the one that was in our previous Class B RV.

Unfortunately there is no temperature based thermostat, only a knob that allows you to set cooler or less cool. There is also a heat strip to allow you to heat using the AC although I am not sure why you would want to use that.

[DavidM]

I am in the early stages of Class C RV shopping and two Winnebago models tick most of my boxes: the Mercedes Sprinter based View and the Ford Transit based Fuse discussed in this thread

I understand that the Fuse has a DC compressor fridge and not the propane/electric absorption fridge found on most RVs. I am very, very familiar with DC fridges from my boat cruising days. Anyone know how many amp hours of DC they use in 24 hours? I assume with modern LEDS and such most of your usage will be for the fridge.

Also all modern diesels are plagued with complex emission controls: DEF fluid addition and particulate filters that require regeneration. There have been several failures reported about the Mercedes, some of which shut the engine down and require towing to the dealer to resolve. Anyone have significant problems with their Ford diesel.

And finally DEF can freeze at temps of 12 deg F or lower. We will keep our RV at an unattended, no electric service lot for the winter in Connecticut. I understand that the Mercedes has electric DEF tank heater. But that will run my battery down during the winter unless hooked up to solar. What does Ford do with their DEF?

Thanks for your feedback.

David

[AJMike]

Originally Posted by DavidM

I understand that the Fuse has a DC compressor fridge and not the propane/electric absorption fridge found on most RVs. I am very, very familiar with DC fridges from my boat cruising days. Anyone know how many amp hours of DC they use in 24 hours? I assume with modern LEDS and such most of your usage will be for the fridge.

I have to say that I do not know how many amps the DC fridge in our Fuse uses, but I also should mention that Winnebago has used several different refrigerator models from several different companies in the Fuses, so it may vary. Ours is a Norcold DC0061 but any Fuse you may buy may have a different unit.

What I can say is that the fridge is the biggest electricity user in the RV for us, but we don't use much power on anything else and if the sun is out (as it generally is in the desert southwest where we live and camp) then the solar panels produce enough power to fully recharge the batteries by the end of the day. In the summer by noon.

We have always had absorption refrigerators before the Fuse so the compressor refrigerator is new for us for camping, but it is great. We have almost always had issues with the time it took for the fridge to cool down and keeping the unit cold but those issues went away with the Norcold. The one drawback is that there is only one thermostat so sometimes we find that 0 F in the freezer means 30 F in the fridge. That is, when the freezer is cold enough the refrigerator may be too cold.

Originally Posted by DavidM

Also all modern diesels are plagued with complex emission controls: DEF fluid addition and particulate filters that require regeneration. There have been several failures reported about the Mercedes, some of which shut the engine down and require towing to the dealer to resolve. Anyone have significant problems with their Ford diesel.

We have had no issues with the DEF on our Fuse. The diesel is great and we get wonderful fuel economy - usually 16-19 mpg at about 62-65 mph. The tank of DEF lasts us for about 4000 miles. One of the things I like most about it is that I can (and do) take it to the local Ford dealer for service and they can do most of what I want even though they do not have a lift strong enough to raise the RV.

Originally Posted by DavidM

And finally DEF can freeze at temps of 12 deg F or lower. We will keep our RV at an unattended, no electric service lot for the winter in Connecticut. I understand that the Mercedes has electric DEF tank heater. But that will run my battery down during the winter unless hooked up to solar. What does Ford do with their DEF?

We have not, and I have not heard of anyone having those issues with the Ford diesel, but we live in southern Arizona so we would not run into really cold weather and we do not go anywhere to camp when it is really cold.

[DavidM]

AJMike:


Thanks for your quick response. You did give me a clue about amp hour usage. You probably have 200 watts of solar panels. In your area a full sun day should produce about 80 amp hours. So since your batteries are fully recharged by solar by the end of the day, you are using 80 AHs or less.

That is consistent with my boating experience and FWIW Norcold makes a good boating fridge too.

