Dry Camping Question

[bdreinv]

Originally Posted by 01tundra

Took some readings with my ammeter.

With everything "off" the parasitic draw (base) is 0.26 amps.

Refrigerator on gas - 0.03 amps.

Single dinette LED light - 0.32 amps.

Remaining nine overhead LED lights - 1.97 amps.

Bathroom fan (Vortex II) on low speed - 0.49 amps.

Bathroom fan on medium speed - 0.74 amps.

Bathroom fan on high speed - 1.26 amps.

Still have to check the water pump draw - assume 4 amps.

So I figured for our upcoming two night camping trip we would have the following -

Approximately 46 hrs at 0.29 amps (base + refrigerator)
8 hrs at 0.32 amps (dinette light @ 4 hrs per night)
24 hrs at 0.49 amps (bathroom fan for night time ventilation)
1 hr @ 4 amps (water pump)

That gives us a total draw of 31.66 AH.

Our battery is rated at 100AH, which means we have approximately 50AH safe usable - correct?

I'm seriously considering leaving the new Honda EU2000i at home and risking it, I don't think we'll need to recharge before hooking up to head home on Sunday morning. I guess we could carry the generator to justify buying it and just see how far we can push the battery.

Nice work now you have everything you need if you want to try solar!

[Kim Gass]

How'd the weekend go? We were boondocking for 3 nights. It gets dark at 5 and light at 5 am. We decided to stay for fourth night and were pleasantly surprised.

While we have no fans to deal with we left the water pump on a few times when it was not needed. We spent some four hours a day on average with lighting. We did use the radio for a couple of hours a day. Fridge was on propane.

We had left our 2000i at home.. We used it but once on a 70 day cross country trip where we were in sites for three nights without difficulty. I was wondering about the fourth night on this trip..whether we'd have to use headlamps.
No issues whatsoever.. We'll probably keep the genny as it will power our little wall 8000 unit A/c in Florida.. We hardly ever use the a/c here..

We did not have to recharge with the TV

[oldmanAZ]

Originally Posted by Kim Gass

How'd the weekend go? We were boondocking for 3 nights. It gets dark at 5 and light at 5 am. We decided to stay for fourth night and were pleasantly surprised.

While we have no fans to deal with we left the water pump on a few times when it was not needed. We spent some four hours a day on average with lighting. We did use the radio for a couple of hours a day. Fridge was on propane.
...snip

Great news. Did you see what your resting battery voltage was at the end of each night?

[Kim Gass]

Originally Posted by oldmanAZ

Great news. Did you see what your resting battery voltage was at the end of each night?

never have. We have no idea.. In the last year and a half we have camped in our little unit for over 150 nights. Its the OEM battery too.. We half boondock and half take power.. Boondocking is usually for three nights in a row. Our experience is just that experiential not scientific..

Probably our cavalier attitude is from canoe camping. We have a lot of headlamps. And an entire tent and sleeping bags etc with tarp in the below compartment as we usually take off on a tent trip sometime during our trailer travels.

[Mustang65]

Pick up one of these inexpensive Digital Voltage Displays, there are a lot of different plug in types on Amazon. It is always interesting to see where your battery is at night and when you wake up.

Don

My Registry

RVing with SOLAR

[travelingjw]

Don,
LOL!!! "Someone" was looking to get me a gift and saw this post. They couldn't figure out where it would go in our travel trailer to check the batter. I can't laugh at her because she really is trying to learn as much as she can...I contently remind her that on our first trip the plug fell out of the shore power stand and I was troubleshooting it for 3 hours!

[01tundra]

Originally Posted by Kim Gass

How'd the weekend go?

Our first boondocking trip is in mid October.

[RoyBraddy]

We always camped in F008 on the end next to the river at Elkmont in the Natl Park.. We would see some campers in the bathhouse across from the F005 site charging their battery in the bath house which is wired for 120VAC... They had a small battery charger probably a 10AMP size. There are several bath room building servng a couple of loops...

We have a 255AH battery bank and make it just find... If you have to use you Propane Furnace over night the single battery will only last one night...

Having two batteries would be a great improvement. My 255Ah capacity is three GP24 12V Interstate batteries in parallel...

We usually stay a week at Elkmont and will keep a close watch on the battery bank DC VOLTMETER. When it gets down to 12.0VDC (Which is approximately the 50% charge state) then we will shut everything down and wait for the next Generator run time period. Then we will hook our camper up to the 2KW Honda Generator and can get my three batteries back up to their 90% charge state in a three hour generator run time. Note ELKMONT has certain sites where you can run a generator. Generators not allowed in Loops A, B, L, M, and N. Generator hours are 8Am to 8PM now...

This is us camping at E010 I think it is. You will notice ELKMONT is almost full tree cover... It will drip rain from the trees a good two days after a rainstorm hehe...


Roy's image

Roy Ken

[01tundra]

We're staying in G021, which is has generator hours.

[01tundra]

Finally got our Renogy 100W solar suitcase.

I removed the factory 14 ga. battery wire from the controller and installed 25' of 10 ga. landscape wire with a 10 ga. SAE plug soldered on the trailer end of the lead. It's as simple as plug-n-play now.

I bought an inline fuse to install between the factory SAE plug on the tongue and the battery, while I was under there trying to figure out where to put it I noticed that Jayco had already installed a 20 amp circuit breaker for the solar plug (you can see it on the front wall of the TT with the red rubber cover) - sweet!

[bluegill1]

Put the 3k generator up for sale, get a 2k, plug it in and enjoy your trip w the family.

[01tundra]

Originally Posted by bluegill1

Put the 3k generator up for sale, get a 2k, plug it in and enjoy your trip w the family.

Sold the 3k last month and already have the new 2k.

Now we have the 2k plus the 100w solar so we're good to go.

[01tundra]

Had a great 3-day trip to Elkmont campground in the Smoky Mountains. This is by far our most favorite place to camp to date.

I brought along the solar panel and generator, but ended up not using either. We didn't need heat, so all we ran were occasional lights, water pump, water heater on propane and the refrigerator on propane.

Upon arrival we ran the slide out and operated the tongue jack while still plugged into the TV. At the beginning of the weekend the battery was reading 13.6V (I was expecting it to read more like when it's plugged into shore power - 14.2V). As we broke camp I even ran the slide in and used the tongue jack prior to hooking up to the truck just to see what that would do to the battery. At the end of our trip we still had 12.9 volts and all four lights on the panel lighting up showing a full charge.

I believe we could go a week without recharging based on this weekend's results and our camping style.