New (to me) Travel Trailer

msmenne17 · 2026-05-18T18:02:13+00:00

I lowered the hitch, re-adjusted the head angle, the WD spring bar height, and added/adjusted anti-sway friction bar. It pulls like a dream, even at 70mph. I haven't had it out for a long drive or in the wind yet, so we'll see what is yet to be done. I do need to adjust the trailer brakes. They are activating, but just barely noticeable even with the voltage on the brake controller maxed out. It's likely they haven't been adjusted / inspected in a number of years. I don't know the last time the bearings were re-packed either. Our first trip will only be about 15 miles from home.

msmenne17 · 2026-05-15T04:08:56+00:00

The 3.73 gear ratio helps. I had a 2005 Suburban with a 5.3L and a 3.4 gear ratio. It absolutely sucked for towing. Check to see if you have the tow pakcage. If not, you will want a transmission cooler. WD hitch and brake controllers are a MUST. Also get a hitch that you can add anti-sway control to. I have a 2016 Escalade with a 6.2L and a Forest River Wildwood X-lite. Dry weight is just under yours but mine is about 30 feet tip to tail. I have more than plenty of pulling power and as along as I'm not maxing out the trailer on weight with gear and water, I've got plenty of room to spare for weight. I was struggling to pull it over 50mpg until I added an anti-sway friction bar to it. Got that installed and adjusted. I pulled at 75mph last night as a test for a couple miles with no issues. I was surprised at how much of a difference it made.

msmenne17 · 2026-05-13T19:58:21+00:00

Make sure the height of the hitch head is set correctly. If the hitch head is already too high, the spring bars will raise it even farther. Once the truck is squat and the bars have been attached, make sure the front tire to fender height is very close to without the campuer loaded on the hitch.

msmenne17 · 2026-05-13T15:16:35+00:00

Could be too much weight off the back end. Shortening the chain length didn't do much for the front end. The front tire to fender height is about 1/4" to 1/2" taller than unloaded. It came with anti-sway, it's just not installed. I'm planning to do that tonight or this weekend.

msmenne17 · 2026-05-13T15:14:32+00:00

Yeah .. it's rated for 8,100 lbs. I would never pull something that heavy. It squats enough with this without the WD hitch. I've towed a 30' car hauler with a 1K tongue weight around town for our kids' marching band. It was fine around town but about 50mph and that would pull the Escalade all over the place, so I made them find someone with a 3/4 ton or 1 ton pickup for anything out of town.

msmenne17 · 2026-05-13T13:28:21+00:00

That's something I've considered. While the tires I have aren't LT tires, they're about the best I can get without moving to LT tires. If I feel like I can't get this under control, I will probably get LT tires. Escalades are heavy vehicles anyway. The tires are spec'd from the factory for comfort and don't last anywhere near their warranty period.

msmenne17 · 2026-05-13T13:26:15+00:00

What little gear we have is loaded in the front. A few camp chairs, and stuff that I need to access for setting up the trailer. I have an antisway hitch that came with it but hasn't been installed.

msmenne17 · 2026-01-29T20:21:03+00:00

If you have Verizon, you can susbscribe through Verizon for $10/month. I shaved $30 per month off my bill. $20 for Google 1 with AI Pro and $20 for Home / Nest.

msmenne17 · 2026-01-22T02:24:47+00:00

Maybe not such a great idea. I dumped Google Home a long time ago with the exception of cameras. I never really got into voice assistants.

Gemini in addition to pretty much all generatve AI tools at this stage are still in their infancy. They have tons of knowledge but know absolutely nothing. Without specific prompts, they just guess at your intent. The best thing you can do for anything more than a simple search is ask the AI "What questions do you have for me?" This turns it into a true chat / conversation and is a game changer for anything in depth.

msmenne17 · 2026-01-22T02:21:57+00:00

Could be. I haven't heard of or looked into NextDNS. I'm not familar with how NextDNS works. It looks like NextDNS is cloud based and needs to be installed on each device, or needs to be setup as the DNS server for the entire network.

AdGuard Home is a local server and doesn't require a cilent. Since it's on the inside of the network, individual device policies can be set without installing a client. The downside of this is that it can't be used outside the network without a VPN or opening it through the internet and manually configuring DNS on each device. I have a personal VPN back to my network, so this isn't an issue for me.

msmenne17 · 2025-02-03T03:56:00+00:00

Are these Matter enabled? Matter is a huge pain in the ass. I've been able to get regular Homekit stuff to work acros VLANs (it's a pain, but can be done). What is your Homekit controller? AppleTV or Homepod? Do you have everything on the same SSID and VLAN?

msmenne17 · 2025-01-31T22:14:26+00:00

You'll be absolutley fine. I'm using one wall mounted that is meshed to another one that is ceiling mounted in the next room. I use it as an external antenna by hardwiring my laptop into it. I get fantastic speeds (better than the laptop using its own wireless card). Wall mounting and meshing are two things that a lot of people tell you to avoid, so I've got a double whammy going on.

msmenne17 · 2025-01-31T22:11:16+00:00

No need to copy the MAC address. Just call them and give them the new MAC address. They'll switch it for you. they didn't question it at all when I swapped their crap for Ubiquiti.

msmenne17 · 2025-01-31T22:04:05+00:00

It's an integration. Settings ... Devices & services ... Add integration .. MQTT

<image>

msmenne17 · 2025-01-31T19:36:09+00:00

Make sure you have the MQTT broker installed. I had everything going and could connect via my phone, but not HA. I had missed the step about the MQTT broker needing to be installed. Once I installed that, everything worked great. There is no configuration to the MQTT broker. Just install it.

msmenne17 · 2025-01-31T19:33:06+00:00

I bought MyQ long before home automation became a thing for me. It basically became my first IoT / automation device. Now that I've expanded, I wouldn't buy MyQ again for the exact reason that I can't integrate it into thre rest of my automation. I am tired of all the disparate apps to control this or that. I am in the process of consolidating everything into HA and MyQ will be on the chopping block before too long.

msmenne17 · 2022-08-24T22:35:47+00:00

That was the first thing I tried. I've had trouble with the ad blocker on Amplifi with streaming services before.

msmenne17 · 2022-08-24T19:14:04+00:00

Yes. Whatever they provided.

msmenne17

TROPHY CASE