David

[AJMike]

Originally Posted by DavidM

AJMike:


Thanks for your quick response. You did give me a clue about amp hour usage. You probably have 200 watts of solar panels. In your area a full sun day should produce about 80 amp hours. So since your batteries are fully recharged by solar by the end of the day, you are using 80 AHs or less.

That is consistent with my boating experience and FWIW Norcold makes a good boating fridge too.

David

Sorry. My mistake. I should have been clearer.

The Fuse comes with 200 watts of solar (2 SunPower flexible panels in our case) but I had a 3rd panel added, so we theoretically get 300 watts, but of course we don't actually get that. In the summer the maximum I saw was about 110 KWH with the average being more like 80 KWH. In the winter we get much less, probably due to the lower angle of the sun and far more of an overcast sky, and we typically get perhaps 60 KWH.

But you also have to consider when we find the batteries fully charged. In the summer that would be around noon or 1 pm, so the maximum power we would have gotten by then was perhaps 70-80 KWH. In the winter it often takes up to perhaps 4 or 5 pm, and that is also perhaps 60 KWH.

A couple of things to keep in mind. While the refrigerator in our 23T is not next to the RV skin we do have a heat issue in the summer, depending on how we park, if we do not put out our awning. That keeps the sun off of the side of the RV and thus keeps the fridge cooler than it would otherwise be. If we don't do that we find that the fridge tends to heat up a bit and thus use more electricity.

The second is that I am unsure if the solar panels only provide what is needed by the batteries or if it provides what it can and any extra gets dumped. That is, given any specific weather conditions, will the solar panels provide more power if the batteries themselves are low? And is the power, as measured by the Zamp display, what is actually being applied to the batteries? Or only what the solar panels are providing? I don't know.

The third is that I have replaced the OEM wet cells with AGM batteries and I am not sure how that may affect charging and power to the fridge.

Given all of that all that I can say is that we rarely end up using our LP generator except when it is hot enough to require the refrigerator, so if we are dry camping that means that the solar panels are doing their job. We are pretty happy campers.

One more comment. The OEM batteries that came with our Fuse were packed into a battery compartment that provided almost no room for battery maintenance. That is, it was almost impossible to remove the wet cell caps to see if the cells needed water and that was one reason we replaced the wet cells with AGM batteries. They are both maintenance-free and capable of being drawn down a bit more without danger of damaging the batteries. Given that my wife always wants to watch a movie before we go to sleep that means that we are using the bedroom TV and the DVD player for a couple of hours after sunset, so we are drawing power from the batteries when it is not being replaced. Thus our batteries are lower in charge in the morning than they would be if we did not turn the TV on and that means that the time it takes to fully charge the batteries that I listed above would be shorter (and thus need less of a charge) if the TV and DVD player had not been used. That is, the refrigerator is using less power than it might otherwise seem.

Sorry it sounds so complicated but I did think it was important to explain.

[DavidM]

AJMike:

Thanks for your followup explanation. I understood it perfectly. Hey I am a retired engineer who cruised on a boat for a couple of years after I retired and lived on solar power with no generator.

So what I am reading is you use about 60 KWhr of power each day but a fair amount for TV watching. So deducting for the TV and Lights, maybe 40-50 KWhrs for the fridge. Divide that by 12 and it is 35-40 amp hours. That is lower than what I used on the boat, maybe 60 amp hours daily.

But I understand that it is all a bit of a guess and you gave me some decent data. Unfortunately where we like to camp is almost always in shade, so solar won't do much. If the batteries get low I will have to run the generator.

I appreciate the access problem for the batteries and AGMs are a good solution. You should be able to fit two Group 31 AGMs of about 100 amp hours each for a total of 200. You should try not to run your batteries down below 50% for best life so the usable capacity is only 100 amp hours. We don't watch TV and with an absorption fridge and no furnace or fans on we typically use a paltry 10 AH each day. So maybe 50 AHs total with the compressor fridge so we will only have to run the generator every other day for a couple of hours. That is the answer I was looking for.

I plan to upgrade the 45A converter to 70A to limit generator running time.

FWIW the solar controller will shut off the solar output if the batteries become fully charged, which they apparently do each day for you.

Thanks, David

[AJMike]

Originally Posted by DavidM

AJMike:
I appreciate the access problem for the batteries and AGMs are a good solution. You should be able to fit two Group 31 AGMs of about 100 amp hours each for a total of 200.

Probably, but I ran into a bit of a problem.

The battery storage area on our Fuse is a hanging shelf. I am not sure if it is bolted or welded to the frame but there is nothing under it so the only support it has is in the two sides attached at the top to the frame. Given that I did not know how much weight it could support I thought that the 100 AH AGM might be too heavy given how much jostling the shelf takes when on the road and when boondocking and decided on smaller and lighter batteries. I used some Type 34 which are probably only 120 AH together. I am still not sure that it was a good decision but the 100AH batteries were something like 80 pounds each and I just did not trust the shelf to hold that much weight.

I could just see myself running over the batteries if the shelf support broke.

Originally Posted by DavidM

AJMike:
FWIW the solar controller will shut off the solar output if the batteries become fully charged, which they apparently do each day for you.

Well, that probably explains some of the lower readings I see in the Winter. I thought it was all the lower angle of the sun, and much of it might be, but it might also be that the AGM batteries don't discharge as much and so don't need as much solar power to fully charge. I guess I will get more information this summer when the sun is again high. I will see if I still get 16+ Amps streaming from the solar panels.

Somthing that might be useful - the thermostat on our Norcold DC0061 does not have any visible temperature setting. All I have is a knob that goes from 0 through 5 and I have noticed that if I leave it on 4 1/2 during the day the fridge and freezer stay good and cold but if I don't turn it down at night when the weather is cooler the refrigerator section ends up below freezing in the morning. That has caused me to drop the setting at night if it is cold.

Of course that also means less power usage at night, so it is all good, but that was not the reason I did that. You might want to check that if you end up getting one.

[DavidM]

AJmike:


Thanks for your thoughts.


Another question for you and others was triggered by a fellow trailer camper who had an early Transit diesel. Unlike almost all other diesels his Ford 3.2 had a throttle which dramatically improved engine braking. He said it worked better than a gasser which I can understand since diesels have a much higher compression ratio.


Is that true of the diesels in the Fuse?


David

[AJMike]

Originally Posted by DavidM

AJmike:


Thanks for your thoughts.


Another question for you and others was triggered by a fellow trailer camper who had an early Transit diesel. Unlike almost all other diesels his Ford 3.2 had a throttle which dramatically improved engine braking. He said it worked better than a gasser which I can understand since diesels have a much higher compression ratio.


Is that true of the diesels in the Fuse?

I have no idea, so I have to ask how I would know. I normally think of a throttle as a control that can be pulled out or pushed in, but that is probably really old thinking. There is nothing like that on my dash so perhaps you can give me some idea what to look for?

[DavidM]

Well, I can only guess. The throttle wouldn't have a driver control. It would be activated by engine management software.


But one way to know is by feel. When you are driving at 60 and lift your foot off of the pedal (won't call it a throttle) does it slow down like a gasoline car? And then when you downshift and the engine revs up does it slow even more. Those are the characteristics of a throttle controlled engine.


Normal diesels don't have a throttle. The engine is always sucking in as much air as the intake stroke will allow. That is why they have significant less, well I don't know what else to call it, throttle braking. Jake brakes were developed for commercial diesel trucks to compensate for the lack of throttle braking.


David

[AJMike]

Originally Posted by DavidM

But one way to know is by feel. When you are driving at 60 and lift your foot off of the pedal (won't call it a throttle) does it slow down like a gasoline car? And then when you downshift and the engine revs up does it slow even more. Those are the characteristics of a throttle controlled engine.

My couple of last gas cars don't slow down much when I lift my foot off of the pedal. They often keep going for quite some distance, only slowing down gradually. Perhaps they have a throttle controlled system. Don't know. But to answer your question, the diesel slows down gradually as well.

I did look in the manual for the Ford Transit chassis and here are the two entries I found when I did a search for "throttle".

(1)

Service data recorders in your vehicle are capable of collecting and storing diagnostic information about your vehicle. This potentially includes information about the performance or status of various systems and modules in the vehicle, such as engine, throttle, steering or brake systems. In order to properly diagnose and service your vehicle, Ford Motor Company (Ford of Canada in Canada), and service and repair facilities may access or share among them vehicle diagnostic information received through a direct connection to your vehicle when diagnosing or servicing your vehicle. Additionally, Ford Motor Company (Ford of Canada, in Canada) may, where permitted by law, use vehicle diagnostic information for vehicle improvement or with other information we may have about you,

and (2), under the section about towing a trailer.

Do not make full-throttle starts.

I was going to say that your guess is as good as mine but, in fact, your guess is probably much better than mine ...

I think I am not being much help here, but then I am generally "mechanically challenged".

[DavidM]

AJMike:


I always appreciate your responses, mechanically challenged or not.


David

[CoastalEd]

My experience - last three motorhome had gas engines....one class C and two class A. None of the engines provided any significant slowing on downhill runs....despite skilled down shifting. Had to drop transmission real low to be effective.
My WINNEBAGO Fuse on the Ford Transit 350 HD diesel works real well on the other hand. Easy accessible downshifting with the manual transmission control is very effective. I note much greater slowing with minimaL downshifting compared to my previous Ford V10 gassers and the Workhorse V8. I very rarely need breaks even on long 7 - 8% grades.

[DavidM]

Originally Posted by CoastalEd

My experience - last three motorhome had gas engines....one class C and two class A. None of the engines provided any significant slowing on downhill runs....despite skilled down shifting. Had to drop transmission real low to be effective.
My WINNEBAGO Fuse on the Ford Transit 350 HD diesel works real well on the other hand. Easy accessible downshifting with the manual transmission control is very effective. I note much greater slowing with minimaL downshifting compared to my previous Ford V10 gassers and the Workhorse V8. I very rarely need breaks even on long 7 - 8% grades.

That is a pretty good indication that the Ford diesel in the Fuse does have some kind of integral throttle braking.


Thanks, David

[LuvWildlife]

The air conditioner on the Fuse does a good job cooling both front and back. However, if you spend a lot of time in the RV it’s pretty noisy. Though it cools quickly.

We just got back from a second 2000 mi. trip to Yellowstone and Tetons in our 2019 Fuse. Couldn’t be more pleased with our Fuse. Overall best value out there for affordability and conveniences. We have owned 3 different RVs, and feel when having to go smaller the Fuse had the most bang for your buck. Too bad Winnebago quit making them. I did not like the new alternatives.

[AJMike]

Originally Posted by LuvWildlife

The air conditioner on the Fuse does a good job cooling both front and back. However, if you spend a lot of time in the RV it’s pretty noisy. Though it cools quickly.

One of the main issues I had when my wife and I were looking at the 23A was the noise of the AC in the bedroom. The twin beds in the 23A are in a direct line with the AC and so the bedroom gets cool, but it also gets all of the noise from the AC and the curtain they give you to separate the twin beds from the rest of the RV does not do much to reduce the noise.

The 23T, however, has a bedroom slide and when the slide is out most of the AC noise does not make it around the corner of the bedroom slide and out to where the pillows are, so it is much quieter. The cold air still makes it around the corner and to all of the bedroom slide, especially if we close the front air discharge of the AC to direct all of the cool air to the back, and it is pretty comfortable. We also bring some small fans to help move the air around.

Of course if it is very hot outside (we live in southern Arizona) the AC is just not sufficient to really cool the inside of the RV. It seems to give us perhaps 15 or 20 degrees of relief but if it is daytime and 105 outside and the inside is 85 to 90 degrees it does not feel all that cold